Thus our Scribe, apologetically.
But after the first contact and the vibrations of enthusiasm and flattery that followed, Khalid regains his equilibrium and reason, and strikes into his favourite theme.
He begins by arraigning the utilitarian spirit of Europe, the rank materialism which is invading our very temples of worship. God, Truth, Virtue, with them, is no longer esteemed for its own worth, but for what it can yield of the necessities and luxuries of life.
And with these cynical materialistic abominations they would be supreme even in the East; they would extinguish with their dominating spirit of trade every noble virtue of the soul. And yet, they make presumption of introducing civilisation by benevolent assimilation, rather dissimulation.
For even an Englishman in our country, for instance, is unlike himself in his own. The American, too, who is loud-lunged about democracy and shirtsleeve diplomacy, wheedles and truckles as good as the wiliest of our pashas. And further he exclaims:
“Not to Christian Europe as represented by the State, therefore, or by the industrial powers of wealth, or by the alluring charms of decadence in art and literature, or by missionary and educational institutions, would I have you turn for light and guidance.
No: from these plagues of civilisation protect us, Allah!
No: let us have nothing to do with that practical Christianity which is become a sort of divine key to Colonisation; a mint, as it were, which continually replenishes the treasuries of Christendom. Let us have nothing to do with their propagandas for the propagation of supreme Fakes.