The third near the west coast, south of the equator, would make eight States as large as Iowa. In Iowa there are at least 4,000 ordained ministers, to say nothing of other Christian workers, but in this block of territory, eight times as large as Iowa, there is not a single ordained missionary.
Another region, some distance north of the one just mentioned, without missionaries, is 1,500 miles long and 500 miles wide.
Last of all, if we omit the mission stations on the Nile and a few scattered workers around the fringes, there is in the upper half of the continent a block of territory nearly as large as the United States but with a scattered population estimated at fifteen millions, without resident missionaries. Starting from the Nile River, 1,000 miles from its mouth, a traveler could go directly westward through the heart of the continent nearly three thousand miles before reaching the next mission station on the west coast. If he started at the mouth of the Sobat River, about 2,000 miles from Cairo, the nearest mission station to the west is 1,500 miles away, in Northern Nigeria. In all those weary miles there is not a single church spire pointing toward the stars or a home where a missionary family lives.
Taking the continent as a whole, there are at least fifty millions of people who are not only entirely outside the reach but even of the plans of any missionary society now at work on the continent.
In Asia live more than one half of the human race. Accepting the figures of the Statesman's Year Book, the population of the world is 1,698,552,204. The population of Asia is given as 958,781,233. Of every hundred people in the earth fifty-six live in Asia. Of these fifty-six, forty-three out of every hundred live in China and India. Asia as a whole has 9,013 workers, according to the World Atlas of Christian Missions, each having an average parish of 1,781 square miles, containing an average of 106,377 people. Let us survey the continent, "beginning from Jerusalem."
1. The Near East.—The Asiatic Levant, or Near East includes Turkey, Persia, and Arabia. This territory has an area of 2,381,310 square miles and a population of a little more than thirty-four millions. This region where Christ was born and wrought his mighty works is to-day in desperate need of his message and life.
(1) Turkey has an area of 693,610 square miles, and is therefore more than eighty-six times the size of Massachusetts. This great area has only 2,836 miles of railroad, while Pennsylvania with one fifteenth its area has 15,415 miles. Turkey includes Asia Minor, Armenia, Kurdistan, Mesopotamia, Syria, and a portion of Arabia. Turkey has a population of 17,683,550, fourteen millions of whom are Mohammedans and the rest divided among Christian churches; a majority of these are in Asia Minor and Armenia. There are only 354 missionaries, including wives, in all Turkey. The Mohammedan population is practically untouched, since a majority of the missionaries for political and other reasons have devoted comparatively little of their time to them.
(2) Persia is nearly as large as Turkey but has not more than one half of the population. The country extends about 700 miles north and south and 900 miles east and west. Millions of the people are difficult of access because Persia has only six miles of railroad, and political conditions have been unfavorable to missionary effort. This railroad was opened in 1888, and since that time no other railroads have been built. Not only are there no railroads but only a few good carriage roads. Twelve of these cities have a population ranging from thirty thousand in Kashan to two hundred and eighty thousand in Teheran, the capital. Four of the large cities have not been occupied by missionaries. There are eighty-four missionaries for the more than nine and a half millions of population.
(3) Arabia includes a territory 1,500 miles long by 1,200 miles wide. Much of this country is only partially explored. The eight millions of population are almost all Mohammedans. Of the six provinces only three are occupied by missionaries, and in the coast-line of 4,000 miles there are workers in only four centers—Aden, Muscat, Bahrein, and Busrah, and not one in the interior. Along the 1,500 miles of Red Sea coast from Suez to Aden, passing the Sinai Peninsula and the forbidden city of Mecca on the way, there is not one missionary. From Aden to Muscat is a journey of nearly 1,500 miles, from there to Bahrein is 550, and Busrah is 400 miles further on.