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[Illustration: PLAIN OF OROOMIAH, FROM THE SEMINARY AT SEIR.]
WOMAN AND HER SAVIOUR IN PERSIA.
BY
A RETURNED MISSIONARY.
With
Fine Illustrations, and a Map of Nestorian Country.
PREFACE.
Our Saviour bade his disciples gather up the fragments, that nothing be
lost; and many who have known of Miss Fiske's fifteen years of labor
for woman in Persia, have desired her to prepare for publication the
facts now presented to the reader. The writer was one of these; and it
was only when he found that she could not do it, that he attempted it,
in accordance with her wishes, simply that these interesting records of
divine grace might not be lost.
The materials have been drawn from the letters and conversations of
those familiar with the scenes described, and especially from Miss
Fiske. In all cases, the language of others has been condensed, as much
as is consistent, with the truthful expression of their ideas; and, in
the translation of the letters of Nestorians, it has not been deemed
essential to follow slavishly every Syriac idiom, for, instead of these
letters owing their interest, as some have supposed, to their
translators, they may have sometimes rather suffered from renderings
needlessly idiomatic.
It was at one time proposed to embrace the history of both the Male and
Female Seminaries, but the proposition came too late, and the memoir of
the lamented Stoddard gives so full an account of the former, that now
we need to hear only the story of its less known companion; but let the
reader bear in mind that as much might have been said of the one as of
the other, had the design been to give an account of both.
A strict adherence to the order of events in the following pages would
have produced a series of disjointed annals. To avoid such a breaking
up of the narrative, each subject has been treated in full whenever
introduced, though that has involved a freedom somewhat independent of
chronological order.
The notices of the revivals are mere incidental sketches. Their
complete history remains to be written.
The beautiful Illustrations introduced are all new, copied from
sketches taken on the spot by the skillful pencil of a dear missionary
brother, whose modesty, though it will not consent to the mention of
his name, yet cannot prevent a grateful sense of his kindness. The Map
is an improvement on others previously published, and, besides adding
to our geographical knowledge, will be found valuable to the friends of
missions.
If the readers of these pages enjoy but a small part of the delight
found in their preparation, the writer will not regret his undertaking.
May the day be hastened when heaven shall repeat the hosannas of a
regenerated world, even as now the abundant grace bestowed upon the
Nestorians redounds, through the thanksgiving of many, to the glory of
God.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
WOMAN WITHOUT THE GOSPEL.
POLITICAL CONDITION.--NESTORIAN HOUSES.--VERMIN.--SICKNESS.--POSITION
AND ESTIMATION OF WOMAN.--NO READERS AMONG THEM.--UNLOVELY
SPIRIT.--SINS OF THE TONGUE.--PROFANITY.--LYING.--STEALING.--STORY
ABOUT PINS.--IMPURITY.--MOSLEM INTERFERENCE WITH SEMINARY.
CHAPTER II.
MARBEESHOO.
VISIT THERE.--NATIVE ACCOMMODATIONS.--HOSPITALITY OF SENUM.--MOHAMMEDAN
WOMEN.
CHAPTER III.
THE SCENE OF THE NARRATIVE.
NESTORIANS.--THEIR COUNTRY.--FRONTISPIECE.--LAKE.--PLAIN.--FORDING THE
SHAHER.--MISSION PREMISES IN OROGMIAH.
CHAPTER IV.
MISSIONARY EDUCATION.
OBJECT.--MEANS.--STUDY OF BIBLE.--PUPILS KEPT IN SYMPATHY WITH THE
PEOPLE.--PEOPLE STIMULATED TO EXERTION AND
SELF-DEPENDENCE.--TAHITI.--MADAGASCAR.
CHAPTER V.
BEGINNINGS.
MRS. GRANT.--EARLY LIFE AND LABORS.--GREAT INFLUENCE.--HER SCHOOL.--HER
PUPILS.--BOARDING SCHOOL.--GETTING PUPILS.--CARE OP THEM.--POVERTY OF
PEOPLE.--PAYING FOR FOOD OF SCHOLARS.--POSITION OF UNMARRIED MISSIONARY
LADIES.--BOOKS.
