Chapter 13

LUCIYA SHEKKUR.

The work done for Christ and for Syrian girls in the families of Missionaries in Syria, may well compare with that done in the established institutions of learning. Mrs. Whiting was not alone in the work of training native Arab girls in her own home. The same work had been done by other Missionaries before her, and has been carried on with no little success by Mrs. Bird, Mrs. Calhoun and others, up to the present time.

It is an interesting sight to see the Thursday afternoon Women's meeting in the house of Mrs. Calhoun in Abeih, and to know that a large part of that company of bright, intelligent and tidily dressed young native women, who listen so intently to the Bible lesson, and join so heartily in singing the sweet songs of Zion, were trained up either in her own family, or under her own especial influence. By means of her own example in the training of her children, she has taught the women of Abeih, and through them multitudes of women in other villages, the true Christian modes of family government and discipline, and introduced to their notice and practice many of those little conveniences and habits in the training of children, whose influence will be felt for many generations.

When Mr. and Mrs. Bird removed to Deir el Komr in 1855, they not only opened a large school for the education of girls, with Sada Haleby, one of Dr. De Forest's pupils, as teacher, but received into their own family three young girls, named Lucîya, Sikkar and Zihry, all of whom entered upon spheres of usefulness. Zihry became a teacher, in Deir el Komr, and has continued to teach until the present time. She was at one time connected with the Beirût Female Seminary, and is now teaching in the Institution of Mrs. Shrimpton, under the auspices of the British Syrian Schools.

Luciya taught in Deir el Komr until the school was overwhelmed in the fires and blood of the Massacre year, 1860.

In 1862 she taught in the Sidon School, and afterwards married the Rev. Sulleba Jerwan, the first native pastor in Hums. In that great city, and amid the growing interest of the young Protestant community, she found a wide and attractive field of labor. She was a young woman of great gentleness and delicacy of nature, and of strong religious feeling, and entered upon the work of laboring among the women and girls of Hums, with exemplary zeal and discretion. She became greatly beloved, and her Godly example and gentle spirit will never be forgotten.

But at length her labors were abruptly cut short. Consumption, a disease little known in Syria, but which afterwards cut down her brother and only sister Sikkar, fastened upon her, and she was obliged, in great suffering, to leave the raw and windy climate of Hums, for the milder air of Beirût. Her two brothers being in the employ of Miss Whately in Cairo, she went, on their invitation, to Egypt, where after a painful illness, she fell asleep in Jesus. Amid all her sufferings, she maintained that same gentle and lovely temper of mind, which made her so greatly beloved by all who knew her.

She has rested from her labors, and her works do follow her. Not long after her sister Sikkar, who had also been trained in Mrs. Bird's family, died in her native village Ain Zehalteh.

Her last end also, was peace, and although no concourse of Druze Sheikhs came barefoot over the snow to her funeral, as they did on the death of the Sitt Selma, in the same village, no doubt a concourse of higher and holier beings attended her spirit to glory.

When Luciya was in Beirût before her departure to Egypt, I used to see her frequently, and I shall never forget the calm composure with which she spoke of her anticipated release from the pains and sufferings of life. Christ was her portion, and she lived in communion with him, certain that ere long she should depart and be with him forever.

The poor Moslem women in the houses adjoining her room used to come in, and with half-veiled faces look upon her calm and patient face with wonder. Would that they too might find her Saviour precious to them, in their hours of sickness, suffering and death!

Truly, there is no religion but that of Jesus Christ, that can soften the pillow of suffering, and take away the sting and dread of death.

One of the most serious difficulties in the way of the higher female education in Syria, is the early age at which girls are married. One young girl attended the Beirût Seminary for two years, from eight to ten, and the teachers were becoming interested in her progress, when suddenly her parents took her out of the school, and gave her to a man in marriage. After the festivities of the marriage week were over at her husband's house, she went home to visit her mother, _taking her dolls with her_ to amuse herself!

The Arabic journal "the Jenneh" of Beirût, contained a letter in June, 1872, from its Damascus correspondent, praising the fecundity of Syria, and stating that a young woman who was married at nine and a half, became a grandmother at twenty! Such instances are not uncommon in Damascus and Hums, where the chief and almost the only concern of parents is to marry off their daughters as early as nature will allow, without education, experience or any other qualification for the responsible duties of married life. When the above mentioned letter from Damascus was published, Dr. Van Dyck took occasion to write an article in the "Neshra," the Missionary Weekly, of which he is the editor, exposing the folly and criminality of such early marriages, and demonstrating their disastrous effects on society at large.

Since the establishment of schools and seminaries of a high grade for girls, this tendency is being decidedly checked in the vicinity of Beirût, and girls are not given up as incorrigibly old, even if they reach the age of seventeen.

Dr. Meshakah of Damascus, who has long been distinguished for his learned and eloquent works on the Papacy, is a venerable white-bearded patriarch and his wife looks as if she were his daughter. I once asked him how old she was when married, and he said _eleven_. I asked him why he married her so young? He said that in his day, young girls received no training at home, and young men who wished properly trained wives, had to marry them young, so as to educate them to suit themselves!

Education is rapidly obviating that necessity, and young men are more than willing that girls to whom they are betrothed, should complete their education, lest they be eclipsed by others who remain longer at school. I once called on a wealthy native merchant in Beirût, who remarked that "the Europeans have a thing in their country which we have not. They call it ed-oo-cashion, and I am anxious to have it introduced into Syria." This "ed-oo-cashion" is already settling many a question in Syria which nothing else could settle, and the natives are also learning that something more than mere book-knowledge is needed, to elevate and refine the family. One of the most direct results of female education thus far in Syria has been the abolition from certain classes of society of some of those superstitious fears which harass and torment the ignorant masses.