VACATION SCENES.
IN GAWAR AND ISHTAZIN.--VILLAGES OF MEMIKAN.--OOBEYA, DARAWE, AND
SANAWAR.--IN GAVALAN.--ACCOMMODATIONS.--SABBATH SCHOOL.
To the interior pictures of the school in the last chapter we add some
vacation scenes, though chronologically in advance of other things yet
to come.
[Illustration: Tents.]
Towards the close of July, 1851, Mr. Stocking and family, with Misses
Fiske and Rice, and several native helpers, spent the vacation in
Gawar. Mr. Coan accompanied them on his way to regions beyond.
Wandering from place to place, like the patriarchs of old, they pitched
their tents at first near the village of Memikan. A sketch of these
tents is here presented. The women there were frequent visitors, and
few went away without some idea of the truth as it is in Jesus. The
pious natives were unwearied in labor, and sometimes woke the
missionaries in the morning with prayer for the people round about
them. On the Sabbath, there was preaching in as many as five different
villages, and after morning service in Memikan, the women came to the
tents to receive more particular instruction from their own sex. In the
evening, a mother who had buried her son in February--then a very
promising member of the Seminary at Seir[1]--brought her youngest
daughter, about six years of age, saying, "We give her to you in the
place of Guwergis. He has gone to a blessed place. You led him there.
We thank you, and now intrust to you our little daughter." Eshoo, the
father, spoke of his departed son with much feeling, but most sweet
submission. He said to Miss Fiske, as the big tears glistened in the
moonlight, "I shall not be here long. I shall soon rejoin him. My hope
in Jesus grows stronger every day." The death of that dear son was not
only a great spiritual blessing to him, but the mere mention of his
name at once secured the attention of the villagers to any thing the
missionaries had to say about his Saviour. [Footnote 1: Nestorian
Biography, p. 127.]
On Monday, they left for a visit to the Alpine district of Ishtazin.
Unable to take horses along those frightful paths, they rode on hardy
mules. In a subsequent journey over the same road, the fastenings of
Miss Fiske's saddle gave way, and she fell, but providentially without
injury. Sometimes they climbed, or, more hazardous still, descended, a
long, steep stairway of rock, or they were hid in the clouds that hung
around the higher peaks of the mountain. Now the path led them under
huge, detached rocks, that seemed asking leave to overwhelm them, and
now under the solid cliffs, that suggested the more grateful idea of
the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. Down in the valley were
pleasant waterfalls, little fields rescued by much labor from the
surrounding waste, choice fruits, and such a variety of flowers, that
it seemed as if spring, summer, and autumn had combined to supply them.
Then, in looking up, the eye rested on silver threads apparently
hanging down from far-off summits, but really foaming streams dashing
headlong down the rocks, yet so distant that no sound came to the ear
from their roaring waters.
The party stopped at Ooreya, on one of its flat roofs, shaded by a
magnificent walnut tree. The villagers brought mulberries, apples, and
other fruits, till they could prepare something more substantial, and
seemed to forget their fears of the patriarch in their zealous
hospitality. After supper, all adjourned to the churchyard, and there,
in the bright moonlight, a crowd of eager listeners heard of Christ,
and redemption through his precious blood. The silence of night was
broken only by the voice of the preacher, and the echoes of the
surrounding cliffs seemed to repeat joyfully the unwonted sounds. Yonan
preached from the words "Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in
their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom." He
commenced by asking whether Christ was right in so doing. They replied,
"Certainly he did right." "Yes," said the preacher, "and as he did, so
must his followers do; and you must expect to see them in Ishtazin.
When we cease to climb over these precipices to come to you, fear lest
we have become Mussulmans, for Christians cannot but go from village to
village to preach the gospel." The reader will see the force of such an
appeal, when he remembers that Mar Shimon had forbidden these people to
receive the missionaries because they preached. This was followed by a
statement of the doctrines that Jesus preached, in which he did not
fail to bring out the essence of the gospel. When he sat down, Khamis,
the brother of Deacon Tamo, followed with a most impassioned
exhortation. The missionaries had thought him a good preacher before,
but the place and the circumstances--he was among his own native
mountains--seemed to carry him beyond himself. All through this region,
the people appeared to render as much honor to him as they would have
done to Mar Shimon. The assembly dispersed, and the travellers lay down
where they were, to battle with the sand-flies till the welcome dawn
lit up the conspicuous summits high above them.
Almost every moment of the next forenoon was filled by personal
religious conversation with many who never heard such truths before. In
the evening, even more fixed attention was given to another service in
the open air, at the village of Boobawa, for the pious Mar Ogen[1] was
then living there, and the bright light of his piety had not shone in
vain. Several were earnestly inquiring how to be saved. [Footnote 1:
Nestorian Biography, p. 267.]
On Thursday, the day after their return to Memikan, Mr. Coan, Priest
Dunkha, Khamis, and Deacon John left for Central Koordistan, and Deacon
Isaac went to Kochannes. But though the laborers were fewer, the number
of visitors continued the same. Next Sabbath, besides two services, and
two meetings with the women in Memikan, there was preaching in three
other villages. In Chardewar, the home of Priest Dunkha, Miss Fiske
found his daughter, who had come with them from Oroomiah, already full
of work. She had just dismissed her Sabbath school, and was reading the
Bible with her cousin, the village priest, who did all in his power to
help her, both in her school through the week, and her meetings with
the women. One Sabbath, almost every woman in the place had been
present, as was the case also when she was visited by Misses Fiske and
Rice, and Sanum said that she could not ask for a better place in which
to work for Christ. There was more of real hunger for the truth here
than any where else in the mountains.
