The bishop would have liked to hear more of that conversation, but the dark hand of the Angel motioned him to another part of the world. “Listen to this,” said the Angel.
He pointed the bishop to where the armies of Britain and Turkey lay in the heat of Mesopotamia. Along the sandy bank of a wide, slow-flowing river rode two horsemen, an Englishman and a Turk. They were returning from the Turkish lines, whither the Englishman had been with a flag of truce. When Englishmen and Turks are thrown together they soon become friends, and in this case matters had been facilitated by the Englishman's command of the Turkish language. He was quite an exceptional Englishman. The Turk had just been remarking cheerfully that it wouldn't please the Germans if they were to discover how amiably he and his charge had got on. “It's a pity we ever ceased to be friends,” he said.
“You Englishmen aren't like our Christians,” he went on.
The Englishmen wanted to know why.
“You haven't priests in robes. You don't chant and worship crosses and pictures, and quarrel among yourselves.”
“We worship the same God as you do,” said the Englishman.
“Then why do we fight?”
“That's what we want to know.”
“Why do you call yourselves Christians? And take part against us? All who worship the One God are brothers.”
“They ought to be,” said the Englishman, and thought. He was struck by what seemed to him an amazingly novel idea.