Creed? I am pretty sure that even that would have created a
recalcitrant commotion at Pella in the year 70, among the Nazarenes of
Jerusalem, who had fled from the soldiers of Titus. And yet, if the
unadulterated tradition of the teachings of "the Nazarene" were to be
found anywhere, it surely should have been amidst those not very aged
disciples who may have heard them as they were delivered.

Therefore, however sorry I may be to be unable to demonstrate that, if
necessary, I should not be afraid to call myself an "infidel," I
cannot do it. "Infidel" is a term of reproach, which Christians and
Mahommedans, in their modesty, agree to apply to those who differ from
them. If he had only thought of it, Dr. Wace might have used the term
"miscreant," which, with the same etymological signification, has the
advantage of being still more "unpleasant" to the persons to whom it
is applied. But why should a man be expected to call himself a
"miscreant" or an "infidel"? That St. Patrick "had two birthdays
because he was a twin" is a reasonable and intelligible utterance
beside that of the man who should declare himself to be an infidel on
the ground of denying his own belief. It may be logically, if not
ethically, defensible that a Christian should call a Mahommedan an
infidel and _vice versa_; but, on Dr. Wace's principles, both ought to
call themselves infidels, because each applies the term to the other.

Now I am afraid that all the Mahommedan world would agree in
reciprocating that appellation to Dr. Wace himself. I once visited the
Hazar Mosque, the great University of Mohammedanism, in Cairo, in
ignorance of the fact that I was unprovided with proper authority. A
swarm of angry undergraduates, as I suppose I ought to call them, came
buzzing about me and my guide; and if I had known Arabic, I suspect
that "dog of an infidel" would have been by no means the most
"unpleasant" of the epithets showered upon me, before I could explain
and apologise for the mistake. If I had had the pleasure of Dr. Wace's
company on that occasion, the undiscriminative followers of the
Prophet would, I am afraid, have made no difference between us; not
even if they had known that he was the head of an orthodox Christian
seminary. And I have not the smallest doubt that even one of the
learned mollahs, if his grave courtesy would have permitted him to say
anything offensive to men of another mode of belief, would have told
us that he wondered we di