THE PATH OF VISION
V
OF CHURCH AND MOSQUE
OF all the places of worship I know,—and
I have lugged my unshrived soul
and my weary limbs into many a foreign
temple,—the mosque has always impressed
me as being by far the most democratic
and the most unstinted in its varied hospitalities.
There is nothing in it or in its
economy to flatter the rich, or oft end the
poor, to repel the weary, or distract the
devout. The welcome it extends is not
of the two-by-two pew order; the solace
it affords is no bread-and-cheese affair.
And the Friday sermon, if you should care
to hear it, is often taken bodily from the
Koran and is, therefore, never extraneous;—a
ringing and harmless bit of eloquence
that charms the ear and lulls the senses in
celestial revery. The mosque is always
big enough to hold the declaiming preacher
and the sleeping worshipper in an incommunicable
vacuity; for the pulpit is never
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