The whole of the Shia'h doctrine on this point seems to show that there is in the human heart a natural desire for some Mediator--some Word of the Father, who shall reveal Him to His children. At first sight it would seem, as if the doctrine of the Imamat might to some extent reconcile the thoughtful Shia'h to the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation and Mediation of Jesus Christ, to His office as the perfect revealer of God's will; and as our Guide in life; but alas! it is not so. The mystic lore connected with Shia'h doctrine has sapped the foundation of moral life and vigour. A system of religious reservation, too, is a fundamental part of the system in its mystical developments, whilst all Shia'hs may lawfully practise "takia," or religious {84} compromise in their daily lives. It thus becomes impossible to place dependence on what a Shia'h may profess, as pious frauds are legalised by his system of religion. If he becomes a mystic, he looks upon the ceremonial and the moral law as restrictions imposed by an Almighty Power. The omission of the one is a sin almost, if not quite, as bad as a breach, of the other. The advent of Mahdi is the good time when all such restrictions shall be removed, when the utmost freedom shall be allowed. Thus the moral sense, in many cases, becomes deadened to an extent such as those who are not in daily contact with these people can hardly credit. The practice of "takia," religious compromise, and the legality of "muta'h" or temporary marriages, have done much to demoralise the Shia'h community. The following words of a recent author descriptive of the Shia'h system are in the main true, though they do not apply to each individual in that system:-- "There can be no stronger testimony of the corrupting power and the hard and hopeless bondage of the orthodox creed, than that men should escape from it into a system which established falsehood as the supreme law of conduct, and regarded the reduction of men to the level of swine as the goal of human existence."[76] The Mutazilites, or Seceders, were once an influential body. They do not exist as a separate sect now. An account of them will be given in the next chapter.