Christianity lost her power as a world-conquering religion—and thus became an easy prey to Mohammedanism—as soon as she became obscured in a smoke-screen of controversy. The innumerable and bewildering quibbles which arose, giving rise to many sects, and the violent hatreds and schisms engendered, form a history in themselves. At the time when Mohammed appeared on the scene, the Church was already split into quarreling sects, who had lost sight of the simple teachings of the Master. Christians had become depraved and general immorality and degeneracy were rife. To-day the Christian world is about evenly divided between Protestants and Catholics, rival sects, showing little spirit of compromise. Recent statistics, given by _Whittaker’s Almanak_, place the total number of Catholics in the world at 272,860,000 and of Protestants and other denominations, (like the Eastern Church) who deny the jurisdiction of the Pope, at 290,000,000. Any one who has lived for any time in countries where missionaries are active will testify to the saintly character of Catholic Sisters, and the devotion of the Brothers. They will equally bear witness to the high character, courage and beauty of life of Protestant missionaries, men and women. But the two sects are antagonistic. In Smyrna during the Greek administration, a Y. M. C. A. was started and was doing excellent work, as also a Y. W. C. A. A notice was posted in all the Catholic churches that such institutions were of darkness and not of light and that all true Christians must keep away from them. A Catholic teacher in the Y. W. C. A. who was being paid a good salary and who needed it was compelled to resign her post. This is but one instance of many that could be given. When a Mohammedan is asked to be a Christian, a common answer is, “What kind? There are so many kinds of you, each warning us against the others.” There is less hope to-day of pan-Christianity than of pan-Islamism. Says Kurtz, already referred to: “To-day Mohammedanism is the one rival of Christianity to become a world religion,” and a writer in the _Moslem World_ for January, 1925: “The Christian Church, after thirteen centuries of hard struggle finds Islam still a most baffling problem. It is true historically that Islam has been born after Christianity and has displaced it almost wherever it has spread. The history of the whole of North Africa, Palestine and Syria, and present Asia Minor shows this plainly.” The Reverend George Bush in his _Life of Mohammed_, published by the Harpers in 1830, makes the following reflection: “Indeed in this, as in every other instance where the fortunes of an individual are entirely disproportionate to the means employed, and surpass all reasonable calculation, we are forced to resolve the problem into the special Providence of God. Nothing short of this could have achieved such mighty results.”