CHAPTER VI.
THE SEMINARY.
MAR YOHANAN.--STANDARD OF SCHOLARSHIP.--ENGLISH BOOKS READ IN
SYRIAC.--EXPENSE.--FEELINGS OF PARENTS.--DOMESTIC DEPARTMENT.--DAILY
REPORTS.--PICTURE OF A WEEK DAY AND SABBATH.--"IF YOU LOVE ME, LEAN
HARD."--ESLI'S JOURNAL.--LETTER FROM PUPILS TO MOUNT HOLYOKE
SEMINARY--FROM THE SAME TO MRS. C.T. MILLS.
CHAPTER VII.
VACATION SCENES.
IN GAWAR AND ISHTAZIN.--VILLAGES OF MEMIKAN.--OOREYA, DARAWE, AND
SANAWAR.--IN GAVALAN.--ACCOMMODATIONS.--SABBATH SCHOOL.
CHAPTER VIII.
EARLY LABORS FOR WOMEN.
FIRST MEETINGS WITH THEM.--FIRST CONVERT.--FIRST LESSONS.--WILD WOMEN
OF ARDISHAI.
CHAPTER IX.
FRUITS OF LABOR IN NESTORIAN HOMES.
USEFULNESS AMONG RELATIVES OF PUPILS.--DEACON GUWERGIS.--REFORMED
DRUNKARD AND HIS DAUGHTER.--MATERNAL MEETINGS.--EARLY INQUITIES FROM
GEOG TAPA.--PARTING ADDRESS OF MR. HOLLADAY.--.VISIT TO GEOG
TAPA.--SELBY AND HER CLOSET.
CHAPTER X.
GEOG TAPA.
DEACON MURAD KHAN IN 1846.--PENTECOSTAL SABBATH IN 1849.--MEETINGS IN
1850 AND 1854.--EXTRACTS FROM JOURNAL OF YONAN IN 1858.
CHAPTER XI.
REVIVAL IN 1846.
PREPARATORY WORK.--SANCTIFIED AFFLICTIONS.--NAME FOR REVIVAL.--SCENES
IN THE SEMINARIES IN JANUARY.--DEACON JOHN, SANUM, AND SARAH.--MR.
STODDARD.--YACOB.--YONAN.--MEETING IN THE BETHEL.--PRIEST
ESHOO.--DEACON TAMO.--PHYSICAL EXCITEMENT AND ITS CURE.--ARTLESS
SIMPLICITY OF CONVERTS.--MISSIONARY BOX.--MEETINGS BEFORE
VACATION.--MR. STODDARD'S LABORS.--FEMALE PRAYER MEETING.--REVIVAL IN
THE AUTUMN.
CHAPTER XII.
FIRST FRUITS.
SARAH, DAUGHTER OF PRIEST ESHOO.--MARTHA.--HANNAH.
CHAPTER XIII.
SUBSEQUENT REVIVALS.
DEACON JOHN STUDYING BACKSLIDING IN 1849.--WORK IN VILLAGE OF
SEIR.--WIVES OF SIYAD AND YONAN.--KHANUMJAN.--WOMEN AT THE
SEMINARY.--GEOG TAPA.--DEGALA.--A PENITENT.--SIN OF ANGER,--REVIVAL IN
1856.--MISS FISKE ENCOURAGED,--STILLNESS AND DEEP FEELING.--UNABLE TO
SING.--CONVERSION OF MISSIONARY CHILDREN.--VISIT OF ENGLISH
AMBASSADOR.--REVIVAL OF 1857.--LETTER OF SANUM.
CHAPTER XIV.
DARK DAYS.
SEMINARY BROKEN UP IN 1844.--DEACON ISAAC.--PERSECUTION BY MAR
SHIMON.--FUNERAL OF DAUGHTER OF PRIEST ESHOO.--DEACON
GUWERGIS.--ATTEMPT AT ABDUCTION OF PUPIL.--PERIL OF SCHOOL.--MRS.
