Bible schools are a mighty means of usefulness. 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 Beirut 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; they
are intrinsically useful in introducing a vast amount of useful Bible
knowledge into the minds of the children, and through them to their
parents. In countries where the people as a mass are ignorant of
reading, they are an absolute necessity, and in any community they are a
blessing. Had all Mission Schools been conducted on the same thorough
Biblical basis as those in Syria, there would have been less objection
to schools as a part of the missionary work.
THE SPHERE AND MODES OF WOMAN'S WORK IN FOREIGN LANDS.
In this age, when Christian women in many lands are engaging in the
Foreign Mission work with so much zeal, it is important to know who
should enter personally upon this work, and what are the modes and
departments of labor in which they can engage when on the ground.
No woman should go to the Foreign field who has not sound health,
thorough education, and a reasonable prospect of being able to learn a
foreign language. The languages of different nations differ as to
comparative ease of acquisition, but it is well for any one who has the
_Arabic_ language to learn, to begin as early in life as practicable. It
should be borne in mind that the work in foreign lands is a self-denying
work, and I know of no persons who are called to undergo greater
self-denial than unmarried women engaged in religious work abroad. They
are doing a noble work, a necessary work, and a work of lasting
usefulness. Deprived in many instances of the social enjoyments and
protection of a _home_, they _make_ a home in their schools, and throw
themselves into a peculiar sympathy with their pupils, and the families
with which they are brought into contact. Where several are associated
together, as they always should be, the institution in which they live
becomes a model of the Christian order, sympathy and mutual help, which
is characteristic of the home in Christian lands. Christian women,
married and unmarried, can reach a class in every Arabic community from
which men are sedulously excluded. They should enter upon the foreign
work as a life-work, devote themselves first of all to the mastery of
the language of the people, open their eyes to all that is pleasant and
attractive among the natives, and close them to all that is unlovable
and repulsive, resolved to love the people, and what pertains to them,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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