We look back now across nearly twelve centuries to that scene in North Africa: the old, worn-out man preaching, striving, agonizing, praying, loving to the last, stoned by the hands of the Moslems he loved, leaving behind him a few scattered converts here and there, a number of learned treatises since gone out of date, a Church still heedless of his call, and not one friend to follow him.
Then we turn our eyes to the countries on the other side of the Mediterranean, and think again of the First Crusade, where half a million men poured out their lives to recover Jerusalem, only to have it wrested from their hands again; or to the Crusade of splendour led by Richard of the Lion Heart to ignominious failure. We think of the new 'machine' the Church was then inventing for the heretic and Turk—the Inquisition. Who, then, had found the better way? Which was the right path? Which had found the true solution of the problem of Islam? Which had found the true answer to Islam's challenge—dauntless Crusader, arrogant Pope, or this man with the fire and the devotion of a Crusader, but with a brother's love for the Moslem?
We listen to him again to-day. His message has not gone out of date, and never will. He has left us the motto of his life:
'HE WHO LOVES NOT, LIVES NOT, AND HE WHO LIVES BY THE LIFE CAN NEVER DIE.'
He might have lived in this twentieth century when he wrote the following prayer with which he closes one of his books:
'Lord of heaven, Father of all times, when Thou didst send Thy Son to take upon Him human nature, He and His Apostles lived in outward peace with Jews, Pharisees, and other men.... And so, after Thy example, should Christians conduct themselves to Moslems; but since that ardour of devotion which glowed in Apostles and holy men of old no longer inspires us, love and devotion through almost all the world have grown cold, and, therefore, do Christians expend their efforts far more in the outward than in the spiritual conflict.'
QUESTIONS FOR CHAPTER IX
1. Contrast the teaching of Christ and Mohammed, as worked out in the parable.
2. By what methods did Mohammed's followers spread their religion?