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FAMILY LIFE OF CHBISTIANS AND OF TUBES 423 It would indeed have been remarkable if with the unspeakable advantages of family life on their side the Christians had not been superior in capacity to their neighbours. But, in spite of their lively consciousness of such superiority and of the advantages to be gained by perversion, few Christians became renegades. But, notwithstanding the fact that their refusal to De g rada - ' ° m tion of abandon a higher for a lower form of religion must be people, accounted to them for righteousness, the Christians passed into a Slough of Despond. Disarmed and oppressed, they became demoralised and lost self-respect. Their progress and development, material, intellectual, and moral, was arrested. They fell back upon deceit and cunning and the other vices with which a subjugated people seeks to defend itself against its oppressors and which are the usual charac- teristics of a people held in bondage. The most disastrous result of the conquest upon the people was to create a low standard of morality, and, as in the course of time habits form character, this result endured and continues to the present day. Dishon esty, unfair dealing, bribery, and untruth- fulness came to be regarded among all the Christian races of the Ottoman Empire as venial offences or as pardonable blunders. This deterioration of character was not, and is not, confined to laymen. The environment of all classes has The sensual rewards promised to faithful men are clear and unmistakeable. The rewards to women in the Koran have to be searched for and are the result of interpretation. As a confirmation of the truth of my statement I may refer to the interesting interview given by Sir Edward Malet in Shifting Scenes (1901), p. 67. He describes a meeting which he had with Tewfik, the Khedive of Egypt, at a very critical moment, when indeed the latter's life was in hourly danger. He represents Tewfik as saying : ' Death does not signify to me personally. Our religion prevents us from having any fear of death ; but it is different with our women. To them, you know, life is everything : their existence ends here ; they cry and weep and implore me to save them.' As to the custom of repudiating a wife, two learned Moslems, one Turkish and the other Indian, and both enlightened men, assure me that repudiation, though a general custom, is contrary to the teaching of Islam, which only recognises divorce. Both, however, admit that the practice is general, though they consider it irreligious or — what is the same thing in the Sacred Law of Islam — illegal.