Chapter 12

RE-OPENING OF THE SCHOOL IN BEIRUT.

In 1856 Miss Cheney re-opened the Female Seminary with eight pupils, in Beirût, and in the 34 schools of the Mission there were 1068 pupils, of whom 266 were girls.

In 1857, there were 277 girls in the various schools.

In 1858, Miss Temple and Miss Johnson arrived from America, and the Female Seminary was opened in Suk el Ghurb in the family of Rev. Dr. Bliss. Miss Johnson and Miss Cheney having returned to the United States, Miss Mason came to aid Miss Temple in February, 1860. The girl's school in Beirût under the care of Rufka Gregory, had about 60 pupils. The civil war in Lebanon, followed by the massacres in Jezzin, Deir el Komr, Hasbeiya, Rasheiya and Damascus, beginning in May, and continuing until the middle of July, broke up all our schools and seminaries, and filled the land with sorrow and desolation.

Miss Temple and Miss Mason remained for a season in Beirût, studying the Arabic language, and in 1862 Miss Temple having returned to the U.S.A., Miss Mason opened a Boarding School for girls in Sidon.

It was decided that none but Protestant girls should be received into this school, that no English should be taught, and that the style of eating, sleeping and dress should be conformed as much as possible to the standard of native customs in the country villages, in order that the girls might the more readily return to their homes as teachers, without acquiring European tastes and habits. Miss Mason carried on this school until 1865, when she returned to the U.S.A., and it was decided if possible to carry it on with native instructors under the supervision of Mrs. Eddy.

In the winter of 1867 it was under the kind charge of Mrs. Watson of Shemlan and her adopted daughter, Miss Handumeh Watson, and is now conducted by two English young ladies, Miss Jacombs and Miss Stanton, who are supported by the London "Society for the Promotion of Female Education in the East." On the removal of the girls' Boarding School to Sidon, it was evident that the Female Seminary must be re-opened in Beirût. Owing to the depressed state of Missionary finances in America, arising from the civil war, it was deemed advisable to reorganize the Beirût Seminary on a new basis, with only native teachers. The Providence of God had prepared teachers admirably fitted for this work, who undertook it with cheerful hope and patient industry. It was decided to make a paying Boarding School of a higher order than any existing institution in Syria, and to resume instruction in the English language, giving lessons also in French and Music to those who were willing to pay for these branches.

Mr. Michaiel Araman, for many years a teacher in the Abeih Seminary with Mr. Calhoun, and for some time a native preacher in Beirût, was appointed instructor in the Biblical History and the Higher Arabic branches; his wife Lulu, the Matron, and Miss Rufka Gregory, the Preceptress. Rufka was an orphan, as already stated, and was trained with her sister Sada in the family of Mr. and Mrs. Whiting for many years. As a teacher and a disciplinarian she had not an equal among the women of Syria, and under the joint management of this corps of teachers, aided by competent assistants in the various branches, the Seminary rose in public esteem, until it became one of the most attractive and prosperous institutions in Syria.

In March, 1862, Rufka's day school of seventy girls held a public examination in the Chapel. The girls were examined in Arabic reading, geography, grammar, catechism, arithmetic, Scripture lessons and English, with an exhibition of specimens of their needle work. In the fall it was commenced as a Boarding School, with two paying pupils and four charity pupils. The funds for commencing the boarding department were furnished by Mr. Alexander Van Rensselaer, Mrs. Henry Farnum, Col. Frazer, H.B.M. Commissioner to Syria, and others. The Seminary not being under the direction of the Mission as such, nor in connection with the American Board, was placed under the care of a local Board of Managers, consisting of Dr. Thomson, Dr. Van Dyck, Consul J.A. Johnson, and Rev. H.H. Jessup. Dr. Thomson was indefatigable in his efforts to place it on a firm and permanent foundation, as a purely Native Protestant institution, and the fact that such a school could be carried on for a year without a single foreign instructor, was one of the most encouraging features in the history of the Syria Mission. It was the first purely native Female Seminary in Western Asia, and we hope it will not be the last.

It will continue to be the aim of the Mission, and of the present able faculty of the institution, to train up Native teachers qualified to carry on the work in the future.

