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
That solitary disciple, through those long years of seclusion, never
hearing the voice of Christian fellowship, or knowing whether her pious
friends were alive, or if her sisters still remembered their pledge,
was yet kept of God according to his promise; and it is interesting to
see that she does not once allude to her persecutions in her letters,
but only solicits the prayers of her friends for her relatives and
neighbors; and then, while both Mr. Coan and her teacher testify to her
usefulness, with what humility does she allude to herself, and "the
very little she has made known of the Lord Jesus Christ."
Extracts from the letters that she kept so long here follow. The first,
to friends in Middlebury, Vermont, is dated September, 1851, and reads
thus:--
"To you, dear friends, I write a letter unworthy and imperfect, in
which I make known to you my lost condition and my present abode. Know
ye that a little more than two years ago I left the Seminary, and came
with my friends to our country. I did not wish to leave so soon, for I
had learned but very imperfectly what the Scriptures teach about our
Lord Jesus Christ. But my mother was not willing I should remain, for
her heart is yet hard and dark. Know, then, dear sisters in Christ, I
dwell in Tiary, in the village of Chumba, about six days' journey from
Oroomiah. Again, though so far away, know ye, that your letter reached
me in May. It was translated and sent to me by Mr. Perkins, our beloved
father, whom we are unworthy to call such. My dear sisters, when I took
your letter in my hands and read, my heart longed to fly and sit down
by you, and behold your faces in the body; but I said, "The will of the
Lord, not mine, be done." When I look within myself, and see not a
place worthy to cherish gratitude to God for his great mercy and grace,
which he hath wrought for us, sinful and unworthy, I liken myself to
the slothful servant, who did not the will of his Lord. Yet, O, my
sisters, though I have not done the will of my Saviour, I have hope in
him that I shall do it, and serve him henceforth so long as I am in
this world--fleeting as a dream in the night.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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