POPULAR MECCA.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 233, 30 March 1912, Page 10

POPULAR MECCA.

ONE-SEVENTH OF THE WORLD GO THERE. Although one of the most inaccessible cities on earth, Mecca each year has visitors in such numbers that it must be ranked in this particular with London and New York. Even the world's metropolis on the Thames can boast no such cosmopolitan character as is imparted to this mysterious city in the wilderness of Arabia by the myriads of pilgrims who, at the cost of incredible pains, annually crowd into its confines. The city is the oldest place of resort in existence, yet of all the millions who have visited it not a score of Christians are known to have come out alive. No flag of citizenship would save a mail's life were he known to be a Christian within the sacred precincts of the city, where the Prophet himself decreed that no unbeliever should set foot. Of tile 22.5,000,000 Moslems in the world only 15,500,000 live under the Turkish flag; yet most of them acknowledge the Sultan of Turkey as their caliph, the successor of the Prophet. ;As Mohammed shrewdly foresaw, the Mecca pilgrimage binds together his disciples into a unity which could be effected /a no other way. "Mecca," says Dr. Samuel M. Zwemer, of Arabia, "has become the religious capital and the universal pilgrimage for one-seventh of the human race."