Nobody who has not lived in Turkey can realize how hopeless, almost self-contradictory, it is to talk of "reforming" Turkey. It could not be reformed and be Mohammedan Turkey; the lack of reform or power of reform is just what makes it what it is. The root of the evil is Mohammedanism itself; it is embodied social stagnation, corruption, ultimate ruin. Neither the Sultan nor the Turks can improve the state of the Empire, even if they wished. The usual "broad-minded" statements about Mohammed and his religion are simply elaborations of ignorance, made up out of men's own minds, and what they think must be true. It is customary for writers to talk in this fashion:--"Mohammedanism is a half-way house to Christianity; Mohammed converted the heathen Arabs to a belief in the true God. Mohammed established a great religion and a great Empire," etc., etc. There is no truth in this, for all its plausible sound. Mohammedanism is not even on the road to Christianity; and Arabia, Asia Minor, and Palestine were all much better off before the Mohammedan conquest than after it. Buddhism and Brahmanism are better religions than Mohammedanism. The Chinese, the Japanese, the people of India are much better than the Turks. The Chinese Emperor and the Japanese Mikado are far better men than the Mohammedan Sultan. The heathen religions rear better men than Mohammedanism. The Mongols are more humane and sympathetic than the Turks. Heathenism at its worst, though a low form of religion, is really a form of religion; but Mohammedanism is not a religion at all. Then what is it? It is a system of imposture and false pretense, and of lives of human lust and cruelty. Mohammed practiced all these, and his successors have done the same, and taught the same ever since; and the system means just that now, and nothing else. There is neither love nor sympathy, manliness nor humanity in Mohammedanism. Can a system lacking all these be considered a religion? This is the substance of Mohammed's teachings:--"Love your fellow believers, hate and slay all who refuse to accept your religion. Marry as many wives as you can afford; if you can afford but one do not repine, for you shall have seven thousand to enjoy in Paradise. If you conquer a country, show no mercy to the people unless they embrace Islam; if they refuse, either kill them or make slaves of them." What sort of reforms can you expect in Armenia, or in Turkey, when the very religion that is to make people better, inculcates such principles? If one does not know a language he cannot speak it; if he has not a principle he will not practice it; how can the Sultan, a vicious man to begin with, trained in a religion calculated to make a cruel and licentious animal even out of a decent man, reform anything? His very religion forbids it; he cares nothing for the religion when it stands in his way, but he will follow its injunctions to please the Mohammedans, especially when they gratify and justify his worst passions.