I MUST explain that some time before this I had learned that the boys in the boarding-school who had no pocket money, could not go to the bath as often as I thought they ought. While I was considering this problem, an Armenian gentleman gave me something over two dollars to use as I saw fit. Thinking “cleanliness next to godliness,” though the Bible does not say it in just those words, I used to give Deekran a quarter or so now and then to use for himself and the other poor boys.
When they rose to go, I asked Sumpad if he could stop a moment, I wanted to have a little talk with him. How glad I was to find that he had a hope in Christ, and was trying to live for him. It was a great privilege to speak a few words of sympathy and encouragement.
How can I believe the terrible news that has just come to me here in free America? How can I think of him in his young, Christian manhood as dead in a horrible Turkish dungeon! Why, what had he done? He had written a few lines of boyish admiration for the heroes of his own race, the Armenians. And so he must die alone of typhus fever after a four months’ imprisonment, utterly cut off from all his friends. Poor young martyr! No one could get access to him; yes, there was one Friend whose entrance neither bolts nor bars could prevent—the King of heaven and earth; what need of any other? Death has now unlocked the prison door, and opened the gate of heaven; no more tears should be shed for him—happy young martyr.
But I have wandered far, both as to place and time, far from that peaceful, happy Sabbath.
It was now lunch time; then came Sabbath-school. The men and boys met in the chapel, but as it was not large enough to accommodate more, the women’s, girls’ and the infant class met elsewhere. Isgoohe, a member of the senior class in the high school, took charge of the second of these. After going over the lesson, she began to ask personal questions:
“Now, girls, what have you done for Jesus this week?”
A hand was raised.
“What is it, Marta?”
“I let Funduk have my comb for Jesus’ sake. It was such a nice one, I did not like to have her use it; but Miss Goulding told me I ought to be kind to Funduk.”