The Women of the Arabs

by Henry Harris Jessup

LUCIYA SHEKKUR.

The work done for Christ and for Syrian girls in the families of Missionaries in Syria, may well compare with that done in the established institutions of learning. Mrs. Whiting was not alone in the work of training native Arab girls in her own home. The same work had been done by other Missionaries before her, and has been carried on with no little success by Mrs. Bird, Mrs. Calhoun and others, up to the present time.

It is an interesting sight to see the Thursday afternoon Women's meeting in the house of Mrs. Calhoun in Abeih, and to know that a large part of that company of bright, intelligent and tidily dressed young native women, who listen so intently to the Bible lesson, and join so heartily in singing the sweet songs of Zion, were trained up either in her own family, or under her own especial influence. By means of her own example in the training of her children, she has taught the women of Abeih, and through them multitudes of women in other villages, the true Christian modes of family government and discipline, and introduced to their notice and practice many of those little conveniences and habits in the training of children, whose influence will be felt for many generations.

When Mr. and Mrs. Bird removed to Deir el Komr in 1855, they not only opened a large school for the education of girls, with Sada Haleby, one of Dr. De Forest's pupils, as teacher, but received into their own family three young girls, named Lucîya, Sikkar and Zihry, all of whom entered upon spheres of usefulness. Zihry became a teacher, in Deir el Komr, and has continued to teach until the present time. She was at one time connected with the Beirût Female Seminary, and is now teaching in the Institution of Mrs. Shrimpton, under the auspices of the British Syrian Schools.

Luciya taught in Deir el Komr until the school was overwhelmed in the fires and blood of the Massacre year, 1860.

In 1862 she taught in the Sidon School, and afterwards married the Rev. Sulleba Jerwan, the first native pastor in Hums. In that great city, and amid the growing interest of the young Protestant community, she found a wide and attractive field of labor. She was a young woman of great gentleness and delicacy of nature, and of strong religious feeling, and entered upon the work of laboring among the women and girls of Hums, with exemplary zeal and discretion. She became greatly beloved, and her Godly example and gentle spirit will never be forgotten.

But at length her labors were abruptly cut short. Consumption, a disease little known in Syria, but which afterwards cut down her brother and only sister Sikkar, fastened upon her, and she was obliged, in great suffering, to leave the raw and windy climate of Hums, for the milder air of Beirût. Her two brothers being in the employ of Miss Whately in Cairo, she went, on their invitation, to Egypt, where after a painful illness, she fell asleep in Jesus. Amid all her sufferings, she maintained that same gentle and lovely temper of mind, which made her so greatly beloved by all who knew her.

She has rested from her labors, and her works do follow her. Not long after her sister Sikkar, who had also been trained in Mrs. Bird's family, died in her native village Ain Zehalteh.

Her last end also, was peace, and although no concourse of Druze Sheikhs came barefoot over the snow to her funeral, as they did on the death of the Sitt Selma, in the same village, no doubt a concourse of higher and holier beings attended her spirit to glory.

When Luciya was in Beirût before her departure to Egypt, I used to see her frequently, and I shall never forget the calm composure with which she spoke of her anticipated release from the pains and sufferings of life. Christ was her portion, and she lived in communion with him, certain that ere long she should depart and be with him forever.