Very few English people can stand the intense heat of the Egyptian summer, and Mary Whately being disinclined in 1864 to come so far as to England, spent a short time instead in Syria. When she returned to Cairo she took with her to educate and train Fereedy Naseef, the young cousin and betrothed of Mansoor Shakoor. For this young girl there sprang up in Mary Whately's heart a deep and warm affection; she called her and treated her as her daughter, and both before and after her marriage in the summer of 1868 she resided under Miss Whately's roof. When in 1872 her husband died, she still remained, and Miss Whately shared with her the care and training of her young son and daughter, while she in return gave great assistance in the conduct and work of the mission.
IV.
MISSION WORK IN CAIRO AND ON THE NILE.
Is it possible to convert Moslems to Christianity? are they ready to receive it? No one perhaps is more competent to answer these questions than Mary Whately, and this is what she says: "To say, as has been sometimes rashly declared, that the Moslems are ready to receive Christianity, and that the faith of the false prophet is crumbling away, is what I would not venture for a moment to assert. But I can state as a fact, that in the neighbourhood of Cairo the peasant population both men and women, are willing, and many of them eager to listen to the Word of God when it is brought before them judiciously and discreetly, as well as with kindness and zeal." [1]
[Footnote 1: More about Rugged Life in Egypt, p. 210.]
Subsequent experience confirmed this view, and more than twenty years later she remarks "It is necessary to be discreet in dealing with Mohammedans, for if the spirit of bitterness is once aroused, the door is shut, for the time at least, against good influences." [1] To awaken to an experience of vital religion the ignorant, superstitious, and spiritually lifeless Copts is a difficult task; to bring to personal faith in Christ the bigoted Moslems is more difficult still. "A Moslem's religion," she says, "is twined up with his political, social, domestic life so minutely, that the whole rope, as it were, has to untwisted before he can be free from error, and the very admixture of truth in their book makes it harder in some respects to refute than if, like the heathen doctrines, it was all wrong throughout. Perhaps the intense self-righteousness of Moslems is after all the hardest point about them; their notion that in the end all who are Islam are safe strengthens them in this belief." [2] Nevertheless, the points of contact between the Mohammedan faith and the Christian a wise teacher can use as pegs to hang Christian teaching upon; and this Mary Whately's previous experience among the ignorant and bigoted Roman Catholics of Ireland enabled her to do with much tact. When peasants said to her, "Your book is Christian—we don't like Christian books," she would explain that it was God's book, and that the Koran did not forbid it to be read; and that she wanted to tell them about Seidna Eessa (the Lord Jesus), whom Mohammed acknowledged to be a prophet. In this way many an initial difficulty would be overcome, and the reading, with simple explanation, of stories from the Gospels would elicit the response, "The words are good," and the request for the gift of a New Testament.
[Footnote 1: Life of Mary L. Whately, p. 109.]
[Footnote 2: A Glimpse behind the Curtain, p. 117.]
[Illustration: Mary L. Whately]
As soon as Miss Whately had settled in Egypt she began visiting the poorer women of Cairo. Usually she was received with courtesy, and when she became known, with gratitude; and though this work was arduous and consumed much time, through it an entrance was made for the Gospel into many homes. Into the houses of the rich she penetrated but seldom, partly because her work lay in other directions, and partly because these were occupied by numerous slave-wives, who, being chiefly Circassians or Georgians, spoke Turkish, and did not understand Arabic. In earlier years Miss Whately did all the visiting herself, and her books bear abundant testimony to the skill with which she could turn the conversation to spiritual matters; in later years she was much assisted in it by Mrs. Shakoor and by a Bible-woman whom she employed.
Mansoor and Yousif Shakoor engaged in similar work among men. They often found men at the coffee-houses willing to listen to the reading of the Scriptures. When this was put a stop to through the opposition of the Moslem priests, a book depot was opened, which did good service for some years. Evening meetings were also established, but these were attended almost exclusively by Copts, though occasionally a Moslem would brave the real danger of being present at a Christian service.