Mary Whately, though she belonged to a book-writing family, aspired to no literary fame. Her ten books were all the outcome of her work in Egypt, and were written to awaken interest in it, and in some cases to secure funds for it. She was, as a girl, the "story-teller" of the family, and among her companions secured a reputation for her powers of narration. This gift she turned to good account.
"It was at her father's suggestion and by his advice that her first book, Ragged Life in Egypt, was published. A friend staying in the house had been reading to him a series of letters Mary had written her, describing her first settlement for the winter in Cairo, the commencement of her school, her visits among the poor, etc. He listened with much pleasure and attention, and on his daughter entering the room a few minutes afterwards, he said, 'Mary, you ought to publish these papers!' Her first answer was, 'Oh! people are tired of Egypt! they have had so many books of travels there and so many details!' 'Yes,' he rejoined, 'but yours will be new; you have reached a stratum lower than any foreign visitor has yet done.' This determined her to publish; and the book was finished and brought out immediately. In 1863 the same friend read to the Archbishop during his last illness the manuscript of the second part, More about Ragged Life in Egypt. On the morning on which the reading was finished, he took his gold pen from his pocket, and giving it to her said, 'I shall never use this again, Mary; take it, and go on.'" [1]
[Footnote 1: Life of Mary L. Whately, pp. 55-57.]
In 1871 she published a further account of Egyptian life and of her mission work, under the title, Among the Huts in Egypt. Meanwhile in 1867 she had contributed to the Leisure Hour, and afterwards issued as a volume, The Story of a Diamond. Another story, Lost in Egypt, was written in 1881. In 1873 Miss Whately published a biography of Mansoor Shakoor, and in 1881 she wrote Letters from Egypt for Plain Folks at Home. In 1878 she published a story called Unequally Yoked, illustrating the miserable lives of English women who have been persuaded to marry Mohammedans, and in 1872 she wrote A Glimpse Behind the Curtain, a story of life in the harems of Cairo. Her last book appeared in 1888 with the title, Peasant Life on the Nile. With changed names and in a slightly veiled form, it recounts the history of some who received spiritual blessing through her mission work. All her books are written in a simple unaffected style, and reveal an unrivalled acquaintance with Oriental character and the Egyptian mode of life. Most of them are illustrated by engravings from her own sketches.
VIII.
RESULTS.
Writing in 1861 Miss Whately said, "The reaping time is not yet." [1] Ten years later she writes: "It is a missionary's duty to sow beside all waters, and to lose no opportunity, even if his chance of doing good be but small. The sower of the seed has need of much patience; and though he need not actually be expecting and looking for disappointment, as that would paralyse his efforts for good, he must yet be prepared for it." [2] In this spirit of patience and perseverance Mary Whately carried on her work, and though her work was largely pioneering, she was not without encouragement. Her hand was the first to begin to break down the wall of ignorance, prejudice, and bigotry which had for centuries shut in the people of Egypt. She convinced thousands that the Christian book is a good book, and Christian men and women good people, despite the evidence to the contrary of so many in Egypt who bear the Christian name but do not live the Christian life. The sentiments of the people are leavened by thousands among them who in youth passed through her schools, and there acquired an acquaintance with Scripture truth. "Youths employed under Government, on the railways or in mercantile houses, who have received with the secular education which has secured their positions, a thorough knowledge of the Bible as its condition, continually greet her after they have quite outgrown her recollection." [3] The teachers in later years were chiefly composed of those who had been pupils in the schools, and of whose conversion she had no doubt. Thousands of poor sufferers were relieved by the Medical Mission, thousands of homes made happier by the visits of herself and her assistants. Many of the Scriptures distributed on her Nile journeys were kept and read, and found afterwards in most unlikely places.
[Footnote 1: More about Ragged Life, p. 199.] [Footnote 2: Among the
Huts, p. 151.] [Footnote 3: Lost in Egypt, preface.]
In 1870 Miss Whately was able to tell of the first of her scholars of whose conversion she could feel sure. In 1878 she writes of two little boys, pupils in her school, who read the Bible at home to their old nurse, a slave woman, during the illness which terminated in her death. So simply did she receive the truth, that she declined to see the Mollah or reader of the Koran, saying, "No, no, I want no one but Him whom the boys tell me about; the boys' Saviour is my Saviour." [1] In Peasant Life on the Nile Miss Whately gives several instances of Copts who through her efforts refused to turn Moslems, and of others who became Christians in deed and in truth.
[Footnote 1: Letters from Egypt, pp. 117, 118.]