F

PROLOGUE

ROM afar, from over the hillsfrom another world it would seem -one hears the tinkling of camel bells. Faintly one hears the sound, very faintly: a cold, hesitant drip

drip of music falling in the night.... Save for that there is silence, vast silence that fills each alley in the ancient town, that sinks deep into each hole and cranny, that rises high over the very top of the city wall. For Jerusalem sleeps. . . . The night is almost spent, and in the east the blue of the heavens has turned to that vivid gray-green presaging the dawn. But still Jerusalem sleeps . . . and there is silence

save for that low drip-drip of music from distant camel-bells. . .

And then of a sudden there is a cry-a strained, eerie, Arab cry. Like a hard-flung dirk its first note comes hurtling through the air, piercing one's ear-drum and quivering there. From somewhere up above the flatroofed houses, from the minaret high over some unseen mosque, it comes: a long, dragging, intermittent call let loose from lungs strained to bursting:

Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar!

So it comes, swooping through the heavens:

"Allah is greatest! Allah is greatest!
I testify there is no God but Allah!

I testify that Mohammed is the prophet
of Allah!

Come to prayer! Come to salvation !
Prayer is better than sleep! Prayer is
better than sleep!

Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar!
Allah is greatest! Allah is greatest!
There is no God but Allah !"

And then it is no more. As suddenly as the cry began, it ceases! . . . But Jerusalem sleeps no longer. The first angry orange streak of day has just spilled over the crest of the Jordan hills; and in the town there begins a gathering confusion. Out of holes in the walls, out of the narrow doors of hovels, black and cold as caves, crawl phantom-like men and boys. Disheveled, they emerge from crevices in dark archways, from hidden stairways, from what look like catacombs. And slip-slop, slip-slop, their ill-shod feet go shuffling down the cobbled streets. ... Here goes a man, lean and swart, in tasseled black head-shawl, brown Arab cloak, and sandals of worn camel-hide. There goes one, bearded, pale, and bent, in a broad fur shtreimel, plum velvet kaftan, and boots made for Russian snows. Over there goes a third, fat and crafty-eyed, in a rakish red fez, European suit, and American shoes that are new and squeaky. . . . Here comes a Carmelite monk, all brown and ursine, with a little brown cap over his tonsure; there goes a Greek priest, all black and bovine, his oiled locks tight in a top-knot. A little Anglican missionary, his back-buttoned col

Y

lar large enough to swallow his head, stumbles hurriedly down the steps of some hospice. A Yemenite Jew, shrunken, yellow, and still wet from "nail water," sidles along as though fleeing a ghost. A filthy Arab beggar, his sore eyes already thick with flies, beats with his cane as he drags his naked feet over the stones. .. And so they go, slip-slop, slip-slop. more and more of them... slip-slop, slip-slop . . . a mad procession of hurrying phantoms in the halflight of the dawn.

...

To that muezzin who utters the call to prayer from the high minaret, they would seem like ants-if he could but see them. Like multi-colored ants they would seem as they swarm out of holes and from under archways. But he cannot see them, for he is blind-as becomes a muezzin. (A seeing man, if he were made muezzin, might see far too much from his lofty minaret: for instance, women in the privacy of their courtyards with their faces unveiled!) Could he but see them from his height, those men would look like so many insects scurrying about amid debris. .

But one who looks from no such tower, one who walks the earth to regard these creatures, can see that they are not at all insects. For there are lights in their eyes, darting gleams, whereof no insects in all creation could boast. There are lights of hatred in those eyes, lights of hatred or dread or suspicion. It would seem that they feel as enemies to each other, these hundreds of creatures swarming in this ancient town. (Could mere ants feel as much?) That Arab in his robe looks with loathing on the Armenian in his sack suit; and both look with disdain on the Jew in shtreimel and kaftan. The Carmelite monk looks with anger at the Anglican missionary; and both look with contempt on the Greek priest. Hatred seems to be all around one; almost a noxious vapor that one can see, a veritable reek that one can smell. These creatures seem unable

to bear the very sight of each other. They

actually seem ready to kill!

They have killed in this ancient town, killed until every alley was flooded with blood. Not a wall in all this maze of walls but has rung with the groans of the dying. Skulls beyond counting have been cracked on these flags; throats unnumbered have been slit in these dark doorways. They've murdered and pillaged and raped in this old holy town till now it is all but one Golgotha, one bloody Hill of Skulls. And if you would know why, you need only look into the eyes of those hurrying phantoms. Readily they will tell you; explicitly. Men have slaughtered and ravished in Jerusalem because they had-religion. Men have gouged eyes and ripped bellies because they -believed! ... Believed in what? In God? . . . Hardly. . . . No, they have believed only in mere vocables-Yahveh, Christ, or Alla: those vocables that are the fingers wherewith men try to point to God.

Strange potency, this thing we call Religion! It has made men do barbarities quite beyond the reaches of credence. For it men have done foulnesses below the foulness done even by beasts. Yet for it also men have done benevolences such as transcend the benevolences of angels. If men have killed and died for religion, men have also lived for it. Not merely lived for it, but by it. That cowering Yemenite Jew slinking in the shadow of the archways sloughs off his terror and becomes a king when he enters his synagogue. His bent shoulders straighten, his sagging knees become firm, and the blessedness of peace lightens his eyes. That blind Arab

beggar, a mere frame of bones hung over with smelling rags, becomes a sultan when he stands at prayer in his mosque. He stands healed there of his ailments; he becomes a changed man with a vision reaching That through his world to Paradise.

dark-eyed Syrian girl, poor trull whose lips have caressed the flesh of twenty races, becomes clean once more when she kneels at the feet of the virgin. Strength floods into her tortured bones, healing comes to her flesh. Life, so long a hell of lust and lechery, becomes now wondrously clean and worthy. She feels saved-saved!

Strange potency, this thing we call Religion! It came into man's world untold centuries ago, and it is still in man's world to-day. It is still there, deep and tremendous: a mighty draught for a mightier thirst, a vast richness to fill a vaster need. No matter where one turns in time or space, there it is inescapably. Wherever there is a man, there there seems to be also a spirit or a god; wherever there is human life, there there is also faith.

One wonders about it. What is it, this thing we call Religion? Whence did it come? And why? And how?... What was it yesterday? What is it today?-And what will it become tomorrow?

Copyright, 1926, by Lewis Browne

OU have never read a book on religion just like this. It is dramatic, sincere, and written in a popular vein. It has won a swift and favorable verdict from men and women of all faiths. It tells of the origin of all great living religions, relates their history, and describes their dominant characteristics. Even those who strongly take issue with the author's conclusions find this book mentally stimulating. Because of its graphic portrayal of historic religious controversies it exercises on the mind of the reader a fascination that cannot be denied. Written by a liberal Jewish rabbi, it treats all religions sympathetically.

Some idea of the scope of this vivid book may be gained from the following cross-section of its contents: How it all began (magic and religion); how religion developed in the ancient world (the

Celts, Babylonians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans); what happened in India (Brahmanism, Jainism, Buddhism, Hinduism); what happened in China (Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism); what happened in Persia (Zoroastrianism); what happened in Israel (Judaism); what happened in Europe (Jesus, Christ); what happened in Arabia (Mohammedanism).

Here is a book that you should own for the pleasure it gives and for the graphic information it imparts. You need not pay for it until you read it and have passed judgment on its value to you. This volume contains 348 pages printed on heavy paper, and is illustrated with seventy drawings and animated maps by the author. Richly bound in black cloth with gold stamping. Just mail the attached coupon. It places you under no obligation whatever.