On the other hand, as we all
know, the invention of printing had caused men to read and the invention
of the New World to travel. Moreover, in the fifteenth century the
Ottoman Turks, then an irresistible power, were invading Europe, and a
new element of contact with an outside world was created, and a new
fear. Christendom certainly at that time was in danger of political
annihilation, or fancied itself to be so, and the apprehensions of
devout persons in Central Europe were roused to a vivid consciousness of
impending evil by the thought that this was perhaps another authorized
scourge of God.
I will not strain the parallel further than it will bear, but I would
suggest that causes somewhat analogous to these are now at work among
the Mussulmans of the still independent states of Islam, and that they
are operating somewhat in the same direction. The Mussulman peasantry,
especially of the Ottoman Empire, are miserable, and they know that they
are so, and they look in vain to their religion to protect them, as in
former days, against their rulers. They find that all their world now is
corrupt--that the law is broken daily by those who should enforce the
law; that the illegalities of those who ruin them are constantly
condoned by a conniving body of the Ulema; that for all practical
purposes of justice and mercy religion has abdicated its claim to direct
and govern.
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