Vaww ^loViBWv 
 
D I EX LI VUELT!” 
 
 C IT IS THE WILL OF GOD!") 
 
 ^ plea for a 
 
 Orcat (extension of gtission wlorh 
 in gtubammabaii 'iCanbs. 
 
 HV 
 
 W. ST. CLAIR TISDALL, M.A., C.M.S. 
 
 ("JAMES LONG " LECTURER ON ISLAM, iSgr. ) 
 
“Tota vita Christi crux fuitet martyrium, 
 et tu tibi quaeris requiem ct gaudium?” 
 
DIEX LI VUELT!” 
 
 « t 
 
 E invan l'lnfcrno a lui s’opposc, c invano 
 S’armo d’Asia e di Libia il popol misto : 
 Che il Ciel gli di£ favore.” . . . 
 
 (Tasso. “ La Gerusalcmnie Liberata. ) 
 
 N maim sit Christianorum sepulcrum Christi ! ” 
 
 turies ago sounded forth from the lips of 
 
 Peter the Hermit, when urging his fellow-Christians 
 to band themselves together, forgetting their petty 
 feuds and ceaseless quarrels, to rescue the sepulchre 
 of Christ from the hands of the Infidels. Stirred to 
 the heart by the miseries of his fellow-believers in 
 Muhammadan lands, which he had witnessed during 
 his pilgrimage to the Holy City in 1093, and burning 
 to erase from the Church the lasting disgrace of 
 permitting the Crescent to gleam on the very site 
 of the Temple of Solomon, this marvellous man, 
 on his return to Europe, went everywhere preaching 
 the Crusade. Almost a century previous had 
 Sylvester II. (in 999), amid the all but universal 
 expectation of the immediate return of our Lord, 
 urged upon Western Christendom the duty of aiding 
 their afflicted brethren groaning beneath the oppres- 
 sion of the Muslims. But the hour had not struck ; 
 
 Such were the words which just eight cen- 
 
4 
 
 and it was not until the call of the Hermit of 
 Amiens resounded throughout Europe that the heart 
 of Christendom was touched. Then in 1095, first at 
 Placentia, and later in the same year at Clermont, 
 standing amid an immense assemblage of the 
 clergy and laity, assembled in the market-place. 
 Pope Urban II. pleaded the claims of the Holy 
 War preached by the Hermit, and called upon his 
 hearers, and upon all true Christians everywhere, to 
 enlist under the banner of a Leader Who would 
 never fail to feed His warriors with the Bread of 
 Life ; with Whom victory was certain, the reward 
 eternal, and death itself martyrdom. Then from 
 the lips of the listening multitude burst the cry, in 
 their own Provencal dialect, “ Die. x li vuelt , l Dicx 
 li vuelt V '- — “It is the will of Goi) ! ” “ It is indeed 
 
 the will of God,” rejoined the preacher. “Take then 
 this word as your battle-cry, and go forth to victory 
 in the name of Christ.” 
 
 History tells us how the cry echoed from heart to 
 heart, and from lip to lip, throughout Europe ; from 
 the shores of the Mediterranean to the then almost 
 inaccessible Highlands of Scotland. The summons 
 awoke an electric thrill in every breast ; and noble 
 and serf, gentle and simple, rich and poor, responded 
 to the appeal, and went forth from home and country, 
 prepared to conquer or die in what they fondly 
 regarded as an enterprise especially blessed of 
 Heaven. We now know how great was their error. 
 
 Literally : “C.on wills it. : 
 
5 
 
 and how fearfully they failed. “ The weapons of 
 our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through 
 God”; and in every age it has proved true that 
 “they that take the sword shall perish with the 
 sword.” Nevertheless, we admire the zeal and devo- 
 tion which animated our crusading ancestors ; and 
 even at the present day our hearts are stirred within 
 us by an enthusiasm nobler and more unselfish, 
 truer and more manly, than is generally felt in this 
 matter-of-fact age, when we read the recital of their 
 prowess, or see the monuments of the crusaders in 
 our venerable abbeys — the Red Cross on their 
 shields still testifying to their dedication to a lofty 
 purpose, and their devotion to a noble cause. 
 Earthly need and covetousness, romantic ideas and 
 superstitious feelings and hopes, had no doubt their 
 part in influencing many to take the Cross ; yet the 
 zeal which during two hundred years moved so many 
 millions almost everywhere was not altogether of the 
 earth. There was much that was noble in the move- 
 ment, but the zeal of the crusaders was ill-directed, 
 and ultimately failed in its object. Jerusalem, 
 though once wrested from the hands of the Muslims, 
 speedily fell again into their power ; and it was 
 proved that not by might, nor by power, but only 
 by the Spirit of the living God was Christianity 
 destined to triumph over Islam. 
 
