stendom of that period in the Christian era, or even much later, and
reflect on the Sicilian Vespers, the Inquisition, the massacre of the
Huguenots, the atrocious witchfinders who served that pedantic
Protestant prig, James I, and all the burnings, hackings and slayings
perpetrated in the name of Christendom. We must admit that no Moslems
anywhere, even in the most barbarous regions, are any worse than the
Christians of those days, while the vast majority are infinitely better,
viewed by any general standard of humanity. Christendom's only possible
defence is that civilisation has influenced Christianity for good, and
not the other way about. There is one other loophole which I, for one,
refuse to crawl through--that Christianity is a greater moral force than
Islam or more rapid in its action. Missionaries say that Islam is
incapable of high ideals owing to its impersonal and inhuman conception
of the Deity, whom it does not limit by any human standards of justice.
They complain that there is no fatherhood in the Moslem God;
but--pursuing their own metaphor--what would an earthly father think if
his acts of correction were criticised by his children from their own
point of view? He might be angry, but would probably just smile, and I
hope the Almighty does the same. A child thinks it most unjust to be
rebuked or perhaps chastised for playing at trains with suitable noises
at unsuitable seasons but it is that, and similar parental correction,
which makes him become a decent member of society and not a self-centred
nuisance.

Moslems shrink from applying _any_ human standards to the Deity,
regarding Him as the Lord of the Universe and not a popularly-elected
premier. "Whatever good is from God, whatever ill from thyself," is a
Koranic aphorism. Nor do they seek to drive bargains with Him, as do
many pious Christians, and their supplications are limited (as in our
Lord's Prayer) to the bare necessities of life--food and water to
support existence, and clothing to cover their nakedness.

The application of human ideals to the Almighty places Him on a level
with Kipling's "wise wood-pavement gods" or the Teutonic conception of
a deity who sent the Entente bad harvests to help German submarine
activities. Such absurdities incur the rebuke of the staunch old
patriarch, "Though he slay me yet will I trust in him"; there is no
excuse for seeking to inflict them on the austerities of Islam.

Climate and terrain have a marked i