{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_62628/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_62628","id":"gutenberg_62628","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/62628","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Children & Young Adult Reading","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Iran -- Social life and customs -- Juvenile literature","Missions -- Iran -- Juvenile literature"],"text":"CHILDREN OF PERSIA\n\n\n\n\n_Uniform with this Volume_\n\n\n  CHILDREN OF INDIA\n    By JANET HARVEY KELMAN\n\n  CHILDREN OF CHINA\n    By C. CAMPBELL BROWN\n\n  CHILDREN OF AFRICA\n    By JAMES B. BAIRD\n\n  CHILDREN OF ARABIA\n    By JOHN CAMERON YOUNG\n\n  CHILDREN OF JAMAICA\n    By ISABEL C. MACLEAN\n\n  CHILDREN OF JAPAN\n    By JANET HARVEY KELMAN\n\n  CHILDREN OF EGYPT\n    By L. CROWTHER\n\n  CHILDREN OF CEYLON\n    By THOMAS MOSCROP\n\n[Illustration: PERSIAN SHEPHERD BOY]\n\n\n\n\n  CHILDREN OF PERSIA\n\n  BY\n\n  MRS NAPIER MALCOLM\n\n\n  WITH EIGHT COLOURED ILLUSTRATIONS\n\n  [Illustration]\n\n\n  FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY\n  NEW YORK      CHICAGO      TORONTO\n\n\n\n\nMY DEAR BOYS AND GIRLS,\n\nThis is a book about Persia, intended to be read by children; and, on\nthis account, much has had to be left out. Do not think, when you have\nread this book, that you know how bad Muhammadanism is, for a great\ndeal of its sin and cruelty is too terrible to tell to young folks. But\nI hope enough has been said to show you that Persian children do need\nto be rescued from Muhammadanism and brought to the Lord Jesus Christ\nto be His children. He needs them and they need Him. So for His sake\nand theirs we must do all we can to win the Persians for Christ.\n\n                                         I am,\n                                              Your sincere friend,\n                                                             U. MALCOLM.\n\n  BROUGHTON, MANCHESTER, 1911.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n                                               PAGE\n\n     I. MUHAMMAD                                  7\n\n    II. PERSIA                                   11\n\n   III. PERSIAN BABIES                           18\n\n    IV. PERSIAN CLOTHES                          24\n\n     V. PERSIAN GAMES AND TOYS                   31\n\n    VI. PERSIAN SWEETS                           36\n\n   VII. PERSIAN PRAYERS                          41\n\n  VIII. FASTING AND PILGRIMAGES                  47\n\n    IX. SAV\u0100BS                                   52\n\n     X. MUHAMMADAN CHARMS AND SUPERSTITIONS      58\n\n    XI. PERSIAN SCHOOLS                          62\n\n   XII. CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS                        69\n\n  XIII. WORK                                     74\n\n   XIV. CHILD WIVES                              79\n\n    XV. SICK CHILDREN                            84\n\n   XVI. CONCLUSION                               92\n\n\n\n\nILLUSTRATIONS\n\n\n                                           PAGE\n\n  PERSIAN SHEPHERD BOY           _Frontispiece_\n\n  A STREET OF SHOPS                          15\n\n  A BABY IN HAMMOCK                          20\n\n  LADIES\u2019 OUT-DOOR AND IN-DOOR COSTUMES      25\n\n  PERSIANS AT PRAYER                         43\n\n  READING THE QURAN TO THE SICK              58\n\n  A PERSIAN SCHOOL                           64\n\n  A MISSION HOSPITAL                         90\n\n\n\n\nCHILDREN OF PERSIA\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nMUHAMMAD\n\n\nBefore we look at the Persian children of to-day, let us go back nearly\nthirteen and a half centuries to the year of our Lord 570, and take a\nlook at two adjoining countries in Europe and two adjoining countries\nin Asia.\n\nIn Western Scotland, St Columb is teaching the people Christianity, and\nis writing out copy after copy of the Bible, until tradition tells that\nhe copied it out three hundred times.\n\nIn England the heathen Saxons are conquering the Midlands and crushing\nout the Christianity of the Britons.\n\nIn Persia there is a Christian Church, but most of the people are\nZoroastrians, that is, they belong to the Parsee religion. They worship\nGod and believe in a prophet called Zoroaster, who lived long before\nthe birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, and so knew nothing about Him. He\nseems to have taught his people much that was very good, but their\nreligion has become full of superstitions.\n\nLastly, we must go to Arabia, where a Muhammadan legend describes a\ncurious scene.\n\nA number of Arab women are riding into the town of Mecca. Their animals\nare weary and very thin and weak, for it is a year of famine. Last\nof all comes a woman with a crying baby, riding on the thinnest and\nmost miserable looking donkey of all the company. They are nurses from\nthe healthiest part of Arabia, come to find children to take home and\nnurse, each hoping to get the child of a wealthy man, who will pay her\nwell, and give her handsome presents.\n\nThey are not long kept waiting. The babies are brought out, and\nquestioning and bargaining begin. One baby is not popular--the\nwhisper goes round that it is an orphan--there is no father to give\npresents--the grandfather who is looking for a nurse will surely not\ndo much for it. And so one after another all the women refuse the\nbaby, and the old man begins to despair of success. All the women have\nfound nurslings except one, the woman who rode in last. She, too, has\nrefused the orphan, but now, seeing no hope of a better bargain, rather\nthan have taken her journey for nothing, she tells the old man she has\nchanged her mind, and carries the baby home. And the story runs that\nthe thin weak donkey that could hardly drag itself along as it entered\nMecca, ran along so nimbly on the way home that the rest could scarcely\nkeep up with it.\n\nThe orphan baby was Muhammad, the founder of the religion called\nafter him Muhammadanism. Some of the details of this story (told by\na Muhammadan writer) are probably quite untrue. Little Muhammad\u2019s\ngrandfather was known to be very rich and in a very high position, and\nif the baby was refused it was probably because he was a sickly child,\nand would be difficult to rear. However, in due course he grew bigger,\nand came home to his mother, and after her death lived with his old\ngrandfather, who thought all the world of him.\n\nMecca was an interesting town to live in, for once a year pilgrims from\nall parts of Arabia came to the great idol temple, and little Muhammad\nwould see all there was to be seen, for his grandfather kept the keys\nand superintended everything.\n\nWhen his grandfather died he went to live with his uncle, who used\nto take him on business journeys, going through the wide deserts to\ndistant towns with long strings of camels loaded with goods to sell.\nSo the boy grew up a good man of business and saw much of foreign\ncountries and something of foreign religions, Christianity, Judaism,\nand Parsiism, and he grew discontented with his own country and his own\nreligion.\n\nAll the great peoples round worshipped one God. Surely Arabia would\nbe a better and greater country if it did the same. All the great\nreligions had a prophet and a book. The Christians had Jesus Christ\nand the Gospel, the Jews had Moses and the Law, even the Parsees had\nZoroaster and his book the Zend Avesta. Surely what the Arabs needed\nwas a prophet and a book.\n\nMuhammad was not the only person who thought this. There was a group\nof people, several of whom were relations of him or of his wife, who\nshared this view. Some of them thought that Moses and the Law would be\nbest for Arabia; but many of them saw that Jesus Christ and the Gospel\nwere what they needed, and most of these in the end became Christians.\nIf Muhammad had joined them, the history of the world from then to now\nmight have been very different. But Muhammad had set his heart on an\nArabian prophet and an Arabian book, and the more he thought of it the\nmore sure he felt that this was the real way to unity and greatness for\nArabia.\n\nHe himself belonged to the family which took the lead in religious\nmatters in Arabia, he had always been made much of, and told he would\nbe a great man; he used to have fits which seemed to him and to others\nto mark him out as something out of the common; so it is not surprising\nthat he at last came to believe that he was to be the new Arabian\nprophet who seemed to him to be so badly wanted. His fits began to take\nthe form of visions, and he believed that the words of the longed for\nbook were being revealed to him.\n\nBut it was a long time before he came forward publicly, and when he did\nhe was a good deal laughed at, and only a few became his followers.\nThen he got an invitation to the town of Medina, where he had a number\nof cousins. The people of Medina were very jealous of Mecca, and all,\nwhether they believed in him or not, joined in giving Muhammad a great\nwelcome.\n\nIt was in Medina that Muhammad really founded his religion, and there\nhe became a very great man. But sad to say, as his religion developed\nall its bad points came out, and Muhammad became a very cruel tyrant\nand very self-indulgent, excusing himself by saying that God allowed\nhim, because he was a prophet, to do things which were sinful when\nother people did them.\n\nThe people who joined Muhammad\u2019s religion were called Muhammadans or\nMuslims, and they went everywhere making as many converts as they\ncould, by fair means or foul. They had learnt that there was one God,\nbut they knew nothing of the Bible; they only knew the Quran, the book\nwhich Muhammad was revealing, and they knew nothing of the example of\nJesus Christ: their only example was Muhammad, who was a murderer.\n\nYou may wonder what all this has to do with Persian children. One of\nthe first countries conquered by the Muhammadans was Persia--and the\nPersian children to-day are themselves Muhammadans.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nPERSIA\n\n\nThere is a story that when the Muhammadans took Persia and killed the\nParsee king Yazdigird, their _Khalif_ \u2018Omar asked Yazdigird\u2019s son where\nhe would like to live. He said he would like to settle in Persia out\nof reach of any cultivated spot. \u2018Omar accordingly sent him off with\nan escort of soldiers to find a suitable place. After three years he\nreturned and said he could not find any place such as he had asked for.\n\u2018Omar saw that he was doing all this with some purpose, and asked him\nwhat it was. Yazdigird\u2019s son answered that he wanted to show \u2018Omar how\nprosperous and well cultivated the land had become in the hands of\nthe Parsees, and begged him to see to it that it remained so under the\nMuhammadans.\n\nBut it did not, and to-day a great deal of Persia has relapsed into\ndesert.