China is not so hard as those of their sisters in the more western
countries. The Mohammedans, having been in China now about a thousand
years, have, save in the matter of idolatry, practically adopted the
Chinese customs, even to the binding of the feet of their little girls.
Among the wealthier Mohammedans, as with the wealthier Chinese, polygamy
is common, many having two or three wives, and among the middle class,
when there has been no issue by the first wife, many take unto
themselves a second wife. Divorces are of rare occurrence.
There are no harems. The better-class women are not seen much on the
streets, but in the country places, the farmer's wife, daughters, and
daughters-in-law go out into the fields, weed and reap the corn, carry
water, gather in fuel, and wear no veil. The daughters and
daughters-in-law of the better class, from the age of fifteen to thirty,
often wear a black veil when going on a visit to their friends, as also
do the Chinese.
In the busy farming seasons, the Mohammedan men, with their wives of the
poorer class, hire themselves out to the Chinese farmers, and come down
in large numbers to weed in the spring and gather in the corn in summer
and autumn. They bring their children with them and stay on the farm
till the busy time is over. We always get a goodly number of visits from
them.
Speaking of the Mohammedan male population in our prefecture of Si-ning,
the vast majority are ignorant of the tenets of the Koran, know little
of anything, save that Masheng-ren is their prophet, and that there is a
Supreme Being somewhere of whom they are almost as ignorant as the
Chinese. They seem to realize it a duty to attend worship on two special
occasions each year, but the majority of them never darken the mosque
doors at other times. Seldom a day passes but we have Mohammedan
visitors, and the answer we get from nine out of every ten to questions
about their doctrine is, "We are only blind folks and we do not know
anything." Their ah-hongs or pastors do not trouble to teach any save
the students, for which they are paid. Some even speak of heaven as
being Khuda (God). In many ways are they influenced by the Chinese
around them.
Already I have referred to the binding of the feet of their little
girls. In sickness it is a common thing to see the patient with a tiny
book written in Arabic bound up in red cloth and sewn on the shoulder
or back of the outside garment, to shield them from the evil spirits.
Many also observe the lucky and unlucky days in the Chinese calendar, by
removing from one house to another. One of our patients had even
resorted to the Buddhists or agnostics to recite prayers and use charms
to drive away his sickness.
At the present rate of spiritual declension, in another century many
will either be Buddhists or agnostics.
The times of prayer are not observed save by the ah-hongs and mullahs
and a few of the old men.
These few particulars showing the indifference and ignorance among the
men, what can be expected of the women? They are heathen, except in
name. In our prefecture, we receive a welcome among them whenever we go,
but how long this will continue it is hard to tell. In the southwest of
this province, where formerly much friendliness was shown towards the
missionaries, latterly a spirit of bitterness and opposition has been
manifested owing to a few becoming interested in the Gospel and
attending regularly on Sunday. The ah-hongs have warned their people
that if any join the church they will be put to death when the foreign
ambassador arrives from Turkey. Who this individual is, is not very
apparent, and from whence he will get his power to put Chinese subjects
to death is a mystery. Doubtless it is only a scheme of the ah-hongs to
put the people in fear.
So far, however, we have open doors here and no opposition, but owing to
lack of workers there is NO ONE TO ENTER IN, NO ONE to take the Bread of
Life to them, NO ONE to bear the glad news to them.
After the rebellion of 1895, when retribution fell heavily on the
Mohammedans, thousands of them were reduced to the verge of starvation;
women, who had been accustomed to the comforts of a good home, were
deprived of their warm winter clothing and left only with thin summer
tattered garments, right in the depth of winter with a thermometer
registering below zero (Fahrenheit). By the help of many kind friends in
different parts of China, we were enabled to open a soup-kitchen and
provide hot food every day for six weeks, during the bitterest part of
the winter, to an average of three hundred persons each day, and also to
give away several warm garments to those in direst need. Every day we
taught the people to repeat hymns, grace before meat, and told them
stories from the Bible. On the Chinese New Year's Day we gave them a
special treat of mutton-broth and afterwards showed them, with the magic
lantern, some scenes in the life of our Lord. In the winter of 1896-7 we
again provided food to an average of one hundred and twenty each day,
nearly all widows and children.
