marriage that is, one woman in the home; these families frequently, in giving away their daughters, require pledges from the bridegroom that she is to be the only wife; while still more encouraging is the fact that many of these educated girls absolutely refuse to be given in marriage unless their parents insist that the husband shall have only one wife.

Who is to carry the light that will bring life, liberty and knowledge into the lives of our Moslem sisters? Who will do the daily, plodding, routine school work that shall gradually transform the ignorant, uncontrolled, naughty little girls into sweet, modest, well-trained young women, capable of presiding over Christian homes, and of training and teaching their own children. properly? Who will enter the homes-the countless thousands of homes-where ignorance and superstition, sin and vice abound, and take to the mothers a message of the Christ who invites all mothers to come to Him with their little ones, and whose touch brings blessing to mothers and children alike? Who will found the missionary homes, with open doors and living object-lessons, where the Christ-life shall be exhibited so really, so naturally, so happily, that homes far and near shall catch the reflection? It is to you, young women of Christian America, that the appeal comes loudly; and we do not invite you in Christ's name to attempt an impossible task. If you and I will do our share, our Moslem sisters will surely respond, and Christ "shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied."

A fellow missionary learned of a blind old Mohammedan woman who lay ill, and began to call on her regularly, and read her some of the beautiful Bible stories. Slowly the woman began to understand the good news through the glorious simplicity of the Gospel words. When one day the reading was about the "many mansions," it really seemed as if a new light had burst in on that darkened soul. The next week, when Miss Van Duzee made her call, the woman was too weak for conversation or reading, but she drew her visitor down by the bedside and whispered: "I am going, and when I get there I shall sweep out a mansion and have it ready for you when you come." The next week, when Miss Van Duzee called, she learned that her old friend had passed away calling for forgiveness on the Christ who had died in innocence for her sins.

Truly "the entrance of Thy Word giveth light." Blessed is the woman whom God chooses to bear that light to the needy, sorrowful women of Mohammedan lands!

THE PRESENT SITUATION IN ARABIA

THE REVEREND SAMUEL M. ZWEMER, D. D., CAIRO

NEARLY three years ago I was asked to visit a gentleman whose name I had heard but whom I never had met, Captain Hunter, of the British Secret Service. I called to see him in the rooms of the American Geological Society. "I want to see you on a very important errand," said he; "I want your help, if your board will spare you, in finishing a map of Arabia. I have succeded in securing friends," he continued, "who have provided me with a strong motorcar which is to be equipped with wireless telegraphic apparatus, also with tanks for storing oil and water; and I have food supplies. If you will accompany me and answer one question, we will dash together across the southwestern Arabic plains of four hundred and eighty miles and solve one of the great geological problems regarding the interior of the peninsula." "What is your question?" I inquired.

"Can we land an automobile at the port of Sharjah, on the Gulf of Oman, a division of the Persian Gulf?" was his reply.

The question was more easily asked than answered. After I had shown him several ways by which I thought it might be possible to land in safety an American automobile in that wild part of the world, we discovered that diplomacy had intervened, and that the Russian, the British, the French, and the German Governments, had strongly objected to any enterprise of that sort, at least three years before.

About a year ago I received a copy of his map, still having the largely blank space on it-which is the secret service map, prepared by the British Indian Government, of the whole of the Arabian Peninsula. I am sorry we can't hang it up here, but Dr. Frame and I have so long held up Arabia that I am sure he won't mind holding up one end of this map for a little while. "Lift high His royal banner; it must not suffer loss."

I should like to have here this afternoon the two missionaries who came here direct from Arabia; or those three missionaries who left the field a few years ago, and ask them to talk about this map; but I believe the hour is too late to change the speakers, and I want to talk to you about the future of this country.

The part of Arabia we desired to cross was from Sohar six hundred miles across southern Arabia; and anybody who is here and desires the highest geological honor of the world, namely, the gold medal of the Royal Geological Society, can have it for the asking if he will simply travel from this corner of Arabia, and tell the world what this space contains of archæological secrets, of possible remains of the tribes of the impassable desert.

The future of Arabia is threefold: economic, political, and religious; and I shall speak first of all of a country that has an economic future. The size of a country does not determine its importance. Corsica is not so large as Cyprus, but Corsica produced Napoleon; Arabia is not so large as Australia, but it has influenced more men; and Arabia, next to Palestine, has influenced the world more than any other country, because of the Mohammedism propaganda, and because of the results of that world-wide religion and the spread of the national language, Arabic. If we wish to gain an idea how wide-spread is the use of this language, we may consider the fact that in Persia, Africa, and China, and extending all the way to Morocco, including the point occupied by the German people in Brazil, and half a dozen other lands, the language of this people has captured and captivated a considerable portion of the world.

This peninsula is not all desert; it has an economic future. Mr. and Mrs. Dykstra, who are here from Arabia, have traveled over this country, from Beirut to Bagdad, a distance of five hundred miles, and on both sides of this territory are orchards and palm groves, and a country as fertile as any part of the Nile Valley. This peninsula is worth four Egypts as regards its possible economic development. All it needs is a good government.

Some years ago I traveled on the east side of Arabia, and that region above all is capable of agricultural development; of course, 1 mean that part where proper irrigation methods have been introduced. Even at present it raises tropical fruits, besides berries, coffee, and tobacco; which is the case along the Aden coast also.

