102 



FAITH. 



We may easily understand this. Eeligion is the 

 mental expression of a race, and it cannot ad- 

 vance in purity without a correspondent intellect- 

 ual improvement on the part of its votaries. On 

 the other hand, not a few nations, especially in 

 the dawn of civilization, have risen despite their 

 follies of faith : but these are peoples who have 

 within them the germs of progress. Judaism 

 did not make the Palasha of East Africa, nor the 

 remote colonists of Southern Arabia, an intellect- 

 ual people : the Jews of Aden, to this day, show 

 no traces of mental superiority over their neigh- 

 bours. Christianity has done nothing for Abys- 

 sinia or Egypt : these lands are inhabited by 

 peoples which have remained as nearly stationary 

 as it is possible for human nature. Nowhere, 

 indeed, has ' the Church ' proved herself in the 

 long course of ages a more complete and hope- 

 less failure than in her own birthplace, and in 

 her peculiar ethnic centre, Syria. Here the Mar- 

 ronites are in no ways superior, knd in many 

 points, such as courage and personal dignity, in- 

 ferior to their neighbours, the Metawali, who 

 have a debased religion, and the Druzes, who 

 have none. El Islam, also, has not much to boast 

 of on the coasts of Guinea and of Zanzibar, ex- 

 cept that it has abolished certain abominations 



