August, 1841
THE R I N G ’ S BU S I N E S S
297
oneself in a place so filled, with the romance of history as is the Khyber Pass. But this thrill was overhadowed for Marjorie by the knowledge that on either side of the Pass and beyond the border, the messenger of Christ was excluded. From Landi Kotal, the last British fort, she stood and gazed over into Afghanistan, following the ribbons of motor and camel roads down through the pass, by the toll gate and away in the direction of Kabul. In the far dis tance disappearing in the haze a snow- clad range indicated thé border of A f ghanistan and Russia. And in all that country, arid beyond in valleys where she could not see, there was not one bit of Christian witness, except as an Afghan traveler had accepted a portion of Scripture or a tract and'carried it with him. Afghanistan, a land-locked independent country, has had no gospel witness since the Nestorian Christians established a bishopric in Samarkand during the sixth century and sent mis sionaries to preach in India and Arabia. Beyond the much-photographed sign that bars entrance to Afghanistan with out proper visas, missionaries may not go except as travelers. Merchants were now welcomed, but not the messenger o f Jesus Christ. Since the days of Ti mur the Great, Afghanistan, has been a Mohammedan country. One hundred per cent of the tribesmen follow Moham med with fanatical zeal, and Christians .are hated infidels. . . . Travelers going either into India or Afghanistan- through the Khyber Pass traverse the streets of the walled city of Peshawar. This city is one of great antiquity.. Here, a few mission aries seek to contact the traveler with the Word of God—that it may go where they cannot, behind the barred doors of Afghanistan. From the Kabuli Gate, the main street, “The Place of Gossip,” stretches out broad and straight through the city. The first time Marjorie walked there she was the center of all eyes. The street was thronged with people, but there were few women. Only occasion ally did one hurry by, draped from head to foot in a white burkha which hid her completely from the public gaze. Marjorie wondered at the woman be hind the veil as one passed near her. Was she content in her seclusion and ignorance? Did she ever rebel against
it? Into Marjorie’s heart crept a hunger that was never to be entirely dulled; a hunger to win these Moslem women for Christ. And what of the throng-on the street? There sat a money changer in his car peted booth with, the coins of the world heaped about hirii. A little farther on she saw the place where the beggars crouched in their tattered .garments. A scholar, prodd of his long beard, sat, on the ground and with a horn for an inkpot wrote in slow, deliberate strokes that curved about the page. From the Street of the Story-Tellers there sounded the eager voices of the orators to whom the pleasure of oratory is second only to that of love and war. Several Mongolians passed on their sturdy, ambling ponies. There in front of a tea shop strolled a couple of Jews, and on a verandah’ of a near-by shop sat a silk, merchant from West China. A prosperous-looking Hindu banker passed by in dignified aloofness and a bearded Afghan led a haughty, superior camel slowly along the street. “What an epitome of Frontier history Peshawar presents, its crowds compris ing the elements of every race!” Mar jorie murmured to herself. “And few, if any, of them know Christ, whom to know is life eternal!” From a high place. Marjorie looked over the “city of a thousand and one sins,” as Peshawar has been called. Across the city the big mosque with its lofty minarets caught her eye. There, she knew, the Mullah appeared five times each day to give the call to prayer in his far-reaching falsetto:
“God is great. There iS no god but Allah, and Mohammed is the prophet of Allah. Come to prayer.” In imagina tion she could see every strict Moslem turning toward the Holy City of Mecca at that cry and •praying to Aliah— one-ninth of the world's population re peating its Arabic prayers. What an overwhelming challenge—these so near the truth and yet so far from it! All this she saw, but her chief in terest-was in the Pathans that had been pointed out to her. These had come from Afghanistan and the independent border • tribes. Was it not this territory that was closed to the gospel—the largest unevangelized field in the world ? Even the doors of Tibet were slowly swinging open on their rusty hinges, but Af ghanistan doors were still fast locked fo the messenger of the Lord. They were magnificent men, these men from the hills, with their fihe fig ures, the iriuscles cording under their shirts, their wind-burned eyes steady. A group of them passed her as she walked back-through the city. With" their high turbans and long sheepskin coats they strode along as though the whole world belonged to them. They spoke in the harsh guttural Pushtu :tongue which Marjorie did not under stand. Bom fighters, to whom war is as natural as eating and drinking, they •were very much like their country, hard and cruel. They smiled now, upon the edge of laughter and their smiles flashed across the darkness of their faces, giv ing them a gay and friendly look. But she had heard stories in plenty of the [ Continued on Page 316]
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