NATIVES WITHIN THE C.M.S. GAZA COMPOUND
During this period Dr. Elliot had the joy of baptising, on October 12, 1890, Moorjan and Mehbruki, two of his own servants, man and wife, natives of the Sudan.
Some years before they had been sold in Gaza as slaves, the man for ten pounds, and the woman for twice that sum. The slave market has been abolished for about twenty years.
All this time the medical work was confined to the treatment of out-patients, but in March 1891 a hospital adapted from a native house was opened.
Medical itineration now began to be undertaken at Mejdel and Ashdod. The fame of the hospital spread far and wide.
The Rev. Dr. Sterling (the author of A Grammar of the Arabic Language, and Arabic and English Idiom—Conversational and Literary) arrived in 1893, and his predecessor, the Rev. J. Huber, of German nationality, who built the ladies' house and church room, entered into rest on July 18, and his body was buried in the cemetery in the mission compound.
Other branches of the work have prospered. In 1902 the numbers in the girls' school rose from sixty-eight to three hundred, and have now increased to four hundred. The Sunday school has increased proportionately with the day school. It would be difficult to find more interesting schools in Palestine, so efficiently superintended by Miss Smithies, who is ably assisted by her own trained staff of native teachers.
In 1906 the Muslims presented Dr. Sterling, on behalf of the building fund of the hospital, with £100, which they had subscribed in token of their gratitude for his work among them.