new development has set the Balkan pot seething again. A
smell of blood taints the air and general fighting may follow. Albania
has provided the latest example of how the selfish ambition of Western
European Powers can inflict woe upon the Near East.

Agreed that these peoples of the Near East are very cantankerous and
very prone by nature to fly at one another's throats, still I maintain
that if Western Europe ceased from interference there would be a better
chance of peace in the Balkans, and if she interfered benevolently and
unselfishly she could make the certainty of peace.

If one could imagine the Powers of Europe reformed as regards their
foreign policy, and genuinely anxious to smooth away the troubles of
these sorely vexed Balkan peoples, the chief danger left to tranquillity
would be the religious intolerance which grows so rankly in the
Peninsula--between Christian and Christian more than between Moslem and
Christian. There needs to be put up in church or mosque of every Balkan
village the inscription of Abul Fazl:

O God, in every temple I see people that see Thee, and in every
language I hear spoken, people praise Thee.

Polytheism and Islam feel after Thee.

Each religion says, "Thou art one, without equal."

If it be a mosque, people murmur the holy prayer, and if it be a
Christian church, people ring the bell from love to Thee.

Sometimes I frequent the Christian cloister, and sometimes the
mosque.

But it is Thee whom I search from temple to temple.

Thy elect have no dealings with either heresy or orthodoxy; for
neither of them stands behind the screen of Thy truth.

Heresy to the heretic, and religion to the orthodox.

But the dust of the rose-petal belongs to the heart of the
perfume-seller.

Or the English poet's rendering of it:

Shall the rose
Cry to the lotus "No flower thou"? the palm
Call to the cypress "I alone am fair"?
The mango spurn the melon at his foot?
"Mine is the one fruit Alla made for man."

Look how the living pulse of Alla beats
Thro' all His world. If every single star
Should shriek its claim "I only am in heaven,"
Why that were such sphere-music as the Greek
Had hardly dream'd of. There is light in all,
And light, with more or less of shade, in all
Man-modes of worship....

I hate the rancour of their castes and creeds