The Child in the Midst: A Comparative Study of Child Welfare in Christian and Non-Christian Lands — John Shaqi
The Child in the Midst: A Comparative Study of Child Welfare in Christian and Non-Christian LandsPlatt, Mary Schauffler
Religion
The Child in the Midst: A Comparative Study of Child Welfare in Christian and Non-Christian Lands
Platt, Mary Schauffler
Church work with children; Missions
One of the most interesting facts that has come to light during
recent years is this: We do not know of any educated Moslem girl
who has spent four or five years in our schools,--and I include
those of the British workers too,--who has ever been subjected to
the indignity of a second wife brought into her home. They seem to
have gained strength of character and graces enough to hold their
own against the bad influences of Mohammedanism. More and more we
hear of Moslem families who practically adopt the Christian idea
of marriage, that is, one woman in the home: these families
frequently in giving away their daughters take pledges from the
bridegroom that she is to be the only wife, while still more
encouraging is the fact that many of these educated girls
absolutely refuse to be given in marriage unless their parents
insist on this single wife.[23]
A little Mohammedan girl had attended for a few months a small day
school on the mission premises. Years afterwards her missionary
teacher found her in a village, and the woman gathering her children
about her led them in the Lord’s Prayer, explaining that she and the
children prayed together every day.
[Sidenote: A Christian mother in Syria.]
Who can foretell the influence that will go on down through the years
because of one mother in Syria who has recently passed to her reward
at the age of ninety years? She was the mother of eight children, two
of whom were ordained pastors, two licensed preachers, one the wife of
a pastor, another a helper in the Sidon Missionary School, one is
employed by the Church Missionary Society in Nazareth, and two more
are teaching and preaching in the German Orphanage in Jerusalem. Think
what the land of our Saviour’s sojourn would have lost had not that
one mother learned to love and follow Him, and to train her children
as a Christian mother should.
[Sidenote: Child marriage.]
Many chapters might easily be devoted to the subjects of child
marriage and child widowhood and their frightful effect on past,
present, and future generations. They have, however, been treated
quite fully in recent mission study books, and so much authoritative
literature on these subjects exists that it does not seem best to
dwell on them at length in this connection.
But every Christian mother should pause and ask of herself earnestly,
“What if it were my daughter, my son, how could I stand it? Would I
not move heaven and earth to see that some remedy were found for this
monstrous evil?” What if your daughter were that widowed teacher in a
missionary school in China who had been married at nineteen to a boy
of twelve, and who every morning after washing his face and combing
his hair had to see that he started off properly to school, often
crying and protesting, and then turn to her weaving, in order to earn
money for his education?
[Sidenote: Testimony of an Egyptian.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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