 We have learned this lesson. Would to God we 
 had, together with the treasures of their dearly- 
 bought experience, inherited also the zeal and en- 
 thusiasm, the courage and devotion, of our Christian 
 
6 
 
 ancestors! For in our own day and generation, a 
 similar, though far grander, call is resounding ; though 
 in too many cases our ears are too dull to hear and 
 answer it. It is not now the cry of a weak and 
 mistaken, though zealous and devoted, man, but the 
 voice of our risen Lord Himself. He calls us to a 
 nobler crusade — a more glorious contest. It is still 
 the old battle of the Cross against the Crescent, of 
 Christianity against Islam. Yet we are not now 
 bidden to go forth with the weapons of slaughter 
 and destruction in our hands to lay low mortal foes. 
 But, led by our risen Lord, we are called upon to 
 march forward under His banner, wearing the 
 panoply of God, and wielding the sword of the 
 Spirit, to wrestle not with flesh and blood, but with 
 the world-rulers of this darkness — this awful bl >ght — 
 spiritual and mental, as much as physical, which has 
 now, for far more than a millennium, brooded over 
 many of the fairest countries on the face of the 
 earth. Nor are we now summoned to go forth, as 
 did our forefathers in days of yore, to rescue from 
 the defilement of Muslim hands the empty sepulchre 
 of a dead Christ. Nay, rather, our duty' at the 
 present time is, surely, in God’s might, to deliver 
 from the thraldom of sin and Satan those whose 
 bodies were created to be the temples of God's Holy 
 Spirit. “ Let Christ’s sepulchre be in Christian 
 hands,” cried Peter the Hermit. “ Let the temples 
 of the Holy Ghost be wrested from the power of 
 the Devil, and purified from the defilement of sin,” 
 should be our reply. The conversion of the Muslims 
 
« 
 
 7 
 
 to Christ and the subversion of the religion of 
 Muhammad, is one of the last and greatest tasks 
 still left to the Christian Church to do ere the angelic 
 proclamation can go forth : “ The kingdom of the 
 world is become the kingdom of our Lord, and of 
 His Christ ; and He shall reign for ever and 
 ever.” 1 
 
 Islam is to-day the religion of about one hundred 
 and fifty millions of our fellow-creatures. Its sway 
 extends from the Pillars of Hercules to the Caspian 
 Sea, from the Pamir Steppes to Zanzibar, from the 
 Balkan Mountains to Sumatra. It is the faith of 
 Arabia, Palestine, Syria, Turkey in Europe and 
 Turkey in Asia, of Mesopotamia, Persia, Afghanistan, 
 Baluchistan, of the vast regions of Turkistan and 
 other parts of Central Asia. In India alone its 
 professors number fifty millions. It is the religion 
 of the Malay Peninsula, and is said to be still extend- 
 ing in the Islands. In Yun-nan and other parts of 
 China its devotees may be numbered by tens of 
 thousands. It is the religion of Egypt and of a 
 large portion of the Soudan, and its professors may 
 be found not only in Zanzibar on the East coast, but 
 well in the interior at Lake Victoria Nyanza. We 
 find it again in the Niger basin, in the regions of 
 Haiisa and Sokoto, and it is not unknown at Sierra 
 Leone. The Tuariks and other fierce tribes of the 
 Sahara profess a belief in Muhammad, and the 
 Arabian “ Prophet ” is acknowledged by sovereigns 
 
 ' Rev. xi. 15 (R.v.). 
 
