We have reached the end of the telling of our story. Let our minds move over it again once more. Thirteen hundred years ago in Arabia, an insignificant, untamed, untaught 'Land of the Desert,' there arose an Arab man who, forsaking idols, believed utterly in God. His followers poured forth into the world with a Faith that carried all before them. That Faith broke the great imperial civilizations of its day, and bore down the timid standards of a corrupt and palsied Church. Occupying {189} the Mediterranean countries and the sites of the ancient empires, it established itself as the greatest ruling force the world had ever known. In spite of the rise of younger nations, the magnificence of medieval Europe, the growth of science and the arts of civilization and of war, in spite of many rival empires in the modern 'scramble for the world,' Islam still holds with its tenacious grip the thoughts and hearts of men. It dominates to-day one-seventh of mankind, moving still to fresh conquests of the Faith. We have traced that Faith in history and seen it settling like a deadly blight upon the nations, chilling and paralyzing the moral life of man. We have examined it in its essential meaning and significance. Islam rises up before us in its tremendous rugged strength, leagued with the wild nature of 200 millions of our fellow-men, and overshadowing Christendom. [Sidenote: The Challenge of Islam.] 'The only one of the great religions to come after Christianity: the only one that categorically denies the truth of Christianity: the only one that has in the past signally defeated Christianity: the only one that seriously disputes the world with {190} Christianity: the only one which, in several parts of the world, is to-day forestalling and gaining on Christianity.'[1] [Sidenote: Isaiah.] In another Eastern land 1,200 years before Mohammed, there lived another Prophet. The country that he loved with a passionate devotion was in sore straits. Two mighty kingdoms, one on either side, were driving their highways across it, and threatening to overwhelm it. The very religion which had been the secret of its greatness was challenged and endangered. Men's hearts were full of fear. To one man was given a vision of hope. He alone among his people pierced the clouds that overcast the sky, and saw the light, and believed with all his soul in the vision that he saw--the vision of the kingdom that should be, the rule of righteousness and joy and peace, whose ensign should be Holiness to the Lord. And seeing the future till to him it was present, he worded it thus:-- UNTO US A CHILD IS BORN, UNTO US A SON IS GIVEN; AND THE GOVERNMENT SHALL BE UPON HIS SHOULDER: {191} AND HIS NAME SHALL BE CALLED WONDERFUL, COUNSELLOR, MIGHTY GOD, EVERLASTING FATHER, PRINCE OF PEACE. OF THE INCREASE OF HIS GOVERNMENT AND OF PEACE THERE SHALL BE NO END ... TO ESTABLISH IT AND TO UPHOLD IT WITH JUDGMENT AND WITH RIGHTEOUSNESS FROM HENCEFORTH EVEN FOR EVER.