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Ancient Hebrew Poetry.LECTURE BY -THE SHEIKH.

At the Liverpool Muslim Institute,Brougham Terrace, on Sunday night, May24th, H . E . Sheikh Abdullah Quilliam BeyEffendi (B.A., 'F.G.S ., LL.D.), Sheikh-ul-Islam of the British Isles, gave a lecture toan interested audience on " Ancient HebrewPoetry."

,Billal Quilliam Effendi, S.S.C ., who pre-

sided, conducted brief but impressive pre-liminary religious service . The Sheikhsaid :-Some few weeks ago I spoke on " Arabian

Poetry," and, as far as was posible in thecourse of the lecture, gave some examples ofArabian Poetry, and also of some modernauthors in poetical style, and described themode in which ancient Arabian poetry hadrisen to its present highly cultivated con-dition, from the first beginnings of 'whichwe have any record, so far as Arabian poetryis concerned . On that occasion I venturedto touch somewhat lightly on the analogythat exists between same of the expressionsused in Arabic Poetry with those in Hebrewpoetry, and I pointed out that the wordwhich is translated from the Hebrew into theEnglish word " Seer," bears a very close re-semblance to the Arabic word for the samething - I mean in appearance as well asbeing identical in the meaning-and that" Seer " in Hebrew and Arabic alike, meansnot only one who foresees the future, as itmeans in English, but also has the signifi-cance of diviner, soothsayer, and poet .

I did not then attempt, and it was not con-venient at that time, to say much more aboutHebrew Poetry, but to-night I propose toaddre ;s

myself

more

particularly to" Ancient Hebrew Poetry," and

to

pointout wherein it differs from Arabian, andwherein there is any resemblance betweenthe two, not in the verse, as we understandthe term "verse," but in the method ofcomposition and of utterance .Now the samples of Ancient Hebrew

poetry that survive the lapse of time havecome down to us from very remote periods,and in that respect they differ from the re-mains of ancient Arabian poetry, becauseArabian poetry arose at any rate, not morethan 100 to 125 years before the advent ofour holy Prophet . What I mean, thereby,is that no exact, no authentic records existof Arabian. poetry of an older ate, although

1WE CRESCENT. 139

such poetry undoubtedly did exist, ofwhich we have examples in " Saj," whichis a kind of rhymed prose, . and from itcame the style of poetry which is called"Raja ;" but the remains of those ancientforms of poetry, and of other forms derivedfirm them,

which have ' been so . ablyclassified by .the Arabian grammariansand writers, from about 100 to 200 yearsafter the Hegira, or the flight of .theProphet from Mecca, are few, and it wasnot till a century, or a century and aquarter before the coming of the Prophet,in the "days of ignorance," as they ,,arecalled, that Arabian poetry was reduced towriting . Before that time . when the Arabs ;as yet, could not write ; their poetry waspreserved

by word

of

mouth,

and . re-membered by frequent repetition, and inthis manner were probably committed towriting, at a subsequent date, the poems ofthose Arabian authors who had becomefamous a century or a century and a half,before the advent of the Prophet, or in thefirst century after the Hegira, or flight ofthe Prophet .

In these respects, then--in age, and inthe absence of authentic records - Arabicpoetry differs from Hebrew, because un-doubtedly the Jews kept a chronicle of thehistory of their, nation, and' without goingso far as to say that the five books ofMoses, called the " Torah," were actuallywritten by Moses, in their present form,and without going so far as to say that cer-tain other books of the Old Testament wereequally written by the )persons ;to whomthey are ascribed, we must at least admitthat ancient records of their poetrry didexist among the Jews, and that, at anyrate, at the period of the rebuilding of theTemple of Jerusalem, contemporary withEzra, the Jews were able to write, andto keep chronicle of national events . Most'of the books ascribed to Moses andother writers may have been fabricated byEzra and his band of scribes, at the rebuild-ing of the Temple ; but, if so, I venture tosay that they merely reduced to writingthat which already was tradition, and drewon the recollection of the people for the com-position of the books of the Old Testament.We find proofs of that theory in themanner in which the political effusionshave been segregated from the accompany-ing prose, and we find these a primitivestyle of expression, in Hebrew poetry ; ofwhich we have no analogy, so far asArabian poetry is concerned .

