Woman and Her Saviour in Persia / By a Returned Missionary

by Thomas Laurie

THE SCENE OF THE NARRATIVE.

NESTORIANS.—THEIR COUNTRY.—FRONTISPIECE.—LAKE.—PLAIN.—FORDING THE SHAHER.—MISSION PREMISES IN OROOMIAH.

We will now glance at the scene of the events to be narrated, as it may not be familiar to every reader. To write of woman in Persia would embrace the whole empire as the field of inquiry; for the existence of woman is coextensive with the population. But "Woman and her Saviour in Persia" confines our attention to those who have been taught the truth as it is in Jesus; for when Christ sent forth Paul to preach his gospel to the Gentiles, it was that they might receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them who are sanctified by faith that is in him; and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? Our theme, then, confines us to the Nestorians, who number about one hundred thousand souls. About two thirds of these live in Turkey; but the following pages relate principally to those residing in Persia, and hence the title of the volume.

This people inhabit, along with Koords and other races, the territory extending from the western shore of the Lake of Oroomiah to the eastern bank of the Tigris. It includes the Persian province of Oroomiah, and both the eastern and western slope of Central Koordistan. The most inaccessible recesses of the Koordish Mountains have been their refuge for centuries. The whole region extends across four degrees of longitude, with a varying breadth of from one to two degrees of latitude. Attention will be called especially to the city of Oroomiah and the villages around it. The plain of that name is seventy-five miles long and from twelve to twenty miles in width, containing more than a thousand square miles. It is dotted with perhaps three hundred villages, the population varying, according to the size of the village, from less than one hundred to more than a thousand inhabitants.

The frontispiece gives a view of this plain, from the roof of the mission premises at Seir, one thousand feet above the city. The lofty Wolf mountain appears on the right, and the high range west of the narrowest part of the lake on the left. The lake itself is seen beyond the plain at the foot of the mountains which rise abruptly from its eastern shore. The distance makes it seem much narrower than it is, for while one hundred miles in length, it is not far from thirty miles in breadth. Its surface is forty-one hundred feet above the sea, and four hundred feet below the city of Oroomiah. No living thing exists in its waters, which are both salt and bituminous.

The plain is more crowded with villages than here represented, and each one is made conspicuous by its grove of trees, as well as its houses. The city appears prominent at the foot of the hill, though six miles distant from the spectator. It is in the same latitude with Richmond, Virginia, and contains about thirty-five thousand souls. The plain slopes up very gradually from the lake, and Mount Seir rises, behind our point of view, two thousand eight hundred and thirty-four feet above the city. Farther west, the summits of Central Koordistan rise, range above range, to the height of seventeen thousand feet.

We pass down from Seir to the city by a carriage road, now by the side of vineyards, and now near fields of wheat and clover, diversified by orchards and gardens of cucumbers. All of these, and indeed the whole plain, owes its fertility to canals, led out from the rivers which descend from the mountains. Willow, poplar, and sycamore trees line these watercourses. All kinds of fruit trees abound, while the rich verdure of the plain contrasts strikingly with the bare declivities that overlook it from every side. The villages on either hand are clusters of mud houses crowded together for greater security, and every tree in their groves has to be watered as regularly as the fields and gardens.

Before reaching the city we must ford the Shaher, a river that, though frequently all drained off into the fields in summer, is very deep in early spring, when fatal accidents sometimes occur. It was here that, in May, 1846, Miss Fiske narrowly escaped a watery grave. On her way to Seir, with Mr. and Mrs. Stoddard, the horse lay down in the middle of the river, leaving her to be swept off by the rapid current. Mr. Stoddard hastened to the rescue; but the moment his steed was loose, he rushed to attack the horse of Mrs. Stoddard, and, as Miss Fiske rose to the surface, she caught a glimpse of Mr. Stoddard looking back on the battle, and his wife held between the combatants by her riding habit, which had caught on the saddle; but while she looked the dress gave way, and Mrs. Stoddard was safe. She herself had sufficient presence of mind not to breathe under water, and, on coming up for the fifth time, floated into shallow water near the opposite shore, forty rods below the ford, just as Mr. Stoddard reached the same point.

From the river, beautiful orchards line the road on both sides to the city gate, of which a representation is given on page 154; and about one eighth of a mile inside of that, where the Nestorian and Moslem sections of the city join each other, stand the mission premises, built of sun-dried bricks, like the houses around them.

