In order that misunderstandings may be cleared up, it should be stated here that missionaries to the Armenians and Greeks were not sent to divide the churches or to separate out those who should accept education and read the Bible in the vernacular. Their one supreme endeavor was to help the Armenians and Greeks work out a quiet but genuine reform in their respective churches. The missionaries made no attacks upon the churches, their customs, or beliefs, but strove by positive, quiet effort to show the leaders how much they lacked and to help them bring about the necessary changes.
For twenty-six years this quiet work went on with no separation, in accordance with the desire of the missionaries, as well as in harmony with the purposes of the Board. When the separation did come, it was in spite of every effort of the missionaries to prevent it. For the successful accomplishment of such a purpose only the centers of ecclesiastical power and influence were available. Only their own leaders could be expected to inaugurate and carry into execution a reform movement which would permeate the Church throughout the empire.
XI. CHRISTIANITY AND ISLAM
The mind of the true Eastern is at once lethargic and suspicious; he does not want to be reformed, and he is convinced that, if the European wishes to reform him, the desire springs from sentiments which bode him no good. Moreover, his conservatism is due to an instinct of self-preservation, and to a dim perception that, if he allows himself to be even slightly reformed, all the things to which he attaches importance will be not merely changed in this or that particular, but will rather be swept off the face of the earth. Perhaps he is not far wrong. Although there are many highly educated gentlemen who profess the Moslem religion, it has yet to be proved that Islam can assimilate civilization without succumbing in the process. It is, indeed, not improbable that, in its passage through the European crucible, many of the distinctive features of Islam, the good alike with the bad, will be volatilized, and that it will eventually issue forth in a form scarcely capable of recognition. “The Egyptians,” Moses said, “whom ye have seen to-day, ye shall see them again no more for ever.” The prophecy may be approaching fulfilment in a sense different from that in which it was addressed to the Israelites.
Look, moreover, not only to the spirit of the lawgivers, but to the general principles on which the laws are based. The tendency in all civilized European States is to separate religious from civil laws. In Moslem States, on the other hand, religious and civil laws are inextricably interwoven.
Look to the consequences which result from the degradation of women in Mohammedan countries. In respect to two points, both of which are of vital importance, there is a radical difference between the position of Moslem women and that of their European sisters. In the first place, the face of the Moslem woman is veiled when she appears in public. She lives a life of seclusion. The face of the European woman is exposed to view in public. The only restraints placed on her movements are those dictated by her own sense of propriety. In the second place, the East is polygamous, the West is monogamous.
It cannot be doubted that the seclusion of women exercises a baneful effect on Eastern society. The arguments on this subject are, indeed, so commonplace that it is unnecessary to dwell on them. It will be sufficient to say that seclusion, by confining the sphere of woman’s interest to a very limited horizon, cramps the intellect and withers the mental development of one half of the population in Moslem countries. An Englishwoman asked an Egyptian lady how she passed her time. “I sit on this sofa,” she answered, “and when I am tired, I cross over and sit on that.” Moreover, inasmuch as women, in their capacities as wives and mothers, exercise a great influence over the characters of their husbands and sons, it is obvious that the seclusion of women must produce a deteriorating effect on the male population, in whose presumed interests the custom was originally established, and is still maintained.