The Women of the Arabs. Henry Harris Jessup
by others to tell the people this absurd nonsense, I cannot say, but certainly it is a new thing for Jews to make any opposition, or to show any hostility to us. And this looks very much like the evil influence which has been attempted in another quarter."
"March 7. Yesterday Mrs. W. commenced a Sunday school for the pupils of her day school. They were much delighted. They began to learn the Sermon on the Mount."
"Sept. 7. Had a visit from two Sheikhs of the Mosque of David. One of them inquired particularly respecting Mrs. Whiting's school for Moslem girls, and wished to know what she taught them to read. I showed him the little spelling-book which we use, with which he was much pleased and begged me to lend it to him. I gave him one, with a copy of the Psalms, which he wished to compare with the Psalms of David as the Moslems have them. He invited me strongly to come and visit him, and to bring Mrs. Whiting to see his family."
The school continued with little interruption until October 3d, when Miss Tilden arrived and had the charge of the school for nearly two years. I left in feeble health, with Mr. Whiting, for the United States, where we spent more than one year. Miss Tilden during our absence was engaged in teaching in the boys' school in Beirût. On my return the Moslem school was not resumed, and soon after Mr. Whiting was again transferred to the Abeih station.
My work in the family school began in October, 1835, when Salome Carabet and Hanne Wortabet were placed by their parents in our family school. We afterwards added to the number Melita Carabet, and the two orphan girls Sada and Rufka Gregory. These two were brought to us in a very providential way. They were the children of Yakob Gregory, a respectable Armenian well known in Beirût.
He had two children, and when these were quite young, he left his wife, and nothing was heard of him afterwards. The mother died soon after and left the children in the care of the American Mission and the Armenian Bishop. The old grandmother, who was in Aleppo, on hearing of her death, soon returned to Beirût to look after the children. She was allowed to visit them in the Bishop's family, where they were cared for, and one day, in a stealthy way, she took Sada into the city, placed her in the hands of a Jew, on board of a native boat bound for Jaffa. I suppose Sada was then about six years old. They set sail. The child cried bitterly on finding her grandmother was not on board as she had promised. There was on board the boat an Armenian, well acquainted with her father, who inquired of her the cause. On hearing her story he remonstrated, with the Jew, who said she had been placed in his hands by her grandmother to be sent to Jerusalem. On their arriving at Jaffa, the affair was made known to Mr. Murad, the American Consul. He sent for the Jew, took the child from his hands, and dismissed him, and wrote to Mr. Whiting in Jerusalem an account of the affair, and was directed by him to send the child to us. Not long after, her grandmother came to Jerusalem bringing Rufka. She tried to interest the Armenian Convent in her behalf. Here I find an extract from Mr. Whiting's journal, which will give you all of interest on this point. "After being out much of the morning, I returned and found the grandmother of little Sada, who had brought her little sister Rufka to leave her with us. She had a quarrel with the convent, and fled for refuge to us. We cannot but be thankful that both these little orphans are at length quietly placed under our care and instruction."
The parents of three of the girls in our family, being Protestants, always gave their sanction to our mode of instructing and training them. Bishop Carabet likewise aided us in every way in his power, and ever seemed most grateful for what I was doing for his daughters. In his last sickness, when enfeebled by age, I often visited him. Once on going into his room, he was seated as usual on his Turkish rug. One of the family rose to offer me a chair, I said, "let me sit near you on your rug, that I may talk to you." With much emotion he replied, "Inshullah tukodee jenb il Messiah fe melakoot is sema!" "God grant that you may sit by the side of Christ in the kingdom of Heaven!"
