All honor and assistance be given to the missionary mother who, feeling the horrible need of China’s children and youth in this respect, is spending much of her furlough year in working out a plan,—a “dream” she calls it. Will you listen to her dream, and then see if it is not in your power to help the missionary mothers whom you know to make this dream a great and living reality in many of the dark habitations of the earth? “A Chinese child knows all there is to be known about the deep life truths, and knows it without the beauty of life being impressed on him. I am going to tell you a dream I have. Perhaps it is not necessary to speak of it, but it will show how strongly the awfulness of conditions has forced certain truths on me. I am inquiring among my friends, those who would know, what are the best books of sex knowledge for men and women, and especially the books or stories for children. I am already beginning the little nature stories with my own boys and intend to teach them scientifically all the truths about themselves so beautifully and so naturally and so early that they will never know when they weren’t acquainted with these facts, and will never have aught but the deepest love for the knowledge I give them. I think I can do it, with plenty of study and determination. Then as I know Chinese better, I want to conduct classes for mothers and for children, and also to get hold of our school boys and talk to them or put literature in their hands that will make better men of them. If I stayed in this country, I should push such knowledge at every turn. I expect to keep a library that I can loan to American sailors and other young men. I thoroughly believe that the propagation of such information will do more to change the life of children and the atmosphere of the Chinese home than anything else. For with this knowledge one learns the beauty and wonder of a God that could make such a beautiful human body. It is wonderful to see what Christian homes are doing, but how much more they could do with knowledge, scientific Christian knowledge, in the hearts of the parents!”
Position of the father.
The position of the husband and father in most non-Christian lands is that of supreme ruler and despot in his home. In many cases he has the power of life and death over his children, during infancy at least, and where polygamy exists many a wife has suddenly disappeared, never to be heard of again; but no one thinks of questioning the rights of the husband in the matter. His attitude toward the mothers of his children is the “sample copy” for his boys to imitate, and right faithfully do they follow his example.
An Egyptian father.
In the native quarter of Alexandria, Egypt, I saw a little boy who was very fond of making mud-pies in front of the house. One afternoon his mother stepped into the doorway and called:
“Come in, darling; don’t get your clothes so dirty. Come in, sweet one.” No answer from the four-year-old.
The mother stepped into the road, looking about to see that there were no men near to watch her, and laid a kind motherly hand on the child to take him into the house.
“Come, little one. I will give you sweets; come!”
Her husband at that moment came around the next corner, and stood still to see what would happen. The child turned on his mother, and, doubling up his little dirty fist, he beat her right in the face, and snarled, “Bint el kelb!” (Daughter of a dog), tearing himself loose.
The father stepped up, and, in place of giving the little scoundrel a thrashing, he patted his son on the back, smiled upon him, and said: “Brave little fellow! Thou magnificent little fellow!” Proud of the son who could treat a woman thus![20]
An African father.
Through the jungle of Africa strides the man carrying his pipe and a big hunting knife; after him comes his wife with a baby slung at her side, stooping under the great pack on her back, to lighten which he will not lift his little finger. Fathers transformed by Christianity. Oh! it is a sight to make angels rejoice when the grace of God touches the heart, and manliness and chivalry are aroused in him who had all his life seemed absolutely callous to the needs and sufferings of those dependent on him! In a Persian village where a missionary lady was touring, a man came to evening prayers and slipped a note into her hand that read, “Receive M. B. with love,—he is a brother.” Several years later she again visited the village, but though she had no opportunity to talk with M. B. she saw something that spoke louder and more forcibly than a dozen conversations would have done. When he was ready to go home from the meeting in the missionary’s rooms, he said to his wife, “Give me the child,” and took the heavy, sleeping boy out of her arms. In all her long years of work among Mohammedans this missionary had never seen a Mohammedan man do such a thing.
Mother and Child in Egypt
“A Japanese woman whose husband is a Christian,” writes Miss Ransome, “though she is as yet only an inquirer, said recently that the change for the better had been so marvelous in her husband that she had decided to try to rear her boy in such a way that he would eventually become an evangelist. She wanted others to know of the power of Christianity which could change a quarrelsome, drinking man to a kind, sober, industrious father.” That boy’s chance for a happy, useful life was the direct result of what the knowledge of Christ had done for his father.