When the rebellion was over the Mohammedans were no longer permitted to
reside in the east suburb, where formerly they numbered ten thousand
persons, save a few of the poor widows who gained a subsistence by
begging, but were sent to reside in a few villages thirty miles from the
city. Occasionally we have a visit from some of the women and it is
cheering to find that they remember much of what was told them in those
years of their adversity, and we may hope that some at least will meet
us in the white-robed throng hereafter.
At present we have one Mohammedan woman, much interested in the Gospel,
who comes regularly to worship on Sundays when the farmers are not busy.
One difficulty stands in their way and that is, the Chinese women hate
them and scorn to sit beside them, and we cannot wonder, for they have
suffered much at their hands, many having lost their all twice in their
lifetime, and some thrice; nevertheless, we are thankful for the more
Christ-like spirit shown towards them by the Christians, who are willing
to forget the past and give them a welcome, converse with them freely,
and recognize them as sisters for whom also Christ hath died.
There are two sects of Mohammedans in our district and there are often
serious quarrels between them, and some of the people fear that if many
Mohammedans became Christians serious trouble might ensue; but we feel
sure that if the Christians manifest the spirit of their Master, loving
their enemies, blessing their persecutors, praying for those who
ill-treat them, that finally they would disarm their hatred and be
permitted to live in peace; whereas the two sects lacking that inward
spiritual grace, hating each other, and backbiting each other, finally
bring about strife.
The careful readers of this chapter will observe from what we have
written that the life of their Mohammedan sisters in China is not so
hard and prison-like as that of their sisters in North Africa, Persia,
etc, where they are secluded for a lifetime in the prison-like harems at
the command of their husbands. Nevertheless, their need is just as
great, their souls just as precious, their ignorance of spiritual things
just as deep, their lives just as much of a blank, their hope for the
future just as dark; they live and die "just like animals," they are
wont to say; and all the hopelessness, darkness, and lovelessness
continues not because of their SECLUSION in harems at the mercy of their
husbands but because of their EXCLUSION from their right to the joys and
hope of the Christian life by the lukewarm indifference of the Church of
Christ to-day, which fails to realize the great responsibility to carry
the Gospel to every creature.
In our vast parish, stretching one hundred miles from east to west and
two hundred and thirty miles from southeast to northwest, comprising six
cities, sixteen walled towns, and thousands of villages with a mixed
population of Chinese, Mohammedans, Mongolians, Tibetans, and
aborigines, my husband and I are left to labor alone. This does not
spell seclusion but exclusion from the knowledge of the Way of
Salvation for tens of thousands of souls for whom Christ died.
When Jesus saw the leper He had compassion on him; when He saw the widow
of Nain He said "Weep not"; when the mourners wept at the grave of
Lazarus He saw them and wept also; when He looked from the Mount of
Olives on the city of Jerusalem and thought of her doom, He wept. Would
that in a vision or in a dream of the night, you could behold something
of the hopelessness of your less favored sisters; would that you could
hear just a few of their plaintive cries and see tears rolling down
their cheeks as they unburden their sorrows to the sympathetic ear.
Then, methinks, you would not rest till you had accomplished something
to make these many dark hearts brighter and sad hearts lighter.
XXIII
OUR MOSLEM SISTERS IN JAVA
(_Translated from the Dutch_)
The life of the Mohammedan woman in general here is not that of a being
on a par with man, but rather comparable with that of a dumb animal, a
creature inferior to and much less worthy than man, which is kept and
utilized as long as it performs some services.
Fatalism, as taught and nourished by Islam, places the woman in a
servile relationship to the man, so much so that she, although
considered a creature of no particular value, does not take offence at
being accounted a negligible quantity.
