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Special Centenary Number « «*r M/ssidU No. 160 JANUARY, FEBRUARY, Mi •mat THE SHEIKH’S TOWN PALACE—KUWAIT SPECIAL CENTENARY NUMBER CONTENTS F o r e w o r d .......................... The Editor 1 8 9 1 , T h e Y ear of B e g in n in g s. ..................Rev. James Cantine, D .D . W h a t O u r D octors H ave D o n e Dr. C. Stanley G. Mylrea A T our in H a s s a , 1 8 9 2 ..........' Rev. Samuel M. Zwemer, D.D. "U n til C h r ist B e F ormed in T h e m ” . .Mrs. E. E. Calverley, M.D. Personalia * ^ Yale Divinity Library N e * tt*en , <H>nn. The Arabian Mission OF THE REFORMED CHURCH IN AMERICA 25 East 22nd Street, New York City Officers of the Board of Foreign Missions Rev. Henry E. Cobb, D.D., President Rev. W. I. Chamberlain, Ph.D., Corresponding Secretary F. M. Potter, L.H.D., Associate Secretary and Treasurer Rev. W J. Van Kersen, D.D., District Secretary MISSIONARIES Rev. James Cantine, Stone Ridge, N. Y., Emeritus. Rev. and Mrs. S. M. Zwemer, Princeton, N. J. Retired. Rev. and Mrs. F. J. Barny, 55 Paterson St., New Brunswick, N. J., On Furlough. Rev. James E. Moerdyk, Amarah, Iraq, Evangelistic Wojk. Rev. and Mrs. J. Van Ess, Basrah, Iraq, Educ. and Evan. Work. Miss J. A. Scardefield, Cannondale, Conn., Emeritus. Miss Fanny Lutton, Amarah, Iraq, Emeritus. Rev. and Mrs. D. Dykstra, Muscat, Arabia, Evangelistic Work. Dr. and Mrs. C. S. G. Mylrea, Kuwait, via Iraq, Medical Work. Rev. and Mrs. G. J. Pennings, Bahrain, P. Gulf, Evangelistic Work. Rev. and Mrs. E. E. Calverley, 85 Sherman St., Hartford, Conn., Retired. Dr. and Mrs. P. W . Harrison, 426 Wyoming Ave., Maplewood, N. J., On Furlough. Rev. and Mrs. G. D. VanPeursem, Holland, Mich., On Furlough. *Mrs. Sharon J. Thoms, 25 E. 22nd St., N. Y. C. On Furlough. Miss Sarah L. Hosmon, M.D., Muscat, Arabia, Medical Work. Miss Charlotte B. Kellien, Basrah, Iraq, Educational Work. Miss M. C. Van Pelt, 25 E. 22nd St., N. Y. C., On Furlough. Dr. and Mrs. L. P. Dame, Bahrain, P. Gulf, Med. and Educ. Work. Miss Ruth Jackson, Westfield, N. J., On Furlough. Miss Rachel Jackson, Basrah, Iraq, Educational Work. Miss Cornelia Dalenberg, Amarah, Iraq. Medical Work. Rev. and Mrs. B. D. Hakken, Bahrain, P. Gulf, Evan, and Educ. Work. Dr. and Mrs. W . J. Moerdyk, Amarah, Iraq, Med. and Evan. Work. Rev. atid Mrs. G. E. De Jong, Kuwait, via Iraq, Evangelistic Work. Dr. Harold Storm, Muscat, Arabia, Medical Work. Miss Esther Barny, M.D., Kuwait, via Iraq, Medical Work. Miss M. N. Tiffany, M.D. Bahrain, P. Gulf, Medical Work. *Rev. and Mrs. John S. Badeau, Baghdad, Iraq, Evangelistic Work. Rev. and Mrs. George Gosselink, Kuwait, via Iraq, Evangelistic Work. Dr. and Mrs. W . W . Thoms, Basrah, Iraq, Language Study. Mr. J. C. Rylaarsdam, Basrah, Iraq, Educational Work. Add “Via Bombay” to above addresses of Bahrain and Muscat. Postage to all Stations is 5 cents for first ounce, 3 cents for each additional ounce. A special air service is available for Stations in Iraq and Kuwait ensuring quicker delivery. Letters must be marked “Via A ir Mail, London—Iraq” underscored in red ink. The special A ir rate is 7 cents for each h alf ounce in addition to above rates. The Arabian Mission, which was organized in 1889 as a separate mission, was amalgamated with the Board of Foreign Missions of the Reformed Church in America in 1925. The change did not affect the work in Arabia or the organization in the field, but concerned only office administration and legal status. All former contributions should be continued and sent to the Board of Foreign Missions. They may be specially designated “For W ork in Arabia” if desired. *Members of the United Mission in Mesopotamia, in which we cooperate with the Presbyterian Church and the Reformed Church in the United States. NEQLECTED ARABIA Missionary News and Letters Published Quarterly FOR PRIVATE CIRCULATION AMONG THE FRIENDS OF THE ARABIAN MISSION The Arabian Mission and the Centenary N this year which marks the one hundredth anniversary of the or­ ganization of the Board of Foreign Missions, it seems peculiarly appropriate to look back over the years since our church began its I work in Arabia. The articles in this issue are therefore historical in character and most happily we have contributions from each of the founders of the Mission, Dr. James Cantine and Dr. Samuel M. Zwemer. As a memorial of this centenary a fund of $25,000 is being raised to provide a new building for the Boys’ School at Basrah, the first station of the Mission. Dr. Cantine writes of the beginnings