Sir William Muir, who lived for forty years in India, says: "The sword of Islam and the Koran are the most obstinate foes to civilization, liberty, and truth the world has yet known." After a residence of nearly twenty years in Palestine and much intercourse among all classes, both in city and village life, the writer of this chapter can confirm the statement.

Islam is the same everywhere and changes not.

The chief cause of its blighting influence is its degradation and contempt of women, which is the result of ignorance of the Word of God. Therefore, the wide-spread preaching of the Gospel to-day is the need of Islam, and the responsibility for it rests chiefly upon the Christians of England and America.

One looks in vain among Moslems for peaceful homes, honored wives, affectionate husbands, happy sons and daughters, loving and trusting one another.

A Moslem home is built upon the foundation of the man's right (religious right) to have at least four wives at a time; to divorce them at pleasure and to bring others as frequently as he has the inclination or the money to buy.

A son is always welcomed at birth with shrill shouts and boisterous clapping of hands or beating of drums; but a baby girl is received in silence and disappointment.

The boy is indulged in every way from the day of his arrival. He is under no restraint or control, and usually at two years of age is a little tyrant, freely cursing his mother and sisters. The mother smiles at his cleverness, she herself having taught him, and her own teaching leads afterwards to much misery in the lives of other women.

Great numbers of boys die in infancy, or under three years of age, because of the ignorance of their mothers in caring for them. They are either overfed or neglected. In some families, where there have been a number of both boys and girls, all the boys have died. The women have been blamed for this and sometimes divorced, or else retained to serve the new wives who have been brought instead.

How often I think of the dear little Moslem girls! The most teachable and responsive to loving kindness of all. Oh, that they might have happy homes, happy mothers, wise and loving fathers! One dear Moslem child, only four years old, after having been in a Christian mission school for a year, was taken ill and died. All the members of a large family were present as she lay dying (crowding into the room of the sick is an Oriental custom) and heard her exclaim: "My mother! Jesus loves little girls just like me!"

A Moslem can divorce his wife at his pleasure or send her away from his house without a divorce. If he does only the latter, she cannot marry any one else. This is often done purposely to torment her. But the women are not the only sufferers through these wretched domestic arrangements. Many of them are utterly heartless and show no pity for their own children. They will leave them to marry again, the new husband refusing to take the children, and numbers die in consequence. Many a troublesome old man is also put out of the way by poison administered by the wives of his sons. Not long ago a prison, in an Oriental city, was visited by some Christian missionaries who had obtained permission to see the women who had been sentenced for life. They are found to be there for having murdered their "da-rÂ-ir," that is, their husbands' other wives, or the children of their hated rivals; and, having no money, they had not been able to buy their way out of prison, as can be done and is customary in Moslem countries.

As the camera would not do full justice to Moslem "interiors," either in house-life or in the administration of public affairs, both also being difficult to obtain, a few "pen and ink" sketches are sent by the writer of this article, taken in person on the spot.

Here is a picture of Abu Ali's household. Abu Ali has two wives, Aisha and Amina. Confusion and every evil thing are found in his family life. Each wife has five children, large and small, and the ten of the two families all hate each other. They fight and bite, scratch out each other's eyes, and pull out each other's hair. The husband has good houses and gardens but the women and children all live in dark, damp rooms on the ground floor. The writer knows them and often goes to see them, especially to comfort the older wife, whose life is very wretched. She is almost starved at times. She weeps many bitter tears and curses the religion into which she was born. The Prophet Mohammed's religion makes many a man a heartless tyrant. He is greatly to be pitied because a victim by inheritance to this vast system of evil. Wild animals show more affection for their offspring and certainly take (for a while at least) more responsibility for their young than many Moslems do in Palestine.

Werdie is another case. This name in Arabic means "a rose." There are many sweet young roses in the East but, hidden away among thorns and brambles, their fragrance is often lost. This Werdie, a fair young blue-eyed girl whose six own brothers had all died, lived with her mother and father and his other wives in a very large Oriental house (not a home). She lived in the midst of continual strife, cursings, "evil eyes," and fights. This household is a distinguished family in their town!

