Page 214 - Neglected Arabia Vol 2

The Cost of Evangelization Among Moslems

Rev. W. Idris Jones
(Reprinted with permission of the editor from The Moslem World of July, 1929.
One of tlte younger missionaries ot the Aden Mission of the United Free Church of
Scotland, the Rev. W. Idris Jones, writes on the cost of evangelization and pays a
tribute, among others, to the memory of Henry Bilkert of Basrah.—Editor.)
C ON VERTS from Islam have ever been won through tears and
blood and the stubborn road of progress is flanked by the graves
uf the pioneers. Raymond Lull, stoned to death by an angry mob
outside the walls of Bugia; Henry Martyn dying in India, a young
man with the best of life still untried; Ian Keith Falconer in his lonely
grave among the barren fastnesses of Aden; their blood calls aloud to us
—nut for revenge but for lives of sacrificial service poured out like theirs
in joyful abandon and utter selflessness. It is little more than a century
Mime ilic ( lirihiiim Church nwukr lu ihc duly uf evangeli/Hlimi mining
Moslems; yet iu that lime there have been hardly fewer umrlyrn fur ihclr
failh lhan converts among the unlives of die "home countries" of Islum
where the religion of Muhammad lias lung held sway.
As one views the present extent of Islam, spread like a huge fan across
the breadth of Asia and Africa and embracing a score of nations, one
feels appalled by its apparent strength and solidarity. Yet there is evi­
dence that the old-time stability of Islam is breaking down: national and
economic forces are at work, weakening and disintegrating the solid wall
of custom and tradition; and there are signs that the near future will see
many Moslem lands, hitherto closed to evangelization, at last unbarred
to the entrance of Christian missionaries.
What is the wedge that, driven into the fissures in this already crumb­
ling wall, shall break up the hard crust of antagonism and lay the veiled
cities of Islam open to the light of the Gospel? It is not Western civiliza­
tion, although that has played its part; not education alone, however en­
lightened ; not organization, however thorough and extensive. It is nothing
else but lives laid down gladly and willingly for these sons of the desert
and the mountains, who are of those "other sheep’* over whom Christ
yearned.
To the writer’s mind there presents itself a vivid picture of three new
graves in Moslem countries—the resting place of those who gave their all
for the hope of the Gospel; who held death cheap if but one might be won
from Islam to Christ.
The first grave is that of William Temple Gairdner in the little English
cemetery iu Cairo. None of those who were present at the funeral service
will ever forget its quietness and touching simplicity. There were no
agonized ones, no noisy weeping, such as is the usual accompaniment of
a Moslem funeral; all was peace, and the dominant mile was uuc of
triumph. Many leaders of Mohammedan thought were present and they
must have been impressed by the beauty and hope of a Christian burial. *
Canon Gairdner has served Egypt nobly and devotedly for thirty years
hut his greatest testimony to the living power of Christianity was in hit
own burial. As his body rests under the shade of branching palms in
that beautiful garden of the dead, who dare say that his life has not reached •