Page:Travels & discoveries in the Levant (1865) Vol. 1.djvu/306

256 by his less learned and zealous brethren, who intrigue against him at Rhodes. The other day I invited him to dinner. My Greek cook, Hadgi, who is a model of devout hypocrisy, was so shocked at my entertaining such a Lutheran, that I had some difficulty in persuading him to give us any dinner.

I have already remarked that the Greek priests in Rhodes have little personal influence. The Roman Catholics here attribute this want of influence to the lax manner in which confession is conducted in the Greek Church. In illustration of this view, an amusing anecdote was told me of a former Pasha of Rhodes, who, like Haroun al Raschid, was in the habit of going among his subjects in disguise. One day, attired as a Frank, he presented himself before a Catholic priest and confessed that he had slain a Turk. "My son," said the priest, "the Turk is an infidel, but you have not the less sinned in the eyes of God." He then dismissed him, ordering a severe penance. The Pasha, then taking a different disguise, confessed the same crime to a Greek priest, who immediately gave him absolution, thanking God at the same time that there was one Mussulman less in the world. The next day, the Pasha, taking his place on his judgment seat, summoned the two priests before him, and when he had made known the deceit he had practised on them, proceeded there and then to hang the unfortunate Greek priest. It is hardly necessary to add, that this Pasha lived in the good old times before the Tanzimat.