Henry Harris Jessup

“ In the reformation of a nation, then, the first step in the ladder is the education of the women from their childhood. And those who neglect the women and girls, and expect the elevation of the people by the mere training of men and boys, are like one walking with one foot on the earth, and the other in the clouds! They fail in accomplishing their purpose and are barely able, by the utmost energy, to repair that which woman has corrupted and destroyed. ”

“ Do we not know that the reign of beauty is short, and not enough of itself to be worthy of regard? And even supposing that it were enough of itself, in the public estimation, to make us attractive and desirable, do we not know assuredly that after beauty has faded, we should fall at once into a panic of anxiety and grief, since none would then look at us save with the eye of contempt and ridicule, to say nothing of the vain attempts at producing artificial beauty which certain foolish women make, as if they were deaf to the insults and abuse heaped upon them? ”

“ Let us retire to rest for the night, thankful for the precious Bible, and the knowledge of Jesus Christ. You are safe indeed in the hands of God, and need not fear the Ghoul nor the Bah'oo. Good night.
Such is life. Yesterday a wedding, and to-day a funeral. Do you hear that terrific wail, those shrieks and bitter cries of anguish? Young Sheikh Milham has died. The Druze and Christian women are gathered in the house, and wailing together in the most piteous manner. It is dreadful to think what sufferings the poor women must endure. They do everything possible to excite one another. ”

“ What do they know about the training of children, domestic economy and neatness of person, and the care of the sick? How many abominable superstitions do they follow, although forbidden by their own religions? Are not the journals and diaries of travellers full of descriptions of the state of our women? Does not every one, familiar with the state of society and the family among us, know all these things, and mourn over them, and demand a reform? Would that I might awaken among the women the desire to learn, that thus they might be worthy of higher honor and esteem! ”

“ Wo to us Syrian women, if we do not know enough to distinguish and seek after those qualities which will elevate and refine our minds, and give breadth to our thoughts, and enable us to take a proper position in society! We ought to attract sensible persons to us by the charm of our cultivation and refinement, not by the mere phantom of beauty and personal ornament. ”

“ Why can there not be stationed at every one of those morally desolate places, at least one missionary family, and one single female as a teacher? Does not Jesus Christ, the Good Shepherd, require it of His youthful friends in America, that from love to Him, gratitude for their own distinguished mercies, compassion for perishing souls, and the expectation of perfect rest and happiness in heaven, they should spread themselves over the wide world, and feed the sheep and the lambs scattered without a shepherd upon the mountains?' Yes, He requires it, and angels will yet behold it ”

“ 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. ”

“ If it is good, we receive good as readily as they; and if evil, then evil. Of what use is a crown of gold on the brow of ignorance, and what loveliness is there in a jewelled star on the neck of coarseness and brutality, or in a diamond necklace over a heart of stupidity and ignorance? The great poet Mutanebbi has given us an apothegm of great power on this very subject. He says:
'Fukr el jehûl bela okl ila adab,
Fukr el hamar bela ras ila resen,'
'A senseless fool's need of instruction is like a headless donkey's need of a halter.' ”

“ May the God of prophecy and promise, hasten the time when Nusairy barbarism, Druze hypocrisy, Moslem fanaticism, Jewish bigotry and nominal Christian superstition shall fade away under the glorious beams of the rising Sun of Righteousness! ”

“ Sometimes when I think how near destruction I was, with literally but a step between me and death, eternal death, and yet God raised me up and brought me to Christ and made me love Him, and how ever since He has been watching over me giving me the measure of comfort and peace that I enjoy and giving me the desire to know and love Him more, I wonder at my own coldness, at the frequency with which I forget Him. ”

“ Lebanon, a Druze, named Hassan, murdered a Druze girl of his own village, supposing that Daûd Pasha would not interfere with the time-honored custom of killing girls! Much to his surprise, however, he was arrested, convicted and hung, and the poor women of all sects in the mountain began to feel that after all they had an equal right to life with the other sex.
In most parts of Syria to-day, the murder of women and girls is an act so insignificant as hardly to deserve notice. ”

