The Women of the Arabs Part 6

However I began the school by opening and closing it with prayer, without any faith at all. So I began by reading from the first of Matthew, till I came to the 16th chapter. When I came to that chapter I read as usual, with blinded eyes; but when I came to the (13th) thirteen verse, and from there to the seventeenth, where it says, "Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven," I felt that this had been said to me, and were these words sounded from heaven I would not have felt happier. How true it is that no flesh could reveal unto me what G.o.d had revealed, because many Christian friends tried to make me believe, but I could not, I felt as if everything had become new and beautiful, because my Heavenly Father had made them all. I was sometimes with faith and sometimes doubting, and by these changes my faith was strengthened.

After a short time, I asked Mr. Whiting to let me join the Church.

He asked me if I saw any change in myself, and I said, "One thing I know, that I used to dislike Christian people, and now they are my best friends." After a short time I was permitted to join the Church. Then I left off teaching the day school, and was asked to teach in a Boarding school with Miss Cheney, in the same Seminary where I was brought up. We taught in that school only six months.

Miss Cheney married, and I was engaged to be married. While I was engaged, I went to Mr. Bird's school for girls in Deir el Kamr, and taught there for more than a year. I was married by Mr. Bird in his own house to M. Yusef Barakat, and then we went to Hasbeiya. I stayed there seven months and then went to Beirut, and thence to Damascus with my husband, because he had to teach there. I had nothing to do there but to look after my house, my little boy, and my husband.

After some time, the ma.s.sacre broke out in Damascus, (July 9, 1860,) so we came back as refugees to Beirut. Soon after my husband was taken ill and then died. In that same year 1860, dear Mrs.

Bowen Thompson came to Beirut. She felt for the widows and orphans, being herself a widow. She asked me if I would come and teach a school for the widows and orphans, which I accepted thankfully. We opened the school with five children and seven women, and the work, by G.o.d's help has prospered, so that now, instead of one school, there are twenty-two schools. Until now I continue teaching in the Inst.i.tution, and had I known that nearly all my life would be spent in teaching, I should have tried to gain more when I was a child. I can forget father and mother, but can never forget those who taught me, especially about religion. Although some of them are dead, yet still they live by their Christian example, which they have left behind. My whole life will be full of grat.i.tude to those dear Christian friends, and I pray that G.o.d himself may reward them a hundred fold.

Yours respectfully,

Sada Barakat.

In the year 1851 the Missionary Sewing Society of the Beirut Female Seminary heard of the interesting state of things in Aintab, and that the women there were anxious to learn to read. The missionaries in Aintab hired an old man to go around from house to house to teach the women to read in their homes, but the women were so eager to learn that the old man was unable to meet the demand. So children were employed to a.s.sist. The plan worked admirably, and in 1851, eighty women received instruction and became able to read G.o.d's Word. The Arab girls in Mrs.

De Forest's school were called together, and it was proposed that they sew and embroider and send the proceeds of their work to pay the little girl teachers in Aintab. There were present, Ferha, (joy,) Sara, Saada Sabunjy, Miriam, Khushfeh, Khurma, Mirta, (Martha) Feifun, Katrina, Hada, Sada el Haleby, Esteer, h.e.l.loon, Fetny, Akabir, Hamdy, and Liza.

The needles were briskly plied, and in due time, two hundred and fifty piastres were collected and forwarded to Aintab. Mrs. Schneider wrote back thanking the "dear Arab girls." The habits of benevolence thus acquired have continued with the most of these girls until now. The greater part of them are now church-members and the heads of families.

The following letter written by Mrs. De Forest in Feb. 1852, gives some account of Lulu Araman.

Beirut, Syria, _February, 1852_.