Sometimes the quarrels lasted for many days without cessation and Werdie always took part in them as her mother's champion. The quarrels were between her father's wives,—her mother's rivals,—and she often boasted that she could hold out longer than all the others combined against her. On one occasion her awful language and loud railings continued for three days, and then she lost her voice—utterly—and could not speak for weeks! She had an ungoverned temper, and when goaded by the cruel injustice done her mother she delighted to give vent to it; but she also had a conscience and a good mind and was led into the Light. On being told of the power in Jesus Christ to overcome, she said one day, "I will try Him. I want peace in my heart, I will do anything to get it; I believe in Him and I will trust Him," and she did. She was afterwards given in marriage by her father, against her wish, to a man she did not know. He treats her cruelly as does also her mother-in-law. But now she has another spirit, a meek and lowly one, and is truly a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ. In the midst of strife she is a silent sufferer and a marvel to all the members of her family. She prays much and has literally a broken and a contrite spirit. She is the Lord's. There are other roses among the Moslems whom Jesus Christ came to redeem. Let us pray for them and go and find them! He will point the way.

Saleh Al WahhÂb is a Moslem in good position with ample means. He first married a sweet-looking young girl, Belise by name, but she had no children, so he divorced her and married three other women. Not having his desire for children granted, he divorced all three of these women and took back his first wife, who was quite willing to go to him!

Haji Hamid, who made the pilgrimage to Mecca, was the chief of a MatÂwaly village and highly honored, belonging to the Shiah sect of Moslems. He has had many wives, some of whom he had divorced because they displeased him, and others had died. When he became an old man, he brought a young and, as he was assured by others, a very beautiful and virtuous bride. He had never seen her. He paid a large sum of money for her, most of which she wore afterwards as ornaments—gold coins—on her head and neck.

Soon after her arrival in the sheikh's house he became seriously ill. She found this unpleasant, as she was a bride and wanted to enjoy herself. So she ran away, taking all the gold with her, and left him to die!

There is no honor or truth among Moslems. The Prophet's religion does not and cannot implant pity or compassion in the human heart. Haji Hamid had inherited from his birth false teaching, the evil influences and results of lying, corruption in Government affairs, tyranny, bribery, bigotry, and contempt for women. He only reaped as he had sown. However, he heard the Gospel on his dying bed and seemed grateful for kindnesses shown to him by Christian strangers.

Abd Er Rahim, "Slave of the Merciful," was a rich Moslem who once had several wives. Some he had divorced, some he had sent back to their fathers' homes, and some had died, and he was tired of the one who remained because she was getting old.

By chance he had seen a very handsome young peasant girl, and he wanted her, but he was afraid of his wife, for he felt sure that she would be troublesome if he brought this young girl to his house. So he planned a "shimel-howa" for his wife (a pleasant time, literally, a "smelling of the air," a promenade), to which she readily agreed. She put on her jewelry and silk outer garments, and started. Her husband was to follow her, but, according to Moslem custom, at a distance, as a man is not seen in public with his wife. She never returned, but was found dead two days afterwards, drowned in a well, wearing all her jewelry. Her husband found her. The facts were never investigated. A few days afterwards the new wife was brought into the house and lived there until the death of Abd Er Rahim. He has now gone to his reward! He never knew anything about the Lord Jesus Christ. No one ever told him. His last wife, however, did have the opportunity of knowing, but she laughed and made fun of His name. When she died, about three years ago, twenty large jars of water were poured over her to wash away her sins. She was arrayed in several silk gowns and buried, with verses from the Koran written on paper placed in her dead hands, to keep evil spirits away from her soul. Such is their ignorant superstition.

Benda was a poor Moslem woman who lived in a goat's-hair tent on one of the plains mentioned in the Bible, a Bedouin Arab's cast-off wife. She had lost her only child, her son, a young man. When first found, she herself was a mere skeleton. Very deaf and clothed in rags, she sat on the ground, weeping bitterly over the two long black braids of hair of her dead son, a pitiful object. It was very difficult to make her hear, but she was taught, often amidst the roars of laughter of some nominal Christians who said to her teacher: "Why do you cast pearls before swine?"

However, Benda was one of His jewels. She had a hungry heart, she understood the truth, believed, and was saved and comforted. Before she "went up higher" she became a "witness" to some of her own people.

There are other Moslem Bendas yet to be found, others to be brought into the fold. Who will come to help to find them and to bring them in? The lost sheep of the house of Ishmael.

