By Samuel Zwemer

Source: Neglected Arabia, no. 96 (March 1916)

We plough deep furrows and scatter the seed of the Word, hoping for the harvest. But God Himself is waiting for the sowing of the good seed— the children of the Kingdom. “That a furrow be fecund,” said Sabatier, “it must have blood and tears, such as Augustine called the blood of the soul.” The Moslem world must have its Gethsemane and Calvary before it can have its Pentecost. The present condition of that world, therefore, is a supreme call to sacrifice: the sacrifice of our provincialisms or the narrow horizon of our sectarianisms for cosmopolitan statemanship as missionary leaders.  e must sink our differences and unite on the essentials. The sacrifice of wealth for investment in schools, the publication of literature, hospitals, and every form of evangelisation, on a scale adequate to meet the new opportunities. There is a call for the sacrifice of life—making it sacred—to force an entrance into the unoccupied mission fields where doors long closed are about to open. “As the Father hath sent Me, even so send I you.”

Out of the realm of the glory light,
Into the far-away land of night;
Out from the bliss of worshipful song,
Into the pain of hatred and wrong;
Out from the holy rapture above,
Into the grief of rejected love;
Out from the life at the Father’s side,
Into the death of the crucified;
Out from high honour, and into shame
The Master willingly, gladly came:
And now, since He may not suffer anew,
As the Father sent Him, so sendeth He you.