Page:The Moslem World - Volume 02.djvu/49

 land, sent an electric thrill through the body pohtic of every people of Asia. This great change accelerated the movement towards free institutions. WTien Japan was thoroughly awakened to her possibihties she unostenta- tiously went to work to set her house in order, at monumental sacrifice and energy, resulting in a develop- ment of patriotism, inteUigence, and material prosperity, perhaps unparalleled in the liistory of the world. One would almost think that all this was planned for the subsequent successful struggle mth Russia. This victory was the climax to Oriental ambition — to defeat a great Western nation with her oa^ti weapons. No single event in recent history has had so remarkable an influence in stirring to the depths patriotic sentiment of a Uberal character. And so we find Persia and Turkey daring to ask the question : Is our destiny forever sealed in the unchanging mould of a fixed despotism ? To ask such a question was to suggest the answer.

Another force that quietly entrenched itself in the very heart of the nation was the missionary propaganda. The Sultans of Turkey have had remarkable success in quelling discord among their Christian subjects by pitting the members of one community against those of another. The welcome extended to, and protection afforded the early missionaries by the Tmrkish Government, were due largely to the expectation that successful mission work would raise a Protestant community at the expense of the other Christian bodies, that Protestants would be converted Greeks, Armenians, and Catholics, and instead of three Christian sects there would be four weaker bodies and thus easier to control. It did not seem to have occurred to the rulers that their own co-reHgionists might one daj^ be influenced by these foreign missionaries, and the great reason whj^ they were working among the members of the old churches was that through them the Moslem problem might be solved. The work of the mission was divided, for the sake of convenience and efficiency, into four departments : —

1. The evangelistic, including the preaching of the Gospel, the teaching of the Bible in the dsij and Sunday schools, and the work of evangeUsts and Bible-women.