THE CRESCENT.

I mentioned, just now, that the primitivestyle of Arabian poetry was " Saj," that isto say, rhymed prose, or lines which ter-minated with a word rhyming with the wordthat terminated the next sentence. Thatdoes not seem

to have been the - primitivestyle of Hebrew poetry, although we didfind some specimens of " Saj" in the OldTestament,

notably

the

" Song

ofLamech," which I quoted in a lecture givenin the early part of April

A much moreappropriate name for it, I think, would bethe "Lamentation of Lamech." Herder,a great authority on Hebrew poetry, wholived about 160 years ago, calls it the"Book of the Sword'." That seems to meto be a rather far-fetched title, and a moreappropriate term would be the " Lamenta-tion of Lamech," for it is a lamentation, asyou will see from the language used by theauthor :-

" And, Lamech said

unto his

wives,Adah and Zillah, hear say voice ; yewives of Lamech hearken unto myspeech ; for I have slain a man to mywounding and' a young man to my heart .

If Cain shall be avenged seven-fold,truly Lamech seventy and seven-fold ."That is much more like a, lamentation than

a song, and it occurs, to me, or I think itwould occur to anyone who has studied thesubject, that the portion I have read is onlyan extract from .a much longer poem ; thatsome Hebrew poet put into choice languagethe words used by Lamech to his wives,when deploring the fact of having, most pro-bably -by accident, killed a man, or com-mitted manslaughter by misfortune . Wehave, in the :above extract, I repeat, only aportion of .a much longer poem, all that isnow preserved' of it ; and yet slight as it is,if you sear ched the whole of the Old Testa-ment through you could not find a moresymbolical piece of poetry, more typical ofthe ancient Hebrew style, than the lines thatI have just quoted . And for this reason,that the lines contain the very elementswhich constitute Hebrew poetry, and yetthey are elements which are not generallyfound together .

The style, in the first,place,is very similar to "Saj ," but combined withit is a species of rhythm running throughthe lines, not often met with in Hebrewpoetry,

for most Hebrew poetry has neitherrhyme nor rhythm-a matter with which wewill deal later on.The " Lamentation of Lamech" contains

a third characteristic of Hebrew poetry, whatis called Parallelism .

Now I want you to

notice that quality of Parallelism, becauseyou find' it in scarcely any class of poetry,except ancient Hebrew . It is a species ofrepetition, in the second line, of what hasoccurred in the first ; a kind " of enforcingon the attention of the reader, in the secondline, of something which the poet had al- .ready expressed in the first .

Here you havesuch a repetition very distinctly in the

Lamentation of Lamech.""Adah and Zillah, hear my voice ;Ye wives of Lamech, heaken into my

speech."You see the poet makes Lamech repeat

himself putting the same idea, " Hear myvoice," into slightly different language" For I have slain a man to my wounding,And a young man to my hurt."There, again, the second line is only an

enunciation of what is clearly contained inthe first line, in slightly different words .Again

" If Cain shall be avenged seven-fold,Truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold ."

You will find a Parallelism in the Book ofLamentations, in the Psalms, in the Song ofSolomon, and so on, and I could' give you anumber of illustrations in proof, of which Iwill content myself with one-Psalm 121 :-

" I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills,from whence cometh my help .My help cometh from the Lord, which

made heaven

and earth . .He will not suffer thy foot to be moved

'he that keepeth thee will not slumber .Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall

neither slumber nor sleep .The Lord is thy keeper ; the Lord is thy

shade upon thy right hand .The sun shall not smite thee by day,

nor the moon by night .The Lord shall preserve thee from all

evil ; he shall preserve thy soul .The Lord shall preserve thy going out

and thy coming in, from this time forth .and even for ever-more."Parallelism runs trough the whole of that

short Psalm . We have another example inthe " Song of Deborah," in the Book ofjudges, showing the ancient form in whichthe Hebrew poets expressed themselves notin religion, not in rhyme, not in rhythm,

but in a species of verse or utterance, whichwas truly characteristic of Hebrew poets,

and belonged to them, with a peculiarity thatis shared to the same extent, by the poets ofno other nation . The " Song of Deborah "runs as follows :-