Leaving Memikan, the travellers removed to Darawe, the village
described on page 21. Here they could scarcely get permission to pitch
their tent, or procure provision for themselves and horses; yet even in
such a place, the manifestation of Christian love was not without
fruit, though many bitterly opposed them to the last. The neighboring
villages wondered at the missionaries going there at all, and still
more at their being able to remain.
At Keyat, the kindness of the people, and pleasant intercourse with
them, were all the more grateful for the contrast with what had gone
before. Here Miss Fiske met with that kind reception from Mar Shimon,
then passing through the place, described on page 159, while the tent
literally flowed with milk and honey furnished by the villagers, whom
he had charged to take good care of their visitors.
On the following Sabbath, Yonan preached to a congregation of about two
hundred, at Sanawar, where forty families of refugees from Saat were
spending the summer. When Miss Fiske and Miss Rice visited their camp,
they found a number of temporary huts enclosing a circle, where the
domestic labors of spinning, weaving, and cooking were actively going
on. All the women at once left their work, and welcomed their visitors
with every mark of confidence and gladness. Some of them had heard the
gospel from the missionaries in Mosul, as they had often spent the
winter near there. So they drank in every word with eagerness.
The ladies were delighted with their visit, especially with a widow,
who, though unable to read, showed unusual familiarity with the Bible,
and, as they hoped, a spiritual acquaintance with its doctrines. When
the topic of our fallen nature was mentioned, "Yes," said she, "we were
all shapen in iniquity, as David testifies." When asked if she had any
hope of being saved from sin, she replied, "I am very far from God, yet
my only hope is in the wounded side of Jesus Christ. If penitently I
stand beneath the blood dropping from his cross, I hope that my sins,
though red like scarlet, may become as white as snow." Her views of the
way of salvation were not only clear, but beautifully expressed. It was
exceedingly refreshing, in that region where they had expected only
darkness, thus to find the rays of light struggling through from their
associates in another mission; and it gave a delightful foretaste of
the time when the voice of one watchman upon those mountain tops should
reach to another, and on all sides the eye behold the trophies of
Immanuel. It was with feelings of peculiar interest that they heard,
some years after, that this stranger in Sanawar, but, as they fondly
hoped, their sister in Christ, held fast her confidence in his grace to
the end, and so fell asleep in Jesus.
For a companion picture to the preceding, we turn to the summer of
1852. Mr. Stocking moved out to Gavalan, the native place of Mar
Tohanan, early in the season, and both teachers followed, with thirteen
of their pupils, about the middle of June. The village lies near the
base of a range of mountains, at the northern end of the plain of
Oroomiah, forty miles distant from the city. On the east the blue
waters of the lake seem to touch the sky, and stretch away to the south
in quiet loveliness. Sometimes, when reposing in the gorgeous light of
sunset, or reflecting the red rays of the full moon, they remind the
beholder of the "sea of glass mingled with fire" revealed to the
beloved disciple. The breeze from the lake, in the long summer days, is
very grateful, and the evening air from the mountains makes sleep
refreshing.
Mar Yohanan gave the school free use of two rooms as long as it
remained. In the court yard before them a large tent was pitched, that
served for dining room, dormitory, and reception room, or diwan khaneh.
An adjoining house afforded a comfortable recitation room. Here the
regular routine of the school went on, and while men from the village
found their way to Mr. Stocking's at the hour of evening prayer, women
also came to the school room at the same hour. At the last meeting of
this kind before Miss Fiske returned to the city, nearly forty were
present, listening with quiet attention to the words of life. On the
Sabbath, the sides of the tent were lifted outward from the bottom, and
fastened in a horizontal position, so as to admit the air and exclude
the sun. The ground beneath was covered with mats, and formed quite a
pleasant chapel. In the forenoon, this was thronged with attentive
hearers. The children of the boys' school in the village sat close to
their teacher. The members of the girls' school could be distinguished
from their playmates by the greater smoothness of their hair, the
whiteness of their faces, and general tidiness. Among the old men, the
venerable father of the bishop was very conspicuous. The members of the
Seminary crowded round their teachers so as to leave more room for
others, and still all could not get under the shadow of the wings of
the tabernacle. Mr. Stocking preached in the forenoon, and in the
afternoon the people came together again as a Sabbath school. Each of
the pupils of the Seminary had a class of women or girls, and seemed to
learn how to do good faster than ever before. They visited them at
their houses during the week; they sought out the absentees; and it was
delightful to go round the school and note the interest of both scholar
and teacher. If these were zealous in teaching, those were no less so
in learning. The classes, after the introductory services, filled every
available corner in the rooms, the tent, the front of the house, and
even sat on the low mud wall of the court. With the same variety of
character, there was greater diversity of lessons than in schools at
home. Some studied the Old Testament, and some the New; others were
just learning to read, and those who could not read at all were taught
the Scriptures orally. One class of Armenians was taught in Turkish.
Matters went on very well for two Sabbaths, but on the third, women and
children had vanished. What was the matter? It had been reported that
all this labor was only a preparation to transport them to America, and
the simple-minded mothers staid away with their children in great
trepidation; but visits from house to house, during the week, dispelled
their fears, and next Sabbath all were again in their places, and this
pleasant labor in Gavalan continued till September.