The Lives Of Saints With
Which He Was Familiar Were Full Of Heroic Actions Provoking
Imitation, And Since Faith In
A creed involves a faith in its
ultimate triumph, Dthemetri was bold from a sense of true strength.
His education
Too, though not very general in its character, had
been carried quite far enough to justify him in pluming himself
upon a very decided advantage over the great bulk of the Mahometan
population, including the men in authority. With all this
consciousness of religious and intellectual superiority Dthemetri
had lived for the most part in countries lying under Mussulman
governments, and had witnessed (perhaps too had suffered from)
their revolting cruelties: the result was that he abhorred and
despised the Mahometan faith and all who clung to it. And this
hate was not of the dry, dull, and inactive sort. Dthemetri was in
his sphere a true Crusader, and whenever there appeared a fair
opening in the defences of Islam, he was ready and eager to make
the assault. These sentiments, backed by a consciousness of
understanding the people with whom he had to do, made Dthemetri not
only firm and resolute in his constant interviews with men in
authority, but sometimes also (as you may know already) very
violent and even insulting. This tone, which I always disliked,
though I was fain to profit by it, invariably succeeded. It swept
away all resistance; there was nothing in the then depressed and
succumbing mind of the Mussulman that could oppose a zeal so warm
and fierce.
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