My Dear young friends in Thetford:

The quilt you sent came safely, and I thank you much for all the care and trouble you have taken to make and quilt it for me. I at first thought of keeping it for myself, but then it occurred to me that perhaps it might please you better and interest you more if I gave it to Lulu, one of my girls, who is to be married some time this year to Mr. Michaiel Araman, one of the teachers in the Abeih Seminary. You will thus have the pleasure of feeling that you have in one sense done something for the school, as she is an a.s.sistant pupil, or pupil teacher. She has been with me now for about eight years, and seems almost like my own daughter. Perhaps you will be interested in knowing something of her.

She was born in a pleasant valley, Wady Shehrur, near Beirut, celebrated for its fine oranges, and indeed for almost all kind of fine fruits. She lost both her parents early in life. Her brothers (contrary to the usual custom here where girls are not much regarded or cared for) were very kind to her, and as she was a delicate child, they took great care of her, and often used to make vows to some saint in her behalf. At one time, when she was very ill, they vowed to Mar Giurgis (for they are members of the Greek Church, and St. George is one of the favorite saints of the Greeks, and indeed of all the Christian sects here, and they still show the spot where he is said to have killed the dragon) that if she recovered, she should carry to one of his shrines two wax candles as tall as herself and of a prescribed weight. While she was still feeble they provided the candles, and as she was too weak to walk, they carried her and the candles also, to the holy place and presented them.

When she was eight years old, they were persuaded by an acquaintance to place her in one of the Mission families. Here she was instructed in her own language, and especially in the Holy Scriptures. She was allowed, however, to keep her feasts and fasts, and to attend her own church, until she became convinced that these things would not save her and she wished to give them up. One feast day the lady with whom she lived gave her some sewing and told her to seat herself and do her task. She refused, saying it was a feast day, and it was unlawful work. A little while after she asked permission to go and visit her brother's family; but the lady told her, "No, if it is unlawful to work, it is unlawful to visit. I have no objection to your keeping your feast days, but if you do you must keep them as holy time." So she gave her a portion of Scripture to learn, and she was kept very quiet all day, as though it was the Sabbath, and without the day being made agreeable to her like the Sabbath by going to Church and Sabbath School. She did not at all like keeping a feast in this manner, which is very different from the manner in which such a day or even the Sabbath, is kept in this land, and was ever after ready to work when told to do so. When her brothers saw that she was beginning to give up their vain ceremonies, they became anxious to get her away, lest she should become a Protestant; and at one time, when she went home to attend the wedding of one of her relatives, they refused to allow her to return, and it was only through the good management of the native friend who was sent for her, and her own determination to come, that she was permitted to come back.

We hope that she became truly pious six years ago, in 1846, as her life evinces that she is striving to live according to the precepts of the gospel. She has never dared to go home again, although it has been a great trial for her to stay away, because she knew that she should be obliged to remain there, and to conform to the idolatrous rites of the Greek Church. She has a.s.sisted us in the School for nearly five years, besides teaching a day school at various times, before the Boarding School was commenced, and we shall feel very sorry to part with her. Still we hope that she will yet be useful to her countrywomen, and furnish them an example of a happy Christian home, of which there are so few at present in this country.

Our school has now nineteen pupils, most of whom are promising.

Some we hope are true Christians. The girls opened their box the other day, and found that they had a little more than last year from their earnings. Some friends added a little, and they have now forty dollars. One half they send to China, and the other half give to the Church here.

