-subjects and
neighbours.

What is the use of talking about a League of Nations and the
self-decision of small States if we still seek to impose our religious
views on people who do not want them and encroach on the borders of
other creeds? Are other people's spiritual affairs of no account, or do
we arrogate to ourselves a monopoly of such matters? Both positions are
untenable.

The justification of missionary enterprise is based on Christ's last
charge to His disciples: "Go ye into all the world and preach the
gospel to every creature." He clearly defined that gospel as "the
tidings of the kingdom," and what that kingdom was He has repeatedly
told us in the Sermon on the Mount, frequent conversations with His
disciples and others and the example of His daily life. He never sought
to change a man's religious belief (such as it was) or his method of
livelihood (however questionable it might be), but to reform him within
the limits of his convictions and his duties. He has also left on record
an indictment of proselytisers that will endure for all time. Of course,
if the Gospel narrative is unreliable throughout (as the reverend and
scholarly compiler of the "Encyclopedia Biblica" would appear to imply)
then these arguments fall to the ground, but so does any possible
justification of missionary enterprise. On the other hand, Moslems _do_
believe and reverence the _Engil_ or Gospel, though they follow the
doctrine and dogma of a later revelation.

The logical deduction from these facts is that moral training, education
and charitable works among Moslems are permissible and justifiable
features of missionary endeavour, if not forced upon an unwilling
population, but attacks on Islam itself are not only unmerited but
unauthorised and impertinent.

Many missionaries of undoubted scholarship and breadth of view see this
and model their field work accordingly, with good results; in fact, most
real success in the mission field has been achieved by practical,
Christian work on the above lines, and not by religious propaganda; but
the flag which missionary societies flaunt before a subscribing
Christian public is quite a different banner, as can be easily
ascertained from their own published literature, which is very prolific
and accessible to all.

In writing about Islam the authors or compilers of these works too
frequently allow their zeal to involve them in a web of inconsistency
and misstatement, or else they let the