HARRIET STODDARD.--YAHYA KHAN.--ANARCHY.--LETTER FROM BARILO.
CHAPTER XV.
TRIALS.
EVIL INFLUENCE OF HOMES.--OPPOSITION IN DEGALA.--ASKER KHAN.--POISONING
OF SANUM'S CHILDREN.--REDRESS REFUSED.--INQUISITOR IN SCHOOL.--TROUBLES
AT KHOSRAWA.--LETTERS FROM HOIMAR.
CHAPTER XVI.
PRAYERFULNESS.
LANGUAGE OP PRAYER.--PRAYER ON HORSEBACK.--OLD MAN IN SUPERGAN.--MAR
OGEN.--EARNESTNESS.--FAREWELL PRAYER MEETING IN 1858.--LETTER FROM
PUPIL.--SPIRIT OF PRAYER IN 1846.--WOMAN WHO COULD NOT PRAY,--"CHRIST
BECOME BEAUTIFUL."--CLOSET IN THE MANGER.--MONTHLY
CONCERTS.--PRAYERFULNESS IN 1849 AND 1850.--SABBATH, JANUARY
20TH.--INTEREST CONTINUED TILL CLOSE OF TERM.--FAMILY
MEETINGS.--AUDIBLE PRAYER.-ANSWER TO MOTHERS' PRAYERS.--CONNECTION OF
REVIVALS WITH PRAYER AT HOME.
CHAPTER XVII.
FORERUNNERS.
MOUNTAIN GIRLS IN SEMINARY.--PRAYING SARAH.--RETURN TO THE
MOUNTAINS.--VISIT OF YONAN AND KHAMIS, IN 1850.--OF MR. COAN, 1851.--OF
YONAN, AGAIN, 1861.--SARAH'S LETTERS.
CHAPTER XVIII.
LABORERS IN THE MOUNTAINS.
LETTER OF BADAL.--ACCOUNT OP HANNAH.--THE PIT.--LETTER OF GULY AND
YOHANAN.--ACCOUNT OF SARAH.--LETTERS OF OSHANA.--LETTERS AND JOURNAL OF
SARAH,--LETTERS FROM AMADIA,--CONFERENCE OF NATIVE HELPERS.
CHAPTER XIX.
EBENEZERS.
EXAMINATION IN 1850.--COLLATION AND ADDRESS.--VALEDICTORY BY
SANUM.--SABBATH SCHOOL IN GEOG TAPA.--EXAMINATION THERE IN
1854.--PRAYER MEETING AND COMMUNION AT OROGMIAH, MAY, 1858.--SELBY, OF
GAVALAN, AND LETTER.--LETTER FROM HATOON, OF GEOG TAPA.
CHAPTER XX.
COMPOSITIONS.
THE FIELD OF CLOVER.--THE LOST SOUL.--THE SAVED SOUL.--HANNAH.
CHAPTER XXI.
KIND OFFICES.
HOSPITALITY OF NESTORIANS.--KINDNESS OF PUPILS.--BATHING FEET.--LETTERS
OF GOZEL, HANEE, SANUM OF GAWAR, MUNNY, RAHEEL, AND
MARTA.--HOSHEBO.--RAHEEL TO MRS. FISKE.--MOURNING FOR THE
DEAD.--NAZLOO.--HOSHEBO'S BEREAVEMENT.--DEATH OF MISSIONARY
CHILDREN.--LETTER FROM SARAH, DAUGHTER OF JOSEPH.
CHAPTER XXII.
PROGRESS AND PROMISE.
BENEVOLENCE, EARLY MANIFESTATION OF.--PROGRESS.--REVIVAL OF BENEVOLENCE
IN APRIL, 1861.--INTEREST OF PARENTS FOR THE CONVERSION OF THEIR
CHILDEREN.--PEACE IN FAMILIES.--REFORMED
MARRIAGES.--ORDINATIONS.--COMMUNION SEASONS.--MISS RICE AND MISS
BEACH.--CONCLUSION.
