Woman and Her Saviour in Persia: By a Returned MissionaryLaurie, Thomas
History
Woman and Her Saviour in Persia: By a Returned Missionary
Laurie, Thomas
Church of the East -- Missions; Missions -- Iran; Women missionaries
A seminary gathering together such a company of young females, was a
new thing in Persia, and it will readily be conceived that amid a
Mohammedan community it was an object of peculiar solicitude to its
guardians. Many a Moslem eye was on those girls, as the results of a
religious education appeared in their manners, their dress, and
personal beauty. In one instance, an officer of government attempted to
take one of them to his harem, but God thwarted his purpose through the
interference of the English consul. Similar dangers threatened from
other sources, and eternity alone will reveal the burden of care and
watchfulness they involved. If only one pupil had been led astray, what
a hopeless loss of confidence would have followed among the people! In
the early years of the institution, when parents could hardly be
persuaded to trust their daughters out of their sight for a single
night, it might have broken up the whole enterprise; but in this
matter, also, God showed himself the hearer of prayer, and not one
danger of the kind was ever allowed to be more than an occasion for
renewed intercession, and more confiding dependence on his gracious
care. Sometimes, in vacation, it seemed strange to its guardians that
they had no longer a fold to protect, and could retire to rest free
from that anxious solicitude that sometimes drove sleep from their eyes.
It is not in the beginning of missionary life that all these things are
understood: they are learned gradually. This is wisely ordered, that
the missionary be not discouraged at the outset. Strength is given each
day to meet new trials as they come, and it would not be leaving a
truthful impression on the reader, if, at the close of this description
of what has been, it should not be recorded, to the praise of divine
grace, that a great change has taken place. There are many to-day to
whom the missionary may say, "Such were some of you; but ye are washed,
but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord
Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God." Not only do some who stole steal
no more, but many young husbands now provide separate apartments for
the bride whom they bring home, and they need all that the word "home"
expresses to describe their mutual joy. The hour of suffering is
anticipated by a considerate affection, and that affection is so
reciprocated that many hearts safely trust in the daughters of the
Female Seminary of Oroomiah.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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