Page:The Rebirth Of Turkey 1923.pdf/91

 VII

CHRISTENDOM AND THE WAR

The effect of the war of 1914-18 upon modern Christendom would not concern us here if the scene of this narrative were not a Moslem country to which Christendom, beginning with Old Greece and running west to the country towns of the United States, has adopted an attitude of superiority. I do not need to say that the subject of Christianity itself is very far removed from the realm of controversy, but its communicants are human beings and are not only subjects of legitimate controversy but of entirely healthy controversy.

Moslems are usually hospitable to all foreigners and they frequently respect missionaries personally. They use mission hospitals and occasionally they avail themselves of the advantages of foreign schools. But for missionaries as Christians, engaged in spreading a gospel of peace while their contemporaries at home invent poison gas, Moslems have neither understanding nor respect. In their Christian capacities, missionaries are tolerated as long as they do not offend.

The older missionaries know these things. They know that in their effort to spread Christianity, their greatest enemies have been the Christians, and most of their work in the Ottoman