The hope expressed by Mrs. De Forest in 1852, with regard to the future usefulness of Lulu, has not been disappointed. Her family is a model Christian family, the home of piety and affection, the centre of a pure and hallowed influence. Her eldest daughter Katie, named from Mrs. De Forest, is now a teacher in the Beirut Female Seminary in which her father has been the princ.i.p.al instructor in the Bible and in the higher Arabic branches for ten years. For years this inst.i.tution was carried on in Lulu's house, and she was the Matron while Rufka was the Preceptress, and its very existence is owing to the patient and faithful labors of those two Christian Syrian women. If any one who reads these lines should doubt the utility of labors for the girls and women of the Arab race, let him visit first the squalid, disorderly, cheerless and Christless homes of the ma.s.s of the Arab villagers of Syria, and then enter the cheerful, tidy, well ordered home of Mr. and Mrs. Araman, when the family are at morning prayers, listen to the voice of prayer and praise and the reading of G.o.d's word. Instead of the father sitting gloomily alone at his morning meal, and the mother and children waiting till their lord is through and then eating by themselves in the usual Arab way, he would see the whole family seated together in a Christian, homelike manner, the Divine blessing asked, and the meal conducted with propriety and decorum. After breakfast the father and Katie go to the Seminary to give their morning lessons, Henry (named for Dr. De Forest) sets out for the College, in which he is a Soph.o.m.ore, and the younger children go to their various schools. Lulu's place at church is rarely vacant, and since that "relic of barbarism" the _curtain_ which separated the men from the women has been removed from the building, the whole family, father, mother, and children sit together and join in the worship of G.o.d. Her brother and relatives from "Wady" are on the most affectionate terms with her, and her elder sister is in the domestic department of the Beirut Female Seminary.

This change is very largely due to the efforts of Mrs. De Forest, whose name with that of her sainted husband is embalmed in the memory of the Christian families of Syria, and will be held in everlasting remembrance. The _second generation_ of Christian teachers is now growing up in Syria. Three of Mrs. De Forest's pupils have daughters now engaged in teaching. Khushfeh, Lulu, and Sada el Haleby; and Miriam Tabet has a daughter married to Mr. S. Hallock, of the American Press in Beirut.

FRUITS OF DR. DE FOREST'S GIRL'S SCHOOL.

In the autumn of 1852, there was a school of thirty girls in B'hamdun, a village high up in Mt. Lebanon. Fifteen months before the teacher was the only female in the village who could read, and she had been taught by the native girls in Dr. De Forest's school. Quite a number of the girls of the village had there learned to read, and they all came to the school clean and neatly dressed. They committed to memory verses of Scripture, and it was surprising to see how correctly they recited them at the Sabbath School. At meeting they were quiet and attentive like the best behaved children in Christian lands. It would be difficult to sum up the results of that little school for girls twenty years ago in B'hamdun. That village is full of gospel light. A Protestant church edifice is in process of erection, a native pastor, Rev. Sulleba Jerawan, preaches to the people, and the ma.s.s of the people have at least an intellectual acquaintance with the truth.

The picturesque village of B'hamdun, where Dr. De Forest's school is established, is on the side of a lofty mountain. It is nearly 4000 feet above the level of the Mediterranean Sea. The village is compact as a little city, the streets narrow, rocky and crooked, the houses flat-roofed, and the floors of mud. One of the Protestants, the father of Miriam Tabet, has built a fine large house with gla.s.s windows and paved floors, which is one of the best houses in that part of Lebanon.

The village is surrounded by vineyards, and the grapes are regarded as the finest in Mt. Lebanon. The people say that they never have to dig for the foundation of a house, but only to sweep off the dust with a broom. There is not a shade tree in the village. One day Dr. De Forest asked, "Why don't you plant a tree?" "We shall not live till it has grown," was the reply. "But your children will," said the Doctor. "Let them plant it then," was the satisfactory answer.

My first visit to B'hamdun was made in February, 1856, a few days after my first arrival in Syria. On Sabbath morning I attended the Sabbath School with Mr. Benton, at that time a missionary of the A.B.C.F.M. One little girl named Katrina Subra, then nine years of age, repeated the Arabic Hymn "k.u.mu wa Rettelu," "Awake and sing the song of Moses and the Lamb." She was a bright-eyed child of fair complexion and of unusual intelligence. At that time there was no children's hymn book in Arabic, and I asked Mr. B. to promise the children that when I had learned the Arabic, I would translate a collection of children's hymns into Arabic, which promise was fulfilled first in the printing of the "Douzan el Kethar," "The tuning of the Harp," in 1861. Katrina was the daughter of Elias Subra, one of the wealthiest men in the village, who had just then become a Protestant. She had been interested in the truth for some time, and though at the time only eight years old, was accustomed during the preceding summer to tell the Arab children that she was a Protestant, though they answered her with insults and cursing. At first she could not bear to be abused, and answered them in language more forcible than proper, but by the time of my visit she had become softened and subdued in her manner, and was never heard to speak an unkind word to any one.