"Lord,whenthouwentestoutofSeir,when thou marchedst out of the field ofMom, the earth trembled, and theheavens dropped, the clouds also droppedwater.The mountains .melted from before the

Lord, even that Sinai, from before theLord God of Israel .The inhabitants of the villages ceased,

they ceased in Israel, until that I, De-borah, arose, that I arose a mother inIsrael .They fought from heaven ; .the stars in,

their courses fought against Sisera .The river of Kishon swept them away,

that ancient river, the river Kishon .Then were the horse-hoofs broken by the

means of prancings, the prancings ofthe mighty ones."The above lines show how frequently

Hebrew poets, in the second line, merelyrepeated what they :had . already said in thefirst, for the sake of emphasis .Some people may say :-" Oh 1 but that

is not poetry." It all depends on what youcall " Poetry." Different nations, dif-ferent customs in poetry, as in other things .What is one man's meat, may be anotherman's poison .

The inhabitants of one partof the earth, eat birds' nests, and considerthem a delicacy ;

we

eat the

birds,

butwould not touch the nests . We like eggs,but we like them fresh ; some other peoplewill eat only eggs that are stinking.

Andso it is the same with national ideas ofwhat constitutes poetry .

What in Eng.land to-day is considered poetry, was notso considered even in England in the time ofChaucer.

And if the standard of poetry canvary in one country, from generation to gen-eration, ds it not likely to vary much moreas between different countries ? The formmatters very little ;

what

constitutes

realpoetry is the fervour of its feeling, evenwhat is prose in foam, may be poetry infervour, and tested by that standard the"Song of Deborah" is very exalted poetryindeed . In England, poetry may rhyme, orit may be in blank verse and sometimes theblank verse is far finer poetry than therhymed, or that which has only a pleasantjingle of verse to recommend it .

And,like us, the ancient Hebrews had

their ownideas of poetry . Their poetry might haveneither rhyme nor rhythm, it might bedestitute of "feet," or metre ;

but

it

waspoetry, and had the character of true,poetry, all the same . In many instancesthese old Hebrew poets introduced manners

and customs which were strange

to their ,own fellow-countrymen .

Thus, in some ofthe Psalms, the first line of a verse beginswith the Hebrew letter " Aleph 11--"-that is tosay, " A " ;

the second line would

beginwith " Beth," or " B" ; the third line with"Gimel," or "D " ; the fourth with "Daleth,"or " D," and so on to the end of the Psalmand of the Alphabet, every first line begin-ning with a letter of the Alphabet in regularsequence to the end . The same thing occursin the Book of Lamentations and in ' thePsalms, and in other portions of the OldTestament .

I could give numerous in-stances, but it is unnecessary to do so ; thefact is incontrovertible . Again, a line maybegin with " M " and end with " Ma " ; thenext line would begin with " Ma" and endwith " Mb " ; the third line would begin with" Mb " and end with " Mg," and so on, con-secutively with each letter of the Alphabet tothe end . Another peculiar characteristic ofJewish poetry is the kind of chorus whichruns through it .

A verse would be sung,and then three or four others, after which `the singer would return to the first verseand bring it in again as an antistrophe, andmany of the Psalms seem to have been sungantiphonally, that is to say, by two oppositechoirs, one of which, as it were, answeredthe other . In my opinion, an ignorance ofthat fact is the reason we do not appreciatethe Jewish Psalms as we would do if we sangthem as they were originally sung, by wayof responses between two choirs .

If youwere to read the Psalms in that way, or singthem, you would find that they have quite adifferent sound, and a much more significantmeaning than they have when read straightthrough, as is our English custom .

With one exception, the Hebrews seem tohave had no idea of epic poetry, and thatone exception is remarkable. And yet thereexists ample material in Jewish history for agrand epic poem . Just imagine what Homer,Virgil or Firdhausi, the great Greek,, Latinand Persian poets would have made of thesame material . Any one of the three wouldhave produced an epic poem from Hebrewhistory such as the world has never seen ; butthe opportunity was missed by the Hebrewpoets, or it did not occur to them, except inthe Book of Job, and it is significant that theonly epic .poem in the whole of the Bible, theBook of Job, is believed to have been com-posed not by a Hebrew writer, but by anArab,, and to have been afterwards translatedinto Hebrew .

