The birth of a son is the occasion of great rejoicing and presents to the family. But the birth of a daughter is considered a misfortune, and of course not the slightest notice is taken of so inauspicious an event. This holds true among all the sects and peoples of Syria, and nothing but a Christian training and the inculcation of the pure principles of gospel morality can remove this deeply seated prejudice. The people say the reason of their dislike of daughters is that while a son builds up the house, and brings in a wife from without and perpetuates the family name, the daughter pulls down the house, loses her name, and is lost to the family.
The wealthier and more aristocratic Druze sitts or ladies are taught to read by the Fakih or teacher, but the masses of the women are in brutish ignorance. You enter a Druze house. The woman waits upon you and brings coffee, but you see only one eye, the rest of the head and face being closely veiled. In an aristocratic house, you would never be allowed to see the lady, and if she goes abroad, it is only at night, and with attendants on every side to keep off the profane gaze of strangers. If a physician is called to attend a sick Druze woman, he cannot see her face nor her tongue, unless she choose to thrust it through a hole in her veil. In many cases they suffer a woman to die sooner than have her face seen by a physician.
The Druzes marry but one wife at a time, and yet divorce is so common and so heartlessly practiced by the men, that the poor women live in constant fear of being driven from their homes.
In Abeih, we were startled one evening by the cry "Rouse ye men of self respect! Come and help us!" It was a dark, rainy night, and the earthen roof of a Druze house had fallen in, burying a young man, his wife and his mother, under the mass of earth, stones and timber. They all escaped death, but were seriously injured, the poor young wife suffering the most of all, having fallen with her left arm in a bed of burning coals, and having been compelled to lie there half an hour, so that when dug out, her hand was burned to a cinder! For several days the husband refused to send for a doctor, but at length his wife Hala was sent to the College Hospital (of the Prussian Knights of St. John) in Beirût where Dr. Post amputated the hand below the elbow.
One would naturally suppose that such a calamity, in which both so narrowly escaped death, would bind husband and wife together in the strongest bonds of affection and sympathy. But not so in this case. The poor young wife is now threatened with divorce, because she is no longer of any use to her husband, and her two little children are to be taken from her! She lies on her bed in the Hospital, the very picture of stoical resignation. Not a groan or complaint escapes her.
She said one day, "Oh how glad I am that this happened, for it has taken away all my sins, and I shall never have to suffer again in this world or the next!" This is the doctrine of the Druzes, and, cold and false as it is, she has made it her support and her stay.
Dr. Post and Mrs. Bliss have pointed her to the Lamb of God "who bore our sins in His own body on the tree," and she seems interested to hear and learn more.
Her younger sister is in the Beirût Seminary. May this poor sufferer find peace where alone it can be found, in trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ, whose blood cleanseth from all sin!
The cruelty of her husband, sanctioned as it is by the religious code of the Druzes, may be the means of opening her eyes to the falsity of that heartless Christless system, and lead her to the foot of the Cross!
Christians, who read these lines, pray for Hala of Abeih!