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Mohammedan movement is likely to spread south of the Zambezi owing to strong European influences there."

This statement shows how important it is that Christianity should be first in the field.

In Rhodesia there is no organized Moslem propaganda, but amongst workers for the mines who come from the lake regions there are a few Moslems.

In South Africa Islam has not been at all aggressive. South of the Zambezi the Moslem question is not yet an acute one.

The conclusion clearly is that there is a loud call to the Church to support vigorously missions in Africa, which are endeavouring to forestall the operations of Islam among the pagan races. Never before has the crisis been so acute. The Moslem advance in Africa is so extensive, so constant, and so rapid that the speedy evangelization of the pagan people there is the most urgent work upon which the Church is now invited to enter. If it is not done without delay, large parts of Africa will be almost irretrievably lost, for her teeming millions will have entered into the fold of Islam.

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PROF. CARL MEINHOFF, LL. D., HAMBURG

W

HILE Islam is steadily retreating from the European continent, and as steadily declining in power and influence, this is not the case as regards the contact of Islam with African paganism. According to the unanimous opinion of experts, the Mohammedan religion is by no means dying out, but is making considerable, and even ominous progress in Africa.

How is this possible?

Würtz has laid special emphasis on the fact that the pacification of heathen countries and the suppression of the slave trade have been favourable to the spread of Islam. Since the Mohammedan intruders are no longer allowed to raid and enslave the heathen, it is no longer to their interest that the latter should remain heathen, and accordingly they are content to extend their influence and their power by way of peaceable trading expeditions. At the same time their tacit opposition to European civilization is all in their favour. The state of peace and security, which the African has gained through the establishment of European government, is accompanied by the feeling that he is being ruled by strange and frequently very uncomfortable people. As the recollection of former sufferings fades out of his memory, this

1 Compare F. Würtz: "Die Mohammedanische Gefahr in Westafrika "'; Basler, "Missionsstudien," p. 21; Verlag, "Der Basler Missionsbuchhandlg."

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contrast presents itself more clearly to his consciousness; and this state of feeling is reinforced and supported by the Arabs, who form the real nucleus of the Mohammedan world.

This state of things is also favoured by the religious freedom guaranteed by Protestant governments. The delicate consideration for the religious feelings of others shown, as a rule, by Protestants, is almost unknown elsewhere, and the terrorism exercised by Mohammedan communities is well known, and is a serious obstacle to missions. It cannot, of course, be openly manifested in European colonies, but is active enough under the surface, and plays an important part in the steady progress of Islam.

In East Africa, Islam shows itself in the first instance as a social factor of great significance. The educated and influential Mohammedans of the coast overawe the poor and illiterate man from the interior. In this way, all who are in any way dependent on the Mohammedans easily adopt one article of their creed after another, and thus are speedily included in the Moslem sphere of influ

ence.

There remains an enormous gap between the European and the African. The Moslem allows the gap which separates him from the negro to be filled up by a series of gradations, and thus ensures the spread of his influence. Mixed races, such as the Swahili in East Africa and the Hausas of the Western Sudan, represent such transition forms, and have furnished the Moslem with a potent instrument for extending his culture, in the shape of their languages, which are the lingua franca of trade and the medium of communication over enormous tracts of country, and are imbued with the spirit of Mohammedanism. This social influence of Islam is the work, not only of Arab, Indian, and African traders and chiefs, but also of the

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