the proverb: "The threshold of the house weeps for forty days when
a girl is born."

Unwelcome at birth, unloved in her life-time, without hope in her death;
and she might be the joy of your heart, the life of your home, and the
hope of your old age. Will you not ask yourselves, our brothers, can
these things be? "Have we wandered in the dark for centuries, misled by
blind leaders of the blind, and missing the good things offered us by
the God of Ishmael?" It was through Hagar his mother that Ishmael lived.

"_She sat over against him, and lift up her voice and wept. And God
heard the voice of the lad, and the angel of God called to Hagar out of
heaven, and said unto her, What aileth thee, Hagar? fear not, for God
hath heard the voice of the lad where he is. Arise, lift up the lad and
hold him in thine hand; for I will make him a great nation. And God
opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water; and she went and filled
the bottles with water, and gave the lad drink. And God was with the
lad, and he grew, and dwelt in the wilderness._"

To-day we cry to our Father in Heaven to let us be the messengers of
comfort to Hagar--and we will ask Him to open her eyes that she may see
the Well of the Water of Life, and that she may hold it to the lips of
her sons and daughters in the Moslem world. The following touching
incident and poem by one who has labored long among Moslem women in
Persia may well be our opening prayer ere we hear the cry of need from
distant lands in these chapters:--

"It was the Communion Day in our Church, and the service proceeded as
usual. My thoughts were all of my own unworthiness and Christ's love to
me, until Mr. E. asked the question nobody ever notices, 'Has any one
been omitted in the distribution of the bread?' And it seemed to me I
could see millions on millions of women rising silently in India,
Africa, Siam, Persia, in all the countries where they need the Lord, but
know Him not, to testify that they had been omitted in the distribution
of the bread and cup! And they can take it from no hands but ours, and
we do not pass it on. Can Jesus make heaven so sweet and calm that we
can forgive ourselves this great neglect of the millions living now, for
whom the body was broken and the blood shed, just as much as for us?"

The feast was spread, the solemn words were spoken;
Humbly my soul drew near to meet her Lord,
To plead His sacrificial body broken,
His blood for me ou