The fact of the case is simply this. To attempt to judge Islam from a Christian standpoint is as ridiculous as to attempt to judge Christianity from a Moslem one. We shudder at the civil codes and conditions of the Mahammedans; they are horrified at our Trinity, at the decoration of our churches, at lax laws as to purification, at our drunken habits, at the Pope, at our paid clergy, and at a hundred other details. To criticise Islam one must have seen it in its own lands, and that with unprejudiced eyes. There is but one more question that must be touched upon here—namely, slavery. Never have there been more exaggerated reports as to slavery in oriental countries than are from time to time cropping up to-day. It must be understood what slavery really is in the East; it must be remembered that it is not agricultural slavery—that it is entirely domestic slavery. Stories are from time to time appearing of atrocious cruelties to slaves: they are true, no doubt, but they are exceptional—just as, happily, the cruel treatment of children is exceptional in England. It is not after the slaves have passed through the market that they suffer, it is on the long desert-marches in which they are brought from the interior. Another point is scarcely understood in England—namely, that probably ninety-nine hundredths of the slaves in servitude in oriental countries have been born in servitude, and never were brought from the Soudan at all. In this case they have been often reared in the houses of their masters, and as often as not treated as his children. That slavery is contrary to law and nature all will acknowledge; that it ought and must be put down is equally true; but as to the means of doing it? The slave-trade must be stopped from the interior of Africa, not by the freeing of the slaves already arrived at their journey’s end. For instance, the emancipation of slaves in Morocco would mean thousands of men thrown out of doors to gain a livelihood by murder and robbery, or starve; and thousands of women driven to be prostitutes. And this is what we are attempting to do in the name of progress and religion! [Illustration: _Jew of the Yemen._]