there in the article which follows: 1891—The Year of Beginnings R e v . J a m e s C a n t i n e , D.D. « >IRST IM PRESSIONS’’ is often seen as the heading of interesting L j articles by new missionaries, but those impressions that survive ^ in the memory for forty years may have a value all their own. When the Arabian Mission was first organized it was ear­ marked for co-operation with the Scotch Keith Falconer Mission at Aden, but a residence of some months with the missionaries there convinced all interested that the location was too hemmed in by military and political restrictions to suit our ambitious plans. We had to look further afield and this article is a retrospect of a journey up the East coast of Arabia touching at the points afterwards occupied. The first town in Arabia visited by our Bombay-Basrah steamer was /ojziz/lcfMuscat and here, accepting much hospitality from the kindly Agent for the “B. I.” Steamship Company, I remained for two weeks. Muscat has its good points, as we who have lived there for years know Bull well, but they are not very insistent in June to an utter stranger. But Aden had shown me what a tropical summer at the sea level means and I was fairly ( G ^comfortable S in a small upper room in the bazaar,—a room that recently ISS ISS had been occupied by the sainted Bishop French whose grave had just been M M dug in an adjoining cove. Muscat with its three Consulates, British, 2'F'rench and American; and with its large proportion of British subjects, 3 Hindu, Moslem and Catholic, was a sort of open port, and there would have been no opposition to a permanent residence. But it was scarcely 3 4 NEGLECTED ARABIA the place for staking out a first claim. Climate, inhabitants and a rather uncertain hinterland left much to be desired. At least I quite agreed with the British Consul when he suggested—1 hope altruisticly, that it might be well to look in at the towns further up the coast. While it was the evident, though unexpressed opinion of all the officials I met, that ours was a visionary venture doomed to failure, yet it is a pleasures to recall that always they were gentlemen, and I could only hope that they would include me in that category, leaving the issue to the future. The next place at which I went ashore was Bahrain. Here there were no white men living and it was difficult to form an estimate of the adapta­ ción of the island for permanent residence. Certainly what I saw of its general down-at-the-heel aspect and felt of its hot, humid air was not very encouraging, and I continued on to Bushire where in the office of the Resi­ dent for the Gulf I knew I could find official reports. These were kindly placed before me, but it was rather disheartening to read of summer tem­ peratures, of the prevalence of dangerous fevers, of cholera and the sum­ ming up that Bahrain was the most unhealthy and uncomfortable town on the Arab side of the Gulf. I was getting a bit discouraged in my quest of a location for beginning our mission work, when I received a letter from Basralh that gave me new hope and courage. There was then living in Basrah under contract as medical advisor to the English community a doc­ tor who had been connected with the English Mission in Persia. He, hearing from a ship’s captain of my visit to the Gulf and its purpose, gave me a most earnest invitation to come to Basrah as his guest and to look over the ground at my leisure. This I gladly did and very soon wrote to Mr. Zwemer that I thought I had found our “promised land.” Obviously, it was the best residential town I had seen since leaving Aden, 110 mission­ ary" had ever lived there, the Moslem inhabitants were reputed to be not fanatical and there was opportunity for limitless expansion. A little trip up the Tigris to see the English Church Missionary Society missionaries at Baghdad and their work, assured us of their sympathetic interest in our occupation of an adjacent area, and a missionary’s ability to weather such opposition as might be expected from a none too cordial Government. Suspicious as the Turkish regime might be of our purpose, yet it was a stable government with definite obligations to Western powers which would tend to give us time to dig ourselves in before hostilities began. As a matter of fact the Turkish officials were strangers in an Arab land and not at all anxious at this extreme outpost of their empire where for­ eign influences were so strong, to raise questions that might cause trouble at Constantinople.
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