14 
Introduction 
(too closely to please most students of Eastern reli-
gion) by his insistence on the doctrines of Sin and 
Grace, Freewill and Discipline ;  but on the other 
hand, neither St. Francis nor Buddhaghosha can 
parallel his Devotion and his Phenomenalism.  No 
doubt at times one is puzzled for a while :  one 
picks up a loose word here and there :  one 
doubts :  one guesses :  one is illumined in a mo-
ment. 
One is rather reminded of the working of a helio-
graph under unfavourable conditions.  But (as with 
that instrument) by dint of repetition one gets the 
all-important message at last :  and the situation is 
saved. 
It is undoubtedly the importance which he at-
taches to Sin, Repentance, Penance, Grace, as the 
means of raising the old to the new Adam that cost 
el Haji so much pains in persecution by the more 
orthodox Muslim :  possible the teaching of St. Paul 
had vaguely penetrated to the gulf with the mer-
chant of Venice or Portugal, and their danger had 
been recognized by those who held to the simple 
grandeur of Islam.  But clearly the belief in Evil — 
perhaps even a modified Manichaeism ;4 we must 
not forget that this heresy is a legacy from the 
Guebres with their Aormuzd and Ahriman—had 
impressed itself profoundly on the mind of the 
young Abdullah.  Or he may have attached an ex-
aggerated importance to that mystic phenomenon 
which Bulwer Lytton calls the ‘ Dweller of the Thre-
shold ’, that moment of intensest agony which se-
parates Work from Reward, and serves as a sure 
diagnostic5 to discriminate between the happy-go-
lucky “ union with God ” of the mere church-goer — 
an emotional glow of pious exhilaration — and the 
splendid and illuminating Union which constitutes 
Samadhi.  Never forget that this great doctrine in-
forms almost the whole of so-called Christian lite-
rature ;  St. Paul’s apostrophe (I Thess. iv. 16) if