\n\nIn our country all is green, and stones have to be put up to show where\none village ends and the next begins. In most parts of Persia you may\nlook over the plain and see the villages quite distinct--each a little\ngreen blot on a vast sheet of sand or dry earth.\n\nThe very fruitfulness of the ground makes it less green than it would\notherwise have to be to support the population, for when three crops\ncan be got off the same piece of land in one year, only a third of\nthe amount of land that you would expect to be needed to support the\nvillage is under cultivation.\n\nThe villages vary very much. Some count their population by hundreds,\nwhile one village, marked on the map, contains just two families, seven\npersons in all, including two children. Their nearest neighbours live\nsix miles off, over the sand.\n\nHow bare the world must appear to those two little children. Children\nhere who live in the country can hardly imagine any boundary to the\nwonderful green tangle that they can see on every side of them. And\nchildren who live in towns look out every day upon wonderful human\nworks, which, although they are not as marvellous as God\u2019s country, yet\npuzzle them very much as to how they were ever made. With a Persian\nchild it is quite different. In many places the children do not know\nwhat wild growth is, and if you talk of continuous country, hundred\nmiles after hundred miles of field and wood and meadow, they think you\nare telling an impossible fairy tale. While as for the little town\nchildren, the buildings which they see all round them made of sun-dried\nbricks and earth, the barrels and the thousand and one household\nutensils formed of exactly the same material, or perhaps of clay very\nroughly baked in a primitive kiln, seem to them hardly more artificial\nand man-made than the corn in the walled gardens outside the city,\nwhich they see watered twice a week.\n\nThey have a very different life from you and me.\n\nLittle Ahmad was a sturdy, jolly little lad of four when I knew him,\nand, though he ought to have known better, he used to call after me (if\nhis parents were out of hearing) the rhyme so familiar to Europeans in\nPersia--\n\n  _Ferangi,\n  Chi rang-i,\n  Palang-i,_\n\nwhich, translated into English, means--\n\n  European,\n  What colour art thou?\n  Thou art a leopard.\n\nHe lived in a really beautiful house, built of sun-dried bricks and\nclay, and whitened inside with a smooth coat of plaster of Paris.\n\nThe rooms were large and very nicely furnished with beautiful Persian\ncarpets, and a mattress and pillows of gay designs, and Ahmad, little\nrascal though he was, would never have dreamed of treading on those\ncarpets with his shoes on; all shoes were left at the door. One small\ntable for the tea-urn completed the furniture. And upstairs? Upstairs\nwas the roof, such a lovely large flat roof, Ahmad loved it, and he\noften terrified his mother by the way he leaned over the low wall to\nlook down at the street, for the house had no window looking to the\nroad. All the windows looked into the garden, which might be said to\nbe in the middle of the house, for the rooms were built round it. The\nwindows, too, were all doors; some of the rooms had as many as five\ndouble doors all in a row, and when they were all open the room was\nvery airy and bright.\n\nThere was no grass, and no gravel path for Ahmad to play on, but there\nwas a nice wide brick-paved walk all round the garden, which gave him\nplenty of room. In the centre were the beds, which were watered by\nturning a stream in and flooding them once a week. There were watering\ncans, but they were only used for watering the path and roof, and even\nthe rooms, to keep them cool, not for the flower beds. There was a\nlarge tank, too, in the garden with gold fish in it, where Ahmad loved\nto cool his feet on a hot day, and the days can be hot in Persia.\n\nWhen it was dinner-time in Ahmad\u2019s home a cloth was spread on the\nfloor, and he sat on his heels beside it, and had a loaf of bread for a\nplate. It was flat and round, and about as thick as a plate, so it did\nvery well. But he had no spoon or fork.\n\nOne of the things he liked best was rice, and when his mother put a few\nhandfuls on his bread he would eat it quickly and tidily with one hand,\nwithout spilling any, which is not as easy as it sounds.\n\n[Illustration: A STREET OF SHOPS]\n\nSometimes Ahmad went out for a walk in the town with his father, or\nwith his mother and a servant, and he passed along streets that had\nnot any names, and by houses that had not any names or numbers. There\nwas no pavement except sometimes a narrow strip in the middle of the\nroad for the mules and donkeys. There were no gardens in front of the\nhouses, there were no windows facing the road, all he saw was a sandy\nroad with a high mud wall on each side, and a heavy wooden door here\nand there, the front door of a house.\n\nSometimes they came to a \u201c_b\u0101z\u0101r_\u201d or street of shops. Here the\nstreet was covered over with a mud roof so that goods and sellers and\npurchasers might keep cool in hot weather and dry in wet weather. He\ndid not need to go into the shops, for the counters were all along the\nstreet and there were no windows.\n\nWhen the summer was getting very hot, it was decided that Ahmad and all\nhis family should go for a summer holiday to a village in the hills.\n\nWhat a packing up there was! They packed the carpets, they packed the\nbeds, they packed the kettles and saucepans. Then a number of mules\nwere brought to the door and such a shouting and bustle began as the\nloads were roped together, two and two, and slung across the big padded\npack-saddles. One mule carried two great covered panniers and these\nwere filled with cushions, and Ahmad\u2019s great-grandmother got into one,\nand his mother got into the other to balance her, and they pulled the\ncurtains well over the front, so that no one might see them. Ahmad\nhimself sat in front of a servant who held him safe, and some of the\nbedding made a nice broad soft seat for them on the mule\u2019s back. At\nlast all the mules were ready with their loads and off they set through\nthe streets, and soon they found themselves outside the town, going\nmile after mile across the bare desert plain. This went on for fifteen\nmiles and then they reached a large village at the foot of the hills.\nThey had been riding five hours and were tired and hungry, so they\ndismounted at the _caravansarai_ or inn. One of the servants took a\ncarpet off one of the loads and got a cloth and some food wrapped up\nin a large handkerchief out of the saddlebags and spread a meal on the\nground, while another got the tea-urn and charcoal, boiled the water\nand made the tea. After a few hours\u2019 rest on the roof, the shouting and\nloading began again and off they went, up the hill, which was terribly\nsteep in some places. Now they saw scattered and stunted plants growing\nhere and there, and finally, after another seven hours, they reached\ntheir summer holiday quarters in a little hill village.\n\nHow Ahmad enjoyed the hills and fields and trees, the flowers and birds\nand butterflies. A little brook ran down the valley and on either side\nwere cornfields and orchards and gardens, as many as the brook could\nprovide water for. And at night Ahmad would hear the shouting, as \u2018Ali\nMuhammad declared that Husain had had his fair share of water and now\nit was his turn to have it for his orchard. For water is very precious\nin Persia, and must be made the greatest possible use of, day and night\nalike.\n\nBut the little children who live in the village are not so fortunate\nas little Ahmad. They work all the summer at gardening, shepherding,\nand other work; but in winter they have to stay in, and they live\nupstairs and their sheep and goats downstairs. But the stairs are\noutside and sometimes it is too cold for them even to go down to feed\nthe animals. If they can they make a little fire of sticks in the\noven, which is only a deep, round hole in the floor, and when the\nflame has died down they sit round with their legs hanging into the\noven and cover over the opening to keep it warm as long as possible.\nOne very severe winter there was a report current in the town that in\nthis village the water was all frozen and that the animals were dying\nbecause there was not enough fuel to melt the ice and give them water.\nThe poor children must have had a very hard time that winter.\n\nEven in the town Ahmad is one of the fortunate children. Little Soghra\nhad a very different home. She lived with her grandmother in a single\nsmall room. The floor was mud, covered in one place by a small ragged\npiece of coarse matting. On this the grandmother lay, for she was old\nand ill. The bedclothes were filthy and torn. One side of the room was\nfilled with a pile of pomegranate skins, which are used for making dye,\nand there were several fowls wandering about. There was no furniture,\nnothing but a few old pots and cups and a waterbottle. And yet Soghra\nwas a cheery little girl, and she and her grandmother were very fond of\neach other.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nPERSIAN BABIES\n\n\nA Persian baby--what a funny little mortal! It looks for all the world\nlike a little mummy, rolled up in handkerchiefs and shawls till only\nits little face peeps out, and tied up with a long strip of braid\nexactly like a parcel tied up with string. Hasn\u2019t it got any arms and\nlegs? Oh, yes, safely put away inside all those wrappings and put away\ncarefully too--straightened out and rolled up so thoroughly that it\nwill stand up stiff and straight against the wall though it is only a\nweek old.\n\nHow surprised and shocked the Persian mothers are to see the English\nbabies kicking and throwing their arms about. \u201cO Khanum, aren\u2019t you\nafraid its limbs will grow crooked? Why don\u2019t you bind them straight?\nAren\u2019t you afraid its legs will get broken if you leave them loose like\nthat?\u201d\n\nSo at its very start on life\u2019s journey the poor little Persian baby is\nchecked and prevented from growing up properly; for how can its little\nlegs grow strong without kicking? It is no wonder that Persian babies\nas a rule learn to walk much later than English babies.\n\nBut perhaps the Persians are not quite so foolish as they seem when\nthey roll their babies up in these stiff little bundles. Very likely\nthe little arms and legs _would_ be broken or bent if they were left\nloose, for many of the Persian mothers are very young--much too young\nto know how to look after babies. They often treat them like dolls and\nwould very likely break them just as English girls break their dolls.\n\nEven the grown-up mothers are often very careless. One woman I knew\nlaid her baby, not quite a year old, on a chair, and left it there. Of\ncourse it fell off--it was sure to; and yet she did this over and over\nagain, and a few days later dropped it into a stream of water. She was\nvery much surprised that it began to have fits at this time, and she\nsaid she could think of nothing to account for them.