The Women of the Arabs

by Henry Harris Jessup

In August of the year 1861, the Deaconesses had received about 110 orphans. The children entering are received for three years, and the surviving parent or guardian is required to sign a bond, agreeing to leave the child for that period, or if the child is withdrawn before that time, to pay to the Deaconesses all that has been expended upon her.

In the summer of 1861, several of the parents came and tried to remove their children, though they had no means of supporting them, but the contract stood in the way, and they had no money to pay. The Jesuits then came forward and furnished the parents with French gold in Napoleons, and withdrew in one day fifty orphan girls from the institution, sending them, not to an institution of their own, but turning them back upon their wretched parents and friends to be trained in poverty and ignorance. A few days later, thirty more of the girls were removed in the same way, leaving only thirty. The parents had a legal right to remove the children on the payment of the money, but what shall be said of the cruelty of the Jesuits who turned back these wretched children to the destitution and misery of a Syrian orphan? The Jesuits are the same everywhere, unscrupulous and intriguing, counting all means as right, which promote their own end.

THE BRITISH SYRIAN SCHOOLS.

These Schools, so numerous and widely extended, have grown up since the massacre year 1860. I remember well the first arrival of Mrs. Bowen Thompson in Beirût, and her persevering energy in forming her little school for the widows and orphans of Hasbeiya, Deir el Komr and Damascus.

From that little beginning in 1860, the school increased the following year, until finally other branch schools were organized in Beirût and Lebanon, and then in Damascus and Tyre, until now, the following schedule, furnished to me by the officers of the Institution, will show to what proportions the enterprise has grown. The Memoir of Mrs. Thompson, entitled "The Daughters of Syria," gives so full a history of these schools, that I need only refer the reader to that volume for all the information desired. Since the lamented death of Mrs. Thompson, the direction of the schools has been entrusted to her sister, Mrs. Mentor Mott. The Central Training School in Beirût was under the care of Mrs. Shrimpton, who labored with great earnestness and wisdom in that important institution until the spring of 1873, when she resigned her position and became connected with the work of Female education under the American mission in Syria. She was aided by English and native teachers. The schools in Zahleh, Damascus, Hasbeiya and Tyre are under the care of English and Scotch ladies, who have certainly evinced the most admirable courage and resolution in entering, in several of these places, upon outpost duty, without European society, and isolated for months together from persons speaking their own language. I believe that such instances as these have demonstrated anew the fact that where woman is to be reached, woman can go, and Christian women from Christian lands, even if beyond the age generally fixed as the best adapted to the easy acquisition of a foreign language, may yet do a great work in maintaining centres of influence at the outposts, and superintending the labors of native teachers. These young native teachers trained in Shemlan, Sidon, Suk el Ghurb and Beirût, cannot go to distant places as teachers, and ought not to go, without a home and proper protection provided for them. Such protection is given by a European or American woman, who has the independence and the resolution to go where no missionary family resides, and carry on the work of female education. Even at the risk of offending the modesty of the persons concerned, I cannot refrain from putting on record my admiration of the course of Miss Wilson in Zahleh, Miss Gibbon in Hasbeiya, and Miss Williams in Tyre, in making homes for themselves, and carrying on their work far from European society and intercourse.

The British Syrian Schools are doing a good work in promoting Bible education. Many of the native teachers, male and female, have been trained in our Mission Seminaries, and not a few of them are members of our evangelical churches. It has always been my aim, from the time when Mrs. Bowen Thompson first landed in Syria to the present time, to do all in my power to "help those women which labored with me in the gospel."

We are engaged in a common work, surrounded by thousands of needy perishing souls, Mohammedan, Pagan and Nominal Christian. The work is pressing, and the Lord's husbandmen ought to work together, forgetting and ignoring all diversities of nationality, denomination and social customs. There should be no such word as American, English, Scotch or German, attached to any enterprise that belongs to the common Master. The common foe is united in opposition. Let us be united in every practicable way. Let our name be Christian, our work one of united sympathy, prayer and coöperation, and let not Christ be divided in His members. I write these words in connection with the subject of the British Syrian Schools, because I can speak from experience of the value of such coöperation in the past. As Acting Pastor of the Native Evangelical Church in Beirût, to the communion of which I have received so many young teachers and pupils from the various Seminaries and schools, I feel the great importance of this hearty coöperation and unity of action among those who are at the head of the various Protestant Educational Institutions in Syria.

The Emissaries of Rome are laboring with sleepless vigilance to win Syria to the Papacy. Sisters of Charity, Sisters of Nazareth, Jesuits, Lazarists, Capuchins, Dominicans, and Franciscans, monks, nuns and papal legates, are swarming throughout the land. Though notoriously jealous of each other's progress, they are always united in their common opposition to the Evangelical faith, and an open Bible. We have thus not only the old colossal fortresses of Syrian error to demolish, but the new structures of Jesuitical craft to overturn, before Syria comes to Christ.

It has been stated on a preceding page that in 1835, the American wife of an English merchant, Mrs. Alexander Tod, gave a large part of the funds to build the first school-house for girls ever built in Syria. That substantial union has been happily reproduced in the cordial coöperation of the Anglo-American and German communities in Beirût, both in the Church, public charities and educational institutions, up to the present time.

Let us all live in Christ, work for Christ, keep our eye fixed on Christ, and we shall be with Christ, and Christ with us!