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584 do not make for his own material advantage. Thus, though a religion of the sword, Islam maintains its character as essentially, by its creed and constitution, a missionary religion. On the other hand, this very characteristic of the Mohammedan government added to its pressure of tyranny on those people who adhered to another faith. It was all the worse for the Christian Copt to see his fellow-Egyptian passing over to the rival faith and so increasing the forces of the oppressor. For an oppressor the Mussulman ruler must be, as regards the Christians, even when his methods are the mildest. Bribery was resorted to as an additional means of detaching the weak from the Church and winning them to Islam. If these things were done in the green tree, what was to be expected in the dry? Although the Arab rule in Egypt began so moderately that the Copts were ready to rejoice in it for the relief it afforded from the Melchite tyranny, they were soon to have reasons for repenting of the welcome they had given it. It was not long before their disadvantages were increased, and from time to time in the subsequent centuries they were harassed with savage outbreaks of persecution. The Christians never enjoy full liberty under Islam; they are always treated as inferiors, if not as outlaws; and they are often subject to great cruelty without hope of redress. Egypt has proved to be no exception to this melancholy generalisation.