\n\nA new missionary, who did not know the ways of Persians, went one day\nto see another woman and found her in bed, that is, lying on a mattress\non the floor under a large quilt. Her friends invited the missionary to\nsit on the quilt beside her, for they do not use chairs in most Persian\nhouses. After she had sat for some time she enquired for the baby. They\npointed to a little lump in the quilt, and there, close beside her,\nentirely covered up and invisible, was the baby, and it gave the poor\nmissionary a terrible shock to see how near she had been to sitting\ndown upon it. After that, she always asked to see the baby before she\nsat down.\n\nA baby less than a week old was brought one day to the Julfa hospital\nwith its face badly torn by a cat. A few days later the doctor went\ninto the ward and found the mother smoking and gossiping with the other\nwomen, but the baby was nowhere to be seen. \u201cWhere is the baby?\u201d \u201cIt\nis all right,\u201d said the mother; \u201cI put it _under the bed_.\u201d And sure\nenough, a little way off, under a bed (this time an English bed) lay\nthe poor little bundle, its arms bound to its sides, only its little\nface exposed, or rather half-exposed, for the torn half was covered\nwith a dressing, while close at hand there prowled in search of food a\nlarge half-wild cat, which frequented the hospital and had slipped in\nat an open door.[A]\n\nWhen they get a little older the babies are laid in broad comfortable\nleather hammocks slung between rings let into the walls of the room.\nMost Persian rooms have these rings in the walls. These hammocks save\nthe Persian mothers a great deal of trouble, for a single push will set\nthe hammock swinging for a long time and keep the baby quiet or send it\nto sleep.\n\nNo baby may be left alone in a room till it is forty days old.\n\nFrom the very first the baby is given _kaif_ every-day, that is,\nsomething to make it sleep; this _kaif_ is almost invariably opium.\nAfter the first week most babies are also given tea every day, without\nmilk but with a great deal of sugar in it, or better still sugar-candy.\nThis is considered specially good for babies, but it takes a long time\nto dissolve. Both opium and tea are very bad for the baby\u2019s digestion,\nso we are not surprised to find that nearly all Persians suffer from\nindigestion.\n\n[Illustration: A BABY IN HAMMOCK]\n\nThere is one Persian custom connected with babies that boys and girls\nof other lands would probably like to introduce into their own\ncountry. The newly-arrived baby is weighed and its weight in sweets is\nhanded round to the people in the house, and it is supposed to bring\nbad luck to the baby if anyone refuses its sweets. Plenty of people\nalways drop in when they hear that a new baby has arrived.\n\nAnother Persian rule for babies would not please your mothers at all.\nAfter the first bath no baby must be washed all over till it is a\nyear old. One Persian lady, who was better educated than most, and\nhad been reading about European ideas on health and cleanliness, told\nthe missionaries that she was bringing up her little boy just like a\nEuropean baby. She said she gave him a bath every day and generally let\nhim kick instead of tying his legs up to make them straight. She was\ndelighted and triumphant when, instead of getting crooked, his legs\ngrew so strong that he walked at about half the usual age. But when\nhe was nearly a year old his body became covered with sores and the\nmissionary doctor told the mother to wash them not with ordinary water\nin the bath, but with a lotion. \u201cI should never think of washing them\nin the bath,\u201d she said. \u201cHis body must not be washed till he is a year\nold.\u201d \u201cBut I thought,\u201d said the doctor, \u201cthat you gave him a bath every\nday.\u201d \u201cOh dear no,\u201d she replied; \u201cI don\u2019t wash his _body_. It is his\n_legs_ that I wash every day.\u201d\n\nWhen a Persian baby learns to talk it begins just like any other baby,\nso that the Persians declared with great glee that the English babies\nwere talking Persian when they said \u201cBaba\u201d and \u201cDada.\u201d But instead of\n\u201cDaddy\u201d and \u201cMummy\u201d Persian babies call their father and mother _B\u0101b\u0101_\nand _Nana_.\n\nWhen the baby is shown to anyone the mother generally remarks that it\nis an ugly little thing, and similarly the visitors are expected to\nsay how ugly and dark it is, though there is no need to say it with\nany great conviction. It is possible to say \u201cHow ugly you are\u201d just\nas affectionately as \u201cYou little darling.\u201d But such uncomplimentary\nremarks are used to avert bad luck and to guard against any suspicion\nof the evil eye. If the visitor makes any complimentary remark she must\nadd \u201c_M\u0101sh\u0101\u2019 all\u0101h_\u201d (_i.e._\u201cMay God avert it\u201d), or the parents will be\nseriously alarmed, and Baby\u2019s admirer may be held responsible for any\ncalamity which befalls him for weeks afterwards.\n\nBibi Fati was the mother of four dear little children, Rubabeh, Hasan,\nRiza, and Sakineh, and very dearly she loved them. One day they were\nall gathered together for dinner when in walked a poor old beggar woman\nin search of a meal. She was very anxious to please the mother, and\nlooking round at the children said: \u201cWhat a nice little family you\nhave; you are like a hen surrounded by her chickens.\u201d\n\nPoor Bibi Fati did not feel at all comfortable at such a complimentary\nspeech and quickly gave the old woman some food and sent her about her\nbusiness.\n\nFor a day or two all went well. Then one after another Rubabeh,\nHasan, Riza, and even little Sakineh sickened and died, probably of\nsome infectious disease, and the poor mother was left childless and\nheartbroken. Nothing would convince her and her neighbours that the\nold beggar woman had not caused the catastrophe by her admiration.\n\nBaby girls do not get such a good welcome as baby boys. When little\nFerang\u012bz Kh\u0101num was born, her father was staying at a garden a few\nmiles away, and no one troubled to send him word. \u201cI would have sent a\nmessage if it had been a boy,\u201d said the mother, \u201cbut it is not worth\nwhile for a girl. It will do when he comes home next week.\u201d\n\nPersian fathers and mothers are often very fond of their little girls,\nbut there is no doubt that they very much prefer boys. The father and\nmother, but especially the mother, are often known by the name of their\nson, so much so that sometimes the neighbours know them by no other\nname than \u201cthe father of Hasan,\u201d the \u201cmother of \u2018Ali.\u201d\n\nPerhaps one reason for preferring boys is that the girls marry so\nyoung, just as they might begin to be of some use to their mothers; and\nthe father has to pay a sum of money to his daughter\u2019s husband on her\nmarriage. A son, on the other hand, does not generally marry till he is\ngrown up, and then he almost invariably brings his little wife home and\ncontinues to live with his parents.\n\nA greater reason is that the Persians are Muhammadans, as you have\nalready heard, and in a Muhammadan country the men are allowed to treat\nthe girls and women very badly, and parents who care at all for their\ngirls must always feel great anxiety as to their future.\n\nWe shall never get the Persians to treat their girls and women much\nbetter till we teach them the religion of our loving Saviour, Who cares\nfor us all equally and wants us to be equally kind to one another.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nPERSIAN CLOTHES\n\n\nPersian boys and girls are white, almost as white as ourselves, though\nthey generally have black hair and dark eyes. The chief difference in\nappearance between Tommy Jones and \u2018Ali Muhammad is that Tommy wears\ntrousers while \u2018Ali Muhammad appears to wear a skirt. Tommy\u2019s sister on\nthe other hand wears a skirt, and \u2018Ali Muhammad\u2019s sister wears trousers.\n\nThe fact is that if \u2018Ali Muhammad is a poor boy, his trousers are short\nand so very wide as to be practically a divided skirt. Indeed they\ncatch like a skirt in running, so that if he wants to go fast he pulls\none trouser-leg up out of the way. If he wears a coat at all, it is a\nlong cotton one, or more probably two long cotton ones, reaching nearly\nto his knees and adding to the skirt-like appearance.\n\nThe sons of well-to-do men often wear frock coats with the skirts\npleated all round almost like a kilt, so that in spite of their longer\nand narrower trousers they still have a look of wearing skirts.\n\n[Illustration: LADIES\u2019 OUT-DOOR AND IN-DOOR COSTUMES]\n\n\u2018Ali Muhammad\u2019s girdle too, which binds his coats to him and prevents\ntheir blowing about in the wind, is more suggestive of a sash than\na belt. I once saw a little boy putting on his girdle on New Year\u2019s\nDay. It was a long folded scarf or _sh\u0101l_ and he put one end round\nhis waist while his brother took the other to the far end of the long\nroom and drew it tight. Then my little friend turned round and round,\nso winding his _sh\u0101l_ round him, gradually moving up the room as the\nlength grew less, and he finished by tucking in the end. But whether\nthey wear long trousers or short ones, wide trousers or narrow ones,\nthe boys all fasten them by drawing them up with a string round the\nhips--braces are not the fashion.\n\nAs we have found that, in spite of appearances, \u2018Ali Muhammad after all\nwears trousers, we may perhaps find that his sister, Rubabeh, wears a\nskirt, and so indeed she does, but it is so short as not to be very\nnoticeable indoors, while out of doors it is completely hidden by the\nbig baggy over-trousers, gathered in at the ankles and footed, which\nshe wears when she goes in the street. An English missionary once\nsuggested to a young woman that a skirt reaching to the knees would\nlook better, but she said she was not an old woman yet. The old women\ngenerally wear quiet colours and long skirts, reaching down to the\nknee, but young women and girls like something more dressy. They like a\nnice bright-patterned skirt about a foot long, but wide enough to reach\nhalf across the room. This they draw up with a string over the white\ncotton trousers, and the short shirt hangs loose outside. The shirt is\ngenerally white but may be coloured, and a short coloured jacket is\nworn over it, varying from plain coarse cotton to velvet embroidered\nwith gold and pearls.\n\nThe indoor _ch\u0101dar_, or \u201cprayer-_ch\u0101dar_,\u201d is often of pretty print or\nmuslin, and when Rubabeh puts on her clean white trousers, shirt and\nheadkerchief, with a bright frill of skirt round the waist and a pretty\njacket and _ch\u0101dar_, she makes a very bright and effective picture.