[p.xxiii]in its capital tenets, approaches much nearer to the faith of
Jesus than do the Pauline and Athanasian modifications which, in this
our day, have divided the Indo-European mind into Catholic and Roman,
Greek and Russian, Lutheran and Anglican. The disciples of Dr. Daniel
Schenkel's school ("A Sketch of the Character of Jesus," Longmans,
1869) will indeed find little difficulty in making this admission.
Practically, a visit after Arab Meccah to Angle-Indian Aden, with its
"priests after the order of Melchisedeck," suggested to me that the
Moslem may be more tolerant, more enlightened, more charitable, than
many societies of self-styled Christians.
And why rage so furiously against the "disguise of a wandering
Darwaysh?" In what point is the Darwaysh more a mummer or in what does
he show more of betise than the quack? Is the Darwaysh anything but an
Oriental Freemason, and are Freemasons less Christians because they
pray with Moslems and profess their belief in simple unitarianism?
I have said. And now to conclude.
After my return to Europe, many inquired if I was not the only living
European who has found his way to the Head Quarters of the Moslem
Faith. I may answer in the affirmative, so far, at least, that when
entering the penetralia of Moslem life my Eastern origin was never
questioned, and my position was never what cagots would describe as in
loco apostatae.