They occupy a little more than an acre, in the form of a parallelogram; and if, for the sake of clearness, we compare it to a window, the bottom of the lower sash is represented by a long, earthen-roofed structure, half of it a dwelling house, once the home of Dr. Grant, but now the dwelling of Dr. Wright. It is the building on the left of the engraving at page 131, and the round object occupying the nearest window in the second story is a clock, the gift of a well-known merchant of Boston, brother of one of our deceased missionaries. Let our lower sash be filled by two large panes in modern style, and these are represented by two courts surrounded by pavements, and shaded by large sycamore trees. In the engraving just referred to, the spectator stands in one of these courts, looking over a low wall into the other. For the top of the lower sash, we have another building, extending across the premises. The left half of this appearing on page 131, behind the trees, and on the opposite page represented without them, was the first home of Dr. Perkins, and is now the Female Seminary; but repeated additions and modifications have been required to transform a building, originally erected for a private residence, into a structure suitable for such a school.

Miss Fiske first taught in one room of a building to the right, which does not appear in the engraving, though a part of it is seen on page 131; then, as the school grew larger, another room was added, and when those quarters became too strait, this building was remodelled for its use.

[Illustration: Female seminary at Oboomiah]

As we shall have a good deal to do with the Seminary in these pages, let us become familiar with its home. Between the central door and the one on the left, those three windows belong to a large room once used as a chapel, but since then as a guest room for the accommodation of the women whom we shall see coming here to learn of Jesus. In this room, Nestorian converts first partook of the Lord's supper with the missionaries. The left of the three windows directly over these, with the rose-bush in it, belongs to Miss Fiske's private room, and the other two to her sitting room. This the pupils have named "The Bethel," and it is so connected that the teacher can step into recitation room, dining room, or kitchen, as occasion requires. The last named apartment is on the rear of the building. The largest recitation room, by a curious necessity, is in the form of a carpenter's wooden square, with the teacher's desk in the angle between the two compartments. One of these is on the back side of the building, out of sight; the other, extending across the end, is represented in front by the window at the extreme left.

Over the central door is, first, the steward's room, and then closets over that; for one of the results of the successive alterations and additions is, that parts of the building are two, and other parts three, stories high. Miss Rice's room is directly over the door on the left hand, as the steward's is here. The three windows in the second story, to the right of the two central closets, open into the dining room, and one of the girls' rooms occupies the corner beyond. On the lower floor, going from the central door to the right, is first a closet, and then a large guest room for visitors; and underneath the whole is the cellar where the boys' school was first taught, that has since grown into the Male Seminary at Seir.

The rooms of the pupils are mostly in the rear. These are large enough to accommodate six or eight occupants, as the Oriental style of living does not require so much furniture as ours. In each room is a member of the senior class, who exercises a kind supervision over her younger companions. Every room has two or more closets, designed especially, but not exclusively, for devotion; and some sleep in the recitation rooms, as such a use of them at night does not interfere with other uses during the day.

But we had almost forgotten our imaginary window, the upper sash of which remains to be described. In that we have only one pane, representing a large court, with the chapel on one side, and the wash rooms and other outbuildings of the Seminary on the other. This court is more garden-like than the other two, has fewer trees, and a long arbor, covered with grape vines, forms a covered walk in the middle of it. It was in this arbor that the tables were spread for the collation in 1850, to be described hereafter. This court is invaluable as a place for out-door exercise, where the pupils may enjoy the fresh air, free from the annoyances and exposures of the streets in an Oriental city.

A stream is led through all these courts in a channel lined with stone. Its murmuring waters are a pleasant sound at early dawn, when they mingle sweetly with the morning song of birds. Here many Nestorian women come to fill their earthen pitchers, as the water is not carried through the courts of Christian houses. The mission premises belonged to Mohammedans; and here, in the shade of the tall sycamores, Mrs. Grant used to sit, with her children, and talk with the women who came for water. Her successors find time to continue the same practice, and as the natives let down their pitchers (Gen. xxiv. 18), and now and then one is broken (Eccles. xii. 6), realize that they live in a Bible land, and seek to make its daughters feel the power of Bible truth.

The Seminary is outwardly very humble, and would contrast very unfavorably with the stately edifices of similar institutions at home. But we shall see that the Saviour has not disdained to honor it with his presence, and its earthen floors and mud walls[1] have witnessed many a gracious visit of the Holy Spirit. Though the glory of Lebanon has not come unto it, yet has God himself beautified the place and made it glorious. [Footnote 1: The pilasters in the engraving are made of brick, and not only support the large timbers of the roof, but, by their greater projection, protect the softer material of the wall from the weather. The whole is plastered outside with a mixture of lime and clay, that requires frequent renewal.]