means the advent of fanatical ambassadors of the greatness and glory of their faith, however much they may have been disappointed in the actual condition of the city and of the Kaaba. When we consider Mecca, Mohammed's words of prophecy in the second chapter of his book seem to have been literally fulfilled: "So we have made you the center of the nations that you should bear witness. to men." The old pagan pantheon has become the religious sanctuary and the goal of universal pilgrimage for one-seventh of the human race. From Sierra Leone to Canton, and from Tobolsk to Cape Town, the faithful spread their prayer carpets, build their houses (in fufillment of an important tradition, even their outhouses!) and bury their dead toward the meridian of Mecca. Seen from an aeroplane, there would be concentric circles of living worshipers covering an ever-widening area and one would also see stretched out vast areas of Moslem cemeteries with every grave built toward the sacred city. Well may we ponder the words of Stanley Lane-Poole as to the place which Mecca and the pilgrimage hold in the Moslem faith. Have they not a special significance at this day when we speak of the strategic occupation of the world for its evangelization? He wrote: "Is it asked how the destroyer of idols could have reconciled his conscience to the circuits of the Kaaba and the veneration of the Black Stone covered with adoring kisses? The rites of the pilgrimage can not certainly be defended against the charge of superstition; but it is easy to see why Mohammed enjoined them. He well knew the consolidating effect of forming a cen ter to which his followers should gather, and hence he reasserted the sanctity of the Black Stone that 'came down from heaven;' he ordained that everywhere throughout the world the Moslem should pray looking toward the Kaaba, and enjoined him to make the pilgrimage thither. Mecca is to the Moslem what Jerusalem is to the Jew. It bears with it all the influence of centuries of associations. It carries the Moslem back to the cradle of his faith and the childhood of his prophet. . . . And, most of all, it bids him remember that all his brother Moslems are worshiping toward the same sacred spot; that he is one of a great company of believers united by one faith, filled with the same hopes, reverencing the same thing, worshiping the same God." The question of the occupation of Mecca as a center for Christian missions may well stagger our faith when we consider at what tremendous cost the city was unveiled by intrepid travelers. Augustus Ralli has recently given us a book under the striking title of "Christians at Mecca," in which he tells the story of all those Christian pilgrims who, either in disguise or by abandoning their faith, or in one or two cases, under compulsion, reached the sacred city. From Bartema, Wild and Joseph Pitts to Burton, Burckhardt, Hurgronje and Courtellemont, they took their lives in their hands, herded with strange companions, underwent untold hardships, and by luck or pluck came scathless out of this lion's den of Islam. According to Doughty, scarcely a pilgrimage takes place without some persons being put to death as intruded Christians. An educated and pious Moslem here in A GENERAL VIEW OF MECCA AND THE KAABA-THE MOSLEM "HOLY OF HOLIES' "" What Jerusalem and Palestine are to Christendom this, and vastly more, Mecca and Arabia are to the Mohammedan world. Not only is this once whiter than snow, but since turned black by the sins of pilgrims! In proof of these statements travelers are shown the Black Stone at Mecca and the tomb of Eve near Jiddah. Mecca lies in a hot sandy valley absolutely without verdure and surrounded by rocky barren hills, destitute of trees or even shrubs. The valley is about 300 feet wide and 4,000 feet long, and slopes toward the south. The Kaaba (or Beit Allah) is located in the bed of the valley and all the streets slope toward it, so that it is almost closed in on every side by houses and walls, and stands as it were in the pit of the theater. The Sacred Mosque (Mesjid el Haram) containing the Kaaba, is the prayer-center of the Mohammedan world and the objective point of thousands of pilgrims every year. According to Moslem writers it was first constructed in heaven, 2,000 years before the creation of the world. Adam, the first man, built the Kaaba on earth exactly under the spot occupied by its perfect model in heaven. The 10,000 angels appointed to guard this house of God seem to have been very remiss in their duty, for it has often suffered at the hands of men and from the elements. It was destroyed by the flood and rebuilt by Ishmael and Abraham. The name Kaaba means a cube; but the building is not built true to line and is in fact an unequal trapezium. Because of its location in a hollow and its black-cloth covering (the yearly gift of pilgrims) these inequalities are not apparent to the eye. The Kaaba proper stands in an oblong space 250 paces long by 200 broad. This open space is surrounded by collonnades used for schools and as the general rendezvous of pilgrims. It is in turn surrounded by the outer temple wall with its 19 gates and 6 minarets. The Sacred Mosque and its Kaaba contain the following treasures: the Black Stone, the well of Zemzem, the great pulpit, the staircase, and the two small mosques of Saab and Abbas. The Black Stone is undoubtedly the oldest treasure of Mecca. Cairo assured me only a few days ago that when he went on pilgrimage and took pictures of the city, his life was endangered more than once by the fanaticism of the inhabitants. However, there are many who believe that the opening of the Hedjaz Railway, especially as a branch is to be carried to Jiddah, and the gradual breaking up of Turkish power in Arabia, may mean the removal of restrictions against non-Moslems. Mecca is a challenge to faith and to Christian heroism. If it were an island in the South Seas with a similar population and annual pilgrimage, how long would the church wait for men like Paton, Chalmers or Williams to enter fearlessly, even tho it should. cost life? No one who has read the account of social life at Mecca, as given by Hurgronje, and corroborated by every recent traveler, can doubt the utter need of this city for the Gospel. Mecca is the microcosm of Islam in its religious life and aspirations. According to Hurgronje, "it is Islam, the official religion, which brings together and amalgamates all the heterogeneous constituents of Meccan life. On the other hand this society itself welds into a chaotic whole the prejudices and superstitions of all countries." In other words, Mecca is the sink-hole of Islam. All witnesses agree on the flagrant immorality which pervades the streets and even the mosque of the sacred city, on the