Arabia has great mining possibilities. It contains gold, silver, and copper, and a great many other mining products. On my last journey in eastern Arabia, I met an Italian explorer who brought on board specimens of no fewer than fourteen different mining products, of which he said northwestern Arabia was full. He was trying to organize an Italian stock company to develop that part of Arabia. We all know that Oman contains copper mines that are still being worked.

Aside from the possible economic development, Arabia is developing on political lines. There are three political possibilities, and only three. There is the Arabian patriarchal form of government by men called sheiks, sultans, or emirs. They are the strong men of certain tribes, and administer the government of these tribes

or factions. This patriarchal form of government, administered by some local chief, obtains in perhaps three fourths of the vast area of this peninsula.

Arabia has an area of one million square miles. It has four thousand miles of coast, and in nearly three fourths of that area the government is administered by a local chief, who perhaps has succeeded to authority by butchering his brothers, or by killing all his relatives, as did the sheik in Nejd.

The next is the force of Turkey, but that has been waning during the past two hundred years, and is fast disappearing. On this map we see virtually all there is of Turkey in Arabia. Some years ago the Turks had strong authority along this coast, but since the Balkan war they have lost nearly all of the peninsula. In fact, the Arabs shipped the Turks by British steamer across the gulf, putting the Turkish governor, sub-governor, and soldiers on board and telling them to leave; and they have not returned since. So Turkish power in Arabia is almost a nullity.

But for the last hundred and fifty years the British power in Arabia has increased by leaps and bounds. First of all, when Queen Victoria ascended the throne, in 1837, Aden became a British possession; and gradually, by various surveys, it has ceased to be a mere city and has extended from fifty to a hundred miles to the north, and fifty miles to the east, so that the British have gained a large tract of Azir Yemen, as shown here. They have treaties with all the tribes on the southern coast, and Lord Curzon said he expected to see the Union Jack flying from the castles of Muscat, and Oman a British province. The only power in the gulf is British. The officials and the consuls are British; the coinage and the post-offices are British; and the only power of which the Arabs or anybody else stand in awe, or to which anybody pays obedience, is the power of the British Empire, administered at Calcutta or London. This great part of the Moslem world is slowly becoming a sphere of British influence, and no less an authority than Sir Harry Johnston has predicted that England would take the whole of Arabia and mark it as the future sphere of her opportunity, as the whole of Mesopotamia is to be the sphere of Germany, and Armenia that of Russia.

With those people administering the affairs of this division as part of the British Empire, it is well for the Church of Christ to be awake to the religious future of Arabia. Arabia is the creator of the Mohammedan religion; the total number of the population is unknown, but it has certainly been overestimated. I believe that the recent German estimate of two and a half millions for independent Arabia, and about one and a half millions, or perhaps two millions, for Turkish Arabia, so-called, is well within the mark.

I should say that of those five millions of population on that peninsula of one million square miles, perhaps three fourths belong

to the Moslem sect or division. There is the orthodox Moslem, found chiefly in the large cities. Then there is the large Moslem population that are sheiks; they belong to the Persian Moslems, and are quite a different sect. Finally, there are two sects called Abbassids in Oman and Yemen, and one sect that follows another calif; these are quite hostile to the orthodox sect. These divisions allow us to penetrate among the Moslems, and in the future we may be able to influence whole bodies of them in a way that we could not do in a country like Egypt, where the Moslems all belong to the same orthodox sect.

The first missionary that came to Arabia proper was Ion KeithFalconer, who settled at Aden. Aftter this occupancy followed the occupancy of other stations, backed by the Missionary Society, strong sub-stations being opened at Kerbela and also at Mosul. The American Mission House, of the Dutch Reformed Church, began as an independent enterprise and has now thirty-three missionaries, some of whom were Congregationalists, and some Methodists; but all have joined our Society. These thirty-three missionaries occupy Adana, Beirut, Muscat, and other cities, occupying the eastern coast of Arabia and visiting several towns along the coast-line of nearly eighteen hundred miles. Along the southern coast-line there are no missionaries whatever. The Danish Church has just opened a new station.

These are the mission stations that surround Arabia as the Israelites surrounded the walls of Jericho. Jericho has not fallen. The people feel quite safe; but we feel the walls weaken, with not one Rahab but Mr. Rahab and Mrs. Rahab in a great many places; and not one house, but a great many houses, are around the walls of Jericho, where the scarlet thread is hanging, waiting for the time when the walls will fall flat.

I will give you a single illustration. Mr. Hoover and I came down the coast of the Red Sea, and tried to land at one of the ports. We wore red fezzes, and when we tried to land the men on shore said to us: "You cannot come here; you are Christians. We won't have any Christians here." "How do you know we are Christians?" I asked. "We know it because you have books," they replied. "Yes," said I, "we are Christians." Just then a Moslem stepped up and said: "Come with me; my name is Mohammed Obaysis. Come to my house, and have some coffee."

We stepped on shore, and went to this man's house; and no sooner had we sat down in the house of this friendly Moslem than he repeated: "My name is Mohammed Obaysis. That is my father's name, but I call myself Georges. I have read the Bible; I am a Christian." We had been afraid to enter that part of the country, and had even tried to disguise ourselves; but Jesus Christ had a home missionary, a converted Moslem, ready to welcome us!

The fact is, missionaries have been altogether too much afraid