The Women of the Arabs Part 13

These Schools, so numerous and widely extended, have grown up since the ma.s.sacre year 1860. I remember well the first arrival of Mrs. Bowen Thompson in Beirut, and her persevering energy in forming her little school for the widows and orphans of Hasbeiya, Deir el Komr and Damascus.

From that little beginning in 1860, the school increased the following year, until finally other branch schools were organized in Beirut and Lebanon, and then in Damascus and Tyre, until now, the following schedule, furnished to me by the officers of the Inst.i.tution, will show to what proportions the enterprise has grown. The Memoir of Mrs.

Thompson, ent.i.tled "The Daughters of Syria," gives so full a history of these schools, that I need only refer the reader to that volume for all the information desired. Since the lamented death of Mrs. Thompson, the direction of the schools has been entrusted to her sister, Mrs. Mentor Mott. The Central Training School in Beirut was under the care of Mrs.

Shrimpton, who labored with great earnestness and wisdom in that important inst.i.tution until the spring of 1873, when she resigned her position and became connected with the work of Female education under the American mission in Syria. She was aided by English and native teachers. The schools in Zahleh, Damascus, Hasbeiya and Tyre are under the care of English and Scotch ladies, who have certainly evinced the most admirable courage and resolution in entering, in several of these places, upon outpost duty, without European society, and isolated for months together from persons speaking their own language. I believe that such instances as these have demonstrated anew the fact that where woman is to be reached, woman can go, and Christian women from Christian lands, even if beyond the age generally fixed as the best adapted to the easy acquisition of a foreign language, may yet do a great work in maintaining centres of influence at the outposts, and superintending the labors of native teachers. These young native teachers trained in Shemlan, Sidon, Suk el Ghurb and Beirut, cannot go to distant places as teachers, and _ought not to go_, without a home and proper protection provided for them. Such protection _is given_ by a European or American woman, who has the independence and the resolution to go where no missionary family resides, and carry on the work of female education.

Even at the risk of offending the modesty of the persons concerned, I cannot refrain from putting on record my admiration of the course of Miss Wilson in Zahleh, Miss Gibbon in Hasbeiya, and Miss Williams in Tyre, in making homes for themselves, and carrying on their work far from European society and intercourse.

The British Syrian Schools are doing a good work in promoting Bible education. Many of the native teachers, male and female, have been trained in our Mission Seminaries, and not a few of them are members of our evangelical churches. It has always been my aim, from the time when Mrs. Bowen Thompson first landed in Syria to the present time, to do all in my power to "help those women which labored with me in the gospel."

We are engaged in a common work, surrounded by thousands of needy peris.h.i.+ng souls, Mohammedan, Pagan and Nominal Christian. The work is pressing, and the Lord's husbandmen ought to work together, forgetting and ignoring all diversities of nationality, denomination and social customs. There should be no such word as American, English, Scotch or German, attached to any enterprise that belongs to the common Master.

The common foe is united in opposition. Let us be united in every practicable way. Let our name be _Christian_, our work one of united sympathy, prayer and cooperation, and let not Christ be divided in His members. I write these words in connection with the subject of the British Syrian Schools, because I can speak from experience of the value of such cooperation in the past. As Acting Pastor of the Native Evangelical Church in Beirut, to the communion of which I have received so many young teachers and pupils from the various Seminaries and schools, I feel the great importance of this hearty cooperation and unity of action among those who are at the head of the various Protestant Educational Inst.i.tutions in Syria.

The Emissaries of Rome are laboring with sleepless vigilance to win Syria to the Papacy. Sisters of Charity, Sisters of Nazareth, Jesuits, Lazarists, Capuchins, Dominicans, and Franciscans, monks, nuns and papal legates, are swarming throughout the land. Though notoriously jealous of each other's progress, they are always united in their common opposition to the Evangelical faith, and an open Bible. We have thus not only the old colossal fortresses of Syrian error to demolish, but the new structures of Jesuitical craft to overturn, before Syria comes to Christ.

It has been stated on a preceding page that in 1835, the American wife of an English merchant, Mrs. Alexander Tod, gave a large part of the funds to build the first school-house for girls ever built in Syria.