8 
 
 and people alike throughout Tripoli, Tunis, Algiers, 
 and Morocco. To what extent this faith is still being 
 spread in Africa it is difficult for us to say, but it is 
 already the dominant religion of fully one half of the 
 entire continent. Nor must we imagine that the 
 Muslims in general care little for their faith. On 
 the contrary, commended to its professors not less by 
 its many half-truths and its apparent simplicity than 
 by its warlike spirit, and lax moral code, Islam has 
 long exercised, and even now exercises, over the 
 hearts and lives of many millions of Muham- 
 madans an influence which, for strength and earnest- 
 ness of conviction and the zeal which accompanies it, 
 can hardly find its parallel in the whole history of the 
 world. God is regarded by the Muslims as an 
 Almighty Ruler, entirely different in every possible 
 respect from every one of His creatures, and separated 
 from them by an impassable gulf. He is as arbitrary 
 and despotic as any Oriental sovereign, and it is 
 gross blasphemy to call Him our Father. He is our 
 Master and Owner, and we arc His slaves, each one 
 of whom He has, long ages before the creation of the 
 world, by His arbitrary decree predestined to eternal 
 happiness or everlasting fire. Muhammad is the last 
 and greatest of His Prophets; for his sake the Universe 
 came into existence, and the Our’an revealed through 
 him has superseded all previous revelations of God. 
 The Atoning Death of our Lord is denied, His 
 Deity scouted as a blasphemous fable, and the Qur’an 
 assures us that “God can destroy Jesus, Son of 
 Mary,” as readily as any other part of creation. 
 
9 
 
 Such is the religion of Islam, aptly set forth in their 
 once so much dreaded battle-cry, “ AU&h akbar ” — 
 “ God is most great,” and in their oft-repeated Creed, 
 or Confession of Faith, “There is no God but God: 
 Muhammad is the Apostle of God.” Any one who 
 has even a very slight degree of acquaintance with 
 Muhammad’s own life and conduct will readily 
 acknowledge that a religion emanating from such a 
 man, a faith which places his name next to that of 
 God Himself, and which holds up Muhammad to the 
 reverent devotion of its professors as God’s ideal of 
 the most perfect of men and the last and noblest of 
 His inspired messengers, must necessarily produce 
 evil results. The history of the past, as well as what 
 we know of the present state of all Muhammadan 
 lands, confirms this only too well. Tyranny and 
 intolerance, ignorance and superstition, bigotry and 
 formalism, a blind belief in fatalism, brood over every 
 such country, hardly relieved to any degree where 
 Pantheistic philosophies and other delusions have 
 arisen to bear witness to the utter inability of Islam 
 to satisfy the thoughtful seeker after truth. Progress 
 of every kind is regarded by earnest Muslims as 
 almost impious, and the most frightful moral evils 
 arc rife everywhere among them. Polygamy and 
 servile concubinage, frequent divorces and nameless 
 crimes, cast a lurid light upon the practical working 
 of the teaching of the Qur’an and its effects upon the 
 lives of its professors. The seclusion of women and 
 their exclusion from even the right of participating in 
 the public worship of the Mosque, show us at once 
 
IO 
 
 the fearful state of Society that Islam has produced, 
 and its utter inability to purify or elevate either man 
 or woman. Amid all the literature which certain 
 Muhammadan tongues can boast — especially the 
 Arabic, the Turkish, and the Persian — there does not 
 exist, Muslims themselves being the judges, a single 
 book written by any Muhammadan author that is fit 
 to be placed unreservedly in the hands of their 
 women. The conceptions of Paradise and of the 
 future rewards of faithful Muslims which the Qur’an 
 and the Traditions of the “ Prophet” contain, are such 
 as to render purity of heart impossible and un- 
 desirable to a Muhammadan. When besides all this 
 we remember that their religion gives them an 
 altogether erroneous view of sin, and denies all 
 atonement, supersedes Christ Jesus by Muhammad, 
 and rejects the Bible for the Qur’an, — we at once sec 
 that to leave Muhammadans in their present state of 
 ignorance of all true religion is one of the most awful 
 crimes of which we Christians can be guilty. It is 
 natural that those who do not profess to believe in 
 the Deity of our Lord, those who have never felt His 
 life-giving power in their own hearts and spirits, 
 should not feel any call to exert themselves for the 
 good of the followers of the false Prophet. But to 
 those of us who accept God’s word in its entirety, 
 who believe and are convinced that only through 
 Christ can we know God to our soul’s health, there 
 can be no possible excuse for our carelessness and 
 coldness in the matter. We dare not say as Cicero 
 does, in words quoted with approbation by a recent 
 