* * * * *
_List of Illustrations._
I. PLAIN AND LAKE OF OROOMIAH, AS SEEN FROM ROOF OF SEMINARY AT SEIR
II. MAP OF THE NESTORIAN COUNTRY.
III. FEMALE SEMINARY.
IV. TENTS.
V. MISSIONARY SCENE IN TURGAWER.
VI. COURT YARD OF SEMINARY.
VII. SEIR GATE, OROOMIAH.
VIII. TIARY GIRL.
WOMAN AND HER SAVIOUR.
CHAPTER I.
WOMAN WITHOUT THE GOSPEL.
POLITICAL CONDITION.--NESTORIAN HOUSES.--VERMIN.--SICKNESS.--POSITION
AND ESTIMATION OF WOMAN.--NO READERS AMONG THEM.--UNLOVELY
SPIRIT.--SINS OF THE TONGUE.--PROFANITY.--LYING.--STEALING.--STORY
ABOUT PINS.--IMPURITY.--MOSLEM INTERFERENCE WITH SEMINARY.
We love to wander over a well-kept estate. Its green meadows and
fruitful fields delight the eye. Its ripening harvests make us feel as
if we too were wealthy. But while the view of what lies before us is so
pleasant, our joy is greater if we can remember when it was all a
wilderness, and contrast its present beauty with the roughness of its
former state.
So, in viewing the wonders of divine grace, we need to see its results
in connection with what has been. We can appreciate the loveliness of
the child of God only as we compare him with the child of wrath he was
before. Paul not only recounts the great things which God had done for
the early disciples, but bids them remember that they were once without
Christ; and before he tells them that God had made them "sit together
in heavenly places in Christ Jesus," he reminds them that they had
"walked according to the spirit that now worketh in the children of
disobedience."
In seeking, then, to set forth the great things which God has done for
woman in Persia, let us first look on her as his gospel found her, that
we may better appreciate the grace which wrought the change.
We can understand the condition of woman in that empire only as we bear
in mind that its government is despotic, and that no constitutional
safeguards shield the subjects of a thoroughly selfish and profligate
nobility. The Nestorians, too, are marked out alike by religion and
nationality as victims of oppression. However great their wrongs, they
can hope for little redress, for a distant court shares in the plunder
taken from them, and believes its own officials rather than the
despised rayahs, whom they oppress. Even when foreign intervention
procures some edict in their favor, these same officials, in distant
Oroomiah, are at no loss to evade its demands.
The Nestorian is not allowed a place in the bazaar;[1] he cannot engage
in commerce. And in the mechanic arts, he cannot aspire higher than the
position of a mason or carpenter; which, of course, is not to be
compared to the standing of the same trades among us. When our
missionaries went to Oroomiah, a decent garment on a Nestorian was safe
only as it had an outer covering of rags to hide it. [Footnote 1: The
bazaar is, literally, the market, but denotes the business part of a
city.]
In their language, as in Arabic, the missionaries found no word for
_home;_ and there was no need of it, for the thing itself was wanting.
The house consisted of one large room and was generally occupied by
several generations. In that one room all the work of the family was
performed. There they ate, and there they slept. The beds consisted of
three articles--a thick comfortable filled with wool or cotton beneath,
a pillow, and one heavy quilt for covering. On rising, they "took up
their beds," and piled them on a wooden frame, and spread them down
again at night. The room was lighted by an opening in the roof, which
also served for a chimney; though, of course, in a very imperfect
manner, as the inside of every dwelling that has stood for any length
of time bears witness. The upper part of the walls and the under
surface of the roof--we can hardly call it ceiling--fairly glitter, as
though they had been painted black and varnished, and every article of
clothing, book, or household utensil, is saturated with the smell of
creosote. The floor, like the walls, is of earth, covered in part with
coarse straw mats and pieces of carpeting; and the flat roof, of the
same material, rests on a layer of sticks, supported by large beams;
the mass above, however, often sifts through, and sometimes during a
heavy rain assumes the form of a shower of mud. Bad as all this may
seem, the houses are still worse in the mountain districts, such as
Gawar. There they are half under ground, made of cobble stones laid up
against the slanting sides of the excavation, and covered by a conical
roof with a hole in the centre. They contain, besides the family, all
the implements of husbandry, the cattle, and the flocks. These last
occupy "the sides of the house" (1 Sam. xxiv. 3), and stand facing the
"decana," or raised place in the centre, which is devoted to the
family. As wood is scarce in the mountains, and the climate severe, the
animal heat of the cattle is a substitute for fuel, except as sun-baked
cakes of manure are used once a day for cooking, as is the practice
also on the plain. In such houses the buffaloes sometimes break loose
and fight furiously, and instances are not rare when they knock down
the posts on which the roof rests, and thus bury all in one common ruin.
