for Christ's sake who died for them, and to identify themselves with the
people in every practicable way. 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.
Among the departments of woman's work in foreign lands are the
following:--
I. Teaching in established institutions, Female Seminaries, Orphan
Houses and High Schools.
II. Acting as Nurses in Hospitals, as is done by the Prussian
Protestant Deaconesses of Kaiserswerth, who are scattered over the East
and doing a work of peculiar value.
III. Visiting from house to house, for the express purpose of holding
religious conversation with the people _in their own language_. This can
only be done in Syria by one versed in the Arabic, and able to speak
_without an interpreter_.
Ignorance of the language of the people, is a barrier which no skill of
an interpreter can break down, and every woman who would labor with
acceptance and success among the women of Syria, must be able to speak
to them familiarly in their own mother tongue. Interpreters may be
honest and conscientious, but not one person in a thousand can translate
accurately from one language to another without previous preparation.
And besides, interpreters are not always reliable. There is still
living, in the city of Tripoli, an old man named Abdullah Yanni, who
acted as interpreter for a Jewish Missionary some forty years ago. He
tells many a story of the extraordinary shape which that unsuspecting
missionary's discourses assumed in passing through his lips. One day
they went through the principal street to preach to the Moslems. A great
crowd assembled, and Abdullah trembled, for in those days of darkness
Moslems oppressed and insulted Christians with perfect impunity. Said
the missionary, "Tell the Moslems that unless they all repent and
believe in Christ, they will perish forever." Abdullah translated, and
the Moslems gave loud and earnest expression to their delight. They
declared, "That is so, that is so, welcome to the Khowadja!" Abdullah
had told them that "the Khowadja says, that he loves you very much, and
the Engliz and the Moslems are 'sowa sowa,' _i.e._ together as one."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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