“Thyself reckon dead, and then thou shalt fly Free, free, from the prison of earth to the sky! Spring may come, but on granite will grow no green thing: It was barren in winter, ’tis barren in spring; And granite man’s heart is, till grace intervene. And, crushing it, clothe the long barren with green, When the fresh breath of Jesus shall touch the heart’s core, It will live, it will breathe, it will blossom once more.” The City of Mashad, close to the ruins of Tus, where Al-Ghazali was born and where he died, has been truly described as the Mecca of the Persian world. Its streets are crowded with a hundred thousand pilgrims every year. The American Presbyterian Church has an important work there, and the Bible Societies report thousands of copies of the Bible sold there. “We have inundated the City of Mashad with the Word of God,” wrote the late Mr. Esselstyn; “in the bazaars I have repeatedly been warned some one will kill me if we do not stop selling the Scriptures and preaching. But ‘Lo, I am with you always’ keeps ringing in my ears and we continue. The Scriptures that have been sold in and around Mashad are sown seed and in due time we shall reap if we faint not.” To-day the black-browed Afghan, the Uzbek Tartar, the dervish, travel-stained and footsore, nay the poorest lad of Khorasan can buy the whole story of what Jesus did and taught. No Moslem is now dependent on Al-Ghazali’s few quotations from the Gospel. A new day has dawned for Persia and the Near East. Everywhere the New Testament is better known than any of the ninety-nine works of Al-Ghazali, and we may also say, without exaggeration, that the New Testament finds a larger circle of readers. The mystics in Islam are near the Kingdom of God and for them Al-Ghazali may be used as a schoolmaster to lead men to Christ. Did not the author of the _Gulshan-i-Raz_ (the Garden of Mysteries) write: “Dost thou know what Christianity is? I shall tell it thee. It digs up thine own Ego, and carries thee to God. Thy soul is a monastery wherein dwells oneness, thou art Jerusalem, where the Eternal is enthroned; the Holy Spirit works this miracle, for know that God’s being rests in the Holy Spirit as in His Own Spirit.” And such seekers after God to-day will find those who will lead them to CHRIST. For, as Dr. J. Rendel Harris expressed it: “All of us who love Christ are beginning to realize that we live in the same street and are on the same telephone, some of us that we are lodged next door to one another and can knock on the partitions, a few that we are all under the same roof and all within arm’s length and heart reach.” Appendix A. BIBLIOGRAPHY Abu Nasir Abd ul Wahab Taqi id Din as Subqi.—Tabaqat-ash-Shafaʾiya al Kubra. Vol. IV, pp. 101-102. Barbier de Meynard, M. C.—Traduction nouvelle du traite de Ghazzali intitule le Préservatif de l’erreur et notices sur les extases (des Soufis). (Journal Asiatique, Paris, 1877.)