It is an epic poem because ofthe grandeur of the themes on which it

342

dwells, God's ways with men, as illustratedin the dialogues between job and Bildad theS'huhite and Eliphaz the Temanite, windingup with, the restoration of Job from hispoverty to . more than his former prosperity .I may be asked, " What about the Song ofSolomon?, Is not that an epic poem?" I amnot going to discuss the " Song of Solomon "at present. It would be a theme for a wholelecture, and even that would not exhaust it .Attempts have been made to convert the" Song,of Solomon " into a magnificent epicby representing it to be symbolical ofChrist's relation to His Church on earth ; butthat is only possible by incorporating theheadings of the different chapters, as if theywere parts of the Hebrew original, whereasthey are interpolations by commentators, whodo not so much as explain what Solomonsaid,, as wlhat the commentators would haveliked him to have said, in, order .to supporttheir theory that it is the "Love of Christ forHis Church " which' is the theme of Solomon,whereas the whole Song is, in all probability,the love-sick utterance of some king or chiefto the particular lady of his palace or harem,with whom he happened, for the time being,to be enamoured .and between whom therepassed that discourse which, is as music tofond lovers, but to outsiders sounds morelike clotted nonsense . Let me remind youthat the headings to chapters in the Bible areno part of the Bible itself, any more than thepreface ; and that neither chapters nor versesexist in the original, and that their classifica-tion for the sake of convenience and distinc-tion has, an some instances, led to confusionby destroying the context .

Some parts of the" Song

of

Solomon,"

magnificent,

Iadmit ; but I deny the symbolical meaningwhich 'has been attached to them by Christian commentators ; they describenot

thelove of Christ and His Church but of a coupleof very earthly loves indeed, and some of thepassages are mere, erotic rubbish,If you want real sublimity in Hebrew

poetry, go to the Book of Isaiah . There, in-deed, you will find grandeur of thought andutterance . What could we find better than" Oh, everyone that thirsteth, come ye to thewaters, and drink"? If you prefer short,epigrammatic sentences to flowing periods,

you have them in the Book of Proverbs,which contains little crisp sentences thatcarry conviction to the mind, and enfOTCegreat truths in words that easily remem-bered ; but it should be saod that many of theproverbs there brought together are notoriginal and are not peculiar to the Hebrew

race . You will find similar proverbs amongthe record's of other nations; among the Hin-doos and the Chinese, and among the

ancient Persians - the same incidents andideas and thoughts, in almost the identicalwords .

I have said something about the Hebrewcustom of beginning each line of poetry witha separate letter of the alphabet successivelyto the end .' It has been debated whether thatwas done as an aid to memory, at a timewhen printing did not exist and writing waspractically unknown . I venture to say theidea was for no such objeot . It may havebeen an aid to memory, but the object wasmuch more to show the cleverness of thewriters than to help their readers . It was acommon practice among the Turks and thePersians to exhibit their cleverness in thesame way . In some Turkish poems you will

find that the writer has introduced his namein the course of the poem, not literally, butfiguratively .

Suppose the poet has named" Jameel-ud-deen," that is, " obedient to theFaith," in the centre of the poem perhaps,he

would

work in the

word " Jameel-ud-deen " not as a proper name, but as a phrasepertinent to the development of the poem .Or suppose

the

poet's name was " Abdul-Aziz," that is, " Servant

of the 'Word," hewould work it into the poem in a way thatwould be consistent with the sense, and thatmight easily cause hisname tote passedoveras not the name of the author at all .

All thesame, . his name would be there, and, it wouldserve, if need be, to identify

him

as

theauthor of the poem . The practice is almostunknown, in English, although attempts havebeen made to read Bacon's name into some ofShakespeare's plays as the author of thoseplays . But it is quite a common thing inTurkish poems, and Turkish poets also workin their names in another way, each line be-ginning with a letter of the poet's name,exactly in the same way as the English ana-gram, or acrostic .

