One of the most interesting facts that has come to light during recent years is this: We do not know of any educated Moslem girl who has spent four or five years in our schools,—and I include those of the British workers too,—who has ever been subjected to the indignity of a second wife brought into her home. They seem to have gained strength of character and graces enough to hold their own against the bad influences of Mohammedanism. More and more we hear of Moslem families who practically adopt the Christian idea of marriage, that is, one woman in the home: these families frequently in giving away their daughters take pledges from the bridegroom that she is to be the only wife, while still more encouraging is the fact that many of these educated girls absolutely refuse to be given in marriage unless their parents insist on this single wife.[23]
A little Mohammedan girl had attended for a few months a small day school on the mission premises. Years afterwards her missionary teacher found her in a village, and the woman gathering her children about her led them in the Lord’s Prayer, explaining that she and the children prayed together every day.
A Christian mother in Syria.
Who can foretell the influence that will go on down through the years because of one mother in Syria who has recently passed to her reward at the age of ninety years? She was the mother of eight children, two of whom were ordained pastors, two licensed preachers, one the wife of a pastor, another a helper in the Sidon Missionary School, one is employed by the Church Missionary Society in Nazareth, and two more are teaching and preaching in the German Orphanage in Jerusalem. Think what the land of our Saviour’s sojourn would have lost had not that one mother learned to love and follow Him, and to train her children as a Christian mother should.
Child marriage.
Many chapters might easily be devoted to the subjects of child marriage and child widowhood and their frightful effect on past, present, and future generations. They have, however, been treated quite fully in recent mission study books, and so much authoritative literature on these subjects exists that it does not seem best to dwell on them at length in this connection.
But every Christian mother should pause and ask of herself earnestly, “What if it were my daughter, my son, how could I stand it? Would I not move heaven and earth to see that some remedy were found for this monstrous evil?” What if your daughter were that widowed teacher in a missionary school in China who had been married at nineteen to a boy of twelve, and who every morning after washing his face and combing his hair had to see that he started off properly to school, often crying and protesting, and then turn to her weaving, in order to earn money for his education?
Testimony of an Egyptian.
Are we overestimating the evil because of our Occidental customs and prejudices? Listen to the words of an Egyptian, translated and re-printed from a Cairo daily paper.
I am an Egyptian, and speak of that which is customary in my land; yet I wait to be shown that the Moslems of India, of Yemen, of Syria, or of Persia are in any better case....
The first step in our faulty marriage system is that of marrying boys of thirteen to girls not more than ten years of age, as is the custom. This custom is like making a fire of tender green branches; you benefit not by its warmth, but you suffer much from its smoke. How many of us have suffered from this cause? The excuse given for it is that it is to preserve our youth from impurity. But what a feeble excuse! Silence were better than such.[24]