writer on Muhammadanism, “Sua cuique genti religio 
 est, nostra nobis." We arc our brother’s keeper. The 
 light of the Gospel has been given to us that we 
 might shed it abroad amid Muslims as well as 
 Pagans. “God,” says the Apostle, “gave unto us 
 eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He that hath 
 the Son hath the life ; he that hath not the Son of 
 God hath not the life .” 1 And therefore it is that 
 God the Son Himself in His parting command to 
 His followers bade them, “Go ye into all the world 
 and preach the Gospel to the whole creation .” 2 “ Ye 
 
 shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all 
 Judaea and Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of 
 the earth .” 3 The duty incumbent upon us is clear, 
 the command imperative and unmistakable : let us 
 now enquire to what extent we Christians have 
 fulfilled or are fulfilling it with regard to the followers 
 of the Prophet of Islam. 
 
 The members of the North Africa Mission have now 
 begun a very important work in Morocco, Algiers, Fez, 
 Tunis, and Tripoli, countries long entirely neglected. 
 The Church Missionary Society’s Missionaries on the 
 Niger can hardly be said to be devoting any special 
 attention to the Muslims, and our Mission to the 
 Soudan is still in its infancy. In Egypt the noble work 
 begun by Miss Whately can never be forgotten, but she 
 has passed to her rest, and the Christian workers there 
 at present are terribly, almost ludicrously, few. In 
 Zanzibar one or two missionaries are brought in 
 
 i John v. n, i?. 
 
 Mark xvi. 15. 3 Acts i. 8 (r.v.). 
 
12 
 
 contact with Muslim enquirers, but no one has been 
 set apart for this special work. In Palestine we have 
 a few missionaries, and the American Missionaries in 
 Syria have done a noble work. In Turkey and 
 Armenia they have a few devoted workers, as also in 
 Persia. In the latter country we long had only one 
 man of the Church Missionary Society, the Rev. Dr. 
 Bruce, of Julfa, who has only comparatively recently 
 been sent a very scanty number of fellow-workers. 
 In the Punjab and Sindh several different Societies 
 are at work, and more has been done for Muham- 
 madans there than in any other part of the world. 
 Something of the same kind is true of parts of the 
 North-West Provinces. In other parts of India, 
 even in such large cities as Bombay, Calcutta, and 
 Madras, there are only one or two missionaries of all 
 Societies who can specially give themselves up to the 
 duty of evangelizing the large Muhammadan portion 
 of the population. Whole states like that of the 
 Nizam of Haidarabad (Deccan) arc wholly devoid of 
 any missionary to the Muslims. We should probably 
 be far in excess of the truth if we were to estimate 
 all the Missionaries belonging to all Societies put 
 together, who arc really devoting themselves to 
 preaching the Gospel to the followers of Muhammad, 
 at ioo or 150: i.e., less than one Christian worker for 
 every million of Muslims! But even this gives no 
 proper idea of how little the Christian Church has as 
 yet realized her duty in this respect. Some of us 
 who recently heard Mrs. Bishop’s stirring account of 
 her travels in Kashmir, Persia, and Central Asia, 
 
i.3 
 
 were appalled at < the simple but awful picture she 
 drew of the spiritual destitution of the people. She 
 told us of journeying on day after day, week after 
 week, through these vast regions, passing large cities 
 and populous villages, and yet not finding a single 
 Christian worker of any kind, and hardly a person 
 who had even heard the Gospel. In the whole of 
 Afghanistan and Baluchistan there is not a Christian 
 of any description. If we except perhaps an occa- 
 sional colporteur of the Bible Society, the same 
 terrible fact is true of the whole of Turkistan. In 
 spite of our few labourers in Baghdad, we dare hardly 
 speak of any Christian work of any kind as in 
 progress among the large population of the whole of 
 Mesopotamia. Arabia is practically untouched. Ion 
 Keith Falconer gave his life for the cause of Christ 
 at Aden, and the Free Church of Scotland has a 
 missionary there now as his successor in the good 
 work. But Aden is a British station, and mission 
 work has not yet been extended even into Yemen. 
 At Muscat, that apostle of our own time, Bishop 
 French, has lately fallen in his pioneering work, 
 which he trusted — and shall we say trusted in vain ? — 
 would lead others to realize as he did the solemn 
 nature of our terrible responsibility to preach the 
 Gospel of eternal life to the Arabs, and to offer them- 
 selves to carry it far into the interior of the country. 
 A standard-bearer has fallen, and no one has yet 
 stepped forward to fill his place. Nothing can more 
 strikingly show the degree of zeal which Christians 
 in England feel for the spread of their Master’s 
 
kingdom among the followers of the Prophet of 
 Islam ! 
 
