[20] The Strict Rule Of The Moslem Faith Is This:

If a man neglect to pray, he is solemnly warned to repent.

Should he simply refuse, without, however, disbelieving in prayer, he is to be put to death, and receive Moslem burial; in the other contingency, he is not bathed, prayed for, or interred in holy ground. This severe order, however, lies in general abeyance.

[21] "Tuarick grandiloquence," says Richardson (vol. i. p. 207.), "savours of blasphemy, e.g. the lands, rocks, and mountains of Ghat do not belong to God but to the Azghar." Equally irreverent are the Kafirs of the Cape. They have proved themselves good men in wit as well as war; yet, like the old Greenlanders and some of the Burmese tribes, they are apparently unable to believe in the existence of the Supreme. A favourite question to the missionaries was this, "Is your God white or black?" If the European, startled by the question, hesitated for a moment, they would leave him with open signs of disgust at having been made the victims of a hoax.

The assertion generally passes current that the idea of an Omnipotent Being is familiar to all people, even the most barbarous. My limited experience argues the contrary. Savages begin with fetisism and demon- worship, they proceed to physiolatry (the religion of the Vedas) and Sabaeism: the deity is the last and highest pinnacle of the spiritual temple, not placed there except by a comparatively civilised race of high development, which leads them to study and speculate upon cosmical and psychical themes.

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