“ Persons who are incapable of loving or admiring anything that is not American or English had better remain in America or England; and on the other hand, there is no surer passport to the affections of any people, than the disposition to overlook their faults, and to treat them as our brethren and sisters for whom a common Saviour died. Let no missionary of either sex who goes to a foreign land, think that there is nothing to be learned from Syrians or Hindoos, Chinese or Japanese. The good is not all confined to any land or people. ”

“ Death enters the Bedawin tents as well as the palaces of kings and the comfortable homes of the people in Christian lands. But what desolation it leaves behind in those dark sorrowing hearts, who know nothing of the love of Jesus and the consolations of the gospel. ”

“ Every reform in government, toleration and material improvement in the Turkish Empire, Persia and Egypt, is made in spite of the Koran and contrary to its spirit. The printing of the Koran is unlawful, but it is being printed. All pictures of living objects are unlawful, but the Sultan is photographed, Abd el Kader is photographed, the "Sheikh ul Islam" is photographed. European shoes are unlawful because sewed with a swine's bristle, but Moslem Muftis strut about the streets in French gaiters, and the women of their harems tottle about in the most absurd of Parisian high-heeled slippers. ”

“ Have you not observed how the customs of ancient rude barbarism corrupted the manners of woman and obliterated all those virtues and excellencies for which she is especially designed by nature? It was deemed most opprobrious for woman to learn to read and write, to say nothing of other arts. It was thought indispensable to bind upon her mouth the fetters of profound silence so that none ever heard her voice but her own coarse husband, and the walls of the enclosure in which she was kept imprisoned. ”

“ I think nothing strikes a new missionary with more grateful surprise on entering the Syrian Mission-field, than to witness the great prominence given to Biblical instruction, from the humblest village school of little Arab boys and girls, to the highest Seminaries. The examinations in the Scriptures passed by the young men in Abeih, and the girls in the Beirût and Sidon Seminaries, would do credit to the young people in any American community. Bible schools are not merely useful as an entering wedge to give the missionary a position and an influence among the people ”

“ The effects of the Mohammedan domination of twelve hundred years have been to degrade and depress all the sects and nationalities who are subject to Islam. Not only were there not women and girls found to learn to read, but the great mass of the men of the Christian sects could neither read nor write. Many of the prominent Arab merchants in Beirût to-day can neither read nor write. I say Arab merchants, and yet very few of the Arabs of the Greek Church have more than a mere tinge of Arab blood in their veins. ”

“ Before the latter day, the sun shall rise in the West, and God will send forth a cold odoriferous wind blowing from Syria Damascena, which shall sweep away the souls of all the faithful, and the Koran itself. What the world of Islam takes in its literal sense, we may take in a deeper spiritual meaning. ”

“ What a difference between the faithful Christian nurture her little children are receiving at home, and the worse than no training received by the children of her Druze relatives at Ras Beirût, who are still under the shadow of their old superstitions. She never curses her children nor invokes the wrath of God upon them. She is never beaten and spit upon and tortured and threatened with death by her husband. It is worth much to have rescued a Khozma and an Abla from the degradation of Druze superstition! ”

“ They have given us the Arabic Bible, numerous good books, founded schools and seminaries, and trained our children and youth. But for the American Missionaries the Word of God would have well nigh died out of the Arabic language. But now through the labors of the lamented Eli Smith and Dr. Van Dyck, they have given us a translation so pure, so exact, so clear and so classical as to be acceptable to all classes and all sects. But for their labors, education would still be where it was centuries ago, and our children would still have continued to grow up like wild beasts. ”

“ I can forget father and mother, but can never forget those who taught me, especially about religion. Although some of them are dead, yet still they live by their Christian example, which they have left behind. My whole life will be full of gratitude to those dear Christian friends, and I pray that God himself may reward them a hundred fold. ”