The influence of such family arrangements, even in the more favored
villages of the plain, on manners and morality, need not be told. It is
equally evident that in such circumstances personal tidiness is
impossible, though few in our favored land have any idea of the extent
of such untidiness. If the truth must be told, vermin abound in most of
these houses; the inmates are covered not only with fleas, but from
head to foot they are infested with the third plague of Egypt. (Ex.
viii. 16-19). This last is a constant annoyance in many parts of Turkey
as well as Persia. If one lodges in the native houses, there is no
refuge from them, and only an entire change of clothing affords relief
when he returns to his own home; even there the divans have to be
sedulously examined after the departure of visitors, that the plague do
not spread. The writer has known daughters of New England, ready for
almost any self-denial, burst into tears when first brought into
contact with this.
At first, the teachers of the Female Seminary in Oroomiah had to
cleanse their pupils very thoroughly, and were glad thus to purify the
outside, while beseeching Christ to cleanse the heart. Each one, on her
first arrival, had to be separately cared for, lest the enemy should
recover ground from which he had already been driven with much labor.
Missionary publications do not usually tell of such trials, but those
who drew the lambs from the deep pit, loved them all the more tenderly
for having gone down into it themselves, that thence they might bring
them to Jesus. Such trials are less common now, for it is generally
understood that a degree of personal cleanliness is an indispensable
requisite for admission to the Seminary; but such a demand, at that
time, would have rendered the commencement of the school impossible.
The pupils became much improved in personal appearance, and some of
their simple-hearted mothers really thought their children had grown
very pretty under their teachers' care. So, as many of them were
strangers to the cleansing properties of water, they would ask again
and again, "How do you make them so white?"
But if such houses were comfortless abodes for those in health, what
were they for the sick? Think of one in a burning fever, perhaps
delirious, lying in such a crowd. In winter, there they must remain,
for there is no other place, and in summer, they are often laid under a
tree in the day time, and carried up to the flat roof, with the rest of
the family, at night.
Dr. Perkins, in the early part of his missionary life, tells us that in
a village the family room was given up to him for the night, and in the
morning he found a little son had been born in the stable. He supposed
that he had been the unwitting cause of such an event occurring there;
but longer acquaintance with the people shows that woman almost
invariably resorts to that place in her hour of sorrow, and there she
often dies. The number who meet death in this form is very large.
In Persia, as in other unevangelized countries, women spend their days
in out-door labor. They weed the cotton, and assist in pruning the
vines and gathering the grapes. They go forth in the morning, bearing
not only their implements of husbandry, but also their babes in the
cradle; and returning in the evening, they prepare their husband's
supper, and set it before him, but never think of eating themselves
till after he is done. One of the early objections the Nestorians made
to the Female Seminary was, that it would disqualify their daughters
for their accustomed toil. In after years, woman might be seen carrying
her spelling-book to the field, along with her Persian hoe, little
dreaming that she was thus taking the first step towards the
substitution of the new implement for the old.
Nestorian parents used to consider the birth of a daughter a great
calamity. When asked the number of their children, they would count up
their sons, and make no mention of their daughters. The birth of a son
was an occasion for great joy and giving of gifts. Neighbors hastened
to congratulate the happy father, but days might elapse before the
neighborhood knew of the birth of a daughter. It was deemed highly
improper to inquire after the health of a wife, and the nearest
approach to it was to ask after the welfare of the house or household.
