Children -- Conduct of life -- Juvenile literature; Children's poetry; Children's stories; Conduct of life -- Juvenile literature
Instead, then, of going up the men’s aisle, and sitting at the further
end where we missionaries usually do, I went on to the door at the
left—the women’s—and slipped into a back seat. A little girl just in
front of me passed me her hymn book, so that I could join with the
congregation in singing “_Garode yem, voh garode yem_”—“I need Thee,
O, I need Thee.” Just as the hymn closed, the sun’s rays struck the
eastern window and streamed in; then the preacher arose and read the
epistle to Philemon, and also 1 Cor. vii. 22. . . .
The benediction was pronounced, and the congregation slowly streamed
out. The walk from the chapel to the street is narrow, and as it is
not proper for women to crowd in among the men, we waited till they
had mostly passed on. While standing outside, Shushan, one of our day
pupils, came along with her mother; both were completely enveloped
in the white crapy wrap which is worn by the Armenian women in this
section. Shushan’s bright-colored dress showed through, and at the same
time set off the figure in the wrap.
“_Par-ee loo-is_, Shushan; are you of the same mind as yesterday about
going to Kozloo?”
She returned my good-morning, and said she was; yes, indeed!
“Why should we change our minds?” said her mother. “Are we not also
Christ’s servants?” referring to the sermon we had just heard.
You see, Shushan’s brother was bitterly opposed to her going away
to teach, and I thought it quite possible that he had influenced her
to give it up. It was years after girls’ schools were opened before
people were willing to send their children to a woman teacher—I mean a
native—still worse if she was “only a girl.” They would far rather send
them to a man, however ignorant and incapable. That long struggle has
ended at last in victory, and we have no more trouble in finding work
for our girls; but we have another difficulty now. Well-to-do parents
and brothers consider it a disgrace—at least many of them do—to have
their daughters and sisters work as though they were obliged to earn
their support.
“Haven’t you food and clothes?” they ask indignantly, when a girl,
filled with a desire to do something for her people, intimates a
purpose to teach. Perhaps I may as well complete this little tale here
and now, although it does not belong to the incident of the Sabbath I
have been describing.
A few days later the (native) pastor came to me and asked anxiously,
“Can’t you persuade Shushan, for the sake of peace, to give up going to
Kozloo? Her brother is very violent, and talks terribly, declaring that
even if she were mounted, and going through the most public street, he
would drag her off the horse; if she should by any chance succeed in
carrying out her plan, she should never come home again—he would never
again acknowledge her as his sister.” The pastor went on to say that he
thought the brother had offered to send her away to school if she would
give up “this crazy scheme,” as he called it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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