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THE RELIGION OF THE CRESCENT. |
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still the old battle of the Cross against the Crescent, of Christianity against Islam. Yet we are
not now bidden to go forth with the weapons of slaughter and death in our hands to lay low mortal
foes. But, led by our Risen Redeemer, we are called to march forward under His banner, wearing the
panoply of GOD and wielding the Sword of the Spirit, to wrestle not with flesh and blood but with
the world-rulers of this darkness. Nor do we go now, as did our fathers, to rescue from the
defilement of Muslim hands the empty sepulchre of a dead Christ. Nay rather, our duty now is in
GOD'S might to deliver from the thraldom of sin and Satan those whose bodies were created to be
New Lands opening to the Gospel.
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living temples of GOD'S Holy Spirit, and to bring them to drink freely of the fountain of the water
of life eternal. GOD is opening land after land to us, and we are endeavouring to enter in, to bring
the glad tidings of salvation through Christ to the Confucian of China and the Buddhist of Ceylon,
to the Negro and the Hindu, to the Eskimo and the Red Indian. May GOD'S richest blessing descendas
indeed it has descendedon all such work. But for the great Muhammadan world,for the lands
But little effort yet for conversion of Muhammadan world.
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where Job and the earliest patriarchs, where Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, served GOD,where Moses
talked with GOD face to face,where the Redeemer of the world gave His life a ransom for many,for
Egypt and Arabia, for the Sudan and Morocco, for Palestine and Syria, for Mesopotamia and
Afghanistan,
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THE INFLUENCE OF ISLAM. |
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for Turkistan and all Central Asia, for Persia, Asia Minor and Turkey,how few are our efforts,
how trifling our exertions, how limited the number of Christ's labourers! GOD grant that even these
few Lectures, in spite of their feebleness and their many defects, may be used of Him to stir up in
the hearts of some among us in Christian England something of the zeal and devotion of our Crusading
forefathers, that many may offer themselves for service in this nobler Crusade. Then, wearing the
Cross in our hearts and not only on our breasts, we shall go forth conquering and to conquer; and
the Crescent shall soon fade before the glory of our returning Lord.
.... "Όταν αιγλα διοσδοτος ελθη,
λαμπρον φεγγος επεστιν ανδπων
και
μειλιχος αιων."
(PINDAR, Pythia, viii. 96, sqq.)
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