Such words, appearing in the leading journal of the political capital of Islam, are full of significance to the Church of God, especially as every statement of the editorial is borne out by news from different parts of the Moslem world. There never was such unrest, politically, socially and spiritually, in Moslem lands as there is today, and, on the other hand, this very unrest is accompanied by a new sense of solidarity and an attempt to unify the disintegrating forces of Islam.

The Mohammedans of Russia are not only pleading for greater recognition in the Duma, but are organizing societies of reform and progress and working for panIslamism through the press. On February 16, 1910, the first mosque in St. Petersburg was opened with a great Moslem festival. The Emir of Bokhara contributed the site and paid for the cost of construction of the handsome edifice. He also took part in the ceremonies, which were attended by the Turkish Embassy and the Persian Legation. The facts that the chief mulla offered prayer for the welfare of the Czar, to which the Moslem population loyally responded, and that the Emir and his suite were entertained at the royal palace, both show that Islam in Russia is becoming more and more an established religion.

The new Nationalist Party in Egypt, through the preferential instead of the impartial treatment of Moslems by the British government, have everywhere kindled the fanaticism of unrest and the desire of independence. This spurious form of nationalism, in the judgment of veteran missionaries and such unprejudiced witnesses as Col. Theodore Roosevelt and Dr. Alfred J. Butler, is thoroughly Mohammedan in its character. In the mouth of the new Nationalist Party "Egypt for the Egyptians' means Egypt for the Moslems, and its fatal corollary must be oppression for the Christians. It is to be hoped that the British policy in Egypt will soon be radically

altered, and that real neutrality may prove the strength of British rule and the blessing of Egypt.

The spirit of revolution, as in Turkey and in Egypt, has begun to work in Malaysia. A Young Javanese Party has been formed among the educated Moslems in Java. It calls itself Bondi Outomo, or the Universal League. Its programme includes home rule, educational reform, and social progress. They have translated the Koran into the vernacular. The first congress of these Young Javanese was held over two years ago at Djokjakarta, and among other questions discussed were, the Education of Women, Freedom of the Press, and SelfGovernment.

While the rebellions of the last century greatly crippled the Moslem cause in China, the recent though fruitless attempts to establish Turkish consulates for the protection of Moslem interests there, and the publication at Tokyo of a quarterly magazine in Chinese entitled Moslems Awake, for circulation throughout the Chinese Empire, as well as the English paper published by two Moslems from Egypt and India at Tokyo, are indications of a pan-Islamic activity which need no comment.

The capture of Wadai by French troops about a year ago is, in one sense, the most significant political event along the entire horizon. By this campaign the chief African centre of the slave trade and of Moslem propagandism against civilization and European rule has fallen into the hands of a European power, will be held by them at all costs and can no longer be used as a base of operations for war against Christian governments. The influence of the Senusiye dervishes has doubtless diminished in the Eastern Sudan and the Sahara, politically, although this does not mean that the commercial and colonizing advance of Islam has been checked.

In the year of our Lord 1911, only 37,128,800 Moslems

are living under direct Moslem rule, namely under the Turkish government, 15,528,800; under the Sultan of Morocco, 5,600,000; under the Emir of Afghanistan, 4,500,000; under the Shah of Persia, 8,000,000; and under independent rulers in Arabia, outside the Turkish Empire, 3,500,000. Once Moslem empire was coextensive with the Moslem faith. In 911 A. D. the caliphate included Spain, Morocco, Algeria, Tunis, Tripoli, Egypt, Asia Minor, Syria, Arabia, Persia, Turkestan, Afghanistan, Baluchistan, and the region around the Caspian Sea. To-day the empire of the caliphs has shrunk to such small proportions that it covers only Turkey, Tripoli, and scarcely one-fifth of the area of Arabia, including a population of less than 16,000,000. The balance of political power in the Mohammedan world rests with England, France, Russia and the Netherlands. Each of these powers has more Moslem subjects than there are in the whole Turkish Empire. In regard to the remaining states under independent Moslem rule, it does not require the gift of prophecy to see yet greater political changes, with the possible result of adding still more millions to the number of Moslems under Christian rule and to the burden of responsibility thrust upon Christian rulers by God's providence for the evangelization of His Moslem world.

We turn next to the social and intellectual movements in the Moslem world since the Cairo Conference.

III. SOCIAL AND INTELLECTUAL MOVEMENTS The one great characteristic of the Moslem world to-day is unrest. Like the prodigal son in the parable, Islam is coming to itself and is becoming conscious of its need. Three great movements in the Moslem world at the present time are all of them indicative of this unrestthe development of the great dervish orders, the growth

of the pan-Islamic spirit, and the attempt of the new Islam to rationalize the old orthodoxy-all of them due to the same cause, namely, the readjustment of Islam to the progress of modern thought and Western civilization, either by way of protest and defiance, or of accommodation and compromise. As Ismael Bey Gasprinsky expressed it in the Tartar paper Terjumen, "The world is constantly changing and progressing, and the Moslems are left behind for many, many miles. We need to create a general awakening of the hitherto sleeping Mohammedans." Or in the words of Sheikh Ali Yusef, the editor of the leading Moslem journal in Cairo, before a large assembly of Moslems, "The Christians have left the Mohammedans behind in every walk of life. The latter can hardly boast the possession of a single steamship or bank, because the Moslem is not alive to his duty, is not united in his endeavour, and is too content to follow a leader without attempting to rise to the same place as the other nations." Similar voices are heard in India from time to time.

We shall hear more of these social and intellectual movements in Islam when they are specially dealt with on the fifth day of our Conference, but a general survey of the Moslem world must make mention of some of them. Beginning with Western Asia, we find a movement which can broadly be described as one towards freedom, first political and then intellectual, yet it is worthy of remark that the revolutionary parties both in Persia and Turkey were at first not anti-Islamic nor panIslamic, neither professedly religious nor irreligious in character. They were the voice of the people crying for liberty, and the expression of general social discontent. For many years the better class of Persians, Turks and Arabs had freely acknowledged the ignorance, injustice and weakness of the Moslem world, and were groping

for a remedy. The fuel was ready in the educated classes who had learned to think. The American missionaries helped to wake up Turkey. The victory of Japan over Russia had its influence throughout all Asia and proved to Turkey and Persia, at least to their own satisfaction, that Asiatics can hold their own against Europe, and that a new nationalism is the only remedy against threatened foreign occupation. The question then arose, How shall the new nationalism deal with the old religion?

The brief history of constitutional government in Persia, and the reaction which has already begun in Turkey prove the reality and the intensity of this coming conflict. The Persian Constitution was ready for adoption when the leaders were compelled to preface the document with an article accepting the authority of the religious law of Islam as final, including the traditional law of Shiah interpretation, as well as the Koran. "One might as well bind together the American Constitution and the Talmud," says Dr. Shedd, "and make the latter supreme and inviolable." It has yet to be proved, according to Lord Cromer in his "Modern Egypt," whether Islam can assimilate civilization without succumbing in the process; his belief is that "Reformed Islam is Islam no longer."

The great political question in Persia, Turkey, Egypt and Algiers to-day is simply whether the old Koran or the new democratic aspirations shall have the right of way. Although the Sheikh-el-Islam has publicly declared that "The Turkish Parliament is the most exact application of the Koranic law, and constitutional government is the highest possible illustration of the caliphate," we have a right to doubt his assertion-remembering Adana and the thirteen centuries of Moslem intolerance and despotism. Those who read the Koran in Morocco, Eastern Turkey and Arabia have not yet