The Women of the Arabs Part 14

The last Annual Report of the Board of Missions of the Presbyterian Church of the United States, speaks of these two Female Seminaries as follows:

"The Beirut Seminary is conducted by Miss Everett, Miss Jackson and Miss Loring, containing forty boarding and sixty day scholars, where the object is to give an education suited to the wants of the higher cla.s.ses of the people, to gain a control over the minds of those females who will be most influential in forming society and moulding opinion. This hold the Papal Sisters of Charity have striven earnestly to gain, and its vantage ground was not to be abandoned to them. The inst.i.tution is rising in public esteem and confidence, as the number and the cla.s.s of pupils in attendance testify. The Seminary is close to the Sanctuary, not less in sympathy than in position, and its whole influence is given to make its pupils followers of Christ."

In addition to this brief notice, it should be said that there are in the Beirut Seminary thirty charity boarders, who are selected chiefly from Protestant, Greek and Druze families, to be trained for teachers of a high order in the various girls' schools in the land. A special Normal course of training is conducted every year, and it is believed that eventually young women trained in other schools will enter this Normal Department to receive especial preparation for the work of teaching.

The charity boarders are supported by the contributions of Sabbath Schools and individuals in the United States, with especial reference to their being trained for future usefulness.

After an experience of nearly ten years in conducting the greater part of the correspondence with the patrons of this school, and maintaining their interest in the pupils and teachers whom they were supporting by their contributions, I would venture to make a few suggestions to the Christian Mission Bands, Societies, Bible Cla.s.ses, Sabbath Schools and individuals who are doing so much for the education of children in foreign lands.

I. Let all contributions for Women's Work and the education of girls, be sent through the Women's Boards of Missions, or if that is not convenient, in the form of a banker's draft on London, payable to the Princ.i.p.al of the Seminary with whom you have correspondence.

II. If possible, allow your donation to be used for the general purposes of the Seminary, without insisting that a special pupil or teacher be a.s.signed to you. But if it be not possible to maintain the interest of your children and youth in a work so distant without some special object, then by all means,--

III. Do not demand too much from your over-taxed sisters in the foreign field in the way of letters and reports. The labors of a teacher are arduous everywhere. But when instruction is given in a foreign language, in a foreign climate, and to children of a foreign nation, these labors are greatly increased. Add then to this toil correspondence with the Board of Missions, the daily study of the language, the work of visiting among the people, and receiving their visits, and you can understand how the keeping up of correspondence with twenty or thirty Sabbath Schools and Societies is a burden which no woman should be called on to bear.

IV. Do not expect sensational letters from your friends abroad. Do not take for granted that the child of ten years of age you are supporting, will develop into a distinguished teacher or Bible woman before the arrival of the next mail. Do not be discouraged if you have to wait and pray for years before you hear good tidings. Should any of the native children ever send you a letter, (and they have about as clear an idea of who you are and where you are, as they have of the satellites of Jupiter,) do not expect from their youthful productions the elegance of Addison or the eloquence of Burke.

V. Pray earnestly for the conversion of the pupils in Mission Schools.

This I regard as the great advantage of the system of having pupils supported by Christians in the home churches, and known to them by name.

They are made the subjects of special prayer. This is the precious golden bond which brings the home field near to us, and the foreign field near to you. Our chief hope for these mult.i.tudes of children now receiving instruction, is, that they will be prayed for by Christians at home.

THE SIDON FEMALE SEMINARY.

The Annual Report above mentioned, speaks thus of the Sidon Seminary: "It is conducted by Miss Jacombs and Miss Stainton, and has numbered about twenty boarders and six day scholars. The boarders are exclusively from Protestant families, selected from the common schools in all parts of the field, and are in training for the Mission service, as teachers and Bible readers. Four of the graduates of last year are already so employed. One difficulty in the way of reaching with the truth the minds of the women in the numerous villages of the land, will be obviated in part, as the results of this work are farther developed.

"There has been considerable seriousness and some hopeful conversions, in both these seminaries during the past year.

"The work is worthy of the interest taken in it by the Women's Boards of Missions, and by societies and individuals in the church who have co-operated in it."