 Compared with the very small amount of effort 
 that has been made by the Church of Christ to carry 
 the Gospel message to Muslims, we may well thank 
 God that so much success has been achieved among 
 them. Muhammadanism has already received a very 
 severe check in India, and learned defenders of Islam, 
 in that country, have now been compelled to fall 
 back from many of the positions they once deemed 
 impregnable, and to adopt an entirely new line of 
 defence. At least one great reforming movement, 
 very similar in its nature to those among Hindus, 
 which are known as the Brahmo Samaj and the 
 Prarthana Samaj, has occurred among Muslims in 
 India, and can be traced to a very large extent to 
 the influence of Christian teaching. This is the 
 “ Naturee” school, as the followers of Sayyid Ahmad 
 are termed. Sayyid Ahmad himself actually began 
 to write a voluminous commentary upon the books of 
 the Old Testament, for the use of his co-religionists ; 
 but desisted from the undertaking before he had 
 finished the Book of Genesis, because he found it 
 impossible to explain away (as the claims of 
 Muhammad required) the clearly expressed promises 
 to Isaac of the coming of the Saviour from his 
 descendants, and not from those of Ishmael. There 
 is much in the tenets of this new sect which is quite 
 alien to orthodox Muhammadanism, and much that 
 is akin to Materialism ; yet it shows how utterly 
 impossible it is for orthodox IslAm successfully to 
 
1 5 
 
 resist the influence of Western culture and Christian 
 thought. In Persia also, a great and growing sect — 
 that of the Babis — though adopting, or still retaining, 
 in their creed much that is absurd and objectionable 
 yet show a very encouraging tendency towards 
 Christianity, and in many instances a marked readi- 
 ness to read the Christian Scriptures. Their zeal 
 for what they regard as the truth has often led 
 them to die a martyr’s death rather than return to 
 their previous belief in Islam. Such movements, 
 when so comparatively little has been done for the 
 Muslims by Christian Missionary Societies, encourage 
 us greatly in the hope that the disintegration of 
 Islam, when properly and efficiently undertaken, will 
 prove a far easier task than many think. Conver- 
 sions to Christianity from among Muhammadans 
 have not been few wherever the Gospel has been 
 faithfully presented for their acceptance. In the 
 Panjab such converts may be numbered by 
 hundreds — men taken from almost every position 
 in society. Among the fifteen native Christian clergy 
 now working in that mission in connection with the 
 Church Missionary Society, ten are converts from 
 Islam. In Turkey, when for a few years religious 
 toleration was proclaimed, Dr. Koelle was enabled 
 to baptize and gather round him a small congregation 
 of those who had been brought out of the darkness 
 of Islam to the light of the glorious Gospel of 
 Christ. But man after man vanished, and was never 
 seen again alive. They were no doubt murdered 
 because of their faith. Dr. Bruce, in Persia, and 
 
i6 
 
 some Christian Missionaries in Syria and Palestine, 
 tell of men who were brave enough, even with the 
 sword hanging over their heads, to confess Christ in 
 Muhammadan lands. The same is true with regard 
 to Baghdad. I have myself been privileged in 
 Bombay to baptize Muslim converts of several 
 distinct races — one an Afghan, one a Turk from 
 Central Asia, several natives of Persia, and not a 
 few from different parts of India. Moreover, besides 
 those who have had the courage to confess the faith 
 of Christ crucified, and endure persecution for His 
 name sake, every Missionary to the Muslims knows 
 of Muslim inquirers who have privately confessed 
 their faith in Christ, but are kept back from receiving 
 baptism by their dread of the danger which they 
 would thereby incur. These facts are true, not with 
 reference to the work of any one Missionary Society 
 alone, but to that of every such Society that has, 
 even to a very limited degree, striven to bring the 
 light of the Gospel to the Muslims. Thank Gon, 
 those of us who have been called upon to labour 
 among Muhammadans know better than faithless 
 critics that the Word of God is strong to pierce to 
 the heart and conscience of the most bigoted 
 Muslim, and to lead even such men as Dr. 
 ‘Imadu’ddin and Safdar ‘Alt to bow to the dominion 
 of the Truth which maketh free. A Muhammadan 
 with whom 1 was reading St. John’s Gospel said to 
 me, “ If a Muslim has read the Gospel for even three 
 days, although perhaps he may still fear to become 
 a Christian, yet he will never again believe in 
 
