How Different Is The Intellectual Regime Of
Eastern Countries!
In Syria and Palestine and Egypt you might as
well dispute the efficacy of grass or grain as of magic.
There is
no controversy about the matter. The effect of this, the unanimous
belief of an ignorant people upon the mind of a stranger, is
extremely curious, and well worth noticing. A man coming freshly
from Europe is at first proof against the nonsense with which he is
assailed, but often it happens that after a little while the social
atmosphere in which he lives will begin to infect him, and if he
has been unaccustomed to the cunning of fence by which Reason
prepares the means of guarding herself against fallacy, he will
yield himself at last to the faith of those around him, and this he
will do by sympathy, it would seem, rather than from conviction. I
have been much interested in observing that the mere "practical
man," however skilful and shrewd in his own way, has not the kind
of power that will enable him to resist the gradual impression made
upon his mind by the common opinion of those whom he sees and hears
from day to day. Even amongst the English (whose good sense and
sound religious knowledge would be likely to guard them from error)
I have known the calculating merchant, the inquisitive traveller,
and the post-captain, with his bright, wakeful eye of command - I
have known all these surrender themselves to the REALLY magic-like
influence of other people's minds. Their language at first is that
they are "staggered," leading you by that expression to suppose
that they had been witnesses to some phenomenon, which it was very
difficult to account for otherwise than by supernatural causes; but
when I have questioned further, I have always found that these
"staggering" wonders were not even specious enough to be looked
upon as good "tricks." A man in England who gained his whole
livelihood as a conjurer would soon be starved to death if he could
perform no better miracles than those which are wrought with so
much effect in Syria and Egypt; SOMETIMES, no doubt, a magician
will make a good hit (Sir John once said a "good thing"), but all
such successes range, of course, under the head of mere "tentative
miracles," as distinguished by the strong-brained Paley.
CHAPTER IX - THE SANCTUARY
I crossed the plain of Esdraelon and entered amongst the hills of
beautiful Galilee. It was at sunset that my path brought me
sharply round into the gorge of a little valley, and close upon a
grey mass of dwellings that lay happily nestled in the lap of the
mountain. There was one only shining point still touched with the
light of the sun, who had set for all besides; a brave sign this to
"holy" Shereef and the rest of my Moslem men, for the one
glittering summit was the head of a minaret, and the rest of the
seeming village that had veiled itself so meekly under the shades
of evening was Christian Nazareth!
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