“ You have seen and heard many strange things. Whatever is good among the Arabs, try to imitate; whatever is evil, avoid. Perhaps you will write to me some day, and tell me what you think of Syria and the Syrians. Many little boys and girls will read this long letter, but it is your letter, 369and I have written it for your instruction and amusement.
May the good Shepherd, who gave His life for the sheep, lead you beside the still waters of life, and at last when He shall appear, may He give you a crown of glory which fadeth not away! ”

“ When a young man sees a girl who pleases him, he bargains with her father, agreeing to pay from twenty dollars to two hundred, according to the dignity of her family; of which sum she receives but four dollars, unless her father should choose to give her a red bridal box and bedding for her outfit. She rides in great state to the bridegroom's house amid the firing of guns and shouts of the women, and on dismounting, the bridegroom gives her a present of from one to three dollars, called the "dismounting money." ”

“ Educate your girls and train them to intelligence and virtue, and then their pens will write only what ought to be written. Train the hand to hold a pen, without training the mind to direct it, and only mischief can result." "Saheah, saheah," "very true, very true," said he, "But how can this be done?"
It has begun to be done in Syria. From the days of Mrs. Sarah L. Smith to the present time, Moslem girls have been taught to read and write and sew, and there are many now learning in the various American, British and Prussian schools. ”

“ But it should be remembered, that just as in civilized lands, all these demonstrations of joy and sorrow are tempered by moderation and wisdom, and subdued by silent acquiescence in the Divine will, so in uncivilized lands, they are the occasion for giving the loose rein to passion and tumult and violent emotion. How much in conformity with true faith in God, and religious principle, is the quiet, well-ordered and moderate course of procedure among civilized nations! ”

“ He takes first one medicine and then its opposite, and then he summons other doctors and consults his relatives. Then all the old women of the neighborhood take him in hand and set at naught all that the doctors have advised, give him medicines of whose properties they are wholly ignorant, and thus they hasten the final departure of their friend on his long last journey. And if he should die, the whole population of the town assembles at once at the house and the relatives, friends, and people from other villages come thronging in. They fill the house with their screams and wails of mourning. ”

“ If that father loved his daughter so as to search and seek for her, and expend money, and travel by land and sea for years, in trying to find her, and when at length he found her, so forlorn and wretched and degraded, yet loved her still because she was his daughter, do you not think that Jesus loves us even more? ”

“ Hundreds of them went through the narrow streets, knocking over men and women and donkeys, upsetting the shopkeepers, and spilling out their wares on the ground, and many persons were badly bruised. At length a carpenter saw them coming and put a timber across the street, which dammed up the infuriated tide of camels, and they dashed against one another until they were all wedged together, and thus their owners secured them. ”

“ Why shall we not show to men the need of giving us the highest education, that we may at the least contribute to their happiness and advantage, and rightly train our children and babes, not to say that we may pluck the fruits of science, and the best knowledge for ourselves? ”

“ Whenever a new house is built, the workmen hang up an egg shell or a piece of alum, or an old root, or a donkey's skull, in the front door, to keep off the evil eye. Moslem women leave their children ragged and dirty to keep people from admiring them, and thus smiting them with the evil eye. They think that blue eyes are especially dangerous.
They think that the name of God or Allah is a charm against evil, and when they repeat it, they have no idea of reverence for that Holy Name. ”

“ I have known missionaries to travel without beds, tents or bedsteads, and to spend weary days and sleepless nights, so as to be quite unfitted for their great work of preaching to the people. If you ever grow up to become a missionary, I hope you will live as simply as you can, but be careful of your health 304and try to live as long as you can, for the sake of the people you are working for, and the Lord who sends you forth. It is not good economy for a missionary to become a martyr to studying Arabic, or to poor food, or to exhausting modes of travelling. ”

“ Miriam, the teacher, is a heroine. Her parents were Greeks, but sent her to school to learn to read. She learned in a short time to read the New Testament, and to love it, and to keep the Sabbath day holy. The keeping of the Sabbath was something new in Safita. The Nusairîyeh have no holy day at all, and the Greeks have so many that they keep none of them. They work and buy and sell and travel on the Sabbath as on other days, and think far more of certain saint's days than of the Sabbath. ”