Hassan Effendi stopped again and looked at our American friends who seemed to be very much surprised. “How little do we of the West know of the religions, the ideals and the hopes of the East,” they said; “but are we alone to blame? Why doesn't the East send us some of its teachers, some of its leaders to explain to us its creed and its belief?”
Hassan Effendi smiled: “We have sent you the message of our best leader, of our best teacher and you have had it with you for nearly two thousand years,” he said. “We have sent you the message of Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, the Apostle of Love and of Mercy, the greatest antagonist of riches and of materialism. In later years we have sent you in person the greatest living messenger of the East, Abdul Baha, who warned the world years before the beginning of the war of the great cataclysm toward which humanity was headed and who preached unity and oneness as the only salvation. What good did it do? The West has always coveted the East for the possession of the Holy Land—forgetting that Palestine is an Eastern Land. Up to the last century the West has always coveted the riches of the East, forgetting that after all if the East had all these riches it was because it had worked for them. Since then, and taking advantage of the decadence into which we have fallen, the West has looked down upon the East for its lack of ambition for the possession of material things and has tried to prove its inferiority by claiming that it had not contributed to modern scientific discoveries, forgetting that while the West has discovered the telephone, the telegram, electricity and steam—all things which make material life worth living—it is the East which discovered God, His Prophets and His Holy Books—all things which make spiritual life worth expecting and contrary to the custom of the West, the East has not commercialized its discoveries; it has given them as a free gift to humanity. Christ was an Easterner and He gave freely His knowledge to the West and now that the West has acquired our riches and our lands we hope that it will soon recognize that it has also our God.
“This recognition, this knowledge must, however, come to the West from within. No matter how loud we claimed it, it would not be believed. Westerners will have to come to our country and see for themselves. They will have to investigate, even as you are investigating. They will have to convince themselves that the religion taught by the Prophet Mohamed is one and the same with the religion taught by Christ. They will have to realize that any one who follows either of them is following the Road of Salvation. And then, only then, will the peace of God descend upon a redeemed humanity. I pray the Almighty that this day may come soon.”
And so saying Hassan Effendi rose from his seat next to the window. It was the signal that our audience was at an end, and we all got up. We took leave from the master who accompanied us to the door where he shook hands with every one of us.
And as the door was closing we could hear his soft voice like a blessing: “Peace be with you"!
XIV
A VOICE FROM ANATOLIA
NO matter how short and succinct it is, an account of the Turks as they really are and of the Turkey of to-day would not be complete without a description of the Turks who are now so successfully engaged in fighting the supreme battle of their country on the plains of Anatolia. The foregoing pages have been devoted almost entirely to the Turks of Constantinople, to their mode of living, their ideals and ideas. But after all Constantinople is only one city of Turkey and Anatolia is the real backbone of the country.