[10] Most of these descriptive scientific journeys are more for geographers and antiquaries.
[11] Now sixty-four years in 1893.
[12] Now, in 1893, the Sassoons, the Oppenheims, and Bischofheims.
[13] Although a staunch Catholic, I was an ardent disciple of Mr. Disraeli—I do not mean Mr. Disraeli as Prime Minister of England, but the author of "Tancred." I read the book as a young girl in my father's house, and it inspired me with all the ideas, and the yearning for a wild Oriental life, which I have since been able to carry out. I passed two years of my early life, when emerging from the school-room, in my father's garden, and the beautiful woods around us, alone with "Tancred." My family were pained and anxious about me—thought me odd; wished I would play the piano, do worsted work, write notes, read the circulating library—in short, what is generally called improving one's mind; and I was pained because I could not. My uncle used to pat my head, and "hope for better things." I did not know it then, I do now: I was working out the problem of my future life, my after mission. It lived in my saddle-pocket throughout my Eastern life. I almost know it by heart, so that when I came to Bethany, to the Lebanon, and to Mukhtár—when I found myself in a Bedawi camp, or amongst the Maronite and Druze strongholds, or in the society of Fakredeens—nothing surprised me. I felt as if I had lived that life for years. I felt that I went to the tomb of my Redeemer in the proper spirit, and I found what I sought. The presence of God was actually felt, though invisible. The author possesses by descent a knowledge that we Northerners lack (a high privilege reserved to his Semitic blood).—I. B.
[CHAPTER XXI.]
RELIGION.
"Men don't believe in a devil now, as their fathers used to do;
They've forced the door of the broadest creed to let his Majesty through.
There isn't a print of his cloven foot, or a fiery dart from his bow,
To be found in earth or air to-day, for the world has voted it so.
"But who is mixing the fatal draught that palsies heart and brain,
And loads the bier of each passing year with ten hundred thousand slain?
Who blights the bloom of the land to-day with the fiery breath of hell?
If the devil isn't, and never was, won't somebody rise and tell?
"Who dogs the steps of the toiling saint, and digs the pits for his feet?
Who sows the tares on the fields of time, wherever God sows His wheat?
The devil is voted not to be, and of course the thing is true;
But who is doing the kind of work that the devil alone should do?
"We are told that he does not go about as a roaring lion now;
But whom shall we hold responsible for the everlasting row
To be heard in home, in Church and State, to the earth's remotest bound,
If the devil, by a unanimous vote, is nowhere to be found?
"Won't somebody step to the front forthwith, and make his bow and show
How the frauds and crimes of a single day spring up? We want to know.
The devil was fairly voted out, and of course the devil's gone;
But simple people would like to know who carries his business on."
——Alfred J. Hough, in the Jamestown (N.Y.) Journal.
It must not be supposed that Richard was the least insincere, because he tried religions all round. He wanted to get at the highest, the nearest to God, the nearest to other worlds, and in that respect he was like Cardinal Newman. He always spoke the truth, and if he changed every other day, he would have said so. Every time he was disappointed with a religion he fell back on mysticism. It was the soul wandering through space, like the dove out of the ark, and seeking a place whereupon to rest. In each religion he found something good, and much that disappointed him; then he took the good out of that religion, and went away. He was sincere with the Mohammedans, and found more in that religion than in most. He hoped much from spiritualism, and studied it well; but he could make nothing of it as a religion. It never seemed to bring him any nearer; but he believed in it as in the light of a future frontier of science. His Agnosticism, which in his case is a misapplied word, was of a much higher cast; it was the mysticism of the East. It was the tired soul or brain that said, "Oh, my God, I have studied all things, and I am still no nearer the point of closer connection with Thee, whom my soul longs for and aims at. I know nothing; I can touch nothing. Faith is a gift from Thee; give it to me!" He became impressed with one fact here in Syria, as he had done at Baroda in his youth, and that is that Catholicism is the highest order of Spiritualism, having no connection with jugglery, or table-turning, or spirit-rapping; that we cannot call it up at our pleasure, nor pay for it; but that, when something does happen, it is absolutely real, only we are not allowed to speak of it, except amongst ourselves, and then with bated breath. Richard, however, had opportunity enough of seeing all this for himself in Syria, in Damascus, where some very extraordinary things were going on, that were, without a doubt, genuine.