To be able to do such athing was looked upon as a clever feat inpoetry, and it is so still regarded in Englandfor a certain class of poetry, and the ancient

Hebrew poets were also adepts at it .And now I want to call your attention to

one particularly striking instance of a pecu-liarity of Hebrew poetry to which I have al-ready referred - the prevalence of " Saj," asin Arabic -poetry . It occurs, chapter xxxii .,and reports a conversation which must havebeen only a fragment of a much more exten-sive discussion, and in a less poetic vein thanis here recorded.Moses and Joshua are

THE 'CRESCENT

coming dawn from Sinai, where Moses hasreceived the Ten Commandments from God.Moses had left Joshua half way up and re-joined him on their return to the Israelites'camp.

It was on descending that they heardthe sound of merry-making. And Joshuasay to Moses : "There is a noise of war inthe camp."

Moses replied : " It is not thevoice of men that shout for mastery, neitheris it the voice of men that cry for beingovercome, but the noise of them that sing doI hear."

Now one of two things .

Either theancient Hebrews were so full of poetic ideas,and lead such a command of poetical lan-guage, that they always spoke in the grandstyle depicted between Moses and Joshua ;or the poet has cast the ordinary conversationof Moses and Joshua on the occasion . intopoetic form :" There is a noise of war in thecamp," says Joshua ; to which Moses replies," The noise of them that sing do I 'hear,"and, in his anger at the people's ill-timedmirth, he flung away the tablets of the lawthat God had just previously given him, andthey were dashed to pieces .

Undoubtedlywe have here a highly poetical description ofa conversation between Moses and Joshuaand only a fragment of what must have beensaid on the occasion .

That, I venture to sug-gest to you, is the true explanation of thepassage, and it is a far more probable explan-aition than the ordinary one, which wouldhave us believe that the Israelites habituallyspoke in the high-flown diction here quoted .That we have only a fragment of the conver-sation, as well as a poetic version of the plainprose of what was said, is evident from thebrevity of the passage quoted .

A good dealmore must have been said .

Moses had beenwith the Lord face to face on Mount Sinai;and) he returned, transfigured by the glory ofJehovah, to his companion Joshua . Just thensounds of merriment came from the camp ofthe Israelites . They had forgotten the Godwho brought them out of Egypt, through theRed

Sea and the

Wilderness, and 'had fedthem with manna, and they 'had made them agolden.calf to worship. And Moses, dreadingGod's anger, hastened to propitiate Him.

Hereturned to Jehovah, saying, "Oh, Lord, thispeople have sinned a great sin, and havemade them gods of gold . Yet now, if thouwilt not forgive their sin, blot me, I praythee, out of thy book which thou

hast writ-ten."That, no dbubt, is a highly poeticisedversion of the language which Moses woulduse on the occasion to deprecate God's angeragainst the apostates, and it would seem toindicate that the parallelism between the pas-

sages, separated though they are by severalintervening verses, points to the fact that

they once formed part of a whole, continuouspassage which has become dislocated, and

that to get at the full account of the episodewe must put them together again. Numerousother instances occur in the Bible of the samekind of parallelism but I need not labour thepoint.

I come now to another matter on which Iwould like to speak a few words;I refer tothat peculiarity of ancient Hebrew poetryknown as Amplification. By that, of course,is meant an enlargement of any idea . Takean apple as an illustration. You would say

" See, how round is the apple 1How red are the cheeks of the apple 1How pleasant it is to the taste 1How it matures from a tiny bud until itbecomes a small globe 1

How pleasant it is to the taste lHow pleasant and useful to mankind 1"

And' so on .

That is Amplification, in a roughand ready fashion, which is polished by thepoets into a more elaborate metre .

We havean example of suoh amplification in Job'simprecation on his birthday

" Let the day perish wherein I was born,and the night in which it was said, ` Thereis a man-child conceived.'Let that day be darkness : let not God re-gard it from above, neither let the light

shine upon it .Let darkness and the shadow of death stain

it : let a cloud dwell upon it ; let theblackness of the day terrify it."

