Studies in a Mosque - The Search For Mecca

188 STUDIES IN A MOSQUE.
result of individual, and therefore partial, knowledge.
Every member of this Brotherhood must contribute
in some manner to its completeness as an organ of
truth. The admission of a vicious member might
undo the whole society. The Brothers were classed
in four grades, according to their moral worth and
elevation of soul, the highest being composed of those
who were weary of this body—which is but the egg-
shell, meant to hatch the chick, and is useless when
the chick, the soul, recognizes its separate existence
— ;
and were ready for the severing of soul from body and
the home-journeying to God. This Home-Quest is the
great idea of their theological teaching ; every member
who is called must understand it, and believe in it
with all his heart, and teach it to others, and live with
his eyes towards it. It is in fact something very like
the Nirvana of Buddhism, to which in religion these
Persian pantheists nearly approached. They have, too,
the sweetness and gentleness of Buddhism, and in this
they stand forth conspicuously from the pharisaism and
hardness of dogmatic Islam. Their God is not the
tyrant of the orthodox divines, but a supremely loving
and wise Creator, who has breathed his life into all
the universe for good and not for ill. And their virtues,
equally, are not the virtues of Islam, not so much right-
eousness and the due quittance of obligations, as mild-
ness and gentleness towards all men, forgiveness, long-
suffering, and compassion, the yielding up of self for
others' sake. In this Brotherhood, self is forgotten
all act by the help of each, all rely upon each for
succour and advice, and if a Brother sees it will be