"Hadji Wolff, you must not go to Abyssinia. There are great dangers in that, and you are like to lose your life." So spoke a Mohammedan ruler in Arabia to Joseph Wolff, missionary to the world, as he was planning an expedition into Africa.

But Wolff answered: "For a great object one may expect the assistance of God, in the time of danger. You expose your life among the wild Arabs, to bring them to order."

"Yes; but I am provided with arms."

"And so am I," said Wolff.

The sheik looked at him in astonishment. Wolff carried neither gun nor sword, nor had he any bodyguards or soldiers with him.

"With what kind of arms?" asked the ruler.

"With prayer, zeal for Christ, and confidence in His help," answered Wolff, "and also with the love of God and my neighbor in my heart; and my Bible in my hand."

Said the ruler, "I have no answer to that." Joseph Wolff is called "the missionary to the
world" because he traveled over so large a part of it to carry the Christian faith and especially the message of Jesus' coming. He traveled in Europe, Asia, Africa, and North America; and like another Paul, in the course of his missions he encountered "perils of waters, perils of robbers, perils by mine own countrymen, perils by the heathen, perils in the city, perils in the wilderness, perils in the sea, perils among false brethren."

Born a Jewish lad in Bavaria, Germany, in 1796, young Wolff at the age of thirteen embraced the Christian faith and was cast out by his family. So young as this, he began a life of wandering, but always seeking knowledge, and so studying in many schools, Catholic and Protestant, and becoming one of the most learned men of the times, with a knowledge of twenty-seven languages besides many dialects, and a noted scholar in the sacred literatures of Jews, Mohammedans, and Christians. But best of all, he was a devoted follower of the Lord Jesus Christ, for whose sake he endured many things and brought the knowledge of the Redeemer to peoples in lands around the earth.

In 1831, the year that William Miller began to preach, Joseph Wolff set out for a journey to Bokhara, in the heart of Asia. It was a very wild country, with a savage king, and the country between it and Persia, whence Wolff would start, was wilder still. Many travelers had been killed in those countries, and especially was a man in danger when he was known to be a Christian. Wolff reached Persia, and there began to prepare for his journey. Some native merchants, who traded in Bokhara, were asked how Wolff could go most safely.

They replied, "He cannot go."

"Why not?" asked Wolff.

They answered, "They will kill you in Khorassan, because they cannot bear Christians. And if you should slip safely through Khorassan, and arrive in Sarakhs, where there are six thousand tents of the Turkomans, they will keep you a slave. And if you were to slip through Sarakhs safely and arrive in Merv, you will still be in the same danger. And if you should slip safely through Merv, and arrive in Bokhara, you will either be kept there and never be allowed to leave, or killed, as they killed Morecroft and Guthrie and Trebeck six years ago."

But Wolff replied, "God is mighty above all things; he will take care of me."

He hired four camels and loaded them with goods, mostly Bibles, and set out with a caravan. Several times they were in danger from robbers. Sometimes they slept out on the desert sands, sometimes in the ruins of old castles, sometimes in cities.

When they were about half way to Bokhara, his companions came to him and said: "Hadji Wolff [hadji means holy man], we are now coming to a very dangerous city, the city of Burchund. They will never allow a Christian within its walls, but if they discover him they will put him to death. Yet we must pass through Burchund to go to Bokhara. So this is what we will do. We will time our march to come to the city just as the sun is going down, as they close the gates. We will slip within, and make ourselves very small, and we will stay at the inn until the stars begin to pale in the sky. Then we will saddle up; and as soon as the gates are opened, we will go on our way. And so perhaps they will not know that a Christian has been within their walls."

So they did. They timed their march and came to the city just before the gates were shut. They slipped within and, as they said, they made themselves very small. They talked little, and tried to attract no notice. So they stayed all night, and in the morning, when the stars began to pale in the sky, they saddled up, went to the gates, and as soon as these were opened they rode on their way, believing that they had safely passed the dangerous city of Burchund.

