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have been interpreted by some people as indicating a hopeful tendency towards religious freedom. Meanwhile

religious liberty has never been granted, and now and again there are outbursts of Mohammedan fanaticism against the Babis or the Jews or others. At present there is nothing tangible on which to base a definite hope or probability of official religious freedom, yet it is a fact that at least in some parts of Persia there is a considerable degree of religious laxity as compared with the strict Mohammedanism enjoined by the Koran.

But it should be said in this connection that while there is a loud demand for education, as instanced by the Women's Educational Movement, and they seem to think that education is the sure remedy for all Persia's difficulties, yet there is no popular demand for Christianity as such, they only desiring those results of Christianity which might be covered by the expression "modern civilization," provided they can get these benefits without the Christian religion itself.

During the last half century Babism or Bahaism has gained thousands of followers in Persia. In the early years of these sects the movement was carried on in strict secrecy for fear of persecution from the orthodox Moslems. During the last few years the Babis and Bahais have become bold and more or less open in advocating their doctrines. Some few foreigners have come into the country professing to be Babis or Bahais and have openly joined themselves to the movement. Largely the feeling prevails that with the new liberty which has come to exist with regard to many other things these religionists may also come in for a degree of protection from persecution.

Many Moslems openly admit that Islam is in a very retrograde condition. Some of the best of them advocate return to the teaching of the Koran before there can be

any real reform or prosperity in Persia. On the other hand, some admit that the country will never prosper while that religion prevails. I doubt not there are thousands of nominal Moslems who are rationalists or have gone out of Islam into some other sect or else hold no definite religious views at all. Many of them have been to Russia, France, England, and even some to America and have seen the progress of Western countries under the sway of nominal Christianity. Commercial intercourse with the outside world has shown the Persians that Christian nations have much that is good which no Mohammedan country ever can possess.

The political changes above narrated are of course professedly the demands of the people for political liberty, and although it is quite true that the movement is being managed by a very small part of Persia's people, it is sweeping the whole country before it. And while professedly political, it is also promoting, though perhaps incidentally, every kind of liberty, including that which is religious and that which goes beyond liberty and should be called license. In a word, the effect of these political changes on Islam is tending to break the fanatical power of that religion.

In attempting to speak of the outlook for Christian missions we take up a subject extremely delicate and largely speculative. The work of Christian missions in Persia was probably never held up to keener criticism, and at least some of it probably never enjoyed higher favour with the best Persians than at present. There never was a time when greater caution and wisdom were called for on the part of Christian missionaries than at the present. It should be our constant endeavour to make our work and influence commend themselves to the Persians, convincing them that the work we are doing here is of vital value and benefit to them. Every

reasonable effort should be made not to offend but to attract. Persia is in a sensitive condition. It is not wise to argue against the weakness of their religious system, but if we can by God's help correctly represent to the Moslems the holy beauty and infinite saving power of Jesus Christ and His Gospel, the fallacies of their own religion will become evident to them. Present conditions do not constitute an opportunity for the wholesale forcing of Christianity upon the Persians, but instead of that, we should carry on the work with great caution and discretion. Many of the Persians are willing and ready to let themselves and their children be influenced by Christianity and take their chances as to whether these influences will ultimately lead to their becoming Christians. This fact is especially noticeable in the educational movement that has taken hold of the country. They are demanding modern education for both sexes; many of them are anxious to put their children into the mission schools even though they know that the Bible is regularly taught. Christian missions in Persia should adequately cope therefore with the present demand for education. The future of Christian missions during the next few years in Persia depends, under the will of God, upon political developments, the quality of the missionaries, and the prayers of the Church.

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THE SITUATION IN INDIA

REV. W. A. WILSON, M. A., D. D., INDORE

ELIEVING that the religion which has the Lord
Jesus for its centre and its life is the religion

that all men need and which God designs for all men, we must face the fact that among non-Christian religions Mohammedanism, though the most closely related to Christianity in its origin and growth, is, more than any other, antagonistic to its central principles. While it has points of contact in its doctrines regarding the nature of God and His relation to the world, yet in its attitude to the basal Christian doctrines of God's fatherhood, the incarnation, the nature of sin and redemption, it is uncompromisingly hostile; and because of the kindred truth it contains, there is ground for the opinion that the final struggle for the religious conquest of Eastern nations will be between Christianity and Islam.

While Hinduism, in some of its reforming sects, is in these days being galvanized into a kind of missionary activity, its genius is not aggressive, but both Mohammedanism and Christianity are bound to seek expansion, each after its kind, the one by accretion out of the material of its environment, the other by the power of its transforming life.

Differing though they do in motive, methods and means, they both aim at bringing the world to the obedience of their faith.

As Christians, possessing the highest revelation of God. and the knowledge of His redemptive work for humanity,

and quickened by the divine life which the Lord Jesus has brought into the world, and knowing that the people of Islam lack what we have to give, and are perishing because of that lack, we owe it to them and to our Lord to supplant at any cost the faith of Islam by the religion of Jesus.

the Lord Jesus, reckoned with, as

For all who would be loyal to Mohammedanism is a force to be either hindering or helping in the establishing of His kingdom. Whatever relates to its movements, its changes, its trend, should be to them a matter of deep

concern.

Islam in India has long been marked by religious exclusiveness and political stagnancy, and its followers have lagged far behind in the developing civilization of the nations and in the things that make a people great and good.

But now it has begun to realize its want of harmony with the age we live in, and it is unable to resist the many varied and far-reaching influences, due to scientific progress and mental activity in the various departments of thought and life, that have within the last quarter of a century increased in force among Western nations, and that are now penetrating the masses of Eastern humanity, producing new movements, awakening new aspirations and ideals, and stirring up new energies and powers destined to change the character of nations, and the face of the world.

During the last half century and more, Islam in India has been free, under the impartial rule of Britain, to develop whatever of good there may be in it, but no vital force for internal regeneration has been manifested. Within the last decade, however, it has awakened to a very marked activity, and to the originating of movements whose results, for weal or woe, only the future can disclose. While it has been responding to the recent

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