That substantial union has been happily reproduced in the cordial cooperation of the Anglo-American and German communities in Beirut, both in the Church, public charities and educational inst.i.tutions, up to the present time.

Let us all live in Christ, work for Christ, keep our eye fixed on Christ, and we shall be with Christ, and Christ with us!

_BRITISH SYRIAN SCHOOLS_, 1872.

BEIRUT.

No. Established. Name. Scholars. Teachers.

1 1860 Training Inst.i.tution, 92 16 2 1863 Musaitebeh, 85 3 3 1868 Blind School, men & boys, 16 2 4 1868 Blind girls' School, 11 1 5 1860 Boys' School, 85 5 6 1861 East Coombe, 120 4 7 1860 Elementary, 30 2 8 1872 Es-Saifeh, 100 4 9 1860 Infant School, 125 3 10 1860 Moslem, 50 4 11 1860 Night School, ---- 5 12 1863 Olive Branch, 85 4

DAMASCUS.

13 1867 St. Paul's, 170 6 14 1869 Blind School, 15 1 15 1870 Medan, 80 2 16 1867 Night School, 30 1

LEBANON.

17 1863 _Ashrafiyeh_, 53 3 18 1868 _Ain Zehalteh_, 50 2 19 1869 _Aramoon_, 40 2 20 1863 _Hasbeiya_, 160 3 21 1867 _Mokhtara_, ---- ---- 22 1868 _Zahleh_, 75 4

TYRE.

23 1869 Girls' School, 50 2 ---- ---- Totals, 1522 79 Bible Women, 7

MISS TAYLOR'S SCHOOL FOR MOSLEM GIRLS.

This worthy Christian lady from Scotland is doing a quiet yet most effective work in Beirut, with which few are acquainted, yet it is carried on in faith from year to year, and the fruits will no doubt appear one day, in a vast reformation in the order, morality and general improvement of the Moslem families of Beirut.

Ever since the days of Mrs. Sarah L. Smith, and Mrs. Dr. Dodge, Moslem girls have been more or less in attendance upon the schools of the Syria Mission, but the purely Moslem schools of Miss Taylor and of the British Syrian Schools are making a special effort to extend education into every Moslem household.

This school was opened in February, 1868, for the poorest of the poor.

It received the name of "The Original Ragged school for Moslem Girls."

No one is considered as enrolled, who has not been at least three weeks in regular attendance. The number already received has reached very near five hundred, all Mohammedans, except five Jewish and fifteen Druze girls. Native teachers are also employed, and the pupils are taught reading, writing, geography, and arithmetic. The princ.i.p.al lesson-book is the Bible. The early history of this inst.i.tution is replete with interest; but it has attracted little public notice hitherto. It has always been a prudential question whether it would not be wiser to proceed with its work in a quiet un.o.btrusive way, so as not to awake fanatical opposition. But steady and appreciative friends have stood by it from the beginning, and those who know the school best have commended it most earnestly.

CHURCH OF SCOTLAND SCHOOL FOR JEWISH GIRLS IN BEIRUT.

This school has been in operation since 1865. Although established originally for Jewish girls alone, of whom it frequently had fifty in regular attendance, it has also had under instruction, Greek and Moslem girls.

Three European teachers and two native teachers have been connected with it, under the supervision of the Rev. James Robertson, Pastor of the Anglo-American congregation in Beirut.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE AMOUNT OF BIBLICAL INSTRUCTION GIVEN IN MISSION SCHOOLS.

There has been great difference of opinion with regard to the proper position of Education in the Foreign Missionary work. While some have given it the first rank as a missionary agency, others have kept it in the background as being a non-missionary work, and hence to be left to the natives themselves to conduct, after their evangelization by the simple and pure preaching of the gospel. The Syria Mission have been led, by the experience of long and laborious years of labor in this peculiar field, to regard education as one of the most important auxiliaries in bringing the Gospel in contact with the people. Society and sects are so organized and const.i.tuted, that while the people of a given village would not receive a missionary as simply a preacher of the Gospel, they will gladly accept a school from his hands, and welcome him on every visit to the school as a benefactor. They will not only receive the daily lessons and instructions of the school-teacher in religious things, but even ask the missionary to preach to them the Word of life.