There, again, you have amplification ; thesame idea running through several verses,dwelt upon and repeated again and again, indifferent words, it may be, but with one ideapervading them all. Amplification of thatkind is a peculiarity of the Hebrews .While Greek, Latin and English verse' has

metre, Hebrew poetry is destitute of it . Whendiscussing Arabian Poetry, as I pointed outin aprevious lecture, great stress was laid onthe necessity of compliance with the rule ofthe metre by the ancient Greeks and Romans .Each line was to have so many syllables, or"feet," and no more, and these rules mustbe observed or the poem was condemned asvery unpolished and barbarous . We have thesame strict adherence to metre in certainforms of English poetry, more especially thehymnology of the Church and the Noncon-formists. In any English hymn-book you willmeet with the letters " C.M:" meaning" Common Metre " ;" L. M." meaning "LongMetre," and " S.M ." " Short Metre," and

344

sometimes the letters are accompanied byfigures ; for instance, 6--8-7's or 6-10-11's,and so on.

The meaning is, that there are somany syllables in each line .

Let us follow' itout :-

Come ye that love the Lord(six syllables)

And let your joys be known ;(six syllables)

join in the song with sweet accord(eight syllables)

With an-gels round the Throne."(six syllables)

The hymn is therefore composed of 6-6-8-6feet, and that is the common metre of thehymn, all through, of which I have quotedonly one, verse.

Again :-" God moves in a mys-te-rious way

His won-ders to per-fOTM ;He plants His foot-steps in the sea,

And rides upon the storm."

Here we have a common metre throughout of8-6-8-6 feet, metre, rhythm, or whatever youlike to call the swing of the verse. Now thereis nothing of that kind in ancient Hebrewpoetry, or very little ; perhaps I should sayit is remarkable for being absent .

And yetthat is strange, for both . Josephus and Philoclaim that tetrametres and hexametres werewell known in Hebrew poetry, ,that is, verseof four and six feet or syllables . If that beso, none of it has coarse down to us .

How isthat? Have all the specimens of metricalHebrew poetry been lost ?

Or were Josephusand Philo saying something which was notexactly true when they claimed that the Jewshad metrical as well as other kinds of poetry ?It is a characteristic of the Jews, and hasbeen from their very beginning as a nation,to glorify their race above all other on earth .They are the " favoured nation," the "chosenpeople of God," a " peculiar people," setapart by God from the Gentiles to be an im-memorial witness, by their history, to Hisexistence . Both Josephus and Pbilo had re-ceived

a

classical

training ;

they

werelearned in all the works of the Greeks andRomans, and they knew the classical laws ofmetre, and it is, perhaps, not going too farto say that .in literary remains intended toglorify their fellow-countrymen they shouldmake the Jews out to be at least as polisheda people as the Romans who had conqueredthem, and perhaps still more cultured thanthe Romans, by way of compensation for

THE CRESCENT:

their inferiarity in arms.As I have said, theJews are a boastful race, and when theyboasted of their exploits they were not al-ways careful of the truth . They had to economise it in order to boast .

And their boast-ings were neither truthful nor in good taste .See how they glorified Jacob over Esau, al-though Jacob robbed his elder brother of hisbirthright, and was one of the meanest andmost contemptible brothers that ever lived .Or take the case of Ismail

(Ishmael)

andIsaac (Isaac). They try to make out thatAbraham bestowed his favour on Isaac be-cause

he was

a Jew, and' not

an Ishmael,because he was an Arab ; and many otherthings are

ascribed

by the Jews to Isaacwhich are really to the credit of Ishmael, thesacred records being altered, and things in-terpolated so as to give colour -to theirclaim that it was Isaac, and not Ishmael)who was Abraham'.s favourite son, andtherefore we hear of the Covenant with Godon Mount Moriah . Again, in the case of theAmorites and the Moabites, we are asked tobelieve that they were the children of Lot byincestuous intercourse with his daughters,simply to throw discredit on them in orderto disclaim all relationship with these twotribes . And I suppose that Joseph-us andPhilo followed the same course of naturalself-glorification.,

and made the Jews to bepast-masters in the art of poetical metre,equal

to the Greeks and Romans, whereasthat the Jews knew nothing , of

metricalpoetry is pretty sufficiently proved by itsabsence from all the books of Hebrew poetryextant .. and by the failure of a single speci-men of their alleged skill in this departmentof poetry to survive the lapse of time downto the present day. It is, therefore, a fairlysafe conclusion to draw that Hebrew metri-oal poetry never had any existence outsidethe imagination of Philo and Josephu

