It is the hour of evening worship in St. Sophia, Constantinople’s proudest mosque. The visitor has been shown to a place in one of the high galleries overlooking the nave. Here, sitting on one of the “rough benches provided for the discomfort of foreign visitors,” and surveying the scene around him, he can “begin to realize the grandeur of the idea that ruled the building of this temple.” He reads the purpose of the architect in the lines of columns, “stretching away in unnumbered succession;” in the noble arches, dimly penetrated by the soft light from thousands of tiny lamps; and in the “vast interior, without visible support for the majestic sweep of its mighty dome.” The service is in keeping with the place where it is celebrated. The following description is condensed from Dr. Dwight’s “Constantinople and Its Problems” (Fleming H. Revell Co., Chicago):— Four or five thousand people are ranged in long lines side to side upon the matted floor of the mosque. A white-turbaned old man is seated in front of the congregation, facing the mihrab (the niche which marks the direction of Mecca). The congregation below is so far away as to seem in another world. Standing there before God are old and young, rich and poor, flaxen-haired Slav, rotund Turk, and swarthy Arab, all differences of age, race, and social rank melted away by approach to the throne of the Almighty. “God is most great, God is most great,” shrilly proclaims the monotone of the Imam from the distant altar-place of the apse. Like the rustling of leaves in a wind-tossed forest is the rustle of the multitudes muttering, “God is most great,” while all together, as one man, bring their foreheads to the ground in adoration. Again the congregation rise and stand, with inaudible utterance following the Imam and the choir through the noble prayer which forms the first chapter of the Koran: “In the name of God the merciful and the compassionate! Praise God the Lord of all creatures, the merciful, the King of the day of judgment. Thee do we worship; of Thee do we ask assistance. Lead us in the right way, in the way of those to whom Thou hast been gracious; not of those with whom Thou art wroth nor of those who wander from Thee.” While the sentences of the Muslim litany are uttered, all the people together reverently bow, then kneel, and then bring their foreheads to the ground in utter prostration. The solemn fitness of the words of adoration, the silence of the mass of people, following the words of the white-haired leader, the absolute union of the long lines of men shoulder to shoulder in their bowings, kneelings, and prostrations, fairly compels admission that that stately building is now quite as much the house of God as when it echoed with the chant of the Greek liturgy. Such is the worship in St. Sophia—
“... when the day is done,
And the foreheads of Islam are bowed as one!” It may perhaps be as sincere and acceptable as was the Greek liturgy; for there is little to choose between two sets of lifeless forms. In the case of the Moslems it is well known that religion is an outward13affair, in which a regard for character-building or true worship has no place. Dr. Dwight thus sketches the character of many “pious” frequenters of mosques:— One may often see in Asia a man who hesitates no more before committing robbery than before picking a ripe plum from a tree; a man who can kill a neighbor of another faith with as clear a conscience as if he were wishing him, “Good morning”; a man whose experience enables him to tell to a hair the number of blows with a sand-bag that will kill and the number that will merely stun; a man who will as a matter of course take advantage of a woman accidentally left unprotected within his reach; and who nevertheless can wax eloquent over the beauty of love to God, and suffer from scruples about eating mutton that is not known to have been slaughtered in the canonical manner. Such are the effects of a complete divorce of morals from religion, a religion that teaches that “to please God it is enough to follow carefully the prescribed observances.” There are millions of people who have been trained under the influence of a religion that consists of creed, form, and ceremonies, and contains no vital principle to touch the heart and the life. How shall the missionary reach them with the living truth of the Gospel as it is in Christ Jesus?