At the same time in the fall of 1862, a school for Damascene girls was opened in an upper room of my house, under the care of one of Dr. De Forest's pupils, Sada el Haleby, who carried it on successfully with seventy girls until August, 1864, when, on my departure for the U.S.A. the school was taken up by the late Mrs. Bowen Thompson, whose Society has maintained it until this day.

In 1863, the number of paying boarders in the Seminary had increased to twenty, and in 1866 the pupils numbered eighty, and the income from native paying pupils was about fifteen hundred dollars in gold!

The Annual Examination was held in the latter part of June, in the Mission Chapel, and continued three days, thronged by a multitude of interested spectators. The Turkish official Arabic Journal of Beirût, the "Hadikat el Akhbar," published a lengthy report of the Examination, pronouncing it the most satisfactory examination of girls that ever took place in Syria. An English clergyman who was present refused to believe that they were Syrian girls, insisting that they must be English. The girls recited in Bible History, giving all the important dates from Adam to Christ, with an account of the rites, sacrifices and prophecies which refer to Christ, giving also the names of all the patriarchs, judges, kings and prophets in their order. Twenty-two different classes were examined, and many of the girls read original compositions.

On the Sabbath, July 1st, two of the assistant teachers, Asîn Haddad and Sara Sarkis were received to the communion of the Beirût Church. They traced their religious awakening to the dying testimony of Sara Bistany, which is described in a subsequent chapter. Several of the younger pupils were much interested in the subject of religion at the time, and one little girl about seven years old said to her teacher, "I gave the Lord my heart, and He took it." Asîn died in Latakiah in 1869, triumphing in Christ. The women of the neighborhood came to the house of her brother to hear her joyous expressions of trust in Jesus, and her assurance that she should soon be with Him in glory. She was the second daughter of that young bride of fifteen years of age, who learned to read in 1825, in the school taught by her own husband, Tannus el Haddad.

In 1867, the health of Rufka having become seriously impaired, she removed to Egypt, where after a period of rest, she opened on her own account a school for girls in Cairo, which she maintained with her wonted energy, until her marriage with the Rev. Mr. Muir, a Scotch clergyman, whom she accompanied to Melbourne, Australia, in 1869. Since the death of her husband she has returned to her favorite employment of teaching, with marked success, among the British population of Melbourne.

While in Cairo, she passed through a deep and agonizing religious experience, which she described in the following letter to Mrs. Whiting, and the result of which was a new life in Christ.

Cairo, Egypt, _July 9, 1868_.

"I think I shall always remember my stay in Cairo with much pleasure, but the greatest advantage of this year is the opportunity I had of stopping to think of the interests of a never dying soul, of a neglected Saviour, an offended God. Yes, I have reflected, struggled, oh, how hard, and thanks to an ever merciful God, I trust I have been led by the Holy Spirit to see and feel my great sin, and casting myself at the feet of Jesus, stayed there with my sinful heart till a loving Saviour just came and took it up. Oh, how grieved was His tender heart when He saw how defiled it was with sin and wickedness, but He said, fear not, my blood will cleanse it and make it pure; then how He pleaded my case before His Father, setting forth His boundless love and infinite righteousness as a reason why He wished to be accepted. Yes, dear Mrs. Whiting, I hope I can now say, Thy God is my God, and the blessed Saviour you have loved so long is now very precious to me. The past winter has been a solemn time with me. Many hard struggles have I had, much fear that I might have forever grieved God's Holy Spirit, and for a long time it all seemed so dark, there seemed no hope for me who had been so long living away from the Saviour, but in great fear and despair I just rushed and cast myself at His feet, and asked Him to let me perish there if I must perish; there was nothing else for me to do, and I felt such happiness in just leaving myself in His care. How wonderful is His love! But what a life of constant prayer and watching is that of a Christian! in the first place to aim at close walking with God, leaving Him to order our steps for us, and trusting Him so to order our way as to best enable us to walk closely with Him. It has been a most comforting thought when I find it difficult to live right and feel my utter weakness, that Jesus is each day saying to His Father for me, "I pray not she should be taken out of the world, but that she should be _kept from the evil_," and to live up to our privileges and to walk worthy of our high calling.