\nBut when she goes out she must put on dark over-trousers which cover\neverything up to the waist, and over her head, in place of the pretty\nprayer _ch\u0101dar_, she must throw a large black _ch\u0101dar_ which hangs over\neverything, while a long strip of white cotton hangs down in front of\nher face with drawn thread work in front of the eyes, so that she may\nbe able to see without being seen.\n\nSo, unlike our streets, the Persian ones get their colour from the men\nand boys, while the women and girls supply the darker, duller element.\nBright blue is the commonest colour for the men\u2019s coats, and green is\nnot uncommon, while, at the New Year, pink, yellow, lilac and other\ncolours make the streets very gay indeed.\n\nThe children are dressed just like their fathers and mothers, and\nare little imitation men and women. The little tots look so funny\nsometimes; tiny boys toddling about in long trousers, frockcoats, and\ngrown-up hats, and wee girls, who cannot yet speak distinctly, in the\nlong trousers, short skirts and _ch\u0101dars_ of the women.\n\nIt seems to suggest that no great distinction is made between children\nand grown-ups, and really there is not as much difference as we find\nat home. The children are taught to take life very seriously and are\ntreated as little men and women before their time, and so they have no\ntime to grow up into proper men and women, and the result is that we\nfind the children too grown-up and the grown-ups too childish.\n\nYou will find, roughly speaking, if you look at animals that the higher\nthe animal, the longer its childhood lasts, because it has more growing\nup to do. Caterpillars and tadpoles look after themselves from the time\nof coming out of the egg, mice grow up in a few weeks, horses in a few\nyears, and man takes longer to grow up than any animal.\n\nNow Muhammad, the false prophet whom the Persians believe in and obey,\nhad no such high standard to set before them, no such high ideal for\nthem to grow up to, as our Lord Jesus Christ set before His followers\nand enables them to grow up to; and so his religion provides only a\nshort time for growing up, and stunts instead of assisting the growth\nboth of individual Muhammadans and of Muhammadan nations.\n\nBut we must get back to our Persian children and their clothes. Their\nday-clothes we have seen; what about their night-clothes? They have\nnone. They just take off their outer garments and lie down in the rest,\nand in the morning they just get up and put on their outer garments\nagain. Sometimes they do not put off anything.\n\n\u201cWe are so tired,\u201d said some ladies one New Year\u2019s morning. \u201cWith all\nour new clothes on we could not lie down, we should have crushed them,\nso we sat up all night.\u201d\n\nYou wonder why they were so foolish as to put them on on New Year\u2019s\nEve in that case, instead of on the morning of the New Year itself. The\nreason is simple. A Persian only puts on new clothes after a bath, and\na bath in Persia is not a mere matter of half an hour; it takes half a\nday, and sometimes a whole one. Some of the richer people have baths in\ntheir own houses, but most people go to the public baths.\n\nAll Persian women and girls love a day at the bath, and will not\nshorten it if they can possibly help it. It is something like a Turkish\nbath, and there they meet their friends and sit about in steamy rooms,\ntalking, laughing, gossiping. No wonder they look forward to it, for a\nPersian girl has a much more secluded and restricted life than girls\nin Europe and her intercourse with her friends is much less free. One\ngirl of fifteen told me that except for her weekly visit to the bath\nshe had only left her house once in a period of six months, and in her\nown house she received very few visitors, the calls of her English\nmissionary friends being great events for the whole household.\n\nAt the bath they wash their hair, dye it with henna, and plait it up\nin a dozen or more long plaits which hang down their backs under the\nheadkerchief and _ch\u0101dar_, not to be undone again probably until the\nnext visit to the bath. The henna is a reddish dye and though it does\nnot show on black hair it turns fair or grey hair a carroty red. The\nnewcomer to Persia wonders to see so much red hair, till he finds that\nthis is the explanation. But the boys and girls nearly all have black\nhair.\n\nBoys have their heads shaved, though sometimes a handful of hair is\nleft over each ear, or a lock in the middle of the scalp. This shaving\nis probably the reason why Persian boys always keep on their caps or\nhats indoors and only take them off to sleep. Instead of taking off\ntheir caps, Persian boys, and girls too, take off their shoes when\nthey come into a room, and this, together with the absence of chairs\nand tables explains how Persian carpets last a hundred years. They are\nactually more valuable after several years wear than when they were new.\n\nBesides the hair, the fingernails, palms of the hands and soles of the\nfeet must, by Muhammadan rules, be dyed with henna. The richer bathers\nhave all these things done by the bath attendant, but the poorer ones\ndo it all themselves, and the very poor often omit the henna, except on\nspecial occasions.\n\nJust as no Persian likes to put on clean clothes without going to the\nbath, so he will not go to the bath without putting on clean clothes.\n\n\u201cKhanum, give me a new shirt,\u201d begged one old woman, displaying a\nragged one she had on. \u201cFor want of one I have not been able to go to\nthe bath since this was new.\u201d\n\nBut where there\u2019s a will there\u2019s a way, and some people who are too\npoor to have a change of clothes go to the bath, take off their clothes\nand wash them, and then wait in the bath till they are dry.\n\nThere is a large tank in which the people wash and a ceremonial washing\nrequires a dip right under the water. The usual idea of changing the\nwater is to take out canfuls to water the tiles round, and then fill\nup the tank again with clean water, so simply adding a little clean\nwater to the dirty.\n\nDuring a cholera epidemic the Governor of a Persian town ordered that\nthe bath water should be changed at least once a month. One cannot\nhelp wondering whether the monthly change was carried out as described\nabove, and I am sure you would prefer the little village baths where\nthere is often so small a tank that no one can get into it, and they\nladle out the water and wash in basins.\n\nThe common use of the one tank, with the only partial changing of the\nwater, and the general carelessness of infection, make the bath one of\nthe greatest means of spreading disease.\n\nThe Muhammadan religion provides strict rules as to clothes and baths\nand washing. In the washings before prayers it even decides which\nhand and which side of the face shall be washed first. And all this\nthe parents teach the children as carefully as, generally much more\ncarefully than, such matters as truthfulness, honesty and kindness.\n\nHere again we see Muhammad giving his people what we may call \u201cnursery\nrules,\u201d treating them as children, while our Master expects us to grow\nup so that we can arrange these matters for ourselves.\n\nAs children we must live under detailed rules, but always with the\nobject before us of growing up right. The very fact that the detailed\nrules of Muhammadanism are binding through life shows that the\nMuhammadan is not expected to grow up as we understand growing up.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nPERSIAN GAMES AND TOYS\n\n\nIt is curious to go thousands of miles to Persia--to cross vast sandy\ndeserts--and at last to find little skirted boys in the mudwalled\nstreets playing tipcat just like their counterparts in our own cities.\nHop-scotch and duck-stone too are favourite games, and kites are very\npopular. The kites are large and square and fly very well, and the\nboys often fly them from the roofs, sending \u201cmessages\u201d up the string\njust as our boys do. There is a regular game of \u201cwolf\u201d too, played\nalmost exactly as it is in many parts of the world by English-speaking\nchildren. I am sorry to say that pitch and toss and gambling with cards\nare very common.\n\nThere is nothing like cricket and football, but in Yezd there is a\nkind of \u201crounders\u201d which is played for a fortnight only at the New\nYear--the Persian New Year, that is, in March. Any evening during that\nfortnight if you go out into the desert just outside the town walls\nyou will see a crowd of men and boys, some playing, some watching. And\nany day during that fortnight if you visit the women, some small boy\nwill proudly show his _chaftar_ or rounders stick. For a week or two\nafterwards an occasional _chaftar_ may be seen but after that it is a\npuzzle where they disappear to, not one is to be seen till the next New\nYear.\n\nThe little girls in Persia, as everywhere else, depend largely on\ndolls. The dolls are home made--rag-dolls without much shape, with\nthe features worked in fine cross-stitch, and dressed of course, as\nPersians. Good European dolls are great treasures, even to the women,\nand I knew one rich lady who had eight very nice ones all for herself.\n\nIn Shiraz they make wooden horses for the children and little models\nof the _kajavehs_ or covered panniers in which women and children\noften travel. In Yezd, where the workers in clay are cleverer than the\ncarpenters, little model _kuzehs_ or waterpots are commoner and clay\nmoney-boxes and nightingales. Roughly moulded and gaily painted clay\nanimals and men too, are made in quantities--but only at the \u201cFestival\nof the Sacrifice\u201d when a camel is sacrificed. At the time of this\nfestival there are stalls and shops in the bazaars full of clay toys\nand toy drums, but they cannot be got at any other time of year, and\nas clay animals are quickly broken they are only to be seen for a very\nshort time. Among the toys may sometimes be seen a figure evidently\ncopied from an Italian statuette of the Virgin and Child--copied by\nMuhammadans without any idea of what it represents. But when all is\nsaid the games and toys are very few in Persia, as compared with those\nyou are accustomed to. Perhaps they are not so much needed there. The\ngrown-ups are so childish that it is no great hardship to a child to\npractice grown-up ways instead of playing games of its own. There is so\nmuch in ordinary grown-up life that is really a very good substitute\nfor a game--the elaborate greetings to be gone through with each\nperson in turn according to their importance, the tea served in tiny\ncups no bigger than a child\u2019s teaset, the sweet-eating, the pressing of\nroseheads into the visitor\u2019s hand, or the more elaborate arrangement\nof stiff sticks closely covered with roses, the presentation of tiny\nunripe first-fruits, of melon seeds or nuts ornamented with fluffy\nbits of silk, of oranges inlaid with velvet, all these would seem a\nvery attractive game to a child. Perhaps they really prefer to join in\nthe games their elders play in earnest rather than play their own in\njest. The conversation too is seldom over their heads, but generally\ninterests them as much as their parents. The entertainments of the\nelders are of a kind to suit the children too. What child does not\nenjoy the Fifth of November with its Guy Fawkes, its fireworks, and its\nbonfires? and the Persians, too, have their firework day, when they\nburn not Guy Fawkes, but \u2018Omar, the Muhammadan leader who conquered\nPersia. They do not burn him, because he conquered Persia, but because\nhe was _Khalif_ or head of the Muhammadans, and the Persians say that\n\u2018Ali, Muhammad\u2019s son-in-law, ought to have been _Khalif_ and that \u2018Omar\nwas a usurper. There are torchlight processions, in which \u2018Omar\u2019s\neffigy is carried, bonfires illuminations, and fireworks in plenty.