Formerly, a man never called his wife by name, but in speaking of her
would say, "the mother of so and so," giving the name of her child; or,
"the daughter of so and so," giving the name of her father; or, simply
"that woman" did this or that. Nor did the wife presume to call her
husband's name, or to address him in the presence of his parents, who,
it will be borne in mind, lived in the same apartment. They were
married very young, often at the age of fourteen, and without any
consultation of their own preference, either as to time or person.
There was hardly a man among the Nestorians who did not beat his wife.
The women expected to be beaten, and took it as a matter of course. As
the wife lived with the husband's father, it was not uncommon for him
to beat both son and daughter-in-law. When the men wished to talk
together of any thing important, they usually sent the women out of
doors or to the stable, as unable to understand, or unfit to be
trusted. In some cases, this might be a necessary precaution; for the
absence of true affection; and the frequency of domestic broils,
rendered the wife an unsafe depositary of any important family affair.
The same causes often led the wife to appropriate to her own foolish
gratification any money of her husband she could lay hands on,
regardless of family necessities. Women whose tastes led them to load
themselves with beads, silver, baser metal, and rude trinkets, would
not be likely to expend money very judiciously.
In 1835, the only Nestorian woman that knew how to read was Heleneh,
the sister of Mar Shimon; and when others were asked if they would not
like to learn, with a significant shrug they would reply, "I am a
woman." They had themselves no more desire to learn than the men had to
have them taught. Indeed, the very idea of a woman reading was regarded
as an infringement of female modesty and propriety.
It is a little curious, and shows how we adapt ourselves to our
situation, that the women were as unwilling to receive attention from
their husbands as they were to render it. Several years after the
arrival of Miss Fiske in Oroomiah, the wife of one of her assistants
visited the Seminary, and on leaving to return to her village, the
teacher, in the kindness of her heart, proposed to the husband to go
and assist her to carry the child. She seemed as if she had been
insulted in being thought unable to carry it, and sent her husband back
from the door in any thing but a gracious mood, leaving the good
teacher half bewildered and half amused at this reception of her
intended kindness.
Indeed, until some of them were converted, all that was lovely and of
good report in woman was entirely wanting. They were trodden down, but
at the same time exceedingly defiant and imperious. If they were not
the "head," it was not because they did not "strive for the mastery."
They seemed to have no idea of self-control; their bursts of passion
were awful. The number of women who reverenced their husbands was as
small as the list of husbands who did not beat their wives. Says Miss
Fiske, in writing to a friend, "I felt pity for my poor sisters before
going among them, but anguish when, from actual contact with them, I
realized how very low they were. I did not want to leave them, but I
did ask, Can the image of Christ ever be reflected from such hearts?
They would come and tell me their troubles, and fall down at my feet,
begging me to deliver them from their husbands. They would say, 'You
are sent by our holy mother, Mary, to help us;' and do not think me
hard-hearted when I tell you that I often said to them, 'Loose your
hold of my feet; I did not come to deliver you from your husbands, but
to show you how to be so good that you can be happy with them.'
Weeping, they would say, 'Have mercy on us; if not, we must kill
ourselves.' I had no fear of their doing that, so I would seat them at
my side, and tell them of my own dear father,--how good he was; but he
was always _obeyed_. They would say, 'We could obey a good man.' 'But I
am very sure you would not have been willing to obey my father.'
"It is one thing to pray for our degraded sisters while in America, but
quite another to raise them from their low estate. When I saw their
true character, I found that I needed a purer, holier love for them
than I had ever possessed. It was good for me to see that _I_ could do
nothing, and it was comforting to think that Jesus had talked with just
such females as composed the mass around me, and that afterwards many
believed because of one such woman."
Sometimes the revilings of the women were almost equalled by similar
talk among the men, as in a village of Gawar, where they said, "We
would not receive a priest or deacon here who could not swear well, and
lie too." In the same village, a young man spoke favorably of Mr.
