ppeals to
fanaticism and accusations of infidelity. Money, too, would certainly
play its part there as elsewhere, and perhaps blood might be shed. But
any one who remembers the history of the Christian Church in the
fifteenth century, and the synods which preceded the Council of Basle,
must admit that such accompaniments of intrigue and corruption are no
bar to a legal solution of religious difficulties. It was above all else
the rivalries of Popes and Anti-popes that precipitated the Catholic
Reformation.

FOOTNOTES:

[14] According to Canon Law the Caliph cannot cede any portion of the
lands of Islam except on physical compulsion.

[15] This too was written before the events of September, 1881. These
have immensely added to the chance of Cairo's becoming once more the
seat of the Caliphate, though not perhaps of Mohammed Towfik's being the
Caliph elected.

CHAPTER IV.

A MOHAMMEDAN REFORMATION.

It is with considerable doubt of my ability to do justice to so very
difficult a subject that I now approach the most important point of all
in this inquiry, namely, the question on which in reality every other
depends: "Is there a possibility of anything like general reform for
Islam in her political and moral life?"

It is obvious that, unless we can answer this in the affirmative, none
of the changes I have been prefiguring will very much affect her
ultimate fortunes--neither the solution of her legal deadlock with the
Ottoman Caliphate, nor the transfer of her metropolis to a new centre,
nor even the triumph of her arms, if such were possible, in Africa or
India. These by themselves could, at best, only delay her decline. They
might even precipitate her ruin. Islam, if she relies only on the sword,
must in the end perish by it, for her forces, vast as they are, are
without physical cohesion, being scattered widely over the surface of
three continents and divided by insuperable accidents of seas and
deserts; and the enemy she would have to face is intelligent as well as
strong, and would not let her rest. Already what is called the "Progress
of the World" envelopes her with its ships and its commerce, and, above
all, with its printed thought, which she is beginning to read. Nor is it
likely in the future to affect her less. Every year as it goes by
carries her farther from the possibility of isolation, and forces on her
new acquaintances, not only her old foes, the Frank and Muscovite, but
the German, the