The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1897-12-19

he made and can kill US or keep us
alive. However sore to flesh and blood,
his will is the wisest; you are bound
to take it so; in this world and the
next you have no other thing that YOU
can do. God is the reality, we and all
things are but his shadow. a transit
DRY garment yelling the eternal SPLEEN
dor" Islam means that we submit
to God" and Goethe says: do we not
all live in Islam?"
If you will consider the effect. upon
hundreds of millions of believers, of
sincere trust in such a faith, as cheer
fully dying as living for. it, you will
appreciate the size of the powder mag
azine over which Greece has just
smoked her brief pipe. Turkey is the
sick man Of Europe; yes, but swarms
of fighting men from Tripoli to the
sources of the Nile, in Africa, Syria,
Persia, in the Khanates and China,
who pray toward Mecca, watch for the
raising of the green banner of the
Prophet, and are ready to cry islam"
and take up arms.
1t is said that the Sheik-ul-Islam
has announced that it is the will of
God that Thessaly be taken from
Greece and given to the Sultan, and if
this be sent around the Mahometan
world it may start a slaughter that will
redden every river from the Brahma-
pootra to the Danube.
The first effect would be an assault
upon England throughout the East. In
hither and farther India and in Egypt,
wherever she has planted her stand
ard, 1t would be attacked with that va
lor and fanaticism which have always
characterized Mahometan warfare for
Islam. Every garrisoned town would
be invested and every unprotected
compound and plantation destroyed.
The further effects, if England were
fought into a withdrawal of all she
gained at the battle of Plassy and the
investment OF Mandalay, would in
clude the Mahometan conquest of all
India, and an impulse to the spirit of
conquest which might renew in the
twentieth century the military enter
prise of the East on a field even more
extensive than it covered in the fff-
teenth century.
The calmest judges of the situation
in India are the Parsees of Bombay
They are the ancient Persians, who
after the Mahometan conquest nearly
twelve centuries ago, refused to ex-
change Zoroaster for Mahomet, the
to exile in Hindostan, finally reaching
Bombay. which they have made
great commercial city. They say that
England appeared in India just in time
to prevent a renewal of religious con-
tention by arms. India is called a mu-
scum Of races. On no similar area are
as many radical diversities gathered.
and their religions are as numerous
The Parsees say that the moment Eng
lish power is withdrawn the Mahomet-
ans and the Hipdoos proper will fall
upon each other with fire and SWORD
and the weaker will be destroyed. The
victor will then turn upon the Par
sees, the jams, the Buddhists and all
the weaker sects and wipe them off the
face of the earth.
II must be plain then that conse-
quences of the greatest Importance to
the human race hang upon every
movement that is made in the Eastern
Mediterranean. Not alone is the Eu-
ropean balance OF power involved in
any possible division of Turkey, but
the interests of more than seven hun
dred millions of people of many races
and many creeds are at stake.
It is a superficial view Of the matter
to say that what England is compelled
to drop in the East Russia will pick
up. What interest have we and what
has humanity in extending the power
Of the Cossack? In what respect has
Russia treated better her conquests
than England? Is the record of Rus
sian Poland so attractive to American