17 
 
 Muhammad.” This man has since been baptized. 
 “Some men know God,” said a Muslim friend of 
 mine, who had knelt weeping with me to pray to 
 Got) for light and peace — "some men know God in 
 a way that I do not know Him, though I have long 
 sought for Him. Pray to God for me that, if it be 
 His will, I too some day may know Him.” God has 
 not left Himself without a witness among such men. 
 All we need is to go forward boldly, prayerfully, and 
 trustfully in this grand and glorious work. 
 
 A most devoted Missionary now gone to his rest, 
 the brave Mackay of Uganda, called attention a few 
 years since to the vast importance of gaining for 
 Christ the strong races of the Asiatic continent, and 
 not being contented with preaching the Gospel merely 
 to nations that were possessed of far less vigour and 
 force of character and showed a tendency to become 
 extinct. It is a marvellous thing that in the 
 wondrous Providence of God the Gospel has been 
 preached to not only the poor as individuals but to 
 those nations and tribes which in the community of 
 races and nationalities hold the same place. The 
 Gospel has in many cases retarded for centuries, even 
 if not sufficiently accepted to enable it to permanently 
 prevent, the downfall of a race. All honour to those 
 steadfast and heroic men who have devoted their 
 lives, like Williams, the martyr of Erromango, 
 Gardiner of Tierra del Fuego, or Bishop Patteson 
 of Melanesia, to preaching Christ crucified to the 
 savage and the degraded. Nothing in the whole 
 history of the Church of Christ is grander and more 
 
noble than the history — little known to most of us — 
 of the self-denying lives and heroic deaths of those 
 heralds of salvation, to whose devotion, under Got), 
 the conversion of these and similar tribes is due. 
 But “ these things ought ye to have done, and not 
 leave the other undone.” Had the earliest preachers 
 of Christ in Europe confined their efforts to the 
 conversion of the Bretons, the Finns, or even the 
 Kelts, what would be the state of Europe to-day ? 
 Thank GOD, they had courage and faith enough to 
 enable them to attack the cultured Greek and the 
 imperial Roman. And when these races fell into 
 utter ruin and almost total extinction through their 
 vices, Christian Missionaries feared not to take up 
 the cross, and, not counting life dear to themselves, 
 to preach Christ crucified to the invading Teuton in 
 Gaul and Italy, to the Gothic hordes in Spain and 
 the Vandal hosts in Africa, and even to the savage 
 and bloodthirsty Saxon ancestors of our English 
 race, who had extinguished in blood the Christian 
 faith in nearly the whole of England. The work 
 was not one devoid of danger. Many a champion 
 of the Gross was called upon to seal his testimony 
 with his blood. The cry, “ Christianos ad leones,” 
 sounded forth only too frequently from the abandoned 
 populace of the great city which was drunk with the 
 blood of the martyrs of Jesus. Many a St. Alban 
 never canonized gave his life even in this island 
 ere Christianity finally took root in it. Vet the 
 Christians of those terrible days were not terrified. 
 They had their “ marching-orders,” and the)- obeyed 
 
'9 
 
 them. Christ, the) - knew, was with them, and in His 
 Divine strength they felt able to do their duty, 
 knowing well how true the words of the Apostle 
 must for all time be, “ This is the victory that over- 
 cometh ” — nay, rather, “ that hath overcome — the 
 world, even our faith.” Such men could not be 
 conquered ; all the powers of earth and hell leagued 
 together could not long resist them. So the work 
 went on. Nations, like our own, then unknown to 
 fame, except for their savagery and cruelty, but 
 destined, in God’s providence, to play a leading part 
 in the future history of the world, were slowly but 
 surely won for Christ. And what has taken place in 
 Europe may and should take place in Asia also. 
 The Arabs are one of the bravest and most in- 
 dependent races in the whole of that vast continent. 
 We all know what their courage and faith wrought 
 in days of yore, when, at the bidding of their false 
 Prophet, they issued forth from their ancestral deserts 
 to the conquest of the world. What may not that 
 nation, children of Abraham and Ishmael, yet do 
 for the advancement of Christ’s kingdom if we have 
 courage and zeal enough to conquer them for Christ ! 
 Shall Bishop French have died in vain for Arabia? 
 Is it not time that we set ourselves in real earnest to 
 the spiritual subjugation of the Muhammadan world ? 
 Then again, there are the Turks, a vastly extended 
 race, brave to a fault, ready to shed their blood for 
 their faith, which, we must remember, was adopted 
 by them voluntarily when their swords had shattered 
 the throne of the Khalifs of Baghdad, and their 
 