The Sidon Seminary, as stated on a previous page, was begun in 1862, and has had four European and six native teachers. Of the latter, one was trained in Mrs. Bird's family, one in Shemlan Seminary, three in the Sidon school, and one by Mrs. Watson.

Ten of its graduates have been employed as teachers, and eight are still so engaged.

I annex a list of Girls' Schools now or formerly connected with the Syria Mission.

No. of No. of When begun Location. Pupils. Teach'rs

Beirut, Day School, 50 2 1834 " Seminary, 50 10 1848 Sidon, Seminary, 20 3 1862 " Day School, 6 1 1862 Abeih, " 60 1 1853 Deir el Komr, " 50 2 1855 To be resumed soon.

Ghorify, " 40 1 1863 All Druzes.

El Hadeth, " 40 1 1870 Shwifat, " 70 2 1871 Dibbiyeh, " 20 1 1868 B'Hamdun, " 30 1 1853 Discontinued.

Meshgara, " 30 1 1869 Boys and girls, Ain Anub, " 20 1 1870 and 60 boys.

Kefr s.h.i.+ma, " 40 1 1856 Boys and girls.

Rasheiya el Fokhar, " 30 1 1869 Jedaideh, " 40 1 1870 El Khiyam, " 25 1 1868 Ibl, " 30 1 1868 Deir Mimas, " 15 1 1865 Kana, " 35 1 1869 Hums, " 40 1 1865 Safita, " 30 1 1869 Hamath, " 30 1 1872 ------------- ----------------- Totals 23 801 36

This gives a total of twenty-three girls' schools besides the twenty-four boys' schools under the care of the Mission, and three schools where there are both boys and girls. I have kept the name of B'hamdun in the list, for its historical a.s.sociations, but the thirty pupils credited to it, will be more than made good in the girl's school about to be resumed in Tripoli under the care of Miss Kip.

The total number of girls is about 800, and the number of teachers 36.

The total cost of these twenty-three schools, including the two Seminaries in Beirut and Sidon, is about eight thousand dollars per annum, including rents, salaries of five American and English ladies, and thirty-one native teachers.

The average cost of the common schools in the Sidon field is sixty dollars per annum, and in the Lebanon field it varies from this sum to about twice that amount, owing to the fact that the Deir el Komr and other schools are virtually High Schools.

The teacher in the Sidon field, and in Abeih, and Safita, are graduates of the Sidon Seminary.

It is probable that a High School or Seminary for girls will be opened by Miss Kip in Tripoli during the coming year.

The preceding schedule can give but a faint idea of the struggles and toil, the patient labors, disappointments and trials of faith through which the women of the American Mission have pa.s.sed during the last forty years, in beginning and maintaining so many of these schools for girls in Syria.

Did I speak of _trials_? The Missionary work has its trials, but I believe that its joys are far greater. The saddest scenes I have witnessed during a residence of seventeen years in Syria, have been when Missionaries have been obliged to _leave the work_ and return to their native land. There are trials growing out of the hardness of the human heart, our own want of faith, the seeming slow progress of the gospel, and the heart-crus.h.i.+ng disappointments arising from broken hopes, when individuals and communities who have promised well, turn back to their old errors "like the dog to his vomit" again. But of joys it is much easier to speak, the joy of preaching Christ to the peris.h.i.+ng,--of laboring where others will not labor,--of laying foundations for the future,--of feeling that you are doing what you can to fulfil the Saviour's last command,--of seeing the word of G.o.d translated into a new language,--a christian literature beginning to grow,--children and youth gathered into Schools and Seminaries of learning, and even sects which hate the Bible obliged to teach their children to read it,--of seeing christian families growing up, loving the Sabbath and the Bible, the sanctuary and the family altar.--Then there is the joy of seeing souls born into the kingdom of our dear Redeemer, and churches planted in a land where pure Christianity had ceased to exist,--and of witnessing unflinching steadfastness in the midst of persecution and danger, and the triumphs of faith in the solemn hour of death.