Maltreatment of women takes place occasionally but is by no means
general, because nothing hinders the husband from driving away his wife
with whom he may not be satisfied, without even observing the simplest
form of a legal procedure.
Why should the man, particularly amongst Moslems, "the Lord of
Creation," weary himself or even become angry, seeing it is far wiser
and more profitable that he exchange the worn-out wife and mother, who
can no longer add to the number of his children, for a younger and
stronger wife? This profitable barter, too, need cost him but a trifle.
This exchange of wives has even a more demoralizing tendency than the
practice of polygamy itself, which luxury only those can participate in
whose salary is at least fifteen florins per month.
The results of the sinful practice of polygamy, especially for the
children and consequently for the state, would be less sad to
contemplate, were it not that the polygamist exchanges his wife as
readily for another as he who can afford but one wife at a time.
It is scarcely necessary for me to enumerate here the effects of this
evil of which the wife is the victim.
This much-loved evil is a strong bulwark against the spread of the
ethics of Christianity.
A second and a very powerful opponent of mission work is found in the
peculiar Mohammedan village organization, in which the Moslem sheikh or
spiritual leader plays the most important rôle.
Another peculiarity of Islam here, is the fact that the inland
population and the millions of inhabitants who live in the lowlands of
Java are peculiarly interrelated and mutually dependent. Only in a few
of the larger towns in Java do we find the trades practised.
The villager is a farmer, and since rice is the chief article of food
and this must be raised by irrigation channels in a hilly country like
Java, the villagers are, as a matter of course, compelled to live at
peace with one another, becoming interdependent through the production
of the staff of life.
A Moslem family that becomes Christian soon experiences deprivation. The
so-called "silent power" soon makes its influence felt, ostracising them
from every privilege.
This becomes the more easy to understand when we remember that the
division of the cultivable soil and of the water supply with all other
civil rights and privileges, are entrusted by Dutch law to the
Mohammedan village government, in which the Moslem sheikh or priest
enjoys an ex-officio vote.
Because of this peculiar condition of life in the East Indies, the
writer and other missionaries in Java have purposely settled in an
inland district in the very midst of the Mohammedan population, where
those families who have embraced Christianity may gather about the
mission centre and gradually form a nucleus (in course of time a village
or town), where independent legal privileges may be enjoyed and the
people ruled over by their own native Christian chiefs. In this manner
these communities can gradually become "a salt" and "a light" for their
Mohammedan environment.
Of very much importance in this connection is the action taken by Her
Majesty, our beloved Queen Wilhelmina, who--at the request of our former
Minister of Colonies, the Honorable Mr. Van Idenburg, at present
Governor of Paramaribo, in South America--commissioned the
States-General of the Netherlands to describe and protect the legal
status of the native Christians.
By reason of this our Christian converts can now claim at least the
right of existence, and even the native Christian woman can obtain that
justice before the law to which she is entitled.
XXIV
THE MOHAMMEDAN WOMEN OF MALAYSIA
Malaysia comprises the Malay Peninsula and Archipelago. The latter
includes the great islands of Sumatra, Java, Borneo, and Celebes, and
innumerable smaller ones. The one island of Java contains about
three-fourths of the entire population of Malaysia, which is probably
about forty millions. The vast majority of the population are
Mohammedans, but the hill-tribes of the Peninsula and of the larger
islands are still heathen, the Dyaks of Borneo and the Battas of Sumatra
being the most numerous of the non-Mohammedan races. There are also many
hundreds of thousands of Chinese immigrants in Malaysia, of whom only
one here and there have become Mohammedan.
The principal Mohammedan races are: (1) the Malays proper, who inhabit
the Peninsula, the east coast of Sumatra, and the neighboring islands,
and are scattered to some extent amongst all the seaport towns of the
Archipelago; (2) in Sumatra, the Achinese in the north, and the Rejans
and Lampongs in the south; (3) in Java, the Sundanese in the west, the
Javanese in the centre and east, and the Madurese in the extreme east;
and (4) the Bugis in Celebes.