Coan's preaching in Jeloo. Instantly a woman called out, "And have you
heard those deceivers preach?" "Yes," was the reply, "both last year
and this, and hope I shall again." Hearing this, her eyes flashed, and
drawing her brawny arms into the form of a dagger, with a vengeful
thrust of her imaginary weapon, she cried, "The blood of thy father
smite thee, thou Satan!" and dreadful was the volley of oaths and
curses that followed. Yet she was only a fair specimen of the village.
We of the calmer West do not know what it is to have a mob of such
women come forth in their wrath. In one town was a virago, who often,
single-handed, faced down and drove off Moslem tax-gatherers when the
men fled in terror. No one who has ever heard the stinging shrillness
of their tongues, or looked on their frenzied gestures, can ever forget
them, or wonder why the ancients painted the Furies in the form of
women. Words cannot portray the excitement of such a scene. The hair of
the frantic actors is streaming in the wind; stones and clods seem only
embodiments of the unearthly yells and shrieks that fill the air; and
yet it was such beings that grace made to be "last at the cross and
first at the sepulchre."
The East is notorious for profanity, and among the Nestorians women
were as profane as men. The pupils in the Seminary at first used to
swear, and use the vilest language on the slightest provocation. Poor,
blind Martha, on her death bed, in her own father's house, was
constantly cursed and reviled. She was obliged sometimes to cover her
head with the quilt, and stop her ears, to secure an opportunity to
pray for her profane and abusive brother; and though, in such
circumstances, she died before her prayers were answered, yet they were
heard, for he afterwards learned to serve his sister's God. "Do you
think people will believe me," said a pupil to her teacher, who was
reproving her for profanity, "if I do not repeat the name of God very
often?"
Lying was almost as common as profanity, and stealing quite as
prevalent as either. It was a frequent remark, "We all lie here; do you
think we could succeed in business without it?"
In the early days of the Seminary, nothing was safe except under lock
and key. Sometimes there seemed to be a dawn of improvement, and next,
all the buttons would be missing from the week's washing, and the
teacher was pretty sure to find that her own pupils were the thieves.
Miss Rice tells of one, amply supplied with every thing by her parents,
yet noted for her thefts. Indeed, sons and daughters were alike trained
to such practices. In 1843, Miss Fiske could not keep a pin in her
pin-cushion; little fingers took them as often as she turned away, and
lest she should tempt them to lie, she avoided questioning them, unless
her own eye had seen the theft. No wonder she wrote, "I feel very weak,
and were it not that Christ has loved these souls, I should be
discouraged; but he has loved them, and he loves them still." If the
pins were found with the pupils, the answer was ready--"We found them,"
or, "You gave them to us;" and nothing could be proved. But one summer
evening, just before the pupils were to pass through her room to their
beds on the flat roof, knowing that none of that color could be
obtained elsewhere, the teacher put six black pins in her cushion, and
stepped out till they had passed. As soon as they were gone, she found
the pins gone too, and at once called them back. She told them of her
loss, but none knew any thing about it. She showed them that no one
else had been there, and therefore they must know. Six pairs of little
hands were lifted up, as they said, "God knows we have not got them;"
but this only called forth the reply, "I think that God knows you have
got them," and she searched each one carefully, without finding them.
She then proposed to kneel down where they stood, and ask God to show
where they were, adding, "He may not see it best to show me now, but he
will do it some time." She laid the matter before the Lord, and, just
as they rose from their knees, remembered that she had not examined
their cloth caps. She now proposed to examine them, and one pair of
hands went right up to her cap. Of course she was searched first, and
there were the six pins, so nicely concealed in its folds that nothing
was visible but their heads. This incident did much good. The pupils
looked on the discovery as an answer to prayer, and so did their
teacher. They began to be afraid to steal when God so exposed their
thefts, and she was thankful for an answer so immediate. The offender
is now a pious, useful woman.
