Page 410 - Neglected Arabia Vol 2

NEQLECTED ARABIA

Missionary News and Letters
Published Quarterly

FOR PRIVATE CIRCULATION AMONG THE l-RIENDS OF
THE ARABIAN MISSION

Is Arabia Still Neglected?
Rev. S. M. Zwemer, D.D.
T Arabia.” From the records of the Mission we learn that until
HE quarterly letters and reports of the missionaries in Arabia
were not always issued under their present title, "Neglected

January, 1902, these reports were published as “letters from the
field-0* The last of them is No. 40 for October-December, 1901. On the
hrM page of the next issue the words Neglected Arabia form the title, but
mi explanation is given for the change. No doubt the words owe their
urigin to the first stanza of the Arabian missionary hymn composed by l)r.
J. G. Lansing in 1889.
"There’s a lapd long since neglected;
There’s a people still rejected;
But of truth and grace elected
In His love for them.”
When the Mission was organized, the whole Arabian peninsula with the
exception of Aden was unoccupied missionary territory. One million
Hpiare miles, four thousand miles of coast, without a witness for Christ.
'Ilie death of Ian Keith Falconer left the future of the Scotch Mission
quite uncertain, and that was the only beacon of light across the darkness
ol thirteen centuries in the cradle of Islam. Forty years have brought
jjical changes. The Persian Gulf coast is fairly well occupied but the iti-
li*ii«»r of Oman, the Province of Hassa, the whole of Ncjd, the whole of
lladhramaut, the entire West coast is still without established missions.
The latest estimate for the population of Arabia is seven million, I
giiratly doubt whether more than one million of this population are in any
MTlI'C touched by present-day missionary effort. During the past twenty
*t\ir> the population has doubtless increased. Tribal warfare is no longer
** common as it was in the Nineteenth Century. Health conditions have
ji** improved, especially in mandated territories, and also through the in-
iltuuce ol mission hospitals. We sometimes fail to estimate the educa-
iiuiial value of such medical work in spreading knowledge of elementary
Ugicne.
The exploration and mapping of the Arabian peninsula has made vast
iifidc.v during and since the World War. When Hogarth wrote his book
-1 la* Penetration of Arabia” there were still large areas unexplored and
u.mapi>ed. Since the time of Doughty the work of men like Lawrence,
lykikespeare, Cheeseman, Rutter, Philby, and last but not least, Bertram
llmmas, have given us a picture of Arabia and its inhabitants with very
(c* gaps remaining. In this respect Arabia is no longer neglected. As I

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