The greatest success in the conversion of Mohammedans to Christianity
has been achieved by the German (Barmen) Mission in Sumatra, and chiefly
among the Battas, a very numerous heathen race, who have been gradually
won in small numbers to the faith of Islam, probably for centuries.
About fifty thousand of the Battas are now Christians, and many of these
were at one time Mohammedans.
In Java the Dutch have made considerable efforts to convert the natives
to Christianity for three hundred years past, and as the result of this
early work there are considerable Christian communities still existing.
It is only within the last century, however, that the work of the
missionary societies has infused new life into the work of converting
the Mohammedans. The greatest numerical success has been achieved by
those who devote their efforts to the founding of Christian communities
in villages of their own, entirely distinct from the Mohammedans, with
their own Christian village headmen. It is found that in the Mohammedan
villages the Christians suffer so much persecution from the headmen and
others, that in some cases Christianity has been entirely stamped out,
and the Christians have disappeared, no one knows where. The Christian
villages have in most cases been established in unsettled districts,
whole families being moved from other places, and clearing the jungle
to form their own settlements. These people have been won to Christ by
preaching among the Mohammedans, and are protected from persecution by
thus gathering them into Christian communities. Much work is also done
by means of schools and dispensaries. The Dutch Government provides both
the school buildings and salaries of schoolmasters, under certain rules,
and it also erects hospitals, and provides medicines free to every
missionary. There are also instances in which Christian communities have
grown up in the midst of Mohammedan surroundings, and it is claimed that
such Christians are of a stronger type, and exercise a more powerful
influence among their fellow-countrymen. A Dutch missionary writes that
polygamy and divorce are very prevalent in Java, there being many who
have changed husbands or wives as many as ten or twenty times. The man
has to pay the priest two guilders for a divorce, but a woman would have
to pay twenty-five guilders; the latter is known as "Buffalo divorce,"
i. e., brutal. In Java the second wife is called "A fire in the house."
Four wives are allowed, and any number of concubines. In case of divorce
the girls follow the father, and the boys follow the mother. Divorced
women are often in straitened circumstances and become concubines or the
kept mistresses of Europeans or even of the Chinese.
The largest Christian communities in Malaysia are in North Celebes and
on the island of Amboina. These are the result of the early labors of
the chaplains of the Dutch East India Company.
Among the Malays proper very little missionary work has been attempted
and practically nothing has been accomplished. From 1815 to 1843 the
London Missionary Society carried on work among the Malays at Penang,
Malacca, and Singapore, but then withdrew all their missionaries to
China, with the exception of Rev. B. P. Keasberry, who continued to work
among the Malays in Singapore as a self-supporting missionary until his
death, in 1872. He baptized a few Malays, both men and women, one or two
of whom are still living, but make no profession of Christianity. Within
the last twenty years we know of one Malay man and two or three women
who have been converted to Christianity and baptized in Singapore and
Penang, none of whom has gone back to Islam.
The extent to which polygamy is practised among the Malays depends very
greatly upon the amount which has to be paid as dowry, and this varies
very much in the different parts of the Peninsula and Eastern Sumatra.
Divorce, however, is common everywhere. In our personal intercourse with
the Malays, we have realized how very much the women resemble those of
other nationalities in their aspirations, but how useless it is for them
to try to make any real progress, because they are so tied by customs.