\n\nAll the year round fireworks and illuminations are very popular, so\nmuch so that the main work of the Government Arsenals seems to be the\nmanufacture of fireworks. Another very popular form of entertainment is\nthe _ruzehkh\u0101n\u012b]_, or religious reading. It is considered a very pious\nact for a man to have a _ruzehkh\u0101n\u012b_ in his house in the two months of\nMuharram, and his friends come in crowds and greatly prefer it to an\nordinary party. Muharram is the time of mourning for Husain and Hasan,\nMuhammad\u2019s grandsons.\n\nThe courtyard is crowded with people sitting on the ground, and as the\nprofessional reader recites the story of the death of Husain and Hasan\nthe people sway their bodies to and fro to the rhythm and gradually\nwork up their excitement. Then they all begin to beat on their bare\nchests with the open hand and raise a wail that gradually grows in\nstrength, till the wailing and the sound of the blows can be heard\nseveral streets off and the tears stream down their cheeks. It is very\nexciting, and grown-ups and children alike enjoy it thoroughly.\n\nBut _the_ day of the year is the day of the death of Husain when the\n_nakhl_ is carried and the great passion play of the death of Husain\nand Hasan is played.\n\nThis is a general holiday and all through the early part of the day,\nthe villagers come trooping in to the towns. The streets are now full\nand processions pass along them carrying the _nakhls_ from the squares\noutside the smaller mosques. In some towns, too, they carry _alams_,\nor long poles with a series of handkerchiefs tied to them. When the\nprocessions from two different quarters of the town meet there is\ngenerally a struggle, often ending in a free fight; so both _alams_ and\n_nakhls_ are now forbidden in some towns.\n\nI only once met a procession myself, and then it most politely halted\nto allow me to pass comfortably.\n\nThe smaller processions being over, everyone crowds to the large\nsquares to see the carrying of the great _nakhls_ of the big mosques.\n\nThe _nakhls_ are wooden frameworks carried on poles and hung on one\nside with looking-glasses, on the other with daggers. Those in the\nlarge squares are of immense weight. They are said on this day to be\ncarried across the square by Fatimeh, Muhammad\u2019s daughter, but it is a\nwork of great merit to help her, so as many as can possibly get within\nreach of the poles join in the work, and the _nakhl_ moves across the\nsquare. But the afternoon is the best part when the great play of the\ndeath of Husain and Hasan is acted. Then, indeed, there is wailing and\nbeating of breasts. \u201cI enjoy it more than anything in the year,\u201d one\nlady told me.\n\nOne year there was a little boy dangerously ill with inflammation of\nthe lungs when the great day came round. It was considered quite out of\nthe question for any of the family to stay away from the play to nurse\nhim, and being a boy he was not likely to obey the woman servant who\nwas being left in charge of the house. \u201cHe would have been all over\nthe roof trying to get a glimpse of the play,\u201d his mother said, \u201cand\nprobably would have fallen off, so we had to take him.\u201d So they took a\nmattress for him, and he lay and listened to the play from a gallery,\nand of course got up to watch the exciting parts. It very nearly killed\nhim, but they seemed to feel they had taken the only reasonable course,\nand he eventually recovered.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nPERSIAN SWEETS\n\n\nIn a Persian town there is a curious arrangement of the shops. All the\nshops where one kind of article is sold are generally grouped together\nin one street or _b\u0101z\u0101r_. To buy shoes we go to the shoe bazaar, for\ncooking pots to the copper bazaar.\n\nThe copper or brass bazaar is almost always worth a visit in a Persian\ntown. It is a long roofed-in street with a continuous row of small\nshops on either side. The \u201cshop\u201d consists of a lock-up room with a\nsmall mud platform in front of it, raised a foot or two above the\nstreet. On this platform are two or three stumps on which the pots are\nplaced for hammering, for after being heated over a charcoal brazier\nthey are hammered and beaten into the required shape, thickness and\npattern. On nearly every platform is a man, sometimes two or three men\nand boys, hammering each on his copper pot and the noise produced by a\nhundred or more men hammering vigorously on copper vessels, which give\ndifferent notes according to size, shape and thickness, is deafening,\nbut not wholly disagreeable.[B]\n\nBut there is another bazaar well worth a visit in Yezd at any rate. The\nshops here have counters rising in tiers, so as to display the very\ntempting goods to advantage. The goods themselves are chiefly laid\nout on huge round copper trays, about a yard across and very heavy,\nmade in the bazaar we have just left, but whitened over, as all copper\nvessels are.\n\nSurely we are in Fairyland at last. Shop after shop shows tier upon\ntier of the most delicious sweets in the most tempting profusion.\nHere is _pashmak_, looking like cotton wool and tasting something\nlike butter creams. There are two or three kinds of almond toffee, or\n_s\u014dn_--some with green pistachio nuts in it. Huge fondants, or _l\u014dz_,\nin diamond-shaped cakes, nearly as large as the ordinary penny fancy\ncakes in England, alternate with similar cakes of green _pari-t\u0101\u2019\u016bs_\n(peacock\u2019s feathers), and brown _b\u0101ghalav\u0101_, richer and stickier than\neither.\n\nThose white _nuqls_ are delicious burnt almonds, which seem to melt\naway in your mouth, the long ones have strips of cocoa-nut instead of\nalmonds, and the little round ones burnt peas. Here are little flat\nround cakes of _gaz_, a kind of nougat only made in Isfahan, but sent\nto all the towns in Persia. One variety of _gaz_ contains little sticks\nof a gum which is supposed to cure rheumatism, a very pleasant remedy.\n\nThere is a great bowl a foot across, and over an inch thick made wholly\nof sugar candy, which has taken the shape of the basin in which it\ncrystallised, and in the middle of which three long sticks of sugar\ncandy stand up high above the top. Such a bowl a kind Persian friend\nsent to a missionary\u2019s little boy, when he was a few days old, to\nprovide him with \u201csugar-candy water,\u201d which is considered particularly\ngood for young babies. These are only a few of the sweets, there are\ntoo many to mention all. Some kinds are only made in the fast month\nof Ramaz\u0101n, and others only at the New Year. The sweets are delicious\nbut they are as a rule very simple and very sweet. So the Persians do\nnot hand them round in little paper bags, nor even in pretty little\nboxes; they pile them on plates and dishes, as we do cakes; and, as you\nhave seen, many of them are as large as cakes. When you go to visit a\nPersian, you have not tea and cakes, but tea and sweets. For a quiet\ncall on quiet people, two or three plates of sweets are enough, but at\na regular sweet-eating at a big house, one or two great trays will be\nset on the ground before the guests, each with five dishes of sweets on\nit, each dish holding about a pound and a half to two pounds of sweets.\nThe Persian women are often very pressing with their sweets, even to\nthe point of putting them into their visitors\u2019 mouths, and in their\nhospitality they sometimes over-estimate the size of the mouth. Often\ntoo, the guests are made to carry home what is left, or a part of it,\ntied up in a handkerchief. This is so common that where the European\nis shy of pressing the custom, the Persian ladies will sometimes carry\nhome the remains of European dishes out of courtesy, to show that they\nhave appreciated them. This custom probably exists and has existed in\nmany Eastern countries, and may very likely be the reason why Joseph\ngave Benjamin five times as much as his other brothers. Benjamin was\nprobably intended to take what was over away with him.\n\nI was visiting some Persian women one day, and they asked for my\nhandkerchief to wrap up the remainder of the sweets in. I apologised\nfor being unable to take them as I had not a clean handkerchief, on\nwhich they all eagerly assured me that it did not matter in the least,\nthey would be quite content with the one I had. The Persian _dastm\u0101l_\nor handkerchief serves every purpose except the one we connect it\nwith. Your Persian servant, always carries a large coloured one in his\npocket. He dusts the rooms with it, puts his purchases from the _b\u0101z\u0101r_\ninto it, polishes your boots with it before you enter a Persian house,\nand carries home sweets or nuts in it.\n\nAt the New Year, there are twenty-one days set apart for holiday\nmaking and visiting, and in every house tea and sweets and sherbet are\nready for all comers. In those twenty-one days people are expected\nto visit all their friends, and even with strict moderation the most\nsweet-loving schoolboy of your acquaintance would probably be glad of a\nrest by the end of the three weeks.\n\nAll this sounds delightful, doesn\u2019t it? But unfortunately it is more\nfor the grown-ups than for the children. The children like sweets well\nenough and get a good many, but they have not the same opportunities as\nthe grown-ups.\n\nBut sweets have their serious uses among the Persians. We have seen\nthat rheumatism may be cured with nougat, and we find that sweets\nin general are very strengthening. It is not at all uncommon, after\na small operation or the extraction of a tooth, to see the friends\npressing sugar or sweets into the patient\u2019s mouth, to restore her\nstrength after the shock, and in the same way after a fright a few\nsweets make you feel much better.\n\nBread and sweets are not an uncommon dinner, and a child who was\nordered by the doctor to take plenty of milk because it was good\nstrengthening food, was given three-quarters of a pound of sweets for\nher dinner instead. \u201cSo much more strengthening than milk,\u201d the mother\nsaid.