438 SUNDRY JOURNEYS AND EXPERIENCES -IV 



had itself, doubtless, been developed out of forms yet 

 earlier. 



At one thing I was especially surprised. I found that, 

 excellent as are our missionaries in those regions, their 

 work has not at all been what those who send them have 

 supposed. No Mohammedan converts are made. Indeed, 

 should the good missionaries at Cairo wake up some fine 

 morning in the spacious quarters for which they are so 

 largely indebted to the late Khedive Ismail, and find that 

 they had converted a Mohammedan, they would be filled 

 with consternation. They would possibly be driven from 

 the country. The real Mohammedan cannot be con 

 verted. There were, indeed, a few persons, here and 

 there, claiming to be converted Jews or Mohammedans ; 

 but we were always warned against them, even by Chris 

 tians, as far less trustworthy than those who were true 

 to their original faith. Whatever good is done by the 

 missionaries is done through their schools, to which come 

 many children of the Copts, with perhaps a certain num 

 ber of Mohammedans desirous of learning English ; and 

 the greatest of American missionary successes is doubt 

 less Robert College at Constantinople, which has certainly 

 done a very noble work among the more gifted young 

 men of the Christian populations in the Turkish Empire. 



Several times I attended service in the United Pres 

 byterian church at Cairo, and found it hard, unattractive, 

 and little likely to influence any considerable number of 

 persons, whether Mohammedan or Christian. It was evi 

 dent that the preachers, as a rule, were entirely out of 

 the current of modern theological and religious thought, 

 and that even the best and noblest of them represented 

 ideas no longer held by their leading coreligionists in 

 the countries from which they came. 



After a stay of three months in Egypt, we left Alex 

 andria for Athens, where I enjoyed, during a consid 

 erable stay, the advantages of the library at the American 

 School of Archaeology, and the companionship of my 

 friend Professor Waldstein, now of Cambridge Univer- 



