There was a King in Egypt

by Norma Lorimer

Suddenly Hadassah said, "Where are you staying in Cairo?"

When Margaret told her the name of her hotel, she said, "You must come to us. We have lots of spare room in this big house, and if you are here we can work together so much better. The hotel is too public. It would really give us great pleasure if you will. I feel sure it would be wiser."

"How kind of you to ask me!" Margaret said. "I am quite a stranger to you! I'd love to come. Michael has told me something about your work among the Copts—indeed, everyone speaks of it, of your new educational scheme and the progress you have made in so short a time. I should like to understand more about it, if I may."

"Perhaps our minds have met many times before, for I think we are scarcely strangers," Hadassah said. "I hope you don't feel towards me as one?"

Margaret looked pleased. "I have heard so much about you, about your work."

"It is very uphill work. You can only hope for very slow results amongst a people who have been scorned and persecuted and rejected for generations and generations. I, as a Syrian, know what social persecution means, so it is my highest ambition to do what little I can, with my husband's help and my father's wealth, to elevate the ideals and the moral standard of the young Coptic girls. You can do nothing, or next to nothing, with the older women. Their characters are formed, their prejudices too deeply-rooted."

"I suppose so. It is the same in India—the women there are the bitterest opponents to the reforms for women. They cling to the suffering and oppression they endure."

"These Copts have absorbed so many of the worst features of the Mohammedan civilization—their superstitions, their domestic customs as regards the women, and a great many of their least desirable religious ceremonies. It is hard, for instance, for a stranger to distinguish between a Christian native's marriage or funeral and a Moslem's—indeed, it is often not easy even if you have a lifelong knowledge of the country. The finest qualities of Islam—and they are many—they have rejected, and for so doing they have suffered unthinkable hardships and persecutions. Bad as things are to-day, they were far, far worse in the days before the British Occupation, when the Christians were at the mercy of the fanatical Moslems."

"It is such a pity that the native Christian population is the one which no one trusts in this country. The Mohammedans are respected, the Copts are despised. I find that, even in connection with my brother's work. The brains and industry of the country seem to belong to the Copts; the honour and reliability to the Moslems."

"I know," Hadassah said. "And that's what my husband and I are fighting against. He wants to prove that the people of any country and of any religion, even the English," Hadassah's eyes twinkled, "will become degraded and untrustworthy in time, if they are persecuted and oppressed. With the Christian element in Egypt, it has been a case of every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost. If we were to take some Coptic children and Mohammedan children, of the same social grade out here, and had them educated in England as Christians, you would soon see that it is not the Copts who ought to be despised, but their intolerant oppressors and persecutors." Hadassah smiled. "You know, Miss Lampton, how easy it is to be good and strong when one is trusted and loved. Love makes finer, better women of us."