Some one has asked: "What happens to the cast-off wives and divorced women among the Moslems?" Sometimes they are married several times and divorced by several men. If they have no children, after their strength fails them so that they cannot work, they beg and lead a miserable existence, and die. A woman who has lived at ease and in high position, after being divorced, will sometimes reach the very lowest degrees of poverty, hunger, and misery, and then die. For such, there are no funeral expenses; nothing is required but a shallow grave. Moslem men are usually willing to dig that in their own burying ground, and the body is carried to its last resting place on the public "ma'ash," or bier. Benda was buried in this way, but "she had an inheritance incorruptible and that fadeth not away."

Sheikh Haj Hamid's story is that of a rescued Moslem. Let me tell it to you.

There is to-day in the far East a town built out of the ruins of a city of great antiquity, in the land where giants once lived, and King Og reigned (Genesis xiv. 5; Deuteronomy iii. 11, 13).

Some of the Lord's messengers went out there, recently, to gather into the fold any of His scattered and wandering sheep they might find. Probably the Gospel had not been preached there for one thousand five hundred years. The Lord had promised to go before His messengers, and had assured them that there were sheep in that place who would hear His voice and follow Him, and, trusting this sure guidance, they started. "In journeyings, often, in perils of water, in perils of robbers, in perils in the wilderness, in perils among false brethren," they searched for the sheep and lambs—and found them. One of the number was a dignified, gray-haired Moslem sheikh who, on hearing "the call," with groans and tears asked, "What must I do to be saved, for my sins reach up to Heaven? What am I to do with them? For forty long years I have gone daily to the mosque, but never before, until this day, have I heard of salvation in Jesus Christ." And he wept aloud and cried out: "Won't you pray for me?" He eagerly received instruction and believed. His last and oft repeated words to his new-found Christian friends, as they rode away, were: "Won't you continue to pray for me?"

The Lord Jesus Christ is speaking to His own among Moslems to-day, but many have never heard of Him. There are more than two hundred million Moslems in the world. "How can they hear without a preacher?"

HindÎyea's story will also interest you. A Moslem woman lay dying in a coast town of old Syro-Phoenicia. She was the wife of an aged KÂtib—the scribe of the town and the teacher of the Koran. The woman knew that her end was near, but how could she die? Where was she going? Her husband had no word of comfort for her, he did not know. She was greatly troubled and deep waters rolled over her soul. Who could tell her? Was there no one to stretch out a helping hand?

Suddenly she thought of a foreign lady, a missionary, who was at the time in her own town, and whose words had once strangely stirred her heart. Perhaps she would come to her? She did come and on her entering the room, HindÎyea, endued with new strength and wonderful energy, sat up in her bed and called out in a loud voice, her great eyes shining like stars: "Welcome! Welcome! a thousand times welcome! I need you now, can you teach me how to die? Will you come and put your hands on my head and bring down God's blessing upon me? Surely you can help me."

HindÎyea was told just in time the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and went home to God. Christ came for others just like her in the great Moslem world. Who will go to teach them how to die and how to live?

There is a general belief among Christians that Moslems worship the One True God—the Almighty God; but this is a mistake, they do not worship Him at all! They worship the God who has Mohammed for his prophet and who is he? Certainly not the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The call that goes up from thousands of minarets all over the Moslem world six times a day—"There is no God but God, and Mohammed is his prophet,"—is in direct conflict with the Word of Truth, that we have access to our God through His Son, Jesus Christ, for they deny the Son,—"and this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life" (1 John v. 11, 12).

"Who is the liar, but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ. This is the Anti-Christ, that denieth the Father and the Son. Whosoever denieth the Son the same hath not the Father: he that confesseth the Son hath the Father also" (1 John ii. 22, 23).

In direct contradiction to this teaching of the New Testament is Chapter CXII of the Koran, which, in Sale's translation, is as follows: "My God is one God, the eternal God, He begetteth not, neither is He begotten, and there is not any one like unto Him." Also in Chapter XIX: "It is not meet for God that he should have any Son, God forbid!" Chapter CXII is held in particular veneration by the Mohammedan world and declared by the tradition of their prophet to be equal in value to a third part of the whole Koran. Wherever Islam prevails, or exists, Christ is denied to be the Son of God. All Moslems deny also the death on the Cross and the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.

There is a clarion call to-day for prayer, prayer for the Moslem World. When the Christians of evangelical lands begin to pray, the walls of the strongholds of the enemy will fall, and the chains that have bound millions of souls for one thousand three hundred years will be broken.

Islam's only hope is to know God, "the Only True God, and Jesus Christ whom He has sent."