Let us now turn aside to take a nearer view of the first fruits of this revival. The first to ask the way to heaven, to find it, and to enter through the gate into the city, was Sarah, or Sarra, as the Nestorians pronounce it. She was born among the rude mountaineers of Gawar, in 1831. Her father, Eshoo, then a deacon, regarded her at first with the aversion Nestorian fathers usually felt towards their daughters; but her strong attachment to him while yet a child, so won his heart, that when the Koords overran Gawar, in 1835, and the family fled from their smouldering village, he was willing to be seen carrying her on his back, in the same way that his wife bore her younger sister. The family stopped for a time at Degala, and subsisted by begging from door to door, lodging at night in a stable. The fine intellect of the self-taught father soon brought him to the notice of the missionaries; and one day Mrs. Grant, then just about securing her long-cherished desire of a school for girls, asked him, in her winning way, "Have you any daughters? and will you not send them to our little school?" The inquiry revived a wish that he had felt while yet in Gawar, that his daughter should learn to read; and in the spring of 1841, when he moved from Degala to the city, he sent her to the mission school. She had just entered her tenth year—a tall, slender, dark-eyed girl, even then giving indications of her early death, and though often a great sufferer, she applied herself so diligently to study, that she soon became, as she ever continued to be, the best scholar in the school.
The ancient Syriac Bible was the principal text book; and she so far mastered that language as to acquire a knowledge of Scripture rarely attained in any land by a child of her years. She was the walking concordance of the school; and her knowledge of the doctrines of the Bible was even more remarkable. Under the teaching of Mrs. Harriet Stoddard, she had also learned to sing sweetly our sacred music. Still, with all her acquirements, she was destitute of grace; and her declining health led her teacher to feel much anxiety for her salvation.
On the first Monday in 1846, she said to Sanum, one of her schoolmates, who, she knew, was thoughtful, "Sister, we ought to turn to God. Shall we ever find a better time than when so many are praying for us?" They together resolved to spend the day in seeking salvation; and the manner in which they made known this purpose to their teacher, and carried it out, has been already related. (See p. 116). From that day, she never seemed to waver. As soon as she found peace for herself, she sought to make others acquainted with her Saviour; not forgetting, however, that prayer of the Psalmist, "Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my thoughts. See if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." Feeble as she was, she never shrank from labor. Hours every day were spent in her closet, and the rest of her time was sacredly used for Christ. She had much to do with the conversion of the twenty schoolmates whom she was permitted to see in Christ before she went home; and she did much for the women who came to the Seminary. Her teacher never knew a young person more anxious to save souls. Both pupils and visitors loved to have Sarah tell them the way. They said, "We can see it when she tells us." No wonder they saw it, for she seemed to look on it all the time. Her teacher depended much on her, and yet often remonstrated with her for such incessant labors. Still she felt that she must be about her Father's business while the day lasted. Her desires for the salvation of her father seemed to commence with her anxiety for herself; and his feelings were soon so tender that he could not answer an inquiry about his own state without tears. Sarah was the first to know that he had found peace. His first religious intercourse with her was to tell her that he had found Jesus. He had known that she was thoughtful, but was not prepared to find her so full of humble hope and holy joy. Next day, when urged by a missionary to labor for the salvation of his family, he replied, "Sarah knows the way to heaven better than I do. She can teach me far better than I could her." Their previous strong attachment now ripened into Christian love. He never felt that his daily bread had been given him, if he had not knelt with her in prayer, and his heart been lifted up by her petitions as well as his own. Her mother at first scoffed; but soon she, too, sought the Saviour; and her younger daughter, whose evil ways for a time tried Sarah sorely, was also afterwards brought into the kingdom.
Mr. Stocking used to call her "the best theologian among the Nestorians," and often said, "If I want to write a good sermon, I like to sit down first and talk with Sarah, and then be sure that she is praying for me."
Her attachment to the means of grace was strong. She went to every meeting, even after she could not reach the chapel without help. Her emaciated form, her hollow cough, her eye bright with unnatural lustre, all told that she was passing away, but, combined with her sweet singing and heavenly spirit, led her companions sometimes to whisper, as she took her seat in the chapel, "Have we not an Elizabeth Wallbridge among us?"—"The Dairyman's Daughter," in Syriac, had just then issued from the press, and was a great favorite with the Nestorians.
As early as March, it was seen that she must die. Still she clung to the school, and not for nought. She had a mission to fulfil, and her Saviour strengthened her for the work to which he called her. As yet, none of the pious Nestorians had finished their course. With the converts, victory over death was something heard of, but never witnessed; and Sarah was chosen to show them "in what peace a Christian can die." Perhaps the last days of no young disciple were ever watched with more eager interest. "Will Christ sustain us to the last? Will he be with us through the dark valley? Will he come for us and receive us to himself, as he promised?" These were to them momentous questions; and they stood ready to answer them according as the Lord supported her. Ever since her death they have looked upon the last change from a new point of view. But we must not anticipate.
The five months between her conversion and her decease were very precious to all who knew her. She sometimes sat with her teacher and talked an hour at a time on the home of the blessed. She seemed to look in upon its glories, and share its gladness; and then her thoughts turned to the perishing around her, saying, "I would labor a little longer for them, if it is my Father's will." The young converts whom she had taught could not bear the thought of her leaving them; but they sought to stay an angel in his course. The dross had been consumed, and the spirit was made meet for the inheritance of the saints in light.
[Illustration: Courtyard of the Female Seminary]
About the middle of May, it was felt that she must go home to her father, whose house was near the Seminary. It was a beautiful day in a Persian summer. The morning exercises were closed. When her teacher told her what they thought, she replied in a whisper, "I think I had better go, but I want to be alone a little before I leave not to return." With weary step she sought the closet where first she found her Saviour: it was occupied. Perhaps He saw she might think more of the place than was meet; so she spent an hour in another room, and then returned, saying, "I am ready to go now." She went supported by a schoolmate on either side: stopping in the court, she turned to take a last look of the dear home where she had learned of Jesus, and, plucking some of the roses that bloomed by her side, passed on. On the preceding page that court is represented, as seen from the adjoining one. She suffered intensely for a few days. Her disease forbade her lying down, even at night. But still not a day passed that she did not gather some women about her, and point them to Jesus. Her teacher visited her frequently, and often found her with her Bible open, and several women around her bed, to whom she was explaining it. The praying pupils, too, often knelt with her at the accustomed throne of grace.
One Saturday in June, her father was asked if he could go to Tergawer—twenty-five miles distant—and preach. His reply was, "I will see what Sarah says." She said, "Go, father, and I will pray for you." Sabbath morning came, and her teacher saw that Sarah was almost home: she told her so, and once more committed the dear pupil to the Saviour who stood by. She had to return to her duties in school, but first said to her mother, "Send for me when the Master calls for her, for, if I cannot go over Jordan with her, I would at least accompany her to the swelling stream." In the afternoon her sufferings became intense; and losing herself for a moment, she said, "Call my father." They told her where he was. "O, yes, I remember. Don't call him. Let him preach; I can die alone." She then said, "Call Miss Fiske;" and her sister started to go. But the dying one remembered that it was the hour for prayer meeting, and beckoned her to return, saying, "She is in meeting now, with my companions. Don't call her; I can die alone." Perhaps, with that teacher present, her eyes had not so clearly discerned the Lord Jesus. Her sufferings were now so great, she hardly spoke for an hour. Then she said, in a clear voice, "Mother, raise me, that I may commit my spirit;" for she would never approach her Saviour but on her knees. Supported, as she had been hundreds of times before, by that mother's strong arms, and in the attitude of prayer, she said, "Lord Jesus, receive—" And there she stopped: prayer had ended. Instead of the closing words of the earthly petition was the opening of the new song in heaven. The Saviour did not wait for the close of her petition before he answered it. The teacher had just sat down with her pupils when the door opened, and a messenger said "Sarah is asleep!" "Yes," thought she, gratefully, "till Jesus shall say, 'Awake!'" According to Eastern custom, Sarah was buried that same evening (June 13th), and the whole school followed her to the grave, which was close to that of Mrs. Grant. The first fruit of the school appropriately lies by the side of her who planted that tree in the garden of the Lord, At the funeral her teacher was just thinking that Sarah could help her no more, that her prayers and labors were forever ended, when she looked up, and her eye rested on the evening star looking down upon the grave. It was a pleasant thought that she, too, was a star in glory. She was glad that the first to love Christ was the first to go to be with him, and still loves to think, of her as waiting for those who used to pray with her on earth. The Christian life of Sarah was short; but she did much, for she taught her people how