pretensions of unbelievers to be placed on a parity with him. In the case of the patrician, it was a matter of pride; with the Moslem, it is a case of conscience. Though it may seem a small matter, it is a significant fact that a Turk can wish the salutation of peace only to a fellow-Moslem, and that in the exchange of courtesies with persons not of his faith he expects to be saluted first. Rather than admit equality in any real and absolute sense, it would seem as if the wreck of the Empire were preferred--“faithful unto death.” The outward forms of Mohammedanism are exceedingly impressive. The muezzin’s call to prayer--at dawn, at noon, in the afternoon, at sunset, and three hours later at night--floats through the air like a voice from the upper world. No music of bells evokes such a sense of the Divine Majesty as his proclamation, “God is Great, there is no God but God.” However grand or however humble a mosque may be, whether frequented by the most intelligent or the most ignorant of the people, it contains nothing that tells of superstition, nothing that belittles or lowers the conception of the Most High. One can understand why, when Islam and Christianity confronted each other in the Byzantine Empire, there were emperors who, for upwards of a century, strove to banish pictures and statues from the worship of the Church. And where is the reverence of the human soul before God expressed so utterly, as when the Moslem worshipper, washed clean, with shoes off his feet, stands, bows, kneels, prostrates himself before his Maker, in silent prayer? There is no more impressive religious service in the world than that celebrated, under the dome of S. Sophia, on “The Night of Power,” in the season of Ramazan. Under the dim light of hundreds of small, hanging lamps, fed with oil, as in days past, ten thousand men are then gathered upon the floor of the mosque for evening worship, their hearts stirred by the associations of the sacred season. It is essentially a service of silent prayer. The silence is made only the more impressive by the brief chant or vehement ejaculation that occasionally breaks the stillness, to afford pent feelings some relief. But though dumb with awe, the multitude cannot rest. The emotion is too strong for complete suppression, and the vast congregation heaves to and fro, rises and falls. It stands upon its feet, bends low, sinks to the floor, kneels, prostrates the head to the very earth, filling the great church with a sound as of distant thunder, or the sea breaking upon the shore. It is a scene of intense humility and veneration. And yet it is so grave, so quiet, so controlled, that the dignity of the worshippers is never lost. It is the homage of the great to the Greatest. It is a remarkable combination of reverence and of self-respect. Except in the practices of certain orders of dervishes, the Howling Dervishes for instance, nothing in the attitude of a Moslem at his devotions betrays an overpowering