But not so! Though Wolff had kept in the background, though he was dressed as all the people of the land were dressed, and though he could speak their tongue, he could not be hid. You can never hide a Christian; for his manner and his voice are different from those of other men; they are like Jesus'. So someone suspected Wolff. And in the morning, after Wolff had gone, this suspicious person went to the ruler of the city, who was called the ameer, and said to him: "Do you know there was a Christian dog within the city of Burchund this night? He is on the way to Bokhara, and now he is gone, this Christian dog, unpunished."

When the ameer heard this, he called to him armed horsemen and commanded them to ride after Wolff, overtake him, and drag him back to be tried and condemned before him. The horse-men overtook him at the end of the day. They dragged him from his horse, and compelled him to walk all the way back to Burchund. When they arrived there, Wolff, bruised and worn, was given no rest. The ameer called his counsellors around him in his council chamber. They brought Wolff in and stood him before them. He might not sit in their presence; for only a guest might sit. They stood him up, and the ameer began to question him.

"What is your name?"

"It is Joseph Wolff."

"Where do you come from?"

"I come from the great kingdom of England."

"How far is that?"

"In a direct line, through Constantinople, and then by land, it is seven thousand miles; but as I have come, it is fifteen thousand miles."

"And where do you go?"

"I go to the kingdom and city of Bokhara."

"For what purpose?"

"I go to find my people, the Jews, and to carry to them the glorious message of a soon-coming Saviour, even Jesus Christ the mighty, who shall bring judgment to the good and to the evil, and restore all things in perfectness, as at the beginning."

Then the ameer, astonished that one should confess Christ when such a confession meant death, exclaimed in amazement, "You are a Christian, then?"

And Wolff replied, "I am an humble follower of the Lord Jesus Christ."

Still more amazed, the ameer asked, "Why do you mind what they believe in Bokhara? Why do you not stay at home with your family, eat, drink, and be merry?"

And Wolff replied, quoting first a Mohammedan poet: "Sadi says, 'The world, 0 brother, remains not to anyone. Fix therefore thy heart on the Creator of the world, and it shall be well with thee.' I have found out by the reading of this book [and he held out a Bible] that one can bind one's heart to God only by believing in Jesus; and believing this, I am like one who walks in a beautiful garden, and smells the odor of the roses and hears the warbling of the nightingales; and I do not like to be the only one so happy; therefore I go about in the world inviting others to walk with me arm in arm in that same beautiful garden."

When they heard him say this, all in the room rose as one man, they clapped their hands, and cried, "A holy man! A holy man! A dervish indeed! Drunk with the love of God! Sit down! Read to us from your book."

So, all at once, by the wisdom of the reply God gave him to make, Wolff's state was changed from that of a prisoner about to be condemned to death as a "Christian dog," to that of an honored guest. "Sit down," they said; "read to us from your book."

And so Wolff opened his Bible to Isaiah and to the gospels, and read to them the prophecy and the story of Jesus: how He was born a babe in Bethlehem while the shepherds watched and the angels sang; how as He grew up He went about doing good and healing all that were op-pressed of the devil; how wicked men took Him and slew Him upon the cross on Calvary, but God raised Him from the dead on the third day; how He ascended to heaven, where now He sits on the right hand of the throne of God, soon to come as a glorious King and bring His reward to the faithful and His judgment to the wicked. At last for weariness he could go on no longer.

Then they asked him, "Have you any more of those books?"

"Oh, yes," said Wolff, "I have many." He sent his servant down, who brought up armloads of books, and Wolff gave a Bible to every man in the room, the only men in the whole city, perhaps, who could read.

Then they said to him, "Hadji Wolff, you cannot leave us now. You must stay with us and teach us." So they took him in, and he lived while there in the house of the chief dervish.

Every time he went out upon the street, he would find a crowd of men on this corner and on that, a dervish at the center of every crowd, reading to them from the Bible, the Christians' holy book, which before they would never touch. When they would see Wolff, they would call, "Hadji Wolff, come over and tell us what this means."

So for two whole weeks Wolff stayed with them and taught them. And when at last he said that he must go on his journey, they brought him in honor to the gate of their city, the ameer and all his chief Men accompanying him, to bid him farewell. They loaded him with gifts, and as he departed they cried; "God go with you! Allah be with you, Hadji Wolff. You came to us, we thought, an enemy, but God has shown us that you are our friend; for you arc a man who is drunk with the love of God!"

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