Schools in Syria are entering wedges for Gospel truth.

Our schools are of two cla.s.ses, the High schools or Seminaries for young men and young women, and the common schools for children of both s.e.xes. In the former, Biblical instruction is the great thing, the chief design of the High schools being to train the young to a correct and thorough acquaintance with Divine truth. The course of Bible instruction conducted by Mr. Calhoun in Abeih Seminary, is, I doubt not, more thorough and constant, than in any College or High School in the United States. While the sciences are taught systematically, the Bible is made the princ.i.p.al text-book, and several hours each day are given to its study. In our common schools, likewise, Bible reading and instruction hold a prominent place. Owing to the paucity of books in the Arabic language proper to be used as reading books, a reading book was prepared by the Mission, consisting almost exclusively of extracts from the Scriptures. In addition to this book, the Psalms of David and the New Testament are used as regular reading books in all the schools. There are daily exercises in reading the Bible and reciting the Catechism. It will be observed from what I have stated, that the amount of spiritual knowledge acquired by the children, in the very process of learning to read, is not small. Being obliged to commit to memory texts, paragraphs, and whole chapters, from year to year, their minds become stored with the precious words of the Sacred Book. Very much depends upon the teacher. When we can obtain pious, praying teachers, the Scripture lessons can be given with much more profit and success, and it is our aim to employ only pious teachers where we can get them. And the example of the teacher receives a new auxiliary, as it were, in impressing these lessons on the mind, where the pupils can attend a preaching service on the Sabbath. Sometimes a pressing call comes from a village, where it seems important for strategic reasons, to respond at once. A pious teacher cannot be found, and we send a young man of well-known moral character. But only necessity would oblige us to do this, and a change for the better is always made as soon as practicable.

Bible schools are a mighty means of usefulness. I think nothing strikes a new missionary with more grateful surprise on entering the Syrian Mission-field, than to witness the great prominence given to Biblical instruction, from the humblest village school of little Arab boys and girls, to the highest Seminaries. The examinations in the Scriptures pa.s.sed by the young men in Abeih, and the girls in the Beirut and Sidon Seminaries, would do credit to the young people in any American community. Bible schools are not merely useful as an entering wedge to give the missionary a position and an influence among the people; they are intrinsically useful in introducing a vast amount of useful Bible knowledge into the minds of the children, and through them to their parents. In countries where the people as a ma.s.s are ignorant of reading, they are an absolute necessity, and in any community they are a blessing. Had all Mission Schools been conducted on the same thorough Biblical basis as those in Syria, there would have been less objection to schools as a part of the missionary work.

THE SPHERE AND MODES OF WOMAN'S WORK IN FOREIGN LANDS.

In this age, when Christian women in many lands are engaging in the Foreign Mission work with so much zeal, it is important to know who should enter personally upon this work, and what are the modes and departments of labor in which they can engage when on the ground.

No woman should go to the Foreign field who has not sound health, thorough education, and a reasonable prospect of being able to learn a foreign language. The languages of different nations differ as to comparative ease of acquisition, but it is well for any one who has the _Arabic_ language to learn, to begin as early in life as practicable. It should be borne in mind that the work in foreign lands is a self-denying work, and I know of no persons who are called to undergo greater self-denial than unmarried women engaged in religious work abroad. They are doing a n.o.ble work, a necessary work, and a work of lasting usefulness. Deprived in many instances of the social enjoyments and protection of a _home_, they _make_ a home in their schools, and throw themselves into a peculiar sympathy with their pupils, and the families with which they are brought into contact. Where several are a.s.sociated together, as they always should be, the inst.i.tution in which they live becomes a model of the Christian order, sympathy and mutual help, which is characteristic of the home in Christian lands. Christian women, married and unmarried, can reach a cla.s.s in every Arabic community from which men are sedulously excluded. They should enter upon the foreign work as a life-work, devote themselves first of all to the mastery of the language of the people, open their eyes to all that is pleasant and attractive among the natives, and close them to all that is unlovable and repulsive, resolved to love the people, and what pertains to them, for Christ's sake who died for them, and to identify themselves with the people in every practicable way. Persons who are incapable of loving or admiring anything that is not American or English had better remain in America or England; and on the other hand, there is no surer pa.s.sport to the affections of any people, than the disposition to overlook their faults, and to treat them as our brethren and sisters for whom a common Saviour died. Let no missionary of either s.e.x who goes to a foreign land, think that there is nothing to be learned from Syrians or Hindoos, Chinese or j.a.panese. The good is not all confined to any land or people.

