Sunday, 4th April.
This journal is fast becoming an obituary. At first the hundreds who died were the poorest and the weakest, but now many from among our best are going. Yesterday Dr. Daniel Werda, Dr. Packard’s assistant, died of typhoid. For three days Mrs. McDowell has been in bed with high fever. It is not evident yet that it is typhoid. Last night our cook went to bed with typhoid. Miss Schoebel is now trying to make her comfortable and makes her old mother look after her. All day we have been trying to get something to eat for the hundreds of sick who have nothing for Easter. Easter is the Syrian “Great Feast,” and is to them what Christmas is to us. They say: “The Little Feast (Christmas) was black, and now the Great Feast is black too.” They had hoped so much that deliverance might come before the feast. We have given eggs and soup to about five hundred sick, and before evening I hope a glass of tea will be given to as many more. To-morrow we plan to give soup to several hundred more that we didn’t reach to-day. We don’t use relief money for anything but bread, and so have only personal funds for the sick—a very little.
Tuesday, 6th April.
We have dwelt so long in the valley of death with the sick, the starving, the dying, with the unending procession of little bodies sewn up in a piece of cloth, friendless corpses carried out on ladders, with gaping mouths and staring eyes, crude unpainted coffins, coffins covered with black chintz, the never-ceasing wail, and eyes of the mourners that are never dried, hands outstretched for what we cannot give, and now so many of our own number are down. I felt on Sunday as if I ought to get my own burial clothes ready so as to make as little trouble as possible when my turn came, for in these days we all go about our work knowing that any one of us may be the next to go down. And yet I think our friends would be surprised to see how cheerful we have kept, and how many occasions we find for laughing; for ludicrous things do happen. Then, too, after dwelling so intimately with death for three months, he doesn’t seem to have so unfriendly an aspect, and the “Other Side” seems very near and our Pilot close beside us. It is at such times that one finds out just how much faith in the unseen he has, and just how much his religion is worth. I find the Rock on which I can anchor in peace are the words of Christ Himself: “Where I am, there ye may be also.” “If any man serve Me let him follow Me, and where I am, there shall also My servant be.” That is enough—to be where He is. Recently, as I have read sermons or books written for the trying times of life, I have found them tame and insufficient for the occasion; our own experiences are so much more intense and go so much deeper that nothing but the words of God Himself can reach to the bottom. I have been re-reading Browning’s Prospice, but it doesn’t thrill me as much as it did, for I have something better: “For I know whom I have believed....” and “I am persuaded that Death cannot separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Afternoon.
This morning Mrs. McDowell’s rose-spots appeared, and now we know that she has typhoid or typhus (it was typhoid). Rabi Ister Alamshah has consented to help in the care of Mrs. McDowell. Miss Schoebel and I were perfectly willing to nurse her, but it would mean throwing our work on some other missionary already loaded up. Mr. McDowell will give up some of his work and help in nursing Mrs. McDowell. There are now six of our number sick, and it is impossible not to feel that someone else will go down in a few days unless it becomes possible to send the crowds away.
Evening.
To-day Miss Lamme’s rose-spots appeared, so her case is pronounced typhoid.
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Thursday, 3rd June.