Persia and the Eastern Question
By W. A. S.
THE London press is still discussing the definite passing of Persia under Russian influence. The statement is made that Russia to-day “rules the shah’s finances, and even commands his army.” Russian officers are working to fashion the Persian army after the Russian model. The London Times says:— Far on into the nineteenth century our predominance at the court of Teheran was undisputed. Throughout the dominions of the shah, British influence was supreme. It is only within the last forty years,—only since the very time when Persia began to assume a new importance in the world as a weighty factor in the question of Asiatic policy as a whole,—that we have suffered that influence to languish, until in wide portions of the Persian empire it has been extinguished forever. . . . “Hasten the decadence of Persia, penetrate to the Persian Gulf, re-establish the ancient commerce of the Levant, and advance to the Indies, which are the treasure-house of the world,” wrote the author of the apocryphal testament of Peter the Great more than a century and a half ago. The scheme has been kept steadily in view, and decade after decade has witnessed the accomplishment of some fresh stage toward the desired goal. And during the last forty years, since this third angel’s message has been gathering force and spreading into all the world, the development of this phase of the Eastern question has been especially marked. The time has come for all the powers of earth to take their position in the lining up of nations for the fast-approaching Armageddon. And by the same token we may know that the time has come for the message of the gospel to go among these nations. In the same prophecy, of Eze. 37 : 38, 39, in which Persia is associated with the great power ruling over the “north parts,” the Lord declares that he will gather his people “from among the heathen [the nations], whither they be gone, and will gather them on every side, and bring them into their own land.” With the agents of the god of this world working day and night in these parts to gather the people to the battle of the great day, how long shall it be ere missionaries of this gospel of the third angel shall be gathering out God’s children in Persia and the regions round about? Two of our Armenian brethren, a doctor and a nurse, and, first of all, missionary evangelists are watching for the way to open for them to get into Persia. They will soon be in Russian Armenia, on the Persian border. Let us pray God to help us to get a foothold there.