"Meanwhile their preacher was called to another place, and the people came to the city, with their donkeys, to take him and his family home. These were quietly sleeping at his house, expecting to start on the morrow, when, at midnight, nine of the principal men of Hooeli roused him from sleep, and began to beg pardon for their rejection of him, saying, 'Come, get your goods in readiness, and go with us.' It seems that they took their failure to secure the others as a rebuke from God for their pride; and having met to pray, sent these nine men to ask pardon of Garabed in person, while others wrote letters asking his forgiveness, and begging him to come back. Both parties then appealed to the missionaries, who declined to interfere, advising them to pray and decide the matter among themselves. They agreed to accept the preacher's decision as God's will, and he after prayer and reflection, decided to return to his old people. In the mean time, twenty of the women of Hooeli, impatient at the delay, met also for prayer, and with difficulty were prevented from going in a body to take their old pastor home. But the brethren kept them back, and when at length he reached the village, no other preacher ever had such an ovation in all that region, within the memory of man."[1]
[1] Ten Years on the Euphrates, pp. 278-280.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
THE NESTORIANS.
1864-1868.
Deacon Isaac, brother of the Patriarch, died in the early autumn of 1864, universally lamented. In character, as well as position, he was a prince among his people. I abridge the account of him by Mr. Rhea, who loved him as a friend.[1] Seen in his plain dress and Simple manners, no one would have thought of him as once the mountain chieftain, ready to break a lance with Koordish robbers. Growing up amid some of the grandest scenery in the world, it had its effect on his character; and that character the grace of God moulded into symmetry and beauty. His intellect was strong, his insight into human nature remarkable. The wily Persian official, baffled by him and mortified, exclaimed: "We cannot manage him." While he was accessible to little children, and poor distressed women, there was a dignity which prevented undue familiarity. The Patriarchal family were proud of him. He grew up in a land where it was no shame for noblemen to lie, yet always spoke the truth. He lived where bribery was practiced unblushingly, and his house was a court-room for the settlement of numberless cases of litigation, yet he took no reward for his services, much less to pervert justice. "He grew up where little deference was paid to woman; yet took pride in showing his respect for his wife Marta,—mentioning her name, quoting her opinions, and treating her with the utmost kindness. Their relation was a beautiful example of conjugal attachment, of untold worth in such a land and among such a people. He was naturally of a proud spirit, that could not brook an insult. Once, when insulted by a French Lazarist, he sprung to his feet, and put his hand to the hilt of his sword; but from that day he never wore the sword again."
[1] Missionary Herald, 1865, p. 45.
Miss Fidelia Fiske died at Shelburne, Massachusetts, the place of her birth, July 26th, 1864, at the age of forty-eight. She both studied and taught at the Mount Holyoke Seminary, and partook largely of the spirit of its founder, the well-known Mary Lyon. She embarked at Boston in March, 1843, in company with Dr. and Mrs. Perkins, Mr. and Mrs. Stoddard, and some others, and reached Oroomiah in June. After laboring there with unprecedented success as the Principal of the Seminary for fourteen years, the state of her health constrained her return to the United States in 1858.
Up to her arrival at Oroomiah, the school had only day scholars, and the pupils were of course in habitual contact with the vice and degradation of their homes. She sought to make it a boarding-school; and after two years the prejudices of the people had been overcome, and the day scholars were all dropped. Her grand object was the salvation of her pupils, and of their relatives who visited the institution. After the first revival, in 1846, the school became the centre of holy influence for the women. She, and her worthy associate Miss Rice, found enough to do, day and night. When they went to a village, the women expected to be called together for prayer; and when these women returned the visit, they asked to be prayed with alone. There was a revival almost every year of her stay at Oroomiah; and probably few servants of Christ have had more occasion for gratitude, in being the means of bringing others to him, than Miss Fiske. When leaving Oroomiah on her return home, the many women and girls who gathered around to bid her farewell, asked "Can we not have one more prayer-meeting before you go, and in that Bethel?"—meaning, her own room. There they prayed, that their teacher "might come back to mingle her dust with her children's dust, hear the trumpet with them, and with them go up to meet the Lord." They were accustomed to style her "mother," and themselves her "children."
Her usefulness after her return to the United States, was probably as great as it ever had been. This was not owing to the predominance of any one quality in her character, but to a combination of qualities of mind and heart surpassing anything I have ever seen in any other person. Her emotional nature was wonderfully sanctified, and each of her powers being well developed, and all nicely adjusted one to another, the whole worked with regularity and ease. Hence that singular accuracy of judgment, and that never-failing sense of propriety, for which she was distinguished. Hence the apparent absence of fatigue in her protracted conversations and conversational addresses. Hence the habitual control of her sanctified affections over her intellectual powers, so that she seemed ever ready, at the moment, for the call of duty, and especially to meet the claims of perishing souls. She seemed to me the nearest approach I ever saw, in man or woman, in the structure and working of her whole nature, to my ideal of the blessed Saviour, as he appeared in his walks on earth.