Among the departments of woman's work in foreign lands are the following:--

I. Teaching in established inst.i.tutions, Female Seminaries, Orphan Houses and High Schools.

II. Acting as Nurses in Hospitals, as is done by the Prussian Protestant Deaconesses of Kaiserswerth, who are scattered over the East and doing a work of peculiar value.

III. Visiting from house to house, for the express purpose of holding religious conversation with the people _in their own language_. This can only be done in Syria by one versed in the Arabic, and able to speak _without an interpreter_.

Ignorance of the language of the people, is a barrier which no skill of an interpreter can break down, and every woman who would labor with acceptance and success among the women of Syria, must be able to speak to them familiarly in their own mother tongue. Interpreters may be honest and conscientious, but not one person in a thousand can translate accurately from one language to another without previous preparation.

And besides, interpreters are not always reliable. There is still living, in the city of Tripoli, an old man named Abdullah Yanni, who acted as interpreter for a Jewish Missionary some forty years ago. He tells many a story of the extraordinary shape which that unsuspecting missionary's discourses a.s.sumed in pa.s.sing through his lips. One day they went through the princ.i.p.al street to preach to the Moslems. A great crowd a.s.sembled, and Abdullah trembled, for in those days of darkness Moslems oppressed and insulted Christians with perfect impunity. Said the missionary, "Tell the Moslems that unless they all repent and believe in Christ, they will perish forever." Abdullah translated, and the Moslems gave loud and earnest expression to their delight. They declared, "That is so, that is so, welcome to the Khowadja!" Abdullah had told them that "the Khowadja says, that he loves you very much, and the Engliz and the Moslems are 'sowa sowa,' _i.e._ together as one."

Abdullah soon found it necessary to tell his confiding friend and employer, that it would not do to preach in that bold manner, for if he should translate it literally, the Moslems would kill both of them on the spot. The missionary replied, "Let them kill us then." Abdullah said, "it may do very well for you, but I am not prepared to die, and would prefer to wait." The very first requisite for usefulness in a foreign land is the language. It might be well, as previously intimated in this volume, that in each of the Female Seminaries, the number of the teachers should be large enough to allow the most experienced in the language to give themselves for a portion of each week to these friendly religious visits. The Arab race are eminently a sociable, visiting people, and a foreign lady is always welcome among the women of every grade of society, from the highest to the lowest.

IV. Holding special Women's Meetings of the Female Church members from week to week in the homes of the different families. The neighboring women will come in, and the native women, who would never take part in a women's prayer-meeting, in the presence of a missionary, will gladly do it with the example and encouragement of one of their own s.e.x. Such meetings have been conducted in Hums and Tripoli, in Beirut, Abeih, Deir el Komr and Sidon, and in Suk el Ghurb, B'hamdun, Hasbeiya, and Deir Mimas for many years. Mrs. Smith, Mrs. Isaac Bird, Mrs. Thomson, Mrs. Van Dyck, Mrs. Whiting, Mrs. Goodell, Mrs. Dr. Dodge, Miss Williams, Miss Tilden, Mrs. De Forest, Mrs. Calhoun, Mrs. Wilson, Mrs.

Ford, Mrs. Foot, Mrs. Eddy, and Mrs. W. Bird, Mrs. Lyons and Mrs.

Cheney, Mrs. Bliss, Miss Temple, Miss Mason, Mrs. S. Jessup are among the American Christian women who have labored or are still laboring for the welfare of their sisters in Syria, and younger laborers more recently entered into the work, are preparing to prosecute the work with greater energy than ever. There are other names connected with Woman's Work in Syria as prosecuted by the American Mission, but the list is too long to be enumerated in full. Many of them have rested from their labors, and their works do follow them.

THE BEIRUT FEMALE SEMINARY.