Woman and Her Saviour in Persia / By a Returned Missionary

by Thomas Laurie

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.