The total value of the pearl harvest each year is at least a million dollars, but most of the profit goes into the hands of the dealers. The divers work for wages, and many of them are heavily in debt. In spite of the dangers they incur, the divers love their work, because pearl diving always has in it the element of gambling. One may work a whole day and find only pearls of small value, and then perhaps bring up a fortune in an hour. The most beautiful pearl I ever saw was found in the waters at Bahrein some ten years ago, and was sold for ten thousand dollars. It must have been to such a fortunate pearl diver that Browning referred in his verses: “There are two moments in a diver’s life: One when, a beggar, he prepares to plunge, Then when, a prince, he rises with his prize.” The time for pearl diving is from May until the end of September. During the winter months the cold weather interferes with the work, and the men live inshore. Then it is that they come in crowds to our hospital, and we have the joy of preaching to them from the parable of the Pearl of great price, and no audience appreciates a sermon on that text as much as the men who know what it costs to bring up the pearls. You remember the parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is a merchant seeking goodly pearls, and having found one pearl of great price, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.” When we tell the Arabs that the Pearl of great price was the kingdom of God, peace and righteousness and joy, which Jesus Christ purchased for us at the cost of His own life and now offers freely to all who will believe in Him, they understand something of the message. Will you not pray for the pearl divers of Bahrein that many of them may find the Pearl of great price, and that their humble homes,—mat-huts along the shore of the great sea—may be made glad by the joy of a Christian civilization and the knowledge of our Saviour? It is not hard to love them for their own sake, and I well remember many a happy hour spent with them in their boats or sitting on the beach, talking over their work. Sir Edwin Arnold referred to them in these lines: “Dear as the wet diver to the eyes Of his pale wife, who waits and weeps on shore, By sands of Bahrein in the Persian Gulf; Plunging all day in the blue waves; at night, Having made up his toll of precious pearls, Rejoins her in their hut upon the shore.” XII A PIONEER JOURNEY ON THE PIRATE COAST