Yet some were so accustomed to falsehood, that, even after conversion,
it cost a struggle to be entirely truthful, and missionaries could see,
as Christians in our own land cannot see, why an apostle should write
to the regenerate, "Lie not one to another." The teacher labored to
impress her charge with the sinfulness of such conduct, but in the
revival of 1846, they seemed to learn more in one hour than she had
taught them in the two years preceding. Yet that faithful instruction
was not lost. It was the fuel which the Spirit of God kindled into a
flame. The sower has not labored in vain because the seed lies for days
buried in the soil.
In that revival, the awakened hastened to restore what they had stolen.
One came to Miss Fiske in great distress, saying, "Do you remember the
day, two years ago, when Sawdee's new shoes were taken from the
door?"--They leave off their shoes on entering a house.--"Yes, I
recollect it." "You thought a Moslem woman stole them, but"--and here
her feelings overcame her--"I took them, for I was angry with her, and
threw them into a well. What shall I do? I know Christ will not receive
me till I have confessed it to her. Can I go and confess it to-night,
and pray with her, and then may I go and work for money to replace
them?" She paid for the shoes, and became a bright light in her dark
home. There were many such cases, and from that time the teachers had
little trouble from theft. New pupils would sometimes steal, but the
older ones were ready to detect them, and show them a more excellent
way. Miss Fiske says of this, "The frequent visits of the Holy Spirit
have removed an evil which mocked my efforts. God made me feel my utter
helplessness, and then he did the work." That same term there was but
one case of theft in the Male Seminary, though formerly it was not
infrequent there.
In reference to transgressions of the seventh commandment, much detail
is not expedient. It is sufficient to say, that the first impressions
of earlier missionaries respecting the purity of Nestorian women were
not sustained by subsequent acquaintance. The farther they went beneath
the surface of things, the more they found of corruption. One might go
to Persia supposing that he knew a good deal of the degradation of the
people, and yet really know very little of the pit into which he was
descending.
A seminary gathering together such a company of young females, was a
new thing in Persia, and it will readily be conceived that amid a
Mohammedan community it was an object of peculiar solicitude to its
guardians. Many a Moslem eye was on those girls, as the results of a
religious education appeared in their manners, their dress, and
personal beauty. In one instance, an officer of government attempted to
take one of them to his harem, but God thwarted his purpose through the
interference of the English consul. Similar dangers threatened from
other sources, and eternity alone will reveal the burden of care and
watchfulness they involved. If only one pupil had been led astray, what
a hopeless loss of confidence would have followed among the people! In
the early years of the institution, when parents could hardly be
persuaded to trust their daughters out of their sight for a single
night, it might have broken up the whole enterprise; but in this
matter, also, God showed himself the hearer of prayer, and not one
danger of the kind was ever allowed to be more than an occasion for
renewed intercession, and more confiding dependence on his gracious
care. Sometimes, in vacation, it seemed strange to its guardians that
they had no longer a fold to protect, and could retire to rest free
from that anxious solicitude that sometimes drove sleep from their eyes.
It is not in the beginning of missionary life that all these things are
understood: they are learned gradually. This is wisely ordered, that
the missionary be not discouraged at the outset. Strength is given each
day to meet new trials as they come, and it would not be leaving a
truthful impression on the reader, if, at the close of this description
of what has been, it should not be recorded, to the praise of divine
grace, that a great change has taken place. There are many to-day to
whom the missionary may say, "Such were some of you; but ye are washed,
but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord
Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God." Not only do some who stole steal
no more, but many young husbands now provide separate apartments for
the bride whom they bring home, and they need all that the word "home"
expresses to describe their mutual joy. The hour of suffering is
anticipated by a considerate affection, and that affection is so
reciprocated that many hearts safely trust in the daughters of the
Female Seminary of Oroomiah.
It is not merely education that has wrought this change, but a Bible
education. Paul cared for just such converts, and left divine teachings
for the use of those who should come after him in the same work. As a
young wife said to her teacher one day, after she had been talking with
her about her new duties, "I thank you; you are right. I am glad that
you have told me what Paul says, and I think that God has told you the
same thing." Many a graduate might say, with another, "I thank you for
your instructions, and as I look on the trials of ungodly families,
every drop of my blood thanks you."