I HAD the privilege of listening to a very interesting discourse from M. Coon, a missionary to Persia. This man has spent the better part of his life laboring among the Nestorians and Mussulmans till gray-headed. He has now come ten thousand miles to arouse the cooling ardor of American Christians to the importance of missions to the heathen. The speaker mentioned a tradition which he declares prevails through all those countries where Mohammedanism is in the ascendancy, and which is universally believed by them. They say there are to be in the history of the world twelve Imaums, i. e., great teachers, before the great day of Judgment. Of these great personages eleven have already passed off the stage of action. To the memory of some of these, shrines have been erected, and multitudes of pilgrims throng thither with rapt devotion. Among these, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed figure conspicuously. Mohammedans believe Jesus was a true prophet and teacher, and that his religion, as first taught, was good and true; but they claim that it became corrupted, and Mohammed followed and taught the only true religion. But the lecturer stated that the twelfth Imaum, for whom all Mohammedans are looking, is Jesus Christ; and there is a general expectation among them that his coming is to be very soon. He stated that this expectation has had so much effect upon them that many look upon Christianity with far more favor than formerly, and that many small sects are springing up among them whose existence is more or less directly traceable to a belief in this tradition. I confess this was a startling thought to me. While the speaker, of course, drew the conclusion from it that there was to be a mighty movement through the 180,000,000 of Mohammedans toward the acceptance of Christ as the Saviour and the world's conversion, it looked to me as though God had, through his inscrutable providence, caused even the many millions of the followers of Arabia's false prophet to contemplate the return of Jesus our Lord. Who shall say that in the loud cry of the closing message rays of glorious light shall not reach these far-off missionary stations, and that these poor and oppressed disciples of Jesus, who have taken their lives in their hands to follow him, will not receive his last work; and that this tradition so widely disseminated and believed may not prepare the way for many honest souls? However this may be, it is most remarkable that at the very time the proclamation of Christ's soon coming is being made through all the nations of Christendom, a tradition to the same effect already exists among the 180,000,000 of Mohammedans. How the zeal of missionaries to these distant lands should excite us to emulation! With a truth so much clearer than their creeds, with a hope almost consummated, a message founded on the sure prophetic word, and so near fulfilled that it has become almost a matter of sight instead of faith, how ardently should we labor. Our pathway is strewn with roses compared with the thorny path of missionaries to the heathen. Why should these excel us in zeal? Oh, for more of the self-sacrificing spirit among ministry and people that characterize those who take their lives in their hands and go away from the earthly associations they love, to live and die for the salvation of the ignorant and degraded! Missionary fields exist all around us, where we may labor for God. The heart to labor is the great thing needed. May the Lord give it to us all. GEO. I. BUTLER. Mt. Pleasant, Iowa.