My precious teacher, I know you will rejoice and thank God with me for His great goodness to me in bringing me to the feet of Jesus. Oh, how precious He is to my poor soul! He is Heaven. How He blesses me every moment! His boundless love to _me_ who am most unworthy of the least of His mercies. If ever any one had reason to boast of the loving kindness of the Lord, it surely must be myself. In His great mercy I have had the privilege of openly confessing my faith in Him, and publicly professing my determination to be the Lord's at the last communion in the Church here in May. I put it off till then hoping to do it in Beirût in the Church dear Mr. Whiting had preached in for so many years, and among the girls I had taught, and all the young friends there, but as that was not allowed me, I joined the Church here."

Her devoted friend and loving assistant teacher Lucîyah, was deeply affected by what she learned from Rufka of her new spiritual life, and she too turned her thoughts to divine things, and soon after the arrival of Miss Everett and Miss Carruth in 1868, to take charge of the Seminary, she came out openly on the Lord's side, and in the midst of a fire of domestic persecution, publicly professed her faith in Jesus as her only Saviour.

Miss Carruth, after staying just long enough in the Seminary to win the hearts of teachers and pupils, was obliged to return to her native land, where she is still an efficient laborer in the New England Woman's Boards of Missions.

The year following the departure of Rufka to Egypt was a critical time in the history of the Seminary. Lulu continued in charge of the domestic department, and Mr. Araman managed the business of the school, while Mrs. Salt (a sister of Melita and Salome) aided in several of the classes. But the institution owed its great success during that year, if not its very existence, to the untiring energy and efficient services of Mrs. Dr. Bliss and Miss Emilia Thomson, daughter of the Rev. Dr. Thomson. They each gave several hours every day to instruction in the English language, the Scriptures and music, and the high standard of excellence already attained in the Seminary was maintained if not surpassed.

Their perfect familiarity with the Arabic language gave them a great advantage in the management and instruction of the pupils, and their efforts on behalf of the Institution, in maintaining it in full and successful operation during the year previous to the arrival of Miss Everett and Miss Carruth, deserve grateful recognition.

In the winter of 1870 and 1871 Miss Sophia Loring, and Miss Ellen Jackson arrived from America as colleagues of Miss Everett, and under their efficient management aided by Mr. Araman, Lucîyah and other native teachers, the Seminary is enjoying a high degree of prosperity.

In March, 1864, the Mission had issued an appeal for funds to erect a permanent home for this Seminary, and in 1866 the present commodious and substantial edifice was erected, a lasting monument of the liberality of Christian men and women in America and England.

Its cost was about eleven thousand dollars, and the raising of this sum was largely due to the liberality and personal services of Mr. Wm. A. Booth, of New York, who also kindly acted as treasurer of the building fund. The lumber used in its construction was brought from the state of Maine. The doors and windows were made under the direction of Dr. Hamlin of Constantinople, in Lowell, Mass., the tiles came from Marseilles, the stone from the sandstone quarries of Ras Beirût, the stone pavement partly from Italy and partly from Mt. Lebanon, and the eighty iron bedsteads from Birmingham, England. The cistern, which holds about 20,000 gallons, was built at the expense of a Massachusetts lady, and the portico by a lady of New York. The melodeon was given by ladies in Georgetown, D.C., and the organ is the gift of a benevolent lady in Newport, R.I.

Time would fail me to recount the generous offerings of Christian men and women who have aided in the support of this school during the ten years of its history. Receiving no pecuniary aid from the American Board, the entire responsibility of its support fell upon a few members of the Syria Mission. Travellers who passed through the Holy Land, sometimes assumed the support of charity pupils, or interested their Sabbath Schools in raising scholarships, on their return home, and a few noble friends in the United States have sent on their gifts from time to time unsolicited, to defray the general expenses of the Institution. Its support has been to some of us a work of _faith_, as well as a labor of love. Not unfrequently has the end of the month come upon us, without one piastre in the treasury for paying the teachers' salaries or buying bread for the children, when suddenly, in some unknown and unexpected way, funds would be received, sufficient for all our wants. About two years since the funds were entirely exhausted. More than a hundred dollars would be owing to the teachers and servants on the following day. The accounts were examined, and all possible means of relief proposed, but without avail. At length one of the members of the Executive Committee asked leave to look over the accounts. He did so, and said he could not find any mention of a sum of about thirty Napoleons, which he was sure he had paid into the treasury several months before, as a donation from Mr. Booth of New York, whose son had died in Beirût. The money had _not_ been paid into the school treasury. The vouchers were all produced, and there was left no resort but prayer. There was earnest supplication that night that the Lord would relieve us from our embarrassment, and provide for the necessities of the school. The next morning the good brother, above mentioned, recalled to mind his having given that money to Dr. Van Dyck in the Mission Library for the School. Dr. Van Dyck was consulted, and at once replied, "Certainly I received the money. It is securely locked up in the safe where it has been for months awaiting orders." The safe was opened, and the money found to be almost to a piastre the amount needed for obligations of the School.