She undertook, even at that age, to teach the Greek servant girl in the family how to read. One day the old Greek Priest met her in the street and asked her why she did not go to confession as the other Greek children do. She replied that she could go to Christ and confess. The priest then said that her father and the rest of the Protestants go to the missionary and write out their sins on papers which he puts into rat holes in the wall! Katrina knew this to be a foolish falsehood and told the priest so. He then asked her how the Protestants confess. She replied that they confess as the Lord Jesus tells them to, quoting to him the language of Scripture, (Matt. 6:6.) "But thou when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut the door, pray to thy Father which is in secret, and thy Father who seeth in secret shall reward thee openly." The priest was confounded by the ready truthful answer of the child, and turned away.

Three years later Katrina was a member of the Mission Female Seminary in Suk el Ghurb, a village three hours distant from Beirut, under the instruction of Miss Temple and Miss Johnson, and continued there until the Seminary was broken up by the ma.s.sacres of May and June, 1860. I remember well the day when that procession of girls and teachers rode and walked down from Suk el Ghurb to Beirut. All Southern Lebanon was in a blaze. Twenty-five villages were burning. Druze and Maronite were in deadly strife. Baabda and Hadeth which we pa.s.sed on our way to Beirut, were a smoking ruin. Armed bodies of Druzes pa.s.sed and saluted us, but no one offered to insult one of the girls by word or gesture. Dr. and Mrs. Bliss gave us lunch at their home in the Suk as we came from Abeih, and then followed a few days later to Beirut. Miss Temple tried to re-open the school in Beirut, but the constant tide of refugees coming in from the mountains, and the daily rumors of an attack by Druzes and Moslems on Beirut, threw the city into a panic, and it was found impossible to carry on the work of instruction. The girls were sent to their parents where this was practicable, and the Seminary as such ceased for a time to exist. Katrina, was married in 1864 to M. Ghurzuzy, a Protestant merchant of Beirut, who is now secular agent or Wakil of the Syrian Protestant College. In 1866, she united with the Evangelical Church in Beirut. She has had repeated attacks of illness, in which she has manifested the most entire submission to the Divine will, and a calm and sweet trust in her Lord and Saviour. Her home is a Christian home, and her children are being trained in "the nurture and admonition of the Lord."

CHAPTER VIII.

RE-OPENING OF THE SCHOOL IN BEIRUT.

In 1856 Miss Cheney re-opened the Female Seminary with eight pupils, in Beirut, and in the 34 schools of the Mission there were 1068 pupils, of whom 266 were girls.

In 1857, there were 277 girls in the various schools.

In 1858, Miss Temple and Miss Johnson arrived from America, and the Female Seminary was opened in Suk el Ghurb in the family of Rev. Dr.

Bliss. Miss Johnson and Miss Cheney having returned to the United States, Miss Mason came to aid Miss Temple in February, 1860. The girl's school in Beirut under the care of Rufka Gregory, had about 60 pupils.

The civil war in Lebanon, followed by the ma.s.sacres in Jezzin, Deir el Komr, Hasbeiya, Rasheiya and Damascus, beginning in May, and continuing until the middle of July, broke up all our schools and seminaries, and filled the land with sorrow and desolation.

Miss Temple and Miss Mason remained for a season in Beirut, studying the Arabic language, and in 1862 Miss Temple having returned to the U.S.A., Miss Mason opened a Boarding School for girls in Sidon.