We were from time to time encouraged by tokens of a work of God's Spirit in their hearts. Melita Carabet was the first to indulge a hope in Christ, and united with the Church in Abeih. Salome united in Beirût; Hanne in Hasbeiya, where her brother, Rev. John Wortabet, was pastor. Sada was received by Mr. Calhoun at Abeih, soon after Mr. Whiting's death, and Rufka in later years united with the United Presbyterian Church in Alexandria, Egypt. I have ever thought these girls were under great obligations to the American Churches and the American Mission, who for so many years supported and instructed them, and I have ever tried to impress upon them a sense of their obligation to impart to others of their countrywomen what they had received. I believe as early as 1836, they began assisting me in the Moslem school for girls in Jerusalem, in which they continued to assist Miss Tilden until the school was given up.
Soon after our removal to Abeih, October, 1844, we established a day-school for girls in the village on the Mission premises, of which Salome and Hanne had the entire charge under my superintendence. When the Station at Mosul was established, Salome was appointed by the Mission to assist Mrs. Williams in her work among the women, in which work she continued until her marriage with Rev. John Wortabet. Melita was afterwards appointed by the Mission to the Aleppo Station to assist Mrs. Eddy and Mrs. Ford in the work, and so they were employed at various stations in the work of teaching, until I left the Mission. I have kept up a continual correspondence with them, and have learned from others to my joy, that they were doing the work for which I had trained them."
The above deeply interesting letter from Mrs. Whiting is enough in itself to show what an amount of patient Christian labor was expended through a course of many years, in the education of the five young Syrian maidens who were entrusted in the providence of God to her care. I have been personally acquainted with four of them for seventeen years, and can testify, as can many others, of the good use they have made of their high opportunities. The amount of good they have accomplished as teachers, in Abeih, Jerusalem, Deir el Komr, Hasbeiya, Tripoli, Aleppo, Mosul, Alexandria, Cairo, Melbourne, (Australia,) and in the Mission Female Seminary and the Prussian Deaconesses' Institute in Beirût, will never be known until all things are revealed. I have received letters from several of them, which I will give in their own language, as they are written in English. The first is from Salome, now the wife of the Rev. Prof. John Wortabet, M.D., of the Syrian Protestant College in Beirût.
"I do not consider my history worth recording, and it is only out of consideration of what is due to Mrs. Whiting for the labor she bestowed upon us, that I am induced to take up my pen to comply with your request. I was taken by Mrs. Whiting when only six years old, together with Hannie Wortabet, who was five years old, to be brought up in her family, she having no children of her own. Owing partly to the nature of the religious instruction we received, and partly to my own timid sensitive nature, I was, from time to time for many years, under deep spiritual terrors, without any saving result. When I was about sixteen, a revival of religion took place, under whose influence I was also brought. Mr. Calhoun was my spiritual adviser, and although my mind groped in darkness, and bordered on despair for many weeks, I hope I was then led to put my trust in Jesus, and if ever I am saved, my only hope now is, and ever shall be, in the merits of Jesus' blood and His promises."
The next letter is from Melita Carabet, daughter of the Armenian Bishop Dionysius Carabet, who became a Protestant in 1823. She writes as follows:
"Nothing could give me more pleasure than to comply with your request, and thereby recall some of the happy days and incidents of my childhood and youth, spent under the roof of my godly teachers, Mr. and Mrs. Whiting. I ought to remember them as far back as at the baptismal font, for I heard afterwards that they were both present on the occasion, which took place in Malta, where I was born. But as my memory does not carry me back so far, I must date my recollections from the time I was five years of age, when I came to live in their family. I can distinctly recollect the first texts of Scripture and verses of hymns that dear Mrs. Whiting taught my young lips to repeat, and my little prayer which I used to say at her knees on going to bed, I still repeat to this day, "Now I lay me," etc. One incident which happened about a year later, was so deeply impressed on my memory, and had such an effect upon me at the time, that I must mention it. It was this. Mrs. Whiting had given us girls (we were five in number, my sister Salome, and Hannie, Dr. Wortabet's sister, and Sada and Rufka Gregory) some raisins to pick over preparatory to making cake. I stole an opportunity after a while, to slip about a dozen of these raisins into my pocket. No one saw me do it but from the moment I had done it, I began to feel very unhappy,