“I certainly hold no brief for ‘irregularity,’ but there is something wrong with a conception of God which has produced the immeasurable gulf between the married and the unmarried mother. Humanity is not of our making; the ‘imperfect’ man has no right to demand ‘perfection’ from all women. Has he not made and tolerated _War_ that has overthrown every standard of morality, changed all our ‘values,’ shattered every ideal, leaving religion nowhere, and two million women without a mate? “Such is the civilisation that dares to point a finger of scorn at the unmarried mother; and, by dismissing her, characterless and unpensioned, from every respectable avenue of support, dares to brand a child as unwanted, and push the innocent young life into secret and shameful surroundings. Those who should help, with all the power of their sheltered purity, prefer to keep themselves ‘too respectable for any knowledge of these uncomfortable problems,’ since they are good and faithful servants of One who said, ‘Let him who is without sin amongst you cast the first stone!’ “All maternity is sacred to the Turk, and every child enjoys full legal status. The super-cowardice of declaring a child as born of ‘parents unknown’ (as you may in France) could never be allowed. If marriage be not the high sacrament it is, theoretically, regarded in Europe, the life of _every babe_ whom God sends us is held to be a sacred charge. Do our missionaries in Turkey really preach the Gospel of Christ?” * * * * * “Do you approve, or admire, the resignation of the East, the Turk’s ideal of being content with so little?” asked the energetic American. “We are _both_ wrong. Their resignation too often leaves life stagnant, our race for dollars drenches the world in blood. “Is it not horrible for us to have to confess that all this appalling Battle of the Cross against the Crescent, sprang out of greed for oil. “One cannot realise what the world would be like were all nations governed by your and my ideals. Would there ever have been a British Empire? We can scarcely justify, on grounds of high morality, the conquest of America; and, surely, the States could by such ruling have, indeed, become ‘God’s own country.’” * * * * * When the road became rather more European, our Turkish boy friends sought to relieve the monotony by a furious race between the two yailis, and we were tossed about beyond all possibility of further talk. When, however, the boys had won the first heat, I begged to be excused from trying to secure our revenge, as the carriages did not seem solid enough for racing. Then behold, at the word, one of our wheels flew off! And, though we were mercifully taking a saunter “between rounds” at the moment, we had to follow our belongings into the mud and do what we could to help the wheelwright.