20 
 
 resistless valour had made them masters of almost 
 the whole of Western Asia and the terror of the 
 world. Degraded by vice, cowed and hopeless 
 through the tyranny of their rulers and the fatalism 
 of their creed, what might they not yet be and do, 
 if brought out from such thraldom and made heirs 
 of the glorious liberty of the children of Goi) ! The 
 bravery of the Afghan again is equalled only by his 
 cruelty and thirst for blood. Cannot the Gospel of 
 Christ change him too into a noble and self-devoted 
 soldier of the Cross? The Malay is noted for his 
 piracies and his ruthless butcheries ; but his deeds 
 are hardly worse than those of our own heathen 
 ancestors, who longed to die on the battle-field, or 
 on the deck of their pirate-craft, and panted for the 
 wine-horn and the feast in the Palace of Odin, 
 Valhalla, the “ Hall of the Slain.” Vet Madagascar, 
 inhabited to a great extent, as the language shows, 
 by a branch of the same great Malay race, has 
 furnished many a champion to join the noble army 
 of martyrs. Why should not Malacca and Sumatra 
 do so too ? — if we will only nerve ourselves for the 
 effort, find, at whatever cost, determine to give them 
 the Gospel of Christ, which is still to-day, as in the 
 past, the “power of Goi) unto salvation to everyone 
 that bclieveth.” 
 
 “It is the will of Goi) ! ” May not we Christians 
 at the close of this nineteenth century take as our 
 watchword this old Crusading cry? However mis- 
 taken they who first used the words may have been, 
 ive cannot be wrong if we understand them of the 
 
conquest for Christ of Muhammadan lands. That is 
 without doubt the will of G<)I>, for lie has given the 
 command and He will not deny us the power to obey 
 it if we will. Why should not those of us who feel 
 that the time has come for preaching the Gospel to 
 the Muslims dedicate ourselves and our possessions 
 to this sendee as did our fathers to a far less noble 
 Crusade? Cannot England supply enough earnest 
 Christian men and women to form a “ Crusaders’ 
 Union,” pledged to do all in their power, God 
 helping them, to labour as God shall direct for the 
 conversion of the Muhammadans? Such a Union 
 would have to rouse zeal among lukewarm Christians 
 at home, to gain and disseminate accurate informa- 
 tion in reference to the true nature and effects of 
 Islam, and by so doing to confute those false ideas 
 which are now doing so much to blind Christians to 
 the deep needs of the Muhammadan world. They 
 would supply volunteers to enable our Society, and 
 perhaps others also, to undertake work in earnest 
 and on an adequate scale among the Muslims. They 
 would support us who are now engaged in this work 
 by their prayers for us. Members of the Union 
 would be ready to come forward and stand by our 
 side in distant lands, to cheer us by their presence 
 and aid us by their exertions. And when one by 
 one, our life’s duty done, we fall in the front of the 
 battle or are carried wounded from the field, younger 
 and more able hands than ours would bear aloft the 
 Christian standard to victory. We have delayed too 
 long and neglected our duty, the one thing we 
 
Englishmen pride ourselves most on doing. Let us 
 rouse ourselves to action now ere it is too late. 
 “ The night is far spent, the day is at hand.” The 
 one great barrier to the spread of the Gospel over a 
 large portion of the earth is the power of Islam. If 
 we Christians will only rise and do our duty, the 
 barrier will be soon removed, and those very nations 
 which now hinder the Gospel most may, in God’s 
 Providence, become the foremost champions of the 
 faith and the most zealous preachers of the 
 Redeemer’s love and mercy. When the Crescent of 
 Islam shall fade away before the beams of the Sun 
 of Righteousness, the world will have been won for 
 Christ. 
 
 “IT IS THE WILL OF GOD!” 
 
(Church 4Hissionarn §ocictn. 
 