Let me say that in, discussing the questionof Hebrew poetry I have Chad no desire toPour contempt on their poetry ; far from it .At the same time I have tried to show youthat those who have written on the subjectof Hebrew poetry have not always said thatwhich was correct . For instance, Barnesquotes Herder,and I think Loth, in his essayon Hebrew poetry, quotes to the same, effectthat the Hebrews were such a peculiarly re-li,gious people, beyond all others, that no-thing secular, or vain was allowed to intrudeitself into their poetry. They were the" chosen people,"Egyptian theology wasa long way ahead of Hebrew. It was the(Continued on page 346

The Editor of THE CRESCENT is always happy toreceive literary contributions, sketches, articles onIslamic matters, and news paragraphs . They shouldbe addressed to the Editor, The Crescent, as early aspossible in each week .

All Letters intended for the Editor should beaddressed-

His ExcellencySheikh ABDULLAH QUILLIAM BEY EFFENDI

Pazil-et-lu Effendi Hazratlaree,Editor of " The Crescent,"

6, MANCHESTER STREET, LIVERPOOL.

EDITORIAL NOTES .JummaPrayers were celebrated at the Mosque,

West Derby Road, on Friday last, by BrotherBillal Quilliam Effendi. There was a largeattendance of the faithful .

At the Liverpool Mosque on Sunday night,May 24, after the conclusion of his lecture,the Sheikh exhibited some interesting geo-logical specimens which he had obtained forthe Muslim Museum . These were handedround and commented on . The whole mu-seum is about to receive .a thorough overhaul,including a rearrangement of the specimens,and it is hoped at an early date to have alecture or informal address on the subject .

On Sunday evening last, the 26th day ofRabia-al-awal, 1326 (corresponding with the26th day of May, 1908), a very interestinglecture was delivered by Mr. S. H. Prit-chard at the Liverpool Mosque, has subjectbeing " Evolution in the light of ModernGeology ." The chair was taken by H. E.Shekih Abdullah Quilliam Bey, Sheikh-ul-Islam of the British Isles, and there was alarge attendance.

THECRESST.

Our

readers

will be

sorry

to .hear

thatthere is a probability of our gifted trother,Yehya-en-Nasar Parkinson, leaving the country,we feel sure for the country's lose. BrotherParkinson is asweet singerof Islam, a gifted poet,whohas frequently contributed.tothe "Crescent"andsome of whosepoemshave beenpublishedbyMessrs. Keegan Paul, Trench & Co ., . under thetitle, of "Lays of Love and War.", Born atKilwinning, in Scotland, in 1874, BrotherParkinson, has had a varied career, which willbe still further diversified, should he adhere tohisdetermination to accept an invitation fromAbdul Karim Jamal, of Rangoon, to proceed toBurmah . Brother Parkinson has frequentlylectured at the Liverpool Mosque, with great acceptance.

He proposes sailing from Liverpool,which will afford the local Islamiccommunityan opportunity of giving him a hearty send-off,and at the same time bidding him a sad farewell .But though lost to the Mosque, he can never belost io Islam at large, and greater experience ofthe joys and sorrows of life-and we wish theymight be all joys that await him at Rangoon--will only serve to vivify and beautify his un-doubted gift of song.

Europe's Powder Magazine .

At present we can afford to stand more orless aside from the clash of direct antago-nisms which has so unpleasantly revealed it-self in the Balkans. It is obvious that therecan be no question of immediate war. It ispossible that the construction of rival rail-ways .may do more than anything else forthe development of Balkan prosperity andthe improvement of conditions in Macedonia.But, however long the: new factors may bein coming to their full strength, the crisesof the future are preparing.-" Telegraph."

Bat Interrupts Church Service.A strange occurrence is reported as having

happened during a Sunday morning servicein a Leicestershire church. A large bat sud-denly flew out from among the timbers ofthe roof and flitted about among the membersof the congregation, greatly to the alarm ofsome of its more timid members.

