Page 811 - Neglected Arabia (1916-1920)

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NEGLECTED ARABIA

Missionary News and Letters
Published Quarterly
FOR PRIVATE CIRCULATION AMONG THE FRIENDS OF

THE ARABIAN MISSION

Our New Station at Amara

Rev. H. A. Bilkert.

NE reads much these days about Mesopotamia as “the land of
Abraham," “the cradle of the world” and such descriptives as
O would give the impression of a wonderful land wrapp
in romance. The facts are better expressed by the ory
of some fanciful British Tommies who early in the war identified
a supposed site of the Garden of Eden. By ,
of history, geography and geology the site is ^les ™ .
the Garden may once have been. But one of the - , ' no
seeing the site, exclaimed, “Well, if this was the Garden o
wonder the disciples fled 1" Their fancy led themso a^ as ~ much
a perfectly innocent date palm as the Tree of ■^n0^v ^e* . • j
honor was too much for the old tree and curio fiends ave PP
until only an old stump remains. This forms a truer sym ... ,
than some of its more poetic titles. There is
eye, nothing to feed the soul but a crying need for the^soirit of
Christianity and a civilization thoroughly permeated wi P
the Master can bring. !

in thUSt 1 ^e/H°War .^e Arabian Mission had opened out-stations
BiblplS ^Ut n° m*ss*onaries had been stationed here permanently,
throu h Were °PeneA and kept open by native colporteurs all
coDie'f f u war.and were instrumental in distributing hundreds of
th^ m °- ScriP^res to the troops, in many languages. But with
in ea min^ Peace (?) the Mission decided to push into this country
Acre ai^A °Pene<^ full stations at Nr.saria on the Euphrates and
these Amara. The work at Nasaria haa already 'been described in
pages but a glimpse of Amara and its work may be of interest
0£ ^mara ^tself *S a town °f ab°ut thirteen thousand inhabitants, most
Chalde™1 p]°S?eiTls ^ut having quite a number of Jews, Syrian and
But m,an* ^ lr*st*ans and a fast disappearing sect known as Sabaeans.
and u 1)SSl0nary work here will, reach out into the river villages above
accnrH‘ °W * vJ f°r a distance of over ISO miles and including,
here aln^* ^overnment figures, a population of 200,000. Conditions
re m many ways unique owing to the fact that Amara was in
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