Since the transfer of the Syria Mission to the board of Missions of the Presbyterian Church, the pecuniary status of the Seminary has been somewhat modified. The Women's Boards of Missions of New York and Philadelphia have assumed the responsibility of raising scholarships for its support among the Auxiliary Societies and Sabbath Schools; the salaries of the teachers are provided for by individuals and churches, and several of the old friends of the school retain their interest in it, while the danger of a deficit is guarded against, by the guarantees of the good Christian women who are doing so grand and noble a work in this age for the world's evangelization. The annual cost of supporting a pupil now is about sixty dollars gold. The number of paying pupils is increasing, and the prospect for the future is encouraging.

In the year 1864, a letter was received from certain Christian women in America, addressed to the girls of the School, and some of the older girls prepared a reply in Arabic, a translation of which was sent to America. It was as follows:

"From the girls of the Beirût School in Syria, to the sisters beloved in the Lord Jesus, in a land very far away. We have been honored in reading the lines which reached us from you, O sisters, distant in body but near in spirit, and we have given glory to God the Creator of all, who has caused in your hearts true love to us, and spiritual sympathies which have prompted you, dear sisters in the Lord, to write to us. Yes, it is the Lord Jesus who has brought about between us and between you (Arabic idiom) a spiritual intercourse, without the intercourse of bodily presence. For we have never in our lives seen you, nor your country, nor have we spoken to you face to face, and so you likewise have not seen us. Had neither of us the Word of God, the Holy and Only Book which is from one Father and a God unchangeable, to tell us that we have one nature, and have all fallen into one transgression, and are saved in one way, which is the Lord Jesus, we could not, as we now can, call you in one union, our sisters. The Lord Jesus calls those who love Him His brethren, and since He is the only bond and link, are we not His sisters, and thus sisters to each other? Truly, O dear sisters, we are thirsting to see you, and we all unite in offering prayers and praises to God, through His Son Immanuel, the possessor of the glorious Name, praying that we may see you; but we cannot in this world, for we are in the East, and you are in the West, far, very far. But, O dear friends, as we hope for the resurrection from the dead, so after our period in this world is ended, we shall meet by the blessing of God in those bright courts which are illumined by the light of the Saviour, which need not sun nor moon to give them light,--that holy place which is filled with throngs of angels who never cease to offer glory to God. There we may meet and unite with all the saved in praising the Saviour. There we may meet our friends who have passed on before us "as waiting they watch us approaching the shore," as we sing in the hymn. There around the throne of the glorious Saviour, there in the heavenly Jerusalem, our songs will not be mingled with tears and grief, for the Lord Jesus Himself will wipe away all tears from our eyes. There will not enter sin nor its likeness into our hearts sanctified by the Holy Spirit. There this body which shall rise incorruptible, will not return to the state in which it was in this world. In those courts we shall be happy always, and the reason is that we shall always be with the Great Shepherd, as it is said in the Book of Revelation, 'He shall shepherd them and lead them to fountains of living waters and wipe all tears from their eyes.' Our sisters, were it not for the Holy Bible which the Lord has given to His people, we should have no comfort to console us with regard to our friends whom we have lost by means of death. We beg you to help us by offering prayers to the living and true God that He will make us faithful even unto death,--that He will bless us while on the sea of this life, until we reach the shore of peace without fear or trouble, that we may be ready to stand before the seat of the Lord Jesus the Judge of all, clothed in the robes of His perfect righteousness, which he wove for us on the Cross, and is now ready to give to those who ask Him. Let us then all ask of God that this our only treasure may be placed where no thief can break in and steal, and no moth shall corrupt. And may the Lord preserve you!