It was decided that none but Protestant girls should be received into this school, that no English should be taught, and that the style of eating, sleeping and dress should be conformed as much as possible to the standard of native customs in the country villages, in order that the girls might the more readily return to their homes as teachers, without acquiring European tastes and habits. Miss Mason carried on this school until 1865, when she returned to the U.S.A., and it was decided if possible to carry it on with native instructors under the supervision of Mrs. Eddy.

In the winter of 1867 it was under the kind charge of Mrs. Watson of Shemlan and her adopted daughter, Miss Handumeh Watson, and is now conducted by two English young ladies, Miss Jacombs and Miss Stanton, who are supported by the London "Society for the Promotion of Female Education in the East." On the removal of the girls' Boarding School to Sidon, it was evident that the Female Seminary must be re-opened in Beirut. Owing to the depressed state of Missionary finances in America, arising from the civil war, it was deemed advisable to reorganize the Beirut Seminary on a new basis, with only native teachers. The Providence of G.o.d had prepared teachers admirably fitted for this work, who undertook it with cheerful hope and patient industry. It was decided to make a paying Boarding School of a higher order than any existing inst.i.tution in Syria, and to resume instruction in the English language, giving lessons also in French and Music to those who were willing to pay for these branches.

Mr. Michaiel Araman, for many years a teacher in the Abeih Seminary with Mr. Calhoun, and for some time a native preacher in Beirut, was appointed instructor in the Biblical History and the Higher Arabic branches; his wife Lulu, the Matron, and Miss Rufka Gregory, the Preceptress. Rufka was an orphan, as already stated, and was trained with her sister Sada in the family of Mr. and Mrs. Whiting for many years. As a teacher and a disciplinarian she had not an equal among the women of Syria, and under the joint management of this corps of teachers, aided by competent a.s.sistants in the various branches, the Seminary rose in public esteem, until it became one of the most attractive and prosperous inst.i.tutions in Syria.

In March, 1862, Rufka's day school of seventy girls held a public examination in the Chapel. The girls were examined in Arabic reading, geography, grammar, catechism, arithmetic, Scripture lessons and English, with an exhibition of specimens of their needle work. In the fall it was commenced as a Boarding School, with two paying pupils and four charity pupils. The funds for commencing the boarding department were furnished by Mr. Alexander Van Rensselaer, Mrs. Henry Farnum, Col.

Frazer, H.B.M. Commissioner to Syria, and others. The Seminary not being under the direction of the Mission as such, nor in connection with the American Board, was placed under the care of a local Board of Managers, consisting of Dr. Thomson, Dr. Van Dyck, Consul J.A. Johnson, and Rev.

H.H. Jessup. Dr. Thomson was indefatigable in his efforts to place it on a firm and permanent foundation, as a purely Native Protestant inst.i.tution, and the fact that such a school could be carried on for a year without a single foreign instructor, was one of the most encouraging features in the history of the Syria Mission. It was the first purely native Female Seminary in Western Asia, and we hope it will not be the last.

It will continue to be the aim of the Mission, and of the present able faculty of the inst.i.tution, to train up Native teachers qualified to carry on the work in the future.

At the same time in the fall of 1862, a school for Damascene girls was opened in an upper room of my house, under the care of one of Dr. De Forest's pupils, Sada el Haleby, who carried it on successfully with seventy girls until August, 1864, when, on my departure for the U.S.A.

the school was taken up by the late Mrs. Bowen Thompson, whose Society has maintained it until this day.

In 1863, the number of paying boarders in the Seminary had increased to twenty, and in 1866 the pupils numbered eighty, and the income from native paying pupils was about fifteen hundred dollars in gold!

The Annual Examination was held in the latter part of June, in the Mission Chapel, and continued three days, thronged by a mult.i.tude of interested spectators. The Turkish official Arabic Journal of Beirut, the "Hadikat el Akhbar," published a lengthy report of the Examination, p.r.o.nouncing it the most satisfactory examination of girls that ever took place in Syria. An English clergyman who was present refused to believe that they were Syrian girls, insisting that they must be English. The girls recited in Bible History, giving all the important dates from Adam to Christ, with an account of the rites, sacrifices and prophecies which refer to Christ, giving also the names of all the patriarchs, judges, kings and prophets in their order. Twenty-two different cla.s.ses were examined, and many of the girls read original compositions.