\n\nPersian sweets are very soft and in the dry climate quickly get hard\nand lose their first freshness, and to offer a Persian stale sweets is\nlike offering you stale cakes. They are at their best only on the day\nthey are made, and the servant sent to buy sweets will sit down with\nhis tray of plates at the shop-door and wait till the new sweets are\nready, when they can be put quite fresh and new on the plates on which\nthey are to be served. In Yezd, where the best sweets are made, our\nservants seemed to regard the moving of sweets to a fresh plate much\nas we should the removal of a pie to a fresh pie-dish, and many sorts\nare certainly the worse for being shifted after they have got cold. All\nbetter-class Persians make their own sweets at home and consider \u201cshop\nsweets\u201d very inferior.\n\nThe fame of Persian sherbet has spread far, and nearly every visitor to\nPersia looks forward to a treat when he tastes it. But it by no means\ncomes up to expectation. It is often made fresh in the presence of the\nguests, so the recipe is no secret. A sugar loaf is put in a basin,\nby preference a pot pourri bowl, and cold water is poured over it,\nand it is allowed to melt with an occasional stir. A little rosewater\nis then added to flavour it, and it is handed round in glasses,\nwith ice if possible. At meals, however, the bowl is placed on the\ntablecloth,--there is no table,--and a large carved wooden spoon is\npassed to each in turn from which to drink it.\n\nSometimes lime or orange juice is offered as an alternative flavour to\nrosewater, which makes it much more palatable to Europeans. But insipid\nas the ordinary sherbet is, it seems the most delicious compound\nimaginable when it is taken, well-iced, after a long walk with the\nthermometer at 100\u00b0 in the shade. Perhaps that is why it has been so\nmuch praised.\n\nAnother favourite beverage is _sekunjibin_, which is like raspberry\nvinegar with mint instead of raspberry.\n\nSherbet and good things to eat figure largely in Muhammad\u2019s description\nof the joys of Heaven. His ideals were ideals that did not need much\ngrowing up to. He expected his followers to have childish ideas and\nchildish desires even in heaven.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nPERSIAN PRAYERS\n\n\nPersian boys and girls need not say their prayers till they are\nseven years old. Sometimes they begin sooner, but that is considered\nunnecessarily good. They are not to be beaten for not saying them till\nthey are ten, and I have not seen many children under ten years old\nsaying their prayers. We cannot remember learning to pray, for as soon\nas we could understand anything about God, we were taught to ask Him\nto take care of us, to ask Him to forgive us when we were naughty, and\nto help us to be good, to thank Him for His kindness and His gifts.\nIt is so simple that a child of three or four can come to God in this\nway, we need not wait till we are seven to bring simple petitions to\nour Heavenly Father. But little Ghul\u0101m Husain\u2019s prayers are far from\nsimple. He has first to learn to wash his face, hands and arms, and\nfeet and legs. \u201cThat does not need much teaching,\u201d you say. \u201cHe can\nsurely wash himself at that age.\u201d But there is a right and a wrong way\nof washing in Persia before prayers. There is a right and a wrong side\nof your face to wash first, there is a right and a wrong hand and a\nright and a wrong foot to wash first. If a Persian is very religious\nand careful there is even a right and a wrong side of his arm and leg\nto wash first, but few Persian children are as careful as that. No soap\nis wanted, just plain water, or, if there is no water, sand. So our our\nlittle Ghul\u0101m Husain learns his washings, and now he is ready to learn\nthe prayers themselves, which are all in Arabic so that he does not\nunderstand them.\n\n[Illustration: PERSIANS AT PRAYER]\n\nHe is shown the direction of Mecca to which he must always turn when\nsaying them, and he is taught when to stand, when to kneel, when to bow\nhimself till his forehead touches the ground, and when to make various\ngestures. And when he has learnt all this he is ready to begin saying\nhis prayers regularly, and he is told that if he says them correctly,\nand with the right movements, they will be pleasing to God, and count\nas good works. He must say them three times a day, and he cannot\nchoose his time. When the prayer-call sounds from the mosque roofs,\nand is taken up by people on the house roofs, he must leave what he is\ndoing, and wash and say his prayers--the same prayers every time. First\nin the early dawn, before sunrise, he hears the call, and he must get\nout of bed for washing and prayers. In the summer it may be as early\nas four o\u2019clock, in winter not till six or seven. Then, again, when\nthe sun-dial on the mosque marks noon, the call is heard, and again at\nsunset, and each time the prayers must be said within half an hour.\nHalf an hour\u2019s grace is allowed, so if Persians have visitors when the\nprayer-call sounds, they are able to go in turns to say their prayers,\nso as not to leave the visitor alone.\n\nSome Persians are very particular about their prayers, but many are\nnot so particular and will leave them unsaid if there is any excuse;\nand, as in other religions, there are people who neglect their prayers\naltogether.\n\nThere are many who are very regular in their prayers and very\nparticular as to the direction towards which they face, and their\npositions and gestures at various parts of the prayers, but who are\nnot in the least really reverent over them. Medical missionaries\nespecially cannot always choose the time of their visits, and sometimes\ncannot avoid prayer-time. Then, instead of going to a quiet room, the\nMuhammadans often say their prayers in the room where the missionary\nis being entertained, and the conversation is never hushed for them;\nindeed, they will often themselves join in the conversation even while\nthey are supposed to be praying.\n\nOne day a party of women from a Mull\u0101\u2019s house were visiting a\nmissionary, when the evening prayer-call sounded.\n\n\u201cWe shall hardly have time to get home in half an hour,\u201d the Mull\u0101\u2019s\nwife said. \u201cMay I say my prayers here?\u201d The missionary readily gave her\nconsent, but only the one lady availed herself of the permission, and,\nhaving asked in which direction Mecca lay, placed her prayer-stone in\nfront of her and knelt down to say her prayers.\n\nThe rest went on talking loudly round her, calling out and stretching\nacross just in front of her in a way that must have attracted her\nattention. When the missionary asked them to be quiet they assured her\nthat their friend did not mind, and she herself turned from her prayers\nto beg them not to stop for her. But the missionary insisted on quiet\nuntil the prayers were over, explaining that it was not a question of\nrespect to the lady, but of reverence to God, and, in the conversation\nwhich naturally followed, she was able to tell them some of the Bible\nteaching on prayer.\n\nThe prayer-stone is a small slab of about an inch and a half across,\nmade of the earth of Kerbela where Husain, the grandson of Muhammad was\nkilled. The Kerbela earth is said to be scented with \u201cthe blood of the\nmartyrs,\u201d and is much used for prayer-stones and rosaries.\n\nA Muhammadan places his prayer-stone on the ground before him when he\nsays his prayers. If anyone passes in front of a Muhammadan as he is\nsaying his prayers it is supposed to greatly reduce their value. But\nif he puts the prayer-stone in front of him it acts as a church wall\nand cuts him off from the outside world, and nothing passing on the far\nside of the stone can affect his prayers. If he has no prayer-stone he\nsometimes draws a line on the earth instead, and this is said to be\njust as effectual. At certain points in the prayers the forehead must\ntouch the ground, and when a prayer-stone is used the forehead touches\nthe prayer-stone, and perhaps the holiness of the earth touched is\nsupposed to increase the value of the prayers.\n\nAfter the regular Arabic prayers have been said any further prayers\nmay be added in Persian, but the people seem generally to content\nthemselves with the set prayers and to be shy of adding any of their\nown wording, and in any case the Arabic prayers are considered the more\nimportant.\n\nAlthough the Persians use their prayers like charms, repeating forms\nwhich convey to them no meaning, yet they have great faith in the\nefficacy of prayers as charms. One Sunday a Persian woman brought her\nlittle girl to the doctor\u2019s house, covered with smallpox and very ill.\nFinding that it was service time she thought the prayers might do the\nchild good, so she put off asking for medicine till later, and, hiding\nthe child under her _ch\u0101dar_, she sat down among the other women and\nchildren through the whole service.\n\nI have never known Persians refuse Christian prayers over their sick\nfriends, and generally they join in with a heartfelt _Amen_ to prayers\nwhich they have been able to understand. At one house where they were\nafraid of the medicine they entreated the missionary doctor to come\ndaily to pray over the patient. The patient was one of five cases of\ntyphoid fever in the house. The others were being treated by a Persian\ndoctor, but this woman had very serious complications and seemed so\nunlikely to recover that he suggested their calling in a Christian\ndoctor for her. For many days she lay quite unconscious, but every day\nthe missionary walked a mile and a half to pray beside her, and every\nday the same entreaty was repeated, \u201cYou will come again to-morrow,\nwon\u2019t you?\u201d And the prayers were answered, for at last signs of\nimprovement appeared, and the poor woman was restored to health and\nstrength again.\n\nGod has given us a wonderful privilege in allowing us to come freely\nto Him as our Father, and lay all our joys and sorrows, troubles and\nperplexities before Him.\n\n  \u201cOh! What peace we often forfeit,\n    Oh! What needless pain we bear,\n  All because we do not carry\n    Everything to God in prayer!\u201d\n\nAnd, if that is true of us, how much more true it is of the Muhammadans\nwho do not know God as their Father, who do not know that God is love,\nwho do not know that they may carry everything to God in prayer. When\nwe think of the want of peace, the needless pain, the sin, the sorrow,\nthe wretchedness in Muhammadan lands, and yet see the people so ready\nto pray, surely it is our plain and urgent duty to teach them _how_ to\npray, as our Lord has taught us, and to teach them _to Whom_ they must\npray--not to an unknowable, unloving Allah, but to a tender, pitying\nFather, Who so loved them that He gave His only begotten Son to die for\ntheir salvation.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nFASTING AND PILGRIMAGES\n\n\nOne month in every year Muhammadans have to fast.