The familiar picture of the Eastern despot before whom the mightiest cringe, and the raising of whose finger may mean death or a plunge from power to degradation, fades out in this universal testimony to the affability of this mightiest of Sultans and the ease of the humble scholars in his presence. Beha ed-din gives us a picture of the indifference to power and greatness of some of these, which amounts almost to disrespect, yet is matched by equally astonishing humility on the part of the Sultan. The son of the Lord of Tabriz had renounced his rank to become a Sufi, a devotee to the theory that human life is but a journey, in which the seeker after God is like a traveler, his object the attainment of a perfection which will enable him to lose his identity by absorption into God. He came into the tent of the Cadi unannounced one evening, and said he would like to see the Sultan, of whose acts he professed himself to be an admirer. Beha ed-din arranged an audience with Saladin that same night, during which the visitor recited a tradition of the Prophet, talked of religion and exhorted the Sultan " to practice good works," to all of which the Sultan listened respectfully, in the spirit of a decorous pupil before his master. The next morning the Sufi, having slept in the Cadi's tent, announced his purpose to depart at once. In vain did the Cadi plead with him to show the Sultan the courtesy of paying him a visit of farewell. He who had surrendered voluntarily the inheritance of Tabriz could not be influenced to show respect even to a Sultan. Off he went with scant ceremony, leaving the Cadi