The Women of the Arabs

by Henry Harris Jessup

Miriam, the teacher, is a heroine. Her parents were Greeks, but sent her to school to learn to read. She learned in a short time to read the New Testament, and to love it, and to keep the Sabbath day holy. The keeping of the Sabbath was something new in Safita. The Nusairîyeh have no holy day at all, and the Greeks have so many that they keep none of them. They work and buy and sell and travel on the Sabbath as on other days, and think far more of certain saint's days than of the Sabbath. When Miriam was only seven years old, her father said to her one Sabbath morning, "go with me to the hursh (forest) to get a donkey load of wood." She replied, "my father, I cannot go, it is not right, for it is God's day." The father went without her, and while cutting wood, his donkey strayed away, and he had to search through the mountains for hours, so that he did not reach home until twelve o'clock at night, and then without any wood. He said he should not go for wood on Sunday any more.

But a few Sundays after, it was the olive season, and Miriam's mother told her to go out with the women and girls to gather olives. They had been at work during the week, and the mother thought Miriam ought to go on Sunday with the rest. But Miriam said, "don't you remember father's losing the donkey, and what he said about it? I cannot go." "Then," said her mother, "if you will not work, you shall not eat." "Very well, ya imme, I will not eat. If I keep the Lord's day, He will keep me." Away went the mother to the olive orchard, and Miriam went to the preaching and the Sunday School. At evening, when the family all came home, Miriam read in her New Testament and went to bed without her supper. The next morning she said, "Mother, now I am ready to gather olives. Didn't I tell you the Lord would keep me?"

After this Miriam's father became a Protestant, and allowed the missionaries to send her to the Seminary in Sidon, where she was the best girl in the school. When she went home in the vacation in 1869, new persecutions were stirred up against the Protestants. The Greek Bishop, with a crowd of priests and a body of armed horsemen, came to the village, to compel all the Protestants to turn back to the old religion. The armed men went to the Protestant houses and seized men and women and dragged them to the great Burj, in which is the Greek church. Miriam's father and mother were greatly terrified and went back with them to the Greeks. They then called for Miriam. "Never," said she to the Bishop, "I will never worship pictures and pray to saints again. You may cut me in pieces, but I will not stir one step with them." The old Bishop turned back, and left her to herself. Near by was a man named Abû Isbir, who was so frightened that he said, "yes, I will go back, don't strike me!" But his wife, Im Isbir, was not willing to give up. She rebuked her husband and took hold of his arm, and actually dragged him back to his house, to save him the shame of having denied the Gospel. He stood firm, and afterwards united with the Church.

Here comes Im Isbir. Poor woman, she is a widow now. Her husband died and left her with these little children, and last night her valuable cow died, and she is in great distress. Yusef, the preacher, says she is the most needy person in Safita. You would think so from the ragged appearance of the children. They are like the children in Eastern Turkey, whom Mr. Williams of Mardin used to describe, whose garments were so ragged and tattered that there was hardly cloth enough to make borders for the holes! They dig up roots in the fields for food, and now and then the neighbors give them a little of their coarse corn bread. The Greeks tell her to turn back to them and they will help her, but she says, "when one has found the light, can she turn back into the darkness again?" Yusef wishes us to walk in and sit down, as the people are anxious to see us. He lives in the church from necessity. He cannot get a house in the village, excepting these dark cavern-like rooms with damp floors, and so the missionaries told him to occupy one half of the church room. A curtain divides it into two rooms and on Sunday the curtain is drawn, his things are piled up on one side, and the women and girls sit in that part, while the men and boys sit on the other side. All sit on mats on the floor. Is that cradle hanging from the ring in the arch between the two rooms, kept there on Sunday? Yes, and when I preached here last June, Yusef's baby was swinging there during the whole service. One of the women kept it swinging gently, by pulling a cord, which hung down from it. It did not disturb the meeting at all. No one noticed it. They have calves and cows, donkeys and goats in their own houses at night, and sleep sweetly enough, so that the swinging of a hanging cradle in the inside of the church is not thought to be at all improper.

Do you see that shelf on the wall? It reminds me of a little girl named Miriam who once came to your Aunt Annie in Deir Mimas to ask about the Sidon school, whither she was going in a few weeks. She told Miriam that she would have to be thoroughly washed and combed every day, and would sleep on a bedstead. Then Miriam asked permission to see a bedstead, as she did not know what it could be. The next night, about midnight, Miriam's mother heard something drop heavily on the floor, and then a child crying. She went across the room, and there was Miriam sitting on the mat. "What is the matter, Miriam?" she asked. Miriam said, "mother, the Sit told me I was to sleep on a bedstead in Sidon school, and I thought I would practice beforehand, so I tried to sleep on the shelf, and tumbled off in my sleep!"

Abû Asaad says the Nusairy Sheikh who was arrested some months ago has been poisoned. Poisoning used to be very common in Syria. If we should call at the house of a Nusairy, and he brought coffee for us to drink, he would take a sip himself out of the cup before giving it to us, to show that it was not poisoned. Once Uncle S. and Aunt A. were invited out to dine in Hums at the house of the deacon of the church. His mother is an ignorant woman, and had often threatened to kill him. When they had eaten, they suddenly were taken ill, and suffered much from the effects of it. It was found that the mother had put poison into the food, intending to kill her son, the missionaries, and the other invited guests, but through the mercy of God none of them were seriously injured.

Michaiel says that they have only half a crop of corn this year, as the locusts devoured the other half in the spring. You remember I sent you some locusts' wings once, in a letter. When they appear in the land, the Pashas and Mudirs and Kaimakams give orders to the people to go out and gather the eggs of the locusts as soon as they begin to settle down to bury themselves in the earth. The body of the female locust is like the spawn of a fish, filled with one mass of eggs. Each man is obliged to bring so many ounces of these eggs to the Pasha and have them weighed and then burned. A tailor of Beirût brought a bag of them, and as it was late, put them in his shop for the night and went home. He was unwell for a few days and when he went to his shop again, opened the door, and thousands of little black hopping creatures, like imps, came like a cloud into his face. They had hatched out in his absence.

This is a fearful land for lying; in these mountains around us, you cannot depend on a word you hear. The people say that in the beginning of the world, Satan came down to the earth with seven bags of lies, which he intended to distribute in the seven kingdoms of the earth. The first night after he reached the earth he slept in Syria, and opened one of the bags, letting the lies loose in the land. But while he was asleep, some one came and opened all the other bags! so that Syria got more than her share!

An old man in Beirût once said, "Sir, you must be careful what you believe, and whom you trust in this country. If there are twenty-four inches of hypocrisy in the world, twenty-three are in Syria." This man was a native of great experience. I think he was rather severe on his countrymen. Yet the people have had a hard training. The Nusairîyeh all lie. They do not even pretend to tell the truth. The Druze religion teaches the people that it is right to lie to all except Druzes. The Moslems are better than either of these two classes, but they lie without a blush, and you must be very careful how you believe them.

Among the Maronite and Greek sects, their priests tell the people that they can forgive sins. When a man lies or steals or does anything else that is wicked, he pays a few piastres to the priest, who gives him what they call absolution or forgiveness. So the people can do what they please without fear, as the priest is ready to forgive them for money. These sects call themselves Christian, but there is very little of Christianity among them. A Greek in Tripoli once told me that there was not a man in the Greek church in Tripoli who would not lie, excepting one of the priests.