If there is no other explanation of Mohammedan success, it is evident that the Divine intention has not varied in the last ninety years. This is the view-point of the deeply religious man, who believes in God’s personal management of all the affairs of this world, attributing to reasons of Divine wisdom matters too deep for human penetration. The student of history will understand the spread of Mohammedanism at the expense of Christianity, and the chief reasons have appeared or will become plain in the course of this narrative. A stouter and more virile figure than Mohammed attempted to establish a similar creed on this continent. He failed to become a world influence, a permanent factor in history, for geographical reasons, mainly. The part of the world in which Brigham Young planted his polygamous creed was not so well adapted to its expansion as the scene of Mohammed’s early activities. Western civilization, following close on the heels of the gold rush, overwhelmed the American apostle and intimate of the Angel Gabriel. The chief reason why Christianity has lost so much ground before Mohammedanism, and is likely to lose much more, is that there has never been much _real_ Christianity in the world. The history of the so-called “Christian Nations” has been a long tale of bloody wars, of treachery and robbery, of St. Bartholemew Days and of Catholics martyrized by Protestants; of persecutions, of saints and witches burned at the stake. And the situation among the “Christian Nations” that allowed the Turks to burn Smyrna and massacre and abuse its inhabitants was such a culmination of infamy and shame as shows that the world is becoming less Christian as the years go by. Surely there is no reason to expect God to aid Christian missionaries, after such a disappointment and travesty. If, as the Reverend Bush remarks, the wonderful spread of Mohammedanism can only be explained as some special Providence of God, He may be inspiring the Sennussi to spiritualize their religion and develop the better features of it. If the Christian faith has had so feeble effect upon the conduct of Christian nations and has so little harmony that it lacks the force to convert Mohammedans, then the only alternative open to wisdom, finite or infinite, would be to make the best of some other creed. When our missionaries have finished putting the Turkish administrations “on a sound basis,” they might come home and teach us to be better Christians. Unless Christianity is saved in those countries where it still has a nominal existence, it is doomed, and their civilization will go with it. The Bolsheviks understand this, as witness the war they are waging against religion. CHAPTER XXXIV THE KORAN AND THE BIBLE