\n\nPersian boys begin to fast at twelve years old, but the girls have to\nbegin at nine. Sometimes they begin sooner if they want to store up\nmerit early. But even little four-year-old Ibrahim, who is considered\ntoo young to join in the fast, shares it to a certain degree. For no\none is going to cook anything for him or make him his usual cup of tea\nwhen they may not share it. He gets a bit of dry bread and a drink of\nwater when he wants it, but little more all through the day.\n\n\u201cIt makes me hungry to see him eating,\u201d his mother said.\n\nThe name of the fast-month is Ramaz\u0101n, and through Ramaz\u0101n it is often\ndifficult to get eggs, because the sweetmakers buy them up to make\nsweets. It is a great month for sweets, and there are several kinds\nthat are only made in Ramaz\u0101n; and, so far from having \u201cself-denial\nboxes,\u201d as many Christians do in Lent, the more devout Muhammadan\nservants ask for an advance of wages to buy better food in Ramaz\u0101n.\n\nThis all seems strange in a fast-month, but a Muhammadan fast only\nlasts from dawn to dark. At night people may eat what they like, and\nthey take full advantage of the permission and have nightly feasts,\nending up with a great feast on the last night.\n\nBoys and girls are not late for supper in Ramaz\u0101n. They gather round\nthe tablecloth as the time draws near, ready to start directly the\nsignal is given that it is dark. In towns there is generally a gun\nfired, and at the sound of the gun the meal is begun in every house.\n\nOne day such a party was waiting round the supper, listening for the\ngun, and they got hungrier and hungrier, but they heard no gun and\nwaited on. At last they realised that the wind had carried the sound\naway from them, and they had fasted far longer than they need have\ndone. This was bad enough, but another family fared worse, for they\noverslept themselves in the morning, and woke to find they had missed\ntheir breakfast and must eat nothing till night.\n\nPeople might differ as to when it was dark, so a test has been\nappointed--as long as you can distinguish a black thread from a white\none it is light, and you must fast.\n\nIt does not sound a very difficult fast, and in winter, when the days\nare short, it is not so bad, but on a long summer day it is very hard.\nNo food, no drink, and a blazing sun all day. It takes a plucky boy or\ngirl to get through it without complaining. It is no wonder that in\nRamaz\u0101n \u201cbed-time\u201d is forgotten and all the children sit up half the\nnight and sleep half the day--the longer they can sleep in the day the\nbetter, poor little things. Towards evening tempers are apt not to be\nvery good, but everyone enjoys the night.\n\nNo one wants to work in Ramaz\u0101n; they do not want to get more hungry\nthan they need; and, of course, the schools are all closed.\n\nThe dispensaries and hospitals are nearly empty, for the taking of\nmedicine, or the use of drops for the eyes or ears, would be a breaking\nof the fast, and there was a great discussion once as to whether having\na tooth out would have the same effect. It seems curious to have to\ntell the people to take their medicine twice a night instead of twice a\nday.\n\nAfter Ramaz\u0101n the dispensaries are full of patients who have made\nthemselves ill by fasting all day and overeating themselves at night.\n\nBesides the younger children there are a good many other people who get\noff the fast. Opium-eaters need not fast; travellers need not fast on a\njourney; sick people can get a dispensation from a mulla. A great many\npeople take advantage of this, and make a small ailment an excuse for\nnot fasting, but they are supposed to make it up at some other time of\nyear.\n\nIf anyone forgets and thoughtlessly breaks his fast no great harm is\ndone, but he must fast an extra day in the year to make up for it. Some\npeople \u201cforget\u201d every day, but such people do not usually make it up at\nany other time.\n\nJust before Ramaz\u0101n a good many people are fasting, having put off\nto the last minute the making-up of the fast days for the previous\nRamaz\u0101n.\n\nPeople who want to be very good sometimes fast on Saints\u2019 Days too, and\none old lady always fasted on the day when Muhammadan tradition says\nthat our Lord Jesus Christ was born.\n\nAnother way in which Muhammadans think they can gain merit is by making\na pilgrimage to some holy place.\n\nPilgrimages may be made to any place where a Muhammadan saint is\nburied, but there are four special places to which the Persians\ngo--Qum, Meshed, Kerbela, and Mecca. Mecca is considered far the\ngreatest place of pilgrimage, because it is the place where Muhammad\nwas born. A pilgrimage to Qum gives the pilgrim no commonly used\ntitle, but if he goes to Meshed he becomes _Meshedi_; if to Kerbela,\n_Kerbel\u0101\u012b_; and, if to Mecca, _H\u0101j\u012b_; and a _H\u0101j\u012b_ always uses his\ntitle. In accosting a working-class stranger it is polite to call him\n_Meshedi_, and more polite to call him _Kerbel\u0101\u012b_, but _H\u0101j\u012b_ is too\nimportant a title to be used in this way. Quite little boys and girls\nare sometimes _H\u0101j\u012bs_--they have been taken to Mecca by their parents.\n\nBut the people who most frequently go are the business men and the old\npeople. The business men manage to make a business journey, which will\ninclude Mecca, and the old people, old women especially, are often\nsent as a polite way of getting rid of them when they are cranky and\nill-tempered. If they die on the way, they are supposed to go straight\nto Heaven. A good many do die on the road, which is a very rough one.\nIt reminds one of the man who said of his enemies that he should\nlike to convert them and send them to Heaven before they had time to\nbackslide.\n\nOne day in a _caravansarai_, or native inn, I met a young woman who\ntold me a friend who was going on a pilgrimage had passed through her\nvillage and had persuaded her to come too. She was going to walk all\nthe way and trust to charity for food, as many pilgrims do, for it is\nconsidered a greater work of merit to give to a pilgrim than to an\nordinary beggar. The journey would take several months.\n\nI asked her a few questions.\n\nYes, she said, she had a husband and children.\n\n\u201cAnd are they with you?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo, they are in my village.\u201d\n\n\u201cAre the children grown-up then?\u201d\n\n\u201cOh no, they are quite little.\u201d\n\n\u201cThen who is going to take care of them while you are away?\u201d\n\n\u201cI do not know. There was no time to make arrangements. I had not even\ntime to tell my husband I was going. He was at work. My friends tell me\nit will be a very great work of merit if I go. What do you think?\u201d\n\nWe had a long talk, and I believe she went back the same evening to her\nhome. If so, she would get back within twenty-four hours of having left\nit.\n\nThe Muhammadans themselves generally allow that they are no more\nagreeable or kind or truthful or good after their pilgrimages--at least\nthose who do not go say so freely. They even have a proverb: \u201cIf your\nfriend has been to Mecca, trust him not. If he has been there twice,\navoid him. But if he has made the pilgrimage the third time, flee from\nhim as you would from Satan.\u201d\n\nEven dead people make pilgrimages, generally to Qum, or, if they are\nvery important people, to Kerbela. I have not been to Kerbela, but I\nhave been to Qum, and we met quite a number of corpses going to the\nburying-ground outside the big mosque. Sometimes the relations bring\nthem, but often they cannot afford the journey and pay a muleteer to\ntake them, and to pay the fees, which are very large. Sometimes the\nmuleteers bury the bodies elsewhere and pocket the fees.\n\nQum itself is considered such a holy city that they do not allow dogs\ninside it.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\nSAV\u0100BS\n\n\nThere is a little Persian book, which many of the little boys learn to\nread, called \u201cSad Hik\u0101yat\u201d or \u201cA Hundred Stories.\u201d Some of the stories\nare very like \u00c6sop\u2019s Fables, and they are all supposed to teach the\nchildren something. One story tells them that at the end of the world\nGod will take a great pair of scales, and as each person comes up for\njudgment God will put his good deeds in one scale and his evil deeds in\nthe other. If the good deeds weigh heaviest he will go to Heaven, if\nhis evil deeds weigh the balance down he will go to Hell.\n\nThese good deeds are called _sav\u0101bs_, and every Persian, whether\nchild or grown-up, hopes to get to Heaven by doing enough _sav\u0101bs_ to\noutweigh his sins.\n\nSo a little Persian boy or girl is not taught to try to always do\nright or to always try to please and serve God, but only to do enough\nright to outweigh the wrong he does, and if he feels he has done wrong\ninstead of confessing his sin to God and asking His forgiveness he\nsimply tries to balance it by a good deed.\n\nAnd what a Persian boy or girl is taught of what is right and wrong is\nvery different from all you have learnt. First there is a definite list\nof sins, which they can learn by heart, and nothing outside of this\nlist is considered a \u201csin,\u201d though other things which are not right may\nbe called \u201cerrors,\u201d which is a much less strong word.\n\nAs to good deeds there is more difference of opinion. One of the\n\u201cHundred Stories\u201d deals with this point.\n\nA man was travelling in the desert and came to a well. He dismounted,\ndrove a stable-pin into the ground, and tied his horse to it while\nhe ate his meal. When he resumed his journey he left the pin in the\nground that other travellers coming there might tie their horses to it.\nPresently a man on foot came along, and, not seeing the pin, knocked\nhis foot against it and hurt himself. He pulled up the pin and threw it\ninto the well lest any one else should hurt himself in the same way. A\ndiscussion arose as to which of the two had done a _sav\u0101b_, the man who\ndrove the nail in or the man who took it out, and finally a learned and\nholy man was consulted. After much thought he gave it as his opinion\nthat both had done _sav\u0101bs_.\n\nEvery little act of kindness is a _sav\u0101b_, and this encourages good\nnature and kindliness.\n\nThe children are taught to look out for chances of doing a kind action\nand so balancing their wrong-doing. But at the same time they are\ntaught to think that if they do a certain number of kind deeds it\nwill not matter if they do wrong at other times. Little Rajab \u2018Ali,\nthe muleteer\u2019s boy, would run to fasten up the trailing head-rope of\nanother man\u2019s mule, he would lend a helping hand to some stranger whose\ndonkey had fallen under its load, and between whiles he would treat\nhis own mules and donkeys most cruelly. He thought his cruelty did not\nmatter, because he had been kind as well.