PERSONAL FRIENDS
It was one of the most delightful phases of our experience in charge of
the boys' school to find how closely the ties of love to the boys bound
them to our hearts, and to realize that with many of them it was no mere
oriental compliment when they called us their father and mother. There
are many of those lads, now growing to manhood, in whose successes we
take a parental pride, and for whose growth in all that is good and true
we pray, with parental earnestness. Among the many preachers and
teachers in all the churches and schools, we count many as most truly
our brethren and fellow workers for the Master. There are very many
Syrians in all parts of America, as well as in this land, of whom we
think in terms of truest brotherhood. It is with no sense of
disparagement to the multitude that I have selected three of the elders
in our churches for special mention. It has seemed to me, as I look back
over their lives, that there are some specially suggestive elements in
the way the Lord has led them and blessed them, which are worthy of
special note. At the same time these experiences have brought all three
into specially close relations with myself personally. I shall mention
them in the order of the commencement of my acquaintance with them.
In 1885, before I entered the mission, I was for a few months in Syria,
merely as a visitor. It happened that the College in Beirut was
short-handed that year, and in need of an additional teacher. Dr. Bliss
asked me to help them out and so I became for two months a member of the
teaching force in the preparatory department. During this time I made
the acquaintance of a lad in the senior class of that department, named
Towfik Sallum. He was a quiet, studious lad, who made no trouble and was
always busy with his books or seeking to increase his English
vocabulary. In the brief time of my remaining in the college, my
acquaintance was slight and the memory of this boy would have passed
from my mind, had there been no subsequent association. When I became a
member of the Tripoli Station and made the acquaintance of the various
workers in the field, I found that this lad was the brother of the
preacher in Hamath. Their father had been the first preacher in that
church, and upon his death the eldest son had succeeded to his father's
position in the church, as well as to the parental responsibility for
the care and training of his younger brothers. Towfik spent some years
in the service of the mission as teacher, in intervals of his college
course. In 1892 he was graduated with honor, and in 1896 took his degree
in medicine also. He settled at once in Hamath, where he was well known
personally, and where his family associations made a valuable
professional asset. The conditions of life in ancient Hamath are
exceedingly primitive and only a small portion of the population have
any intelligent appreciation of the value of modern medicine.
Perseverance and tact won their way and a valuable practice was built
up. With increasing years and widening acquaintance, the doctor became
generally known, universally trusted, and highly respected in government
circles as well as among the people. In case the governor wished a
reliable report on any case of attack or murder, he was sure to send Dr.
Sallum to investigate. He was to be trusted to tell the truth.
When the new constitution was promulgated in 1908, it was provided that
all religious sects were to be entitled to representation in the local
administrative courts in rotation, irrespective of the size of those
bodies. Formerly only the largest of the Christian sects had been
allowed representation. This provision gave the Protestants a right to
civil equality and they put forward Dr. Sallum as their representative.
He was accepted, and served most creditably for the term of two years.
It was then the turn of the Catholic sect to have a representative, and
the heads of the various bodies were summoned by the governor to arrange
for the choice of the new member. The governor explained the situation
and said that as the Protestants had held the office for two years, it
was now the right of the Catholics to choose a representative to succeed
the Protestant member. Then, turning to the Catholic priest, he said,
"If you have a candidate who is more capable than Dr. Sallum or who is
his equal, we shall be glad to welcome him, but if not, I should advise
you to ask him to continue in office, acting now as representative of
the Catholics." The priest replied most cordially that his sect would be
delighted to be represented by Dr. Sallum, if he would consent. In this
way the doctor has become practically a permanent member of the
governor's council, acting alternately for the Protestants and the
Catholics. At the same time the proud member of the large Greek Orthodox
sect has to give place every two years to the member chosen by the
Jacobite church.
In 1892 I was in Homs for the administration of the sacraments. Among
those who came in on Saturday evening was Mr. Rafool Nasser, a young man
who had not been long identified with the Protestant church. He told me
that he wished to have his little girl baptized the next day. He had
been married for several years and this was the first child, so the
occasion was one of more than usual joy. The next morning, before the
service began, I saw Mr. Nasser come in and take a seat quite at the
back of the church, contrary to his usual custom. He seemed depressed
and I wondered what had occurred. When the time came for baptisms he
made no move to come forward and so I proceeded with the children who
were presented. At the close of the service I inquired into the matter,
and learned that Mr. Nasser had informed his wife the evening before
that the little girl was to be baptized the next day. His wife then
informed him that she had already had the child baptized secretly by the
priest. This explained the depression I had noticed in the father's
face. Two years later the parents stood together while I baptized the
second child, and all the others have been presented without question
for the rite of baptism. This was the beginning of my acquaintance with
Mr. Nasser, with whom I have been somewhat intimate in recent years.
He was a man of prominent family in Homs and has been highly prospered
in business, having become one of the most substantial men of the city.