We love to sing this hymn,

'Holy Bible, Book Divine, Precious treasure, thou art mine!'

and we entreat you that when you sing it, you will let it be a remembrancer from us to you."

In March, 1865, a little girl was brought to the school under somewhat peculiar circumstances. Years ago, in the days of Mr. Whiting, a Maronite monk named Nejm, became enlightened, left the monastery and was married to a Maronite woman named Zarifeh, by Mr. Whiting. For years the poor man passed through the fires of persecution and trial. Even his wife, in her ignorance, though not openly opposing him, trembled with fear every time he read the Scriptures aloud. At the time mentioned above, their little daughter Resha was about five years of age. The Papal Maronite Bishop of Beirût made a visit to Nejm's village, Baabda, to dispense indulgences, in accordance with the Pope's Encyclical letter. Nejm was called upon to pay his portion of the sum assessed upon the people, but having been a Protestant fifteen years, he refused to pay it. At the instigation of the priests, his wife was then taken from him, and his little Resha, his only child, was carried off by one of the priests to Beirût, and thrust inside the gates of the convent of the French Sisters of Charity. The poor father came to me, well-nigh broken-hearted, pleading for assistance. I laid the case before His Excellency Daûd Pasha, Governor of Lebanon, who was then in Beirût, and drew up a petition to the Pasha of Beirût also, on the subject. Nejm went about weeping and wringing his hands, and my feelings became deeply enlisted in his behalf. Three weeks afterwards, after a series of petitions and visits to the Pasha of Beirût, the girl Resha was removed from the convent and taken by Nejm's enemies to a house near Nahr Beirût, about two miles distant, and just over the border line of the Mountain Pashalic. I then addressed another letter to Daûd Pasha, and he promptly ordered her to be restored to her father. The manner in which Nejm, the father, finally secured the child was not a little amusing. He had been searching for his child for several weeks, waiting and watching, until his patience was about exhausted, when he heard that Resha was again in the hands of the priests in Baabda. The mother followed the child, and the priests threatened to kill her, if she informed her husband where the girl was secreted. Daûd Pasha was then at his winter palace in Baabda, and Nejm took my letter to him. While awaiting a reply at the door, some one informed him that his daughter was at the fountain. Without waiting further for official aid, he ran to the fountain, took up his daughter, put her on his back, and ran for Beirût, a distance of about four miles, where he brought her to my house, and placed her in my room, with loud ejaculations of thanks to God. "Neshkar Allah; El mejd lismoo." Thanks to God! Glory to His name! The mother soon followed, and the girl was sent as a day scholar to the Seminary. They are now living in Baabda. The mother, Zarify, united with the Evangelical Church of Beirût, July 21, 1872, giving the best evidence of a true spiritual experience. The little girl is anxious to teach, and it was proposed to employ her as an assistant in the girls' school in Baabda, but the tyrannical oppressions of the priesthood upon the family who had offered their house for the school, and the refusal of the Pasha of Lebanon to grant protection to the persecuted, have obliged the brethren there to postpone their request for a school for the present.

Alas for the poor women of Syria! Even when they seek to obtain the consolations of the Gospel by learning to read the Word of life, they are surrounded by priests and Sheikhs who watch their chance to destroy the "Bread of Life!" In March, 1865, a Maronite woman called at the Press to buy a book of poems, to teach her boy to read. "Why not buy a Testament?" asked the bookseller. "I did buy an Engeel Mushekkel," (a voweled Testament.) "Be careful of it then," said Khalil, "for the edition is exhausted, and you cannot get another for months." "It is too late to be careful now, for the book _has been burned_." "Burned? by whom?" "By the Jesuits, who gathered a large pile and burned them." God grant that as Tyndale's English New Testament, first printed in 1527 was only spread the more widely for the attempts of the Papal Bishop of London to burn it, so the Arabic Bible may receive a new impulse from the similarly inspired efforts of the Bishop's successors!