\n\nA dishonest lad will try to wipe out his dishonesty by being regular\nwith his prayers or by an extra day\u2019s fast. A man who has cheated\nsomeone of ten _kr\u0101ns_ will give a _kr\u0101n_ to a beggar and consider\nhis account settled. One man tried to atone for the most outrageous\nextortion and injustice by spending _part_ of his ill-earned gains on\ngood roads for the villagers and a free school, while all the time\nhe made no pretence of giving up his evil ways. Those he had injured\ncomplained that now he would escape the punishment of God.\n\nThe Persians seem unable to realise the possibility of any other motive\nfor good works. When the missionaries first went to Yezd and opened a\nmedical mission, the people said, \u201cWhat terribly wicked people they\nmust be to have to do so much good.\u201d\n\nOne curious result of this idea of winning Heaven and securing better\nplaces there by good works is that it almost destroys gratitude. The\nbeggar feels that he has helped you one step up in Heaven by accepting\nyour alms; then surely he has done you more good than you have done\nhim, and why should he be grateful to you?\n\nThe patients who are treated free at the dispensary have the same\nfeeling; the doctor improved their bodily state, but they have improved\nhis spiritual position.\n\nIt is considered a special work of merit to do anything for a _Seyid_,\nthat is, a descendant of Muhammad, so everyone tries to be kind to\n_Seyids_, and they are so spoilt and are made so much of that they are\ngenerally unbearably selfish, and think themselves the most important\npeople in the world.\n\nOften in the dispensary the doctor is exhorted to do his utmost or to\nbreak through some rule because the patient is a _Seyid_, and they are\nincredulous and rather shocked when they are told that an ordinary\npatient\u2019s pain is just as great as a _Seyid\u2019s_, and that all must be\ntaken in their turn.\n\nAnother result of this doctrine of works of merit, or _sav\u0101bs_, as they\ncall them, is that even when a Muhammadan seems straight and honest\nand altogether a good fellow you cannot entirely trust him, because he\nhas so many good works to his credit that he feels a few sins do not\nmatter, they are more than paid for beforehand.\n\nA Persian\u2019s idea of what is a _sav\u0101b_ is sometimes curious. Prayers,\nfasting, pilgrimages, and the reading of the Quran are, of course, all\nconsidered works of merit.\n\nMarrying your father\u2019s brother\u2019s daughter is a _sav\u0101b_, though there\nis no particular merit in marrying your father\u2019s sister\u2019s daughter or\nyour mother\u2019s brother\u2019s daughter.\n\nSome Persian women inquired one day what each of three missionaries\nliving together ate for breakfast, and hearing that two had eggs, while\nthe third had not, they nodded at each other, as much as to say, \u201cI\ntold you so,\u201d and remarked, \u201cIt is a _sav\u0101b_. She wants to get a higher\nplace in Heaven.\u201d\n\nGiving money to beggars is always considered a _sav\u0101b_, but it is\nconsidered a greater _sav\u0101b_ on Thursday than on any other day. Friday\nis the Muhammadan holy day, and they call Thursday \u201cthe Eve of Friday,\u201d\nand on Thursday the beggars all call out as you pass, \u201cIt is the Eve of\nFriday; give me a copper.\u201d\n\nThe grown-up beggars generally, but not always, sit by the roadside\nbegging, but the children run alongside of you and are often very\npersistent. There are nearly always beggars at the gate of any town,\nasking those who are starting on a journey to give them an alms, and so\nsecure safety on their journey. If Jericho was anything like a Persian\ntown it was most natural that our Lord should find one blind beggar as\nHe went into the town (St Luke 18, v. 35), and one or two more as He\ncame out by another gate (St Matt. 20, v. 30), and that they should\naddress Him in almost exactly the same language.\n\nBegging is often a very paying occupation, for so many people feel that\nthey have sins to make up for, that the cry, \u201cGive me a copper. It will\nbe a _sav\u0101b_,\u201d is a difficult one to refuse, especially if the copper\nis only worth a farthing.\n\nSo well does begging pay that on more than one occasion the mothers\nand wives of well-to-do tradesmen have been detected in old _ch\u0101dars_\nbegging in the streets and at houses. The difficulty of recognising a\nwoman who is completely covered up with a black _ch\u0101dar_ makes disguise\neasy.\n\nDuring the massacre of the Babis, a dissenting sect of Muhammadans,\nin 1903, it was considered a _sav\u0101b_ to kill a Babi, but some of the\nkindlier people thought it also a _sav\u0101b_ to save a life, even if it\nwas a Babi\u2019s. One man is said to have been seen with a prisoner, in\ngreat perplexity, saying, \u201cI am quite sure of Hell for my sins, unless\nI can do a big _sav\u0101b_; if this man is a Babi, my chance of salvation\nis to kill him, but I am not sure whether he is, and if I kill a true\nbeliever I shall be worse off than ever.\u201d\n\nBut there are _sav\u0101bs_ of a very different sort.\n\nThere was an old woman friendless and ill, and a Persian man found her\nin the street, too ill to get home to the one wretched room where she\nlived all alone. He did not know her, but he decided to undertake the\n_sav\u0101b_. He sent across the town for a medical missionary, knowing the\nChristians had the reputation of never refusing to help the sick poor.\nHe stayed there till the doctor arrived, and said that if she would\nvisit the old woman and provide the medicines he would send for them,\nand would provide the food and nursing, and this he did until the old\nwoman died a few days later.\n\nThe adoption of a destitute child is not an uncommon _sav\u0101b_, and these\nchildren are often treated very well and given a good start in life.\n\nA kind action, as we have seen, is always considered a _sav\u0101b_, whether\nit is helping a fallen mule to get up, giving a copper to a beggar, or\ntending a friendless stranger in sickness and death. We may almost say\nthat this is the one redeeming point of a Persian\u2019s religion. Generally\nspeaking, Persians are not improved by their religious ideas, for the\nstronger their religious ideas are the worse their lives are, and what\none most admires in Persian character is least in accordance with their\nreligious beliefs.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X\n\nMUHAMMADAN CHARMS AND SUPERSTITIONS\n\n\nMuhammad did not write down his teaching, for he could not write, but\nhis followers learnt it by heart, and wrote it down, and after his\ndeath it was collected into one book called the Quran. It was arranged\nin a haphazard way, and probably the early chapters were really spoken\nlast, and the later ones first. However, the Muhammadans believe it to\nbe, as it now stands, the Word of God, and they treat it with great\nrespect. When they pick the book up or lay it down they put it first to\nthe forehead and then to the lips, and they hold it in both hands. Many\nChristians might learn from them to treat God\u2019s Word more reverently.\nThey consider it a work of merit to read the Quran or listen to it, and\nthey read it over their sick folk in hopes of curing them. But perhaps\nthe commonest and most popular edition is a two-inch hexagonal one\nwhich is almost illegible. This is sewn up in two little round or\nhexagonal cases, each containing half, and is worn on the arms to keep\noff evil of every kind. The cases may be plain leather or cloth, or\nthey may be more elaborate and ornamental, or silver cases may be used\nwith texts from the Quran engraved upon them.\n\n[Illustration: READING THE QURAN TO THE SICK]\n\nSmaller and cheaper charms are made of texts from the Quran enclosed in\nthe same way.\n\nThese charms, and also beads made from the blue clay of the holy city\nof Qum, are used for animals as well as people, especially young mules.\nI once had a charm given me for a kitten.\n\nChildren often wear a very large number of charms sewn on to the cap or\nhung on a chain round the neck, as they are supposed to be much more\nsusceptible than grown-up people to evil influences. One quaint-looking\ncharm is a little cloth camel, Abraham\u2019s camel, sewn on the cap.\n\nWhat the Persians fear more than anything for their children is the\nevil eye, and it is especially to protect them from this that they\ncover them with charms. They say there are certain people who have an\n\u201cevil eye.\u201d No one seems to know many such people, but most people say\nthey know at least one. These people injure everything that pleases\nthem, and that they admire. If they admire a baby it will get ill\nand very likely die; if they admire a mule it will probably go lame;\nif they admire a tree it will wither; if they admire a cup it will\nbreak. There does not seem to be necessarily any wish to do harm, the\nmere taking pleasure in the thing causes the disaster. Persons with\nthe evil eye are quite impossible to distinguish, so the Persians are\nafraid of all strangers lest they should have it. This is why you must\nnot admire a baby, and Persian mothers cover up their young babies\ncompletely in the street for fear a casual passer-by should admire them\nand should prove to have the evil eye.\n\nThe men carry iron in their pockets as a protection, and a magnet\nis considered specially powerful in this way. A more common form of\niron to carry is an iron chain, which is useful for driving mules and\ndonkeys and beating off savage dogs.\n\nThe women sometimes wear charms to make their husbands love them. One\npoor thing gave me hers--two large beads: they had not proved of much\nuse, for her husband beat her and treated her very badly.\n\nAnother charm is a tiny bag of the scented earth of Kerbela, where\nMuhammad\u2019s grandson Husain was killed, and if rubbed on the eyelids it\nis said to cause the eyes to shine brightly.\n\nThe beads of the Muhammadan rosaries are often made of this Kerbela\nearth. Every Muhammadan has his rosary--many of them have quite a\ncollection, for pilgrims to Kerbela bring back rosaries for all their\nfriends.\n\nThese rosaries are never used for counting prayers, but occasionally\nfor counting the attributes of God or invocations. But the main use is\na very different one. They are the Persian\u2019s ordinary means of trying\nto find out God\u2019s will. They are used both in serious and in frivolous\nmatters; no Persian will settle anything without \u201ctaking the beads.\u201d\nHe takes the beads before making a business appointment, but he takes\nthem again to see whether he shall keep it or not. He takes the beads\nto see what doctor he is to send for, and again to see if he shall\nfollow his instructions. He takes the beads to see if it is a good day\nto buy a new coat, and again to see if it is a good day to put it on.\nYou often see a pious Muhammadan fingering the beads under her _ch\u0101dar_\nbefore she answers your questions.\n\nThe rosaries are made of a large number of small beads all alike, and\nthree only