His Joy Was Great.
So Strong And Strenuous Was England (Lord Palmerston Reigned In
Those Days), That It Was A Pride And Delight For A Syrian Christian
To Look Up And Say That The Englishman's Faith Was His Too.
If I
was vexed at all that I could not give the man a lift and shake
hands with him on level ground, there was no alloy to his pleasure.
He followed me on, not looking to his own path, but keeping his
eyes on me.
He saw, as he thought, and said (for he came with me
on to my quarters), the period of the Mahometan's absolute
ascendency, the beginning of the Christian's. He had so closely
associated the insulting privilege of the path with actual
dominion, that seeing it now in one instance abandoned, he looked
for the quick coming of European troops. His lips only whispered,
and that tremulously, but his fiery eyes spoke out their triumph in
long and loud hurrahs: "I, too, am a Christian. My foes are the
foes of the English. We are all one people, and Christ is our
King."
If I poorly deserved, yet I liked this claim of brotherhood. Not
all the warnings which I heard against their rascality could hinder
me from feeling kindly towards my fellow-Christians in the East.
English travellers, from a habit perhaps of depreciating sectarians
in their own country, are apt to look down upon the Oriental
Christians as being "dissenters" from the established religion of a
Mahometan empire.
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