But Arabia, although it has all this wealth of promise, is not a field for _feeble_ faith. Yet we can learn to look at this barren land because of these promises with the same reckless, uncalculating, _defiant_ confidence in which Abraham “without being weakened in faith, considered his own body now as good as dead” (R. V.) “but waxed strong through faith giving glory to God.” The promises are great because the obstacles are great; that the glory of the plan as well as the glory of the work may be to God alone. Arabia needs men who will believe as seeing the Invisible. Six hundred years ago Raymond Lull wrote: “It seems to me that the Holy Land cannot be won in any other way than that whereby Thou, O Lord Jesus Christ, and Thy Holy Apostles won it, by love and prayer, and the shedding of tears and blood.” A lonely worker among Moslems in North Africa recently wrote: “Yes it is lives poured out that these people need—a sowing in tears—in a measure that perhaps no heathen land requires; they need a Calvary before they get their Pentecost. Thanks be unto God for a field like this: in the light of eternity we could ask no higher blessedness than the chance it gives of fellowship with His Son.” The dumb spirit of Islam has possessed Arabia from its childhood for thirteen hundred years; “he teareth and he foameth and gnasheth with his teeth and pineth away.” “And He said unto them this kind can come forth by nothing but by prayer and fasting.” “_If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth._” (Mark ix. 14-29.) Life for Arabia must come from the Life-Giver. “I believe in the Holy Ghost,” therefore mission-work in Arabia will prove the promise of God true in every particular and to its fullest extent. “O that Ishmael might live ... as for Ishmael I have heard thee.” “Speed on, ye heralds, bringing Life to the desert slain; Till in its mighty winging, God’s spirit comes to reign From death to new-begetting, God shall the power give, Shall choose them for crown-setting And Ishmael shall live. “So speaks the promise, bringing The age of Jubilee To every home and tenting, From Tadmor to the sea. The dead to life are risen, The glory spreads abroad, The desert answers heaven, Hosannas to the Lord!” Appendix I A CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE