"Pray for us more than ever, for many are the enemies of Nehemiah and ruined Jerusalem. Our hope is in God. He has begun, and he will finish."
The pledges then made have since been fulfilled, with very few exceptions, and that not regretfully, but with a heartiness truly affecting to those who knew their poverty. In July, 1861, the mission resolved to furnish no teacher for a school—except in new villages—where a part of his support was not assumed by the people. The Barandooz congregation, in the spring of 1862, cheerfully assumed the burden of their schools; and some have also expressed a readiness to aid in the support of their pastors. A number of pupils, in both Seminaries, contribute liberally towards their support.
In bringing to a close these glimpses of the changes wrought by grace among the Nestorians, we must not pass by the number of pious parents who now aid the missionaries by their prayers. While, in the early days of the Seminary, its teacher was left to pray alone for her pupils, before she left, in 1858, she rejoiced to know that two thirds of them had either a pious parent, or other member of the family, who prayed for their salvation.
One cold morning, in 1856, a pious mother walked three miles through the snow, to inquire if there was any interest in the school. "Why do you ask?" replied the teacher. "I have thought of you continually for two or three days; and last night, after falling asleep, thinking about you, I dreamed that God was visiting you by his Holy Spirit. So, when I awoke, I arose and baked, and hurried here. I am so anxious about my daughter! Can I see her?" She was told that her daughter was among the inquirers the evening before, and sank down where she stood, weeping for joy. The heart of the teacher grew strong in the feeling that the mothers were wrestling with her. The mother passed into an adjoining room to see her daughter; and a missionary brother, who came in just then, could not restrain his tears as he listened to her earnest intercessions, saying, "This is more to me than any thing I have seen in Persia." After that year, some parents, when they came to the Seminary, were never willing to leave till they had prayed with their children. A father once wrote, "Yesterday I invited some Christian friends to my house, and had three prayers offered for the school; and while praying for you, we felt our own sins very much, and cried to God to save us from their power."
Nor were the pupils wanting in interest for their impenitent parents. During the long vacation in 1850, Hanee, who used to spend several hours a day in prayer for her mother, so pressed her with entreaties to come to the Saviour, that one day she roughly replied, "Enough! Enough! Stop your praying and weeping for me: you will weep yourself blind." "O mother," was the beautiful reply, "it seems as though I would gladly become blind, if thereby you might be brought to Jesus."
Perhaps the effects of grace were nowhere more conspicuous than in the effects it produced in those great households already described. Let us first look in on the hinderances they occasioned to a life of piety. Yonan writes, in his journal of March 7, 1858, "Widow Hatoon is a devout woman, and tries to erect the family altar in her house; but it is very difficult. She often collects the readers in the neighborhood on Sabbath morning, to read the Bible with her family. I asked her, 'Do you pray with your children? They have no father; they are left in your hands, and God will require them of you again.' 'I do; but I find it very hard in our house: we are all in one room, our beds very near each other, and there is no separate chamber: when about to retire, I gather them together behind a quilt, and talk and pray with them.'"
Again he writes, "Hatoon, the wife of Sarhoosh, is a member of a large family. Three of the women in the house, and one of their husbands, fear God; but the older members of the household are very wicked, and even violent in their opposition. She is much troubled about family prayer. While the devout ones engage in worship at one end of the room, the rest, at the other end, talk, laugh, and revile."
Yet, even in such households, grace reveals its divine power. We find Yonan putting this question to a communicant: "Do you and M. live pleasantly together?" M. was her sister-in-law, in a household of more than thirty souls. "She is a little quick tempered," was the reply; "but I try not to trouble her, and to have our love perfect that we may be a good example to the rest." Yonan prayed with her, and asked if he could do any thing for her relatives. "Dear brother in Christ," she replied, "in the name of the Lord Jesus, our precious Saviour, I beg you to pray with my husband: it maybe God will bless him." "My sister, God will bless him: this your anguish shall be turned into joy." "My own heart was moved," adds the narrator. "I saw my own love very little, compared with hers, and felt my unworthiness very much."
The change in their social condition was beautifully illustrated by a little incident in the Seminary, in 1849. One of the older pupils had been betrothed; but when the ring of betrothal was brought, to be placed on her finger, she could not be found. After long search, her gentle voice was heard in the most retired part of the building, imploring the blessing of God to abide with her in that new relation. Only those who had seen the rioting and folly common on such occasions could appreciate the change.
The marriage of Mar Yohanan, in 1859, was a step in the work of lifting up woman to her true position. Formerly, marriage had been deemed something too unholy for a bishop; and the consequence was the general degradation of the sex. The entrance of the gospel corrected public sentiment on this point; and that act of the bishop only gave expression to the popular conviction that marriage is honorable in all, even the highest and holiest, nurturing some of the loveliest graces of the Christian character. The event for a time caused some stir among the enemies of the truth; but it soon died away, and the old ascetic views of piety are passing away with the social degradation in which they had their origin.