American literature -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Sunday schools -- United States -- Periodicals
It was very hard to say good-by for so long a time, but at last it was
over, and the boy went down to the great ship that was to carry him
over the ocean, trying to choke back the tears that would rise when
he thought of his home and father and mother and playmates, and the
missionaries whom he loved so much. So he knelt down by his little bed
in the ship, and begged the dear Heavenly Father to go with him. Then
there came a sweet verse to him to cheer him: “Fear thou not, neither
be thou dismayed, for the Lord thy God is with thee, whithersoever thou
goest.”
He was very much bewildered when he landed in this country, at all the
bustle and hurry, and the strange language.
He was put immediately into school, and went to work at the English
language.
“Did you find it hard?” I asked him, not long since.
“Hard! I should think I did,” he answered. “Your language is so queer!
See that horse tied to a tree. It is ‘fast.’ And yet if he is running
at full speed you call him ‘fast.’ That window is locked. You say it
is ‘fast,’ but so is the young man that smokes and drinks, and wears
flashy neckties and carries a cane. It was a great puzzle to me at
first. It has taken me all these twelve years to learn it.”
The boy has worked hard, and is a fine scholar.
Five years ago he went back to his own country and spent a year in
Smyrna among the Greeks, and now if you chance to have the pleasure of
spending an evening in his company, he may take his guitar and sing to
you the wild, sweet melodies of the Greeks, with their soft, musical
syllables, and I’m sure you’ll be delighted with them.
Perhaps, too, he may give you the Turkish call to go to Jerusalem, and
describe the caravan of Armenians as they start on their pilgrimage to
the Holy City, with a young man ahead on a beautifully-adorned camel,
his head thrown back, his hands clasped at the back of his neck, and
singing out the weird call which means something like this:
“Come all ye people! Let us go up to visit Jerusalem! It will please
all the saints! I have sold all my vast estates to fit me out for the
journey. I have given up everything! Be not behind your leader! Come,
let us go up and we shall be saved!”
He will tell you, too, of his little brother, who has just started to
this country to be educated. How often he will jump upon some barrel
or box in the street and imitate the Mohammedan call to prayer, with
such exactness that his mother is obliged to pull him down quickly and
take him into the house lest some angry Mohammedan should seize him and
punish him for his fun.
The young man is now studying medicine and expects to return to his own
country soon, to begin work for his Master.
Shall we not all pray that his work may be blest, and that many may be
brought to Jesus through him?
GRACE LIVINGSTON.
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Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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