It seems to the spectators that England is doing the one thing she should most carefully avoid doing. She is uniting Islam, and teaching Islam how to make war. In each new campaign the Soudanese are better armed, fight with better method, and kill more Englishmen. England is training them into sturdy and disciplined soldiers. A Moslem victory is proclaimed in every Arab tent, and in every Indian village. Such a victory is not merely a victory for El Mahdi; it is a hope for the whole Moslem world. Moslem defeats travel less swiftly, and mean only a delayed victory. What fierce resolutions are begotten in Moslem bosoms by Mr. Gladstone’s campaigns of butchery, we can easily imagine. Meanwhile, Christendom can only say: “Premier of England, your garments are soaked with blood; and, may God forgive you, the blood is not your own. We can not understand you, but we are painfully certain that you are arousing all Islam against us.” Meanwhile, the ancient spears are giving place in the Prophet’s armies to repeating rifles, and Krupp guns may soon guard every height along the Nile. Islam is strong in numbers. There are 75,000,000 of Soudanese, with a very large proportion of men just civilized enough to make terrible soldiers. It may happen some day that a military leader will arise in the front of this vast army, and that an effeminate Europe may find that its military science has gone over to the Moslems. Probably no one man’s policy could effect its transfer more rapidly than Mr. Gladstone’s. When that dark wave of the Moslem millions is gathered into conquering masses by a capable leader, it will have mighty winds of religious enthusiasm behind it, and plenty of room before it. The southern and eastern shores of the Mediterranean would be swept clean of the petty European military establishments in a month. Morocco, larger than France, holds at least half of the western gate of the Mediterranean, while the Turk holds the eastern gate; and a month’s campaign might convert that sea into a Moslem lake, and leave its Italian, French, and Spanish and Greek shores to be ravaged again as in the crusading centuries, by Moslem piracy and brigandage. The one thing the Arab can learn thoroughly is the art of war. He was once great on the sea. That man may exult too soon, who, remembering the leviathans of the deep which destroyed Alexandria, trusts Europe’s safety to the great navies of Europe. Islam has some great ships in the Bosphorus, and is rapidly learning where the great ships grow. It is true that if splendid leadership does not arise, Islam may continue to bleed and die in vain; but wars produce great soldiers as regularly as oaks bear acorns. There _is_ danger. Ten years of Gladstoneism in the Nile valley would make the danger a terrible reality. Christendom should rise up and condemn the bloody education which England is imparting to Islam.