On all other points, however, the Moors are
Sunites of the Sunites.
From the Moor to the negro is but a step, though it is a step of race,
perhaps of species. The political and religious connection of Morocco
with the Soudan is a very close one, and, whatever may be the future of
the Mediterranean provinces fronting the Spanish coast, it cannot be
doubted that the Moorish form of Mohammedanism will be perpetuated in
Central Africa. It is there, indeed, that Islam has the best certainty
of expansion and the fairest field for a propagation of its creed.
Statistics, if they could be obtained, would, I am convinced, show an
immense Mohammedan progress within the last hundred years among the
negro races, nor is this to be wondered at. Islam has so much to offer
to the children of Ham that it cannot fail to win them--so much more
than any form of Christianity or European progress can give.
The Christian missionary makes his way slowly in Africa. He has no true
brotherhood to offer the negro except in another life. He makes no
appeal to a present sense of dignity in the man he would convert. What
Christian missionary takes a negress to wife or sits with the negro
wholly as an equal at meat? Their relations remain at best those of
teacher with taught, master with servant, grown man with child.
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