If then the Church rouses itself to evangelize Arabia, Islam is doomed and must sooner or later take its place among the religions that have preceded it in the land of the Arab. After its own fashion it has done God's work, but the time has come for a general advance, and when that advance begins, the cleavage in Islam will widen and a new form of Islam will arise with subtler doctrine and purer life but even that must finally give way before the higher life of true Christianity.

That larger opportunity will soon be given to the Church no person conversant with current events can for a moment doubt, for it is impossible to take up a newspaper or a periodical that deals with Arabia without discovering a much healthier tone in the articles than there was two or three years ago. Public opinion is asserting itself in a way that was undreamed of under the Hamidian régime, and not only are great schemes being projected that are bound to have a civilizing effect on the people, but in some cases at least they are being carried into effect. German engineers are at work I am told on the Bagdad railway and Sir Wm. Willcocks with a large staff of competent engineers is at work surveying the Euphrates valley and trying to discover the best way of forwarding his great barrage scheme which will bring more than 3,200,000 acres of most valuable land under cultivation. And as the bringing of those Mesopotamian plains under cultivation will necessitate railway construction together with the bringing in of both European capital and Western enterprise, no one who remembers how Christianity travelled along the Roman roads can for a moment doubt but that this also is to be God's way of making an entrance for the Gospel. And when one hears from Eastern Arabia that even the Arabs (with whom Abd ul Hamid was personally popular because of his pan-Islamic leanings) are saying, "Thank God we have been saved from

autocracy, we have broken the chain of slavery but lest we come under another we must deal with non-Moslems as brothers because we are all sons of one fatherland," we have good reason for supposing that an incident which Dr. Worrall relates is prophetic of the future.

In former times, he says, though a Moslem had voluntarily testified to his belief in Christ, when he died his body was buried as that of a Moslem. Now we had recently a convert who died and his last open confession was in our Lord Jesus Christ although he was unconscious at the time of his death. A statement to that effect was made to the Mulla and the reply which he sent was to the following effect:-As the man died a Christian and as this is a time of freedom we can do nothing to take the body; do as you like with it.

Another significant fact is added by him: Formerly the mission doors were always closed before prayers with the patients so as to give effect to the fiction that where a foreigner dwelt was a part of the country to which the foreigner belonged. So closed doors made us dwell on American soil and the patients were looked on as if they were American. But now except for the fact that there are many interruptions when the door is open, there is no reason for closing the doors and there never seems to be any difficulty put in the way of getting a free talk with any man about Christ. Thus the Hamidian régime has passed and with it, we believe, the despair, and the longdrawn-out threat of death to Christianity in Arabia. With liberty, a free field, and no favour none of us can doubt the result. What we want to win Arabia is consecrated men and women whose souls are afire with love for God.

T

IX

POLITICAL CHANGES IN PERSIA

REV. L. F. ESSELSTYN, PERSIA

HE late Ali Askar, Attabeg, Minister of the Interior and President of the Council of State at the time of his assassination on August 31, 1907, when speaking on the floor of the National Assembly shortly before his death, referring to the prominence into which Persia has come before the world, truly said: "Formerly not a paragraph was printed about Persia once a month, but now the European press contains columns every day." During the last few years, Persia has been so constantly and prominently before the world that everybody understands that she is in a transition state of evolution. In view of the general familiarity with what has taken place, we give only a brief outline of the political changes which have occurred up to the present time.

In order to better understand these changes and the present situation, let me say a few words about the character of the Persians, my opinion being based on observation and experience during the twenty-three years I have lived in the country. The characteristic Persians are mild, and easy to get along with. Travellers, and even some foreign residents sometimes express another opinion. The Persians' mental processes and their code of morals are so different from ours that they are sometimes very trying to us Westerners. Knowing them intimately for many years, I have found them kind-hearted and hospi

table.

The Persians become impossible only under trying or aggravating surroundings, or as a result of hereditary in. fluences; and the undesirable traits of character sometimes attributed to them attach not so much to the Persians as such, but to human nature.

All Persians divide themselves into two classes, those who rule and those who serve. The Constitution of the United States of America teaches that all men are created free and equal, and that idea is innate in every natural born American citizen. Not so with the Persians. They either rule over those who are subject to their power, or serve under those who are in authority over them. So prevalent is this idea among them, that nearly all Persians bear both relations. Almost every one of them recognizes the authority of some one over him, and in turn exercises more or less arbitrary authority over some one under him. They are by nature adapted to a monarchical form of government, and by the same nature they are loyal to the throne. Local circumstances may lead them into rebellion, but by nature they are loyal to authority. Having before us this view of the character of the Persians, we are now ready to outline the political changes that have occurred during these last years.

The present reform movement had its origin in the intelligent patriotism of Mirza Taghe Khan, who was Vezir to Nasir ed din Shah and grandfather to the deposed Mohammed Ali Shah on his mother's side. The downfall of this able minister and his death at the hands of an assassin in 1852 put an end to all talk of administrative reform for some time.

Again in 1891 the people rebelled in connection with the incident of the Tobacco Corporation. But five years later, the murder of Nasir ed din Shah, perpetrated as it was within a famous shrine and sanctuary, was held in

such righteous abhorrence that for a time it strengthened what it was intended to end or at least weaken, namely, the influence and power of the Kajar dynasty.

The people patiently waited for what the reign of the new Shah, Muzaffar ed din, might bring forth. He was already sick in body when he came to the throne in 1896. His characteristics, previous life, and education had not been such as to fit him to rule the country during a transition period of very critical and trying circumstances. The unfulfilled promises of this Shah, the hopes encouraged by each succeeding Grand Vezir, and the extravagance of the court while the people were in poverty and the country without industrial prosperity, led to the unrest in Teheran, and in fact all over Persia, which culminated in the constitutional reforms granted by Muzaffar ed din just before his death.

In 1906 a great crowd assembled in the principal mosque of Teheran and denounced the Grand Vezir, the government, and the administration, and demanded reforms. Riots followed and several persons were killed. Thousands went to the British Legation and took sanctuary. Among the things they demanded were a constitutional government and a representative system.

Muzaffar ed din Shah conceded their demands and on August 14, 1906, made a royal decree for the formation of a National Assembly; the election ordinance was issued by his decree on September 9, 1906; and the Persian National Assembly was opened by the Shah on October 4, 1906, within three months after the demonstration in the mosque above referred to. The new Constitution was signed by Muzaffar ed din Shah on December 30, 1906, and also sealed by the Crown Prince, who had hastened from Tabriz to Teheran owing to the critical illness of the Shah, and by the Grand Vezir. The Crown Prince was required to seal it as a condition of his succeeding