These are a few of the joys which are strewn so thickly along the path of the Christian Missionary, that he has hardly time to think of sorrow, trial and discouragement. Those who have read Dr. Anderson's "History of Missions to the Oriental Churches," and Rev. Isaac Bird's "History of the Syria Mission," or "Bible Work in Bible Lands," will see that the work of the Syria Mission from 1820 to 1872 has been one of conflict with princ.i.p.alities and powers, and with spiritual wickedness in high and low places, but that at length the h.o.a.ry fortresses are beginning to totter and fall, and there is a call for a general advance in every department of the work, and in every part of the land.

Other agencies have come upon the ground since the great foundation work was laid, and the first great victories won, and in their success it becomes all of G.o.d's people to rejoice; but the veterans who fought the first battles, and overcame the great national prejudice of the Syrian people against female education, should ever be remembered with grat.i.tude.

It has been my aim in this little volume to recount the history of Woman's Work in the past. Who can foretell what the future of Christian work for Syrian Women will be?

May it ever be a work founded on the Word of G.o.d, aiming at the elevation of woman through the doctrines and the practice of a pure Christianity, striving to plant in Syria, not the flippant culture of modern fas.h.i.+onable society, but the G.o.d-fearing, Sabbath-loving, and Bible-reading culture of our Anglo-Saxon ancestors!

A few years ago, a Greek priest named Job, from one of the distant villages high up in the range of Lebanon, called on me in Beirut. I had spent several summers in his village, and he had sometimes borrowed our Arabic sermons to read in the Greek Church, and now, he said, he had come down to see what we were doing in Beirut. I took him through the Female Seminary and the Church, and then to the Library and the Printing Press. He examined the presses, the steam engine, the type-setting, and type-casting, the folding, sewing, and binding of books, and looked through the huge cases filled with Arabic books and Scriptures, saw all the editions of the Bible and the Testament, and then turned in silence to take his departure. I went with him to the outer gate. He took my hand, and said, "By your leave I am going. The Lord bless your work.

Sir, I have a thought; we are all going to be swept away, priests and bishops, Greeks and Maronites, Moslems and Druzes, and there will be nothing left, nothing but the Word of G.o.d and those who follow it. That is my thought. Farewell."

May that thought be speedily realized! May the coa.r.s.eness, brutality and contempt for woman which characterize the Moslem hareem, give way to the refinement, intelligence, and mutual affection which belong to the Christian family!

May the G.o.d of prophecy and promise, hasten the time when Nusairy barbarism, Druze hypocrisy, Moslem fanaticism, Jewish bigotry and nominal Christian superst.i.tion shall fade away under the glorious beams of the rising Sun of Righteousness!

May the "glory of Lebanon" be given to the Lord, in the regeneration and sanctification of the families of Lebanon!

Too long has it been true, in the degradation of woman, that the "flower of Lebanon languisheth."

Soon may we say in the truly Oriental imagery of the Song of Songs,--"Come with me from Lebanon, look from the top of Amana, from the top of Shenir and Hermon, from the lions' dens, from the mountains of the leopards,"--and behold, in the culture of woman, in society regenerated, in home affection, in the Christian family, what is in a peculiar sense, "a fountain of gardens, a well of living waters, and streams from Lebanon!"

"Is it not yet a very little while, and Lebanon shall be turned into a fruitful field?" When "the reproach of the daughters of Syria," shall be taken away, and when amid the zearas of the Nusairiyeh, the kholwehs of the Druzes, the mosques of the Moslems and the tents of the Bedawin, may be heard the voice of Christ, saying to the poor women of the Arab race, weary and fainting under the burdens of life:

"Daughter be of good comfort, Thy faith hath made thee whole, Go in peace!"

THE CHILDREN'S CHAPTER.

PART I.

_Abeih, Mount Lebanon_, Sept., 1872.

My Dear Son Willie:--

It is now eight years since you left Syria, and you were then so young, that you must have forgotten all about the country and the people. I have often promised to tell you more about the Syrian boys and girls, what they eat and wear, and how they study and play and sleep, and the songs their mothers sing to them, and many other things. And now I will try and fulfil my promise.