They say, "We must be content to live as we do, for we are powerless to
do otherwise." When they go out for walks they must be closely veiled
or covered, and must walk in front of the men, which seems courteous to
us until we are told the reason, which is that the men can watch them,
and see that they do not cast glances at other men. Many of the women
learn to read the Koran, and a few learn to read and write Malayan in
the government vernacular schools, but the latter is sometimes objected
to on the ground that the girls will write letters to men. It is very
difficult to get Malay girls to attend a Christian school, for fear they
might become Christians. The people living in the agricultural districts
seem to be happy and contented, and yet here polygamy is more common
than in the towns. The heart of the wife and mother is often burdened
because her husband has taken a second or third wife, when there is
little enough money for one family to live upon. As a rule the men do
not want their wives to know when they are taking new wives. They
usually say they are going away to work for a few days. We have been
asked to write letters to such husbands requesting money, and begging
the husband to return. Sometimes the answers to these letters contain
loving messages to the wife, asking her not to believe the stories told
her, but still he returns not, or worse still, no money comes. The wives
with tears streaming down their cheeks say, "How can his small wages
support three or four wives?" In one case a wife received a letter
saying that she could marry again, as the husband had decided to marry
another woman. We have been asked by such deserted wives to enclose love
potions or medicine in letters to win back the love of the husbands. The
love potions consist of the ashes of a piece of paper which has had some
words written on it and is afterwards burnt, the ashes being put in a
paper, enclosed in a letter and sent to a friend, who is requested to
put it in a cup of coffee, and give it to the wayward husband. One woman
whom we knew personally had been deserted by her husband; she lived in a
house by herself, and would not leave it for more than an hour at a
time, fearing her husband would return and accuse her of unfaithfulness.
She earned her living partly by taking in sewing, and her relatives
would help her as they could. A young girl was to be married to a man
who had a wife and family in another town. We asked the girl's mother if
she knew about this. She replied, "Yes, but he has fair wages; he can
support two wives." We enquired of a relative of the bridegroom's first
wife if she knew her husband was to be married again. She answered, "He
will not tell her, but I am sure she will feel it in her heart." In many
cases the deserted wives have to support the children, which they do by
sewing or making and selling cakes.
XXV
"WHAT WILT THOU HAVE ME TO DO?"
Those of us who have read the pages of this book right through to the
end, will find such words as are at the head of this chapter rise
involuntarily to our lips. What must we do?
Thank God, He has a plan. "He sent not His Son into the world to condemn
the world, but that the world through Him might be saved." "It is not
the will of your Father in Heaven that one of these little ones should
perish." Then let us all ask Him to teach us how these countless Moslem
women and girls may be saved. He can bless the old ways of work and He
can lead into new ways.
The following methods have been tried and each one is capable of further
development.
Women's medical work has removed prejudice and opened closed doors. We
should have many more women missionary doctors. We should also have many
qualified nurses, especially those skilled in midwifery. They are often
only summoned to attend difficult or dangerous cases, so that it is a
necessity to be _thoroughly efficient_, and they need to do the work in
a missionary spirit. Women's hospitals as a base of operations are
needed, so that those who cannot be attended to in their own homes,
with any hope of cure, may be admitted to the hospital. But there should
be associated with every nurse or doctor some workers who are wholly
given up to evangelistic work. Through lack of these much of the
influence of the medical missionary fails to accomplish its wished-for
result. The doctors and nurses feel this themselves strongly. The same
is felt everywhere amongst educational missionaries. The work of the
school needs to be followed up by the visit to the home. There are
countless doors open to the young wives who have been taught in school,
and who would delight in a visit from one of the mission ladies.
This might be done by older workers and we earnestly urge that women's
missionary boards and societies should be willing to receive women for
this department older than they can take for school or medical work. The
language is learnt through constant intercourse with the women. If older
women who could meet their own expenses might be allowed to give
themselves solely to this evangelistic work, we believe that a large
increase would be made to our missionary force.
[Illustration: A CRY OF DISTRESS FROM ALGIERS]
Women's settlements are only beginning to be tried in different parts of
the field, but we believe that this method would be found very helpful
both in towns and villages, but especially in the villages. The thought
is, to have a group of about four workers and one or two native helpers
living together, composing a women's household, into which the Moslem
women may freely come without fear of meeting any men. These settlements
should be within easy reach of an ordinary mission station, so that the
work should be part of the whole, and the husbands should be cared for
by others at the same time. School, medical, and evangelistic work may
all be done from a settlement.