 — ‘ (*«C zo u — * 
 
 THE CHURCH MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCER. 
 
 Enlarged to 80 pages, royal 8vo, in Coloured 
 Wrapper. Price 6d. 
 
 Annual Subscription, 6s. post free. 
 
 Comprising — Articles on the Principles, Plans, ancl Work of the 
 Church Missionary Society ; on the Missionary Questions of the 
 Day ; on the History and Geography of the Countries comprised 
 in the Mission-field, and the Religion, Language, &c., of their 
 Inhabitants. 
 
 Reviews of Books having reference to Missions or the Mission- 
 field, &c. 
 
 Journals and Reports of Missionaries, &c., &c. 
 
 The Mission-field, Home Work of the Society, Contribution 
 List, &c. 
 
 THE CHURCH MISSIONARY ATLAS. 
 
 ilclu nnii (fnlargrt (fiiiition. 
 
 Part I. contains Africa and the Mohammedan Lands ok 
 THE EAST ; with eleven Maps; Price 4s. 
 
 Part 11. contains India ; with ten Maps ; Price 5s. 
 
 The two parts, post free , to Members of the Society, for 7s. 6d. 
 
 Part III., containing Ceylon, Mauritius, China, Japan, 
 New Zealand, and North-West America, is in preparation. 
 Part IV. to follow. 
 
SOME BOOKS & PAMPHLETS ON C.I.S. MISSIONS. 
 
 THE PUNJAB AND SINDH MISSIONS OF THE C.M.S. 
 
 By the Rev: R. Clark, M.A, Second Edition. Price 5 s., post free. 
 In paper covers, 2 s. 6d., post free. 
 
 THE STORY OF THE CHEH-KIANG MISSION. By the 
 
 Yen. Archdeacon Moui.k, B. D. Third Edition. With Illustrations and 
 a Map. Cloth gilt, 2s. 6d., post free. 
 
 THE STORY OF THE FUH-KIEN MISSION. By Eugene 
 
 Stock, Editorial Secretary, C.M.S. With 34 Illustrations, a Map, and a 
 Supplementary Chapter up to 1890. Price, limp cloth Is. 6d. ; in cloth 
 boards, gilt, 2s. 6d. ; post free. 
 
 JAPAN AND THE JAPAN MISSION. By Eugene Stock, 
 
 Editorial Secretary, C.M.S. Second Edition. Revised by the Rev. 
 C. F. Wakrkk, C.M.S. Missionary in Japan. With Illustrations. Price, 
 lithographed covers, 2 s. 6d. ; cloth, 3 s. 6d. ; post free. 
 
 THE GLORIOUS LAND. Short Chapters on China; 
 
 giving a vivid account of China and the Chinese. By the Yen. Archdeacon 
 Moule, B. D. With Illustrations and a Map. Cloth gilt, Is., post free. 
 
 THE EASTERN EQUATORIAL AFRICA MISSION OF 
 
 THE C.M.S. 106 pages in Wrapper. With Chronological 
 
 Table and a Map. Price 6d. 
 
 CHINA AS A MISSION FIELD. By the Ven. Archdeacon 
 
 Moule, B.D. 80 pages in Illustrated Wrapper, with a Map, price 6d. 
 
 NOTES ON CHINA AND ITS MISSIONS. By C. F. 
 
 Gordon-Cumming. Price 3 d. 
 
 THE HILL TRIBES OF INDIA (Sdnla/s, Pdharis , Gonds, 
 
 A’uis, Bheels, and Hill Arrians). 48 pages in Wrapper. By C. D.S 
 Price 3 d. 
 
 NOTES ON CEYLON. ByC. F. Gordon-Cumming. Price 2d. 
 
 THE TRAVANCORE AND COCHIN MISSION OF THE 
 C.M.S. Illustrated. Price id. 
 
 THE TINNEVELLY MISSION OF THE C.M.S. Illustrated. 
 
 Price Id. 
 
 THE PERSIA AND BAGHDAD MISSION. Illustrated. 
 
 Price Id. 
 
 COMPLETE CATALOGUE of the Society’s 
 Publications, with Specimens of the Magazines, 
 Gratuitous Papers, &c., will be forwarded on appli- 
 cation to — 
 
 THE SECRETARIES, 
 
 CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY, 
 
 SALISBURY SQUARE, LONDON, E.C.