Topsy-Turvy Land | Page 3

Arabia! For the greatest contrast is the religion of the inhabitants of Topsy-turvy Land. That is all upside down too. The Lord Jesus teaches us to pray in secret not to be seen of men; we are to go quietly alone and tell God everything. But Mohammed, the prophet of Arabia, taught his followers to pray openly on any street corner, or on the deck of a ship, in public, just like the Pharisees whom Jesus condemns. And when these people fast, as they are supposed to for a whole month, they do not really go without food, but each day at sunset they begin to eat in larger quantity than usual!--because they think by such fasting to gain favour with God and do not know that to fast from sin and evil habits is the fast God wants. Another thing very sad in this land of Topsy-turvy is that there are no Sunday-schools--they do not observe our Sabbath--and the boys and girls do not have bright Sunday-school lesson leaves or a picture-roll. They spend Sunday and every other day in learning all the evil they see in those that are grown up. Poor children! They have never heard the sweet words of Jesus, "Suffer little children to come unto me and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God." We tell you all this about them that you may pray for them that God may soon send more missionaries to preach to them these precious words. We want you all by prayer and offerings to help put a silver lining in the dark clouds of their lives.
The other chapters in this little book will tell you more about the land and its people and as you read them do not forget to pray for them.
If you are faithful and true, always shining for Jesus, your bright light will reach as far as dark Arabia, and will help to turn that land of Topsy-turvy right side up. When joy and gladness will take the place of sorrow and sadness, and ignorance give way to the knowledge of the Truth. In one place in the Bible it tells how to make these topsy-turvy lands right side up again. Do you know where that is? Acts 17:6-7. "These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also ... saying that there is another King, even JESUS."

II
A LESSON IN GEOGRAPHY
In the atlas Arabia looks like a big mail-pouch hung up by the side of some railway station, pretty empty of everything. But this queer mail-pouch country is not as empty as people imagine. It is a country larger than all of the United States east of the Mississippi. It is longer than the longest mail-pouch and much wider. From north to south you can ride a camel one thousand miles and from east to west more than six hundred. But the geography of the country is topsy-turvy altogether and that is why it has been so long a neglected peninsula. People kept on wondering at the queer exterior of the mail-pouch and never opened the lock to its secrets by looking into the interior.
First of all, Arabia is perhaps the only land that has three of its boundaries fixed and the other always shifting. Such is the case with the northern boundary of Arabia. It is different on every map and changes every year because the inhabitants go about as nomads; that is, they "have no continuing city."
Arabia has no rivers except underground. It has no railroad and very few roads at all. Some parts of the country are very green and fertile and in other parts there is not enough grass the year around to give one square meal to a single grasshopper. Arabia has four thousand miles of coast and yet only six harbours where steamers call. There are better maps of the North Pole and of Mars and of the moon than of southeastern Arabia. The reason is that men have spent millions of dollars to find the North Pole and telescopes are all the time looking at the moon; but no one has ever spent time or money to explore this part of Arabia. The Greek geographers had a better knowledge of Arabia than we have to-day.
[Illustration: MAP OF ARABIA.]
There are no lakes in Arabia, but there is a large sea of sand called Al Ahkaf, in which the traveller Von Wrede threw a lead and line and found no bottom! No one has been there since to see whether his story was true. At Bahrein, in eastern Arabia, there are salt-water wells on shore and fresh-water springs in the midst of the salt sea from which water is brought to shore. Arabia has no postage-stamps and no political capital and no telegraph system.