figure is so big as only to stagger the mind in an attempt to take it in.
The important thing is to see that it doesn't by its sheer bigness,
stagger our faith or our courage or our praying habit. We want to be like
the old Hebrew who "staggered not" at God's promise to do for him a
naturally impossible thing. Yet it is well to repeat that word "billion,"
for it brings up sharply and gigantically the staggering need of the world
for Christ.

One-third is in lands commonly called Christian. Though we must use that
word "Christian" in the broadest and most charitable sense in making that
statement.



A Quick Run Round the World.


Beginning at Jerusalem, then, means for us just now beginning with the
Turkish Empire. And with that, in this rapid run through, we may for
convenience group Arabia and Persia and Afghanistan. This is the section
where Mohammedanism, that corrupt mixture of heathenism with a small
tincture of Christian truth, has its home, and whence it has gone out on
its work throughout the world.

Great populations here have practically no knowledge at all of the Gospel,
for missionary work is extremely scant. The land of the Saviour, with its
eastern neighbors, has no Saviour, so far as knowing about Him is
concerned, though it needs His saving very sorely.

Next to it, on the east, lies the great land of India, with the smaller