456 DESTEUCTION OF THE GEEEK EMPIEE that a barbarian is capable of conceiving, and its ennobling teaching that fighting the battles of the faith is fighting for God, has produced the most terrible armies that have ever come out from among any of the races among which its converts have been made. Islam in the twentieth century has spent much of its original force, because doubt as to its divine origin has entered into the hearts of its ablest members. Those among them who have seen or have otherwise learned the results of Christian civilisation instinctively and almost unconsciously judge the two religions by their fruits. Such men either become entirely neglectful of the ceremonious duties which their religion imposes, or, if they profess to have become more intent in their religious convictions than before, perform their ceremonies, with a sub-consciousness that their religion is not better than that of the unbelievers. In whichever category they fall they lose their belief in the exclusively divine character of their creed. Nor do the studies in astronomy, medi- cine, geology, and other modern sciences fail to implant a similar and even a greater amount of scepticism in the Mahometan than they have done in the Christian mind. While visits to foreign countries and scientific studies are undertaken by few, their influ- ence as a leaven is great. In the centuries preceding the Moslem conquest of Constanti- nople scepticism was absent among both the Christian and Mahometan masses. The Ottoman Turks in the fifteenth century, more perhaps than at any other time, were full of the zeal of new converts. They were in a period of conquest which stimulated them Many, perhaps most of them, believed in their divine mission. They were the chosen people, whose duty it was to give idolaters the choice of conversion to the one true faith or of death, to subdue all nations who accepted either the Old or the New Testa- ment but refused to accept the prophethood of Mahomet, and to treat them as rayahs or cattle. Their spiritual pride caused them to think of those who professed any form of Christianity as being inferior and divinely predestined to occupy a hopelessly lower plane, as having only the privilege that their lives should be spared so long as they paid tribute and accepted subjection. Their central, overpowering belief was that they had a mission from God and the Prophet, and the result of such belief was fearless- ness of danger. It was their duty to kill idolaters and subjugate Christians. Whatever happened to them in the fulfilment of this duty was not their business but God's. He would bring about the predestined victory or the temporary defeat ; but in either case it was well with them. If they lived, the plunder of their