On the Sabbath, July 1st, two of the a.s.sistant teachers, Asin Haddad and Sara Sarkis were received to the communion of the Beirut Church. They traced their religious awakening to the dying testimony of Sara Bistany, which is described in a subsequent chapter. Several of the younger pupils were much interested in the subject of religion at the time, and one little girl about seven years old said to her teacher, "I gave the Lord my heart, and He took it." Asin died in Latakiah in 1869, triumphing in Christ. The women of the neighborhood came to the house of her brother to hear her joyous expressions of trust in Jesus, and her a.s.surance that she should soon be with Him in glory. She was the second daughter of that young bride of fifteen years of age, who learned to read in 1825, in the school taught by her own husband, Tannus el Haddad.

In 1867, the health of Rufka having become seriously impaired, she removed to Egypt, where after a period of rest, she opened on her own account a school for girls in Cairo, which she maintained with her wonted energy, until her marriage with the Rev. Mr. Muir, a Scotch clergyman, whom she accompanied to Melbourne, Australia, in 1869. Since the death of her husband she has returned to her favorite employment of teaching, with marked success, among the British population of Melbourne.

While in Cairo, she pa.s.sed through a deep and agonizing religious experience, which she described in the following letter to Mrs. Whiting, and the result of which was a new life in Christ.

Cairo, Egypt, _July 9, 1868_.

"I think I shall always remember my stay in Cairo with much pleasure, but the greatest advantage of this year is the opportunity I had of stopping to think of the interests of a never dying soul, of a neglected Saviour, an offended G.o.d. Yes, I have reflected, struggled, oh, how hard, and thanks to an ever merciful G.o.d, I trust I have been led by the Holy Spirit to see and feel my great sin, and casting myself at the feet of Jesus, stayed there with my sinful heart till a loving Saviour just came and took it up. Oh, how grieved was His tender heart when He saw how defiled it was with sin and wickedness, but He said, fear not, my blood will cleanse it and make it pure; then how He pleaded my case before His Father, setting forth His boundless love and infinite righteousness as a reason why He wished to be accepted. Yes, dear Mrs. Whiting, I hope I can now say, Thy G.o.d is my G.o.d, and the blessed Saviour you have loved so long is now very precious to me. The past winter has been a solemn time with me. Many hard struggles have I had, much fear that I might have forever grieved G.o.d's Holy Spirit, and for a long time it all seemed so dark, there seemed no hope for me who had been so long living away from the Saviour, but in great fear and despair I just rushed and cast myself at His feet, and asked Him to let me perish there if I must perish; there was nothing else for me to do, and I felt such happiness in just leaving myself in His care. How wonderful is His love! But what a life of constant prayer and watching is that of a Christian! in the first place to aim at close walking with G.o.d, leaving Him to order our steps for us, and trusting Him so to order our way as to best enable us to walk closely with Him. It has been a most comforting thought when I find it difficult to live right and feel my utter weakness, that Jesus is each day saying to His Father for me, "I pray not she should be taken out of the world, but that she should be _kept from the evil_," and to live up to our privileges and to walk worthy of our high calling.

My precious teacher, I know you will rejoice and thank G.o.d with me for His great goodness to me in bringing me to the feet of Jesus.

Oh, how precious He is to my poor soul! He is Heaven. How He blesses me every moment! His boundless love to _me_ who am most unworthy of the least of His mercies. If ever any one had reason to boast of the loving kindness of the Lord, it surely must be myself.

In His great mercy I have had the privilege of openly confessing my faith in Him, and publicly professing my determination to be the Lord's at the last communion in the Church here in May. I put it off till then hoping to do it in Beirut in the Church dear Mr.