Page 228 - Neglected Arabia Vol 2

NEGLECTED ARABIA 13

of truth in the aphorism that “Peter Parker opened China with the point
of a lancet’* (as did Horace Allen, later on, in Korea). There is more in
the graphic language of Gilbert Chesterton that there is enough dynamite
in the social teachings of Jesus to blow all modern society to rags. And
the surgeon’s sharpest instrument piercing as it is, is not to be compared
with that which is at the common disposal of the teacher, the translator,
the physician,—“the penetrating Christian ethic.” If we are faithful to
the limit of our opportunity in these respects, “truthing it in love,” neither
mountain wall nor desert waste, war nor bigotry, will long hold out against
the siege of Christ. And “even as a crude and imperfect translation of the
Scripture may prove to be a vehicle of spiritual grace and truth,” so the
life manifesting imperfections, yet patterned after Christ to the limit of
0110*1 wisdom find one's strength, may be trusted in God's novel way to do
Its own good preaching. If above all wo arc faithful there, the duy will
yet dawn when the son of the desert will tukc Jesus in earnest.
Again, a leisurely visit to this part of the world impresses upon one a
new appreciation of the impending importance of the Gulf for tne 1 future.
It was along these shores, we are told, that three races,—the Dravidian,
Euro-African and Mongoloid,—first met. That was before recorded his­
tory, but more or less consistently since then this sea has been a highway
for the commerce of many nations and a theatre for the struggle of empire.
For three centuries it was the cockpit of the East in which Portuguese, i
Dutch, Arabs, Persians and the English contended for supremacy. To
that the crumbling castles 0} Oman, fort and battlement along the Batineh I
and at Bahrein, and the rusty, obsolete cannon one occasionally stumbles .1
upon half buried in the sand, still testify. “There are three places in ;
India which serve as marts of all the commerce of merchantable wares in i
that part of the world, and the principal keys to it,” wrote great Albu­
querque. “The first is Malacca . . . the second is Aden . . . the third is I
Ormuz at the entry and exit of the Straits of the Persian Gulf. This
city of Ormuz is according to my idea most important of them all.” Mod­ 1
ern methods of travel and communication have done much to revolutionize
the world of that Portuguese conqueror, and invalidate his judgment, yet
not wholly so. History has a way of repeating itself, and there is no 1
1
guarantee that the immunity from the disturbing and not always wholesome
effects of the visiting tourist and trader will continue much longer. Rather
are there indications to the contrary. A regular aeroplane, service between
Karachi and Basra, and a more frequent passenger service between Bit-
shire and Tehran; swift automobile transportation between Damascus and
Baghdad; hankerings on the part of nations for Mesopotamia’s oil; a
lively interest on the part of Paris and New York in the pcurls of Bahrein.
—Is there no significance In this and. more for Husa, Oman or the Nejd?
Already Persia is rejuvenescent. A new life is stirring and minds growing
1 gradually agog with thought-currents which have agitated to an unpre-
, cedented degree the Far and Nearer East. It was in. a small but ancient
;. town inland on the plains of Bahrein as we sat by the wall in the slanting
.1 shadows of the Sheikh’s house that questions were asked as to Amanullah’s
| chances in Afghanistan, and the wealth of Henry Ford. As the incoming
| tide thundering up the ocean shore carries its lifting influence into every
j cove and creek, so Arabia sooner perhaps than we think will be throbbing
] with the thought, and life of other lands. Will it be for good or for ill ? I