Page:Path of Vision; pocket essays of East and West.djvu/152

 bowed in piety under his load, stiffens his neck to the rope around his head and, heavy but firm of step, walks away in the assurance of Allah. "You are not a Muslem," said the distinguished Sheikh, detecting in me an alien manner.

"I too worship Allah," I replied, lacing my shoes, "and honor the Prophets." Whereupon he invited me to his house for lunch. Strangers meeting in the mosque become brothers.

This reminds me of a visit to that American Mecca of fashion, Newport, where I went to pray in the Church of the Rich. A quaint, little wooden, barn-like building, outwardly a fitting symbol of the original spirit of Christianity, which was brought over, together with its first minister, from England. It was set up, not built, in Newport, a century ago. And this is considered very old in New England. But the stained glass windows, a distressing anomaly, with nothing in them to arrest the eye or tax the imagination, are absurdly new and