Page 107 - Neglected Arabia Vol 1 (3)_Neat

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Finding, Following, Keeping, Struggling
Risv. Dirk Dykstra
F OR want of a title more descriptive of the efforts of those who
want to follow Jesus in Arabia, 1 have quoted this line from a
well known hymn. No one living in Christian America can have
the slightest conception of the faith and the courage and the
fortitude that are required for this seemingly simple act of following
ihc Lord. Everything is against them. From childhood their minds
have been impregnated with the thoughts, habits and superstitions of
Want. To break with it means to break with everything that their fore­
fathers have believed and have held precious. Then all about them is the
unit of Mohammedan brotherhood. No labor union could command
»uoh unity of action in a strike as is shown by Islam as soon as one of <
llicir number breaks away. It is as though the road of life were one black
nuss of people, all crowding in the same direction. What chance would i
i aingle individual have to change about and start going in the opposite
direction? He would at once hud himself out of harmony with the
entire mass, would find it next to impossible to make headway against
(ho determined current of the muss of Immunity uhout hint, tutd would
wulmlily lrumpled to tlculh lit Ills efforts to reverse his steps. And
Jnuch more real are the difficulties that beset those who face the spiritual
lowers of darkness set in dread array against all who would follow Jesus.

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A.M.VKA. ON THE TKiUIS, WHERE MR. DYKSTRA IS STATIONED V
And yet there are those who have risen up and followed the Lord,
nai amidst all these influences that would hold them back, or crush
tsetn in their attempt to struggle toward freedom. There is one man i
station who has held to his lone course for the last five years
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i> bravely living the life of allegiance to Christ, and is testifying i*
ncry day by his words and his works to the love of God as it is in
Oui*t Jesus. It is marvellous to see how the grace of God can take a *
whose early years were steeped in the teachings and the supersti-
and the bigotry of Islam, and simply by filling him with the sense
U the love of Christ, transform that man into a preacher and an ex-
j^ent of the Gospel. His main religious diversion used to he to t.
the Moharram services, some of the most tragic and at the same
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\wc the most fanatic Moslem literature. But now his chief delight is
U reading of the Sermon on the Mount and the Twelfth of Romans
u Any who come within the range of his voice.