One lady,having her umbrella with 'her, at once openedit, and sat and knelt under it as the serviceproceeded.

The clergyman, seeing that theattention of the congregation was beingdiverted, in a very undesirable way, decidedto dispense with the sermon, and with rea-sonable haste dismissed the congregation .

(Continued from page 344.)ancient Egyptians, rather than the Jews,who were a " peculiarly religious " people .If ever there was a people who made religiontheir daily life it was the ancient Egyptians;and yet we are taught by the Bible-the He-brew Bible, remember - regard them asheathen .' In a previous lecture I quotedfrom .the Egyptian " Book of the Dead," asit is called, a collection of pbems in a devo-tional vein that reaches a higher standardof spiritual exaltation than the Hebrews everattained. Indleed, the HebTew religion hasbeen greatly influenced by Egyptiantheology, and we trace the influence oftheir Egyptian surroundings duringfour hundred years in much ofJewish poetry . But it does notbefit Islam, or those who believe in Islam,to throw contempt on the religion of otherpeoples, and their theological aspirations .Such a spirit of bitterness ds no part ofIslam. We 'have our belief ; other people'have theirs but all we claim is that Islam isthe best religion, because the simplest andthe most logical . We do not say to other

religionists that they should not follow theirown bent ; on the contrary, we say theyought to follow that form of faith whichmakes the strongest appeal to their capacityfor belief. It is a matter in which each mustbe hisown judge. The Koran Shereff teachesthat God never intended people should beall of one faith ; that they were constituteddifferently, and that there were more ways.of getting to. heaven than one.

As one pieceof ground ,grows flowers the best, andanother cereals, and another vegetables, sowe believe it is with human beings ; they areso constituted by God that different religiousfaiths make different appeals

to them butwe do not doubt that if they worship the onetrue God, in spirit and in truth, God; will in-cline favourably to them, and will bless

them. Mussulmans, I repeat, firmly believe,that theirs is the best religious faith. Wecontend that all human beings should thinkof the Deity as One, and should endeavourto serve Him ; and we maintain that he whodoes so, obeying the commands of the Deity,honouring His will, and the great teacherswhom the Deity has sent into the world asHis

prophets

and ambassadors, above allMohammed, :the greatest prophet of God-we believe that all such good Mussulmans,members of that most excellent of all re-ligious faiths which we call Islam, will ul-timately attain an eternity of bliss inParadise . (Applause.)

THE.CRESCENT.

TO CONVERSE WELL.Don't speak in a low, monotonous' voice .

Conversation is like a song . It needs .pro-nounced accent and a great variety to keepup a sustained interest .Don't tell long stories of personal experi-

ences. One who has the habit of makingpersonal recitals takes the lion's share ofconversation, and doesn't give the listener afair chance.

Don't ask trifling questions. Don't airyour prejudices . Neither contributes to thegrace of conversational art, the essence ofwhich should be sympathy.

Don't talk of melancholy or gruesome mat-ters . Give the talk a happy turn.

Don'tride conversation too hard.

Leave breathingspaces in the talk. It is not essential thatevery moment that two people are togethershould be filled with a flow of word's .

Don't deaden and hinder the conversationby being too accurate over details. Don'tgo back and add appendices to a subjectafter you have once finished with it .

Ambitious Women.

The desire to be neat, graceful, attrac-tive and dainty is no unworthy ambition byany means.

Such a desire does not necessarily crowdout other ambitions.

In fact, cleanliness and good care of thebody are stimulating habits and fit one forbetter work.The business woman who goes about in

dust-spotted, unbrushed garments, andwhose hair is flying to the various winds ofheaven, is not the one who succeeds, for, nomatter how fine her mind may be, or howfar-reaching is her ability, no business manor woman wishes his or her office marredwith a picture of feminie neglect or un-tidiness .

Many a woman has been tremendouslybenefited by becoming interested in sane,hygienic, rational beautifying .

It helps a woman to retain her youth, thanwhich there is nothing sweeter or more beau-tiful .

If every secret thought of love !blossomedinto a deed, how much more might we makeof our family life and of our friendships !

a * w

Good humour is better than medicine, nomatter how well the ill-natured pill be sugar-coated .

'