5 66 LECTURES AND ESSAYS [1880- 



Bible. He has, indeed, the regular Arabic taste for 

 affected rhetoric and plays on words, to which Hareery 

 appears the model writer, and the simple style of the 

 gospels devoid of literary merit. It is the curse of Arabic 

 literature that form and how artificial a form ! is 

 preferred to substance, and so long as this is the standard 

 by which books are judged, the affected rhetoric of the 

 Koran will secure it the preference over the Bible. 



Most of the Hejaz Arabs, even of those who are fond 

 of books, have never seen the Bible. An Indian Moham 

 medan, clerk to Messrs. Wylde & Co., told me that he 

 had long looked for an Arabic Bible, but could not find 

 a copy. I presented him with one, and he accepted it 

 very gladly. In one or two other cases I first tried how 

 an Arabic psalter would be received. It excited interest ; 

 the Arabs all know by name the Psalms of David, which, 

 as one man told me, he expects to hear sung in Paradise. 

 But when the book was shown by its possessor to some 

 of the leading Mohammedans, they pronounced it bad. 

 It was not a genuine copy, but corrupted by the Christians. 

 It was useless to ask the authority for this statement, 

 or to inquire whether the hostile judges had true copies 

 the reputation of the little book was irretrievably injured. 

 There would be no difficulty in circulating the Scriptures 

 in the Hejaz, were it not that the literary authorities are 

 bigots, and have been taught that our Bible is blasphem 

 ously corrupted from its original verity. People are quite 

 willing to take a book, but they are pretty sure to go and 

 show it to the nearest scholar, and he, either from genuine 

 fanaticism or simply from the native arrogance of Arabian 

 scholarship, is likely to condemn the Christian print. I 

 left a New Testament at Taif, and gave Al Mas another 

 to take to Mecca, but I greatly fear that they are not 

 likely to be read. These columns are not the place 

 to deal with this matter from a missionary point of 

 view ; but simply in the interests of civilisation and of 

 that progress which is seriously retarded by the current 



