520 



The Review of Reviews. 



ARE BUDDHISM AND ISLAM COMBINING? 



M. \'ambIlry, in the Nnieleenth Century lor April, is 

 struck by the starthng fact that Mohammedans and 

 Buddhists no longer regard one another with that 

 furious hatred and ill-will which formerly marked their 

 intercourse. The Moslems divide humanity into mere 

 idol-worshippers (Meiljusi) and book-possessors {Ekli 

 Kitah). Among the latter are included the Jews and 

 Christians, as well as the Moslems. The book-possessors 

 are to be tolerated, but the idol-worshippers have been 

 the objects of an unreasonable hatred : — 



Imagine, tlien, my surprise and amazement when recently, 

 i.e. after the victory of the Japanese over the Russians, I noted 

 the joyful excitement which prevailed throughout the length and 

 breadth of the Islamic world at the military success of the 

 formerly detested MeJjusi. What strikes one most is the con- 

 tinuous and ever-growint; friendliness between these two Asiatic 

 nations, or rather, between these two religions, which used to 

 be so hostile to one another. 



Unofficially, and in secret, a good deal of intercourse 

 between the two Asiatic religions has been carried on 

 through private individuals sent out from Yildiz to 

 Mohammedans in the Far East. One of these is the 

 Molla Suleiman Shukri, who urges the opinion that 

 Chinese and Mohammedans should join forces to break 

 the power of the overbearing haughty Europeans. 

 Chinese Mohammedans have clearly shown that 

 Moslems and Buddhists recognise a common foe in the 

 person of the European. The Chinese Government, so 

 far from opposing this tendency, are rather inclined to 

 support it. 



Pan-Islamism he considers not a dangerous foe. It 

 is only the Moslem Press, notably the Turkish and 

 Persian, which binds together the most distant parts 

 of the Moslem Asiatic world. When the Turco-Italian ' 

 war broke out these newspapers had long columns of 

 war intelligence and procured voluntary subscriptions 

 in abundance. China herself publishes, at the expense 

 of the State, a Turkish newspaper. This approach 

 between the followers of different Oriental religions 

 has become so much more pronounced of late years 

 that already the various nationalities are known by 

 the collective name of Asia as against Europe. The 

 writer sees the symptoms of an ever-ripening bond of 

 unity. These considerations lead him to ask : — 



Is it wise and expedient by useless provocation and unneces- 

 sary attacks to increase the feeling of animosity, to hurry on the 

 struggle between the two worlds, and to nip in the bud the work 

 of modern culture which is now going on in Asia ? 



Of which inquiry disturbers of the peace in Persia, 

 Tripoli, Morocco, may take due heed. 



Can we afford Foreign Missions, which cost us 

 about three millions a year } That is the subject of 

 a symposium in the May Quiver. The Earl of Lytton 

 thinks that " a great deal too much money is spent 

 every year in their upkeep." This is about the only 

 negative. Most of the answerers are prominent 

 officials in Missionary Societies, whose reply is as 

 may be expected. 



DARWIN NO MONIST. 



In the Buhlin Review Mr. Bertram C. A. Windle, 

 F.R.S., writing on Darwin and the theory of Natural 

 Selection, quotes Professor Dwight of Harvard. He 

 says : — 



_" We have now the remarkable .lipectacle that, just when many 

 scientific inen are of accord that there is no part of the 

 Darwinian system that is of any very great influence, and that 

 as a whole the theory is not only unproved but impossible, the 

 ignorant, half-educated masses have acquired the idea that it is 

 to be accepted as a fundamental fact. Moreover, it is not to 

 them an academic question of biology, but, as the matter has 

 been presented to them, it is a system : to wit, the monistic 

 system, of philosophy. Thus presented it undeniably is fatal, 

 not only to all revealed religion, but to any system of morals 

 lounded on a supernatural basis." It is perhaps worth while 

 noting that Darwin himself never claimed the position of a 

 "monistic philosopher." 



The writer notes that Darwin in the second edition 

 of the " Origin of Species," added the words " by the 

 Creator " to the passage in which he spoke of the 

 several powers having been originally created, and only 

 added in pencil in the first edition the italicised word's 

 that these powers had been created into a few forms 

 or into one. 



These quotations preclude the idea that Darwin was 

 a monistic philosopher. Mr. Windle says : — 



From what has been said it will clearly be seen that there 

 has been a very remarkable change in scientific opinion daring 

 the past twenty-five years, and that that change of opinion, 

 though many would be very loath to admit it, has been away 

 from the materialistic pole and towards its antipodes— the old 

 explanations of Christian philosophy. 



THIRTY YEARS OF THE CHURCH ARMY. 



It is just thirty years since Prebendary Wilson 

 Carlile founded the Church Army in the slums lying 

 under the shadow of Westminster Abbey and the 

 Houses of Parliament. So writes Mr. Edgar Rowan in 

 the May number of the Sunday at Home. 



When the Church Army was first started, it is stated 

 its capital was about eightcenpence ; to-day a quarter 

 of a million must be raised annually to keep going all 

 its activities. In his young days Mr. Carlile was 

 manager of his grandfather's silk and dress-goods 

 business in St. Paul's Churchyard, and there is'little 

 doubt that he would have mtide his mark in the com- 

 mercial world had he remained in it. But the born 

 leader of men docs not make himself a leader of other 

 men ; it is they who make him their leader. 



Mr. Carlile is a firm believer in advertisement, and 

 the London club of ad\-ertisemcnt managers on one 

 occasion honoured him by inviting him to be their j 

 guest at a dinner. Once, during the Channel-swimming 

 craze, he announced that he would preach on 

 " Holbein's Big Swim." Had he, in the ordinary wav. 

 advertised a sermon. sa\-, on " Jonah and the \Vhale," 

 he would probably have had a congregation of two or 

 three. But for the Channel-swimming sermon the 

 place was crowded nearly an hour before the ser\-icc 

 began. Holbein himself was unable to get into the 

 chur<h, and Mr. Carlile had to accommodate him in 

 the pulpit ! 



