The Women of the Arabs

by Henry Harris Jessup

MIRIAM THE ALEPPINE.

The city of Aleppo was occupied as a Station of the Syria Mission for many years, until finally in 1855 it was left to the Turkish-speaking missionaries of the Central Turkey Mission. It is one of the most difficult fields of labor in Turkey, but has not been unfruitful of genuine instances of saving faith in Christ. Among them is the case of Miriam Nahass, (or Mary Coppersmith,) now Miriam Sarkees of Beirût.

From a letter published in the Youth's Dayspring at the time, I have gathered the following facts:

In 1853 and 1854 the Missionaries in Aleppo, Messrs. Ford and Eddy, opened a small private school for girls, the teacher of which was Miriam Nahass. When the Missionaries first came to Aleppo, her father professed to be a Protestant, and on this account suffered not a little persecution from the Greek Catholic priests. At times he was on the point of starvation, as the people were forbidden to buy of him or sell to him. One day he brought his little daughter Miriam to the missionaries, and asked them to take her and instruct her in all that is good, which they gladly undertook, and her gentle pleasant ways soon won their love.

Her mother was a superstitious woman, who hated the missionaries, and could not bear to have her daughter stay with them. She used for a long time to come almost daily to their house and bitterly complain against them and against her husband for robbing her of her daughter. She would rave at times in the wildest passion, and sometimes she would weep as if broken-hearted; not because she loved her child so much, but because she did not like to have her neighbors say to her, "Ah! You have let your child become a Protestant!"

It may well be supposed that this was very annoying to the missionary who had her in special charge, and so it was; but he found some profit in it. He was just then learning to speak the language, and this woman by her daily talk, taught him a kind of Arabic, and a use of it, not to be obtained from grammars and dictionaries. He traced much of his ready command of the language to having been compelled to listen so often to the wearisome harangues of Miriam's mother. Sometimes the father would be overcome by the mother's entreaties and would take away the girl, but after awhile he would bring her back again, to the great joy of those who feared they had lost her altogether. This state of things continued two or three years, while Miriam's mind was daily improving and her character unfolding, and hopes were often entertained that the Spirit of God was carrying on a work of grace in her soul.

One day her father came to the missionary, and asked him to loan him several thousand piastres (a thousand piastres is $40,) with which he might set up business. This was of course refused, when he went away greatly enraged. He soon returned and took away his daughter, saying that Protestantism did not pay what it cost. It had cost him the loss of property and reputation; it had cost him the peace of his household and the presence of his little girl, and it did not bring in to him in return even the loan of a few piastres, and he would try it no longer. Prayer continued to be offered without ceasing for Miriam, thus taken back to an irreligious home; and though the missionaries heard of her return and her father's return to the corrupt Greek Catholic Church, and of the exultation of the mother over the attainment of her wishes, yet they did not cease to hope that God would one day bring her back and make her a lamb of His fold.

An Arab young woman, Melita, trained in the family of Mrs. Whiting in Beirût, was sent to Aleppo about this time to open a girls' school there. The Greek Catholic priests then thought to establish a similar school of their own sect to prevent their children from attending that of the Protestants. They secured Miriam as their teacher. As she went from her home to the school and back again, she used sometimes to run into the missionary's house by stealth, and assure him that her heart was still with him, and her faith unchanged. The school continued a few weeks, but the priests having failed to pay anything towards its support, her father would let her teach no more. Perhaps two years passed thus, with but little being seen of Miriam, but she was not forgotten at the throne of grace.

The teacher from Beirût having returned to her home, it was proposed to Miriam's father that she should teach in the Protestant school. Quite unexpectedly he consented, with the understanding that she was to spend every evening at home. At first, little was said to her on the subject of religion; soon she sought religious conversation herself, and brought questions and different passages of Scripture to be explained. After about a month, having previously conversed with the missionary about her duty, when her father came for her at night, she told him that she did not want to go home with him, but to stay where she was. She ought to obey God rather than her parents. They had made her act the part of a hypocrite long enough; to pretend to be a Catholic when she was a Protestant at heart, and they knew that she was. Her father promised that everything should be according to her wishes, and then she returned with him.