your unfortunate
brethren and dependants from destruction. Here, here in this desk,
lies his answer to the emperor's accusations, as given to the Greek
deputation who had speech of him in this very room. He wrote it down as
soon as they had left him. Will you hear it?"

"I can guess its purport."

"No, no!" cried the excited youth; he hastily opened his father's desk,
laid his hand at once on the wax tablet, and exclaimed: "This was his
reply!" And he proceeded to read:

"These Arabs, few as they are, are stronger and more powerful than we
with all our numbers. One man of them is equal to a hundred of us, for
they rush on death and love it better than life. Each of them presses
to the front in battle, and they have no longing to return home and
to their families. For every Christian they kill they look for a great
reward in Heaven, and they say that the gates of Paradise open at once
for those who fall in the fight. They have not a wish in this world
beyond the satisfaction of their barest need of food and clothing. We,
on the contrary, love life and dread death;--how can we stand against
them? I tell you that I will not break the peace I have concluded with
the Arabs. ..."

"And what is the upshot of all this reply?" interrupted the patriarch
shrugging his shoulders.

"That my father found himself compelled to conclude a peace, and
that--but read on.--That as a wise man he was forced to ally himself
with the foe."

"The foe to whom he yielded more readily and paid much greater honor
than became him as a Christian!--Does not this discourse convey the idea
that the joys of Paradise solely and exclusively await our damned and
blood-thirsty oppressors?--And the Moslem Paradise! What is it but a
gulf of iniquity, in which they are to wallow in sensual delight? The
false prophet invented it to tempt his followers to force his lying
creed, by might of arms and in mad contempt of death, on nation after
nation. Our Lord, the Word made flesh, came down on earth to win hearts
and souls by the persuasive power of the living truth, one and eternal,
which emanates from Him as light proceeds from the sun; this Mohammed,
on the contrary, is a sword made flesh! For me, then, there is no choice
but to submit to superior strength; but I can still hate and loathe
their accursed and soul-destroying superstition.--And so I do, and so I
shall, to the last throb of this old heart, which only longs for rest,
the sooner the better....