Most of the successful men of Homs owe their prosperity to business
conducted in Egypt. They spend the winters in Egypt, advancing money to
the peasants on their cotton crops and also furnishing them certain
classes of imported goods on credit. It has been a profitable business,
even to those who have not been led away by the temptation of avarice to
impose on the simplicity of the Egyptian peasant. On one occasion I was
talking to Mr. Nasser about the high standards of morality obligatory on
the true Christian merchant. He then told me the following incident in
the simplest manner. As a young man he started with his cousin on a very
small capital. They invested their cash capital in stock for their
little store, purchasing so far as they could on credit. Mr. Nasser
returned to Homs, leaving his cousin in charge of the business in Egypt.
Scarcely had he reached home when word came of the complete destruction
of their store and all its contents by fire. It was a heavy blow for the
young men, and the first impulse was to go through bankruptcy, settle up
as well as they could and give up the enterprise. Friends and creditors
came to their help and volunteered to scale down their claims and
furnish new capital for the two men to start again. They were prospered
from the beginning. After some years Mr. Rafool Nasser decided that he
was unwilling to have the friends who were so kind to him suffer from
the old loss. He wrote to his cousin, saying that he had no wish to
control his partner's action, but asking him to pay off his share of
those old losses carried by their friends after the fire, and charge the
amount against his personal account. The cousin wrote back, "Whatever
you do, I shall do also." In the light of this incident, will anyone say
that commercial honor is confined to the West?
There was a long period of hesitation, after Mr. Nasser was convinced
intellectually of the truth of the evangelical faith, before he joined
the Church. He has explained this to me in the following way: He knew
that if he gave in his adherence to the Protestant doctrine, his
conscience would require him to give far more of his possessions than he
had been accustomed to do in the Greek church. It took a long time to
bring his will to yield. In fact, his head was reached before his purse
was opened. He gave up the conflict at last and then said, in closing
the account of his experience, "I've gotten way beyond that now, for I
have learned the joy of giving." He is not a millionaire, but the Lord
has blessed him with considerable property, and he recognizes his
position as that of steward. He has been the leading spirit in the
enterprises of the Homs church, spoken of in another place.
About the end of the year 1895, I was sitting one evening in my study
when the bell rang, and one of my neighbors, Mr. Yusuf Faris, entered.
He laid on my desk a bundle of Turkish silver dollars, amounting to some
thirty dollars American money. He said he had been looking over his
accounts for the year and found this balance in his tithe account, and
so he wished me to use it for him in a way that he indicated, in the
furtherance of the Lord's business. This was a little matter, but it was
a true index to the man. A few years previous to this he had moved to
the city from a neighboring village. Among his motives for this move was
to avoid being forced into a political position he felt to be
inconsistent with his new position as a Protestant Christian. He decided
to open a dry-goods store in the city, but was unwilling to conduct
business in the ordinary way of the country. He rented a very small shop
and brought his stock of goods from Beirut. He decided upon a fair
profit, and set his price on the goods. People were not accustomed to
this method and so were slow to buy from the new shop. When they found
him unvarying in his prices, they went away to buy elsewhere, getting,
perhaps, an inferior article at a slightly lower price. Mr. Faris had
his full share of determination and was not to be turned back from the
course upon which he had decided. He had an unfailingly pleasant manner
with everyone, and showed no resentment at those who bought elsewhere.
For months the sales in this little shop were not enough to pay the
rent, but there was no change of policy. Gradually people began to
compare more carefully and discovered that in no case were they able to
buy the same quality of goods elsewhere for less than Mr. Faris' first
price. They began to realize that it was a distinct saving of time and
temper to avoid the long haggling over prices to which they had been
accustomed. By degrees they began to buy from Mr. Faris, and it was not
long before some of the country shopkeepers would come to him with a
list of goods and ask to have them put up without even asking the
prices. Business grew, a larger shop was necessary, two shops, three
shops, until at present his goods fill three large storerooms, while a
fourth is necessary for his office and bookkeeping. Two months seldom
pass, and often less than a month, between trips to Beirut for fresh
goods, and he and his three grown sons are kept busy handling the
undertaking.
In every good enterprise, in Tripoli, or in presbytery, Mr. Yusuf Faris
is a leader, with clear advice and generous subscriptions. When the home
mission work of the presbytery was organized, he was one of the leaders,
and has continued to be the main support of the work. When the plans for
the Tripoli Boys' School were under consideration and there was some
danger that lack of money and other considerations might necessitate the
removal of the school from Tripoli, Mr. Faris and his sons came forward
with a generous offer of financial help, during a period of years
aggregating nearly eighteen hundred dollars. This made him the third
largest individual donor and we were glad to place his picture among
those on the wall of the school reception room. In all the intercourse
of these years, while watching the growth and development of character
in this man, there has grown in my own heart a strength of personal
attachment such as I have seldom felt for any other in America or in
Syria.