prevalence of the slave trade, on the fleecing of pilgrims, and the corruption of the local government. If Mecca is the glory of the Moslem world, they glory in their shame. The Christ who wept over Jerusalem and had compassion on the multitudes is surely waiting for some one to go to this great city and to stand amid its hundred thousand pilgrims and point them away from the reeking shambles of their yearly sacrifice to the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world; away from the well of Zemzem to the Water of Life! Constantinople-the Political Capital II. Constantinople by by its very location on the Bosphorus, facing two continents and two great civilizations, will always be of political and commercial importance. In view of the wonderful events that are transpiring as we write these lines, the words of Sir William Ramsay concerning this great capital of Islam seem almost prophetic: "Constantinople is the center about which history revolves. It is the bridge that binds the East to the West, the old to the new civilization, which must must be brought into harmony before the culmination of all civilization can appear, bringing peace on earth and goodwill toward men." Founded by Constantine and beautified by Justinian, the old city reprepresented visibly the overthrow of paganism and the triumph of Christianity. The great church of St. Sophia was literally built by stripping the glory from heathen temples far and near, and yet that very church has for centuries since the fall of Constantinople in 1453 also symbolized the conquest of Oriental Christianity by Islam. Will it soon again resound with praises to the Trinity? It is evident to the student of history that all other factors which add to the glory of this metropolis are insignificant in comparison with its political and religious importance in relation to the Moslem world. The The position of Turkey and of the Ottoman Empire is unique among other Moslem countries. For centuries it has stood out as the one great temporal power of Islam with laws and usages built upon the book and the traditions of the prophet. Here is the residence of the caliph, the Imamel-Muslimin, the supreme pontiff of the church state called Islam. Even at the present day Constantinople and its politics are the cynosure of Islam from Morocco to the Philippine Islands. The fall of Constantinople would be interpreted by Moslems everywhere as the direst disaster. This accounts for the enthusiastic and almost fanatic response in every part of Moslem India to the appeals to help the Sultan during the war in Tripoli and in the Balkan States. Constantinople is the capital of the Ottoman Empire. To it all the states of Turkey look for political direction, and representatives from every tribe and race in the empire are found on its streets. "As a base for missionary operations not only upon Turkey, but upon adjacent countries as well." says Dr. Barton, "it is unexcelled. A publishing house at Constantinople is calculated by its very location to reach millions who might otherwise refuse to read what is printed. In Arabia an Arabic Bible, at first rejected because it is an infidel's book, is later accepted because it bears upon its title-page the authoritative permission of his Imperial Majesty. As a strategic center for Christian work. calculated directly and indirectly to reach the 200,000,000 who bear the name of the prophet of Arabia, there is no place that can compare with Constantinople, resting upon two con tinents and swaying the most mighty in its ignorance; the strength of religious empire on earth." The population of Constantinople is given as 1,106,000, but of these scarcely more than one-half are Moslems. This fact only emphasizes, however, its importance as a missionary center. Here the forces of Christianity and Islam, numerically considered, are so nearly balanced that the impact of a vital Christianity once more dominant in the Oriental churches would count as nowhere else. And for the past fifty years it has counted. The late Mr. William T. Stead once said, "How many American citizens, I wonder, are aware that from the slopes of Mt. Ararat all the way to the shores of the blue Egean Sea, American missionaries have scattered broadcast over all this distressful land the seed of American principles? They are here everywhere teaching, preaching, begetting new life in these Asiatic races." Robert College, the Bible House at Constantinople, the American College for Girls and similar institutions have from this strategic center sent out, as from a power-house, currents of life and thought throughout the Moslem world. But for the adequate occupation of this center, especially face to face with present-day changed conditions and unheard-of liberties, the present missionary force might well doubled. Can it be true, as Dr. Dwight asserts, that in place of applying its tremendous power to the problems of these awakening races, the Christian printing apparatus at Constantinople is crippled for lack of funds?* The strength of Islam lies be * See his chapter on "A Half-forgotten Agency" in Constantinople and its problems; and also an important article on "Cairo as a Center of Islam," in The Moslem World, Volume I, page 229. Christianity in Christian education. The new situation calls for an enormous expansion of all the present existing agencies to win the political capital of Islam for Christ. Cairo-The Intellectual Capital III. Cairo, "the victorious," as its name signifies, is at once the capital of Egypt, the metropolis of all Africa and the brain center of the Moslem world. With a Moslem population nearly twice as large as that of Stamboul and larger than that of any other city in the world, its influence is steadily growing, not only throughout North Africa but throughout the nearer East. Its statistics of population, its architectural monuments, educational institutions, municipal government, street cries and street signs and daily life make evident to even the casual observer that this is a thoroughly Moslem city. Of the fifteen quarters into which the vast city is divided, there is only one quarter, the Esbekieh, where nonMoslems are in the majority; and yet this quarter contains 13,000 Moslems over against 14,000 Copts. In the Darb-ul-Ahmar quarter there are 62,ooo Moslems and a non-Moslem population of only 2,000. Bulaq quarter has 82,000, a city in itself, with a total non-Moslem population of only 7,800. The Gemalieh quarter has 50,000 Moslems over against 2,000 non-Moslems, and the Khalifa quarter has 53,000 Moslems and 1,340 nonMoslems. Saida Zeinab quarter has over 63,000 Moslems and a non-Moslem population of only 2,300. The Moslem population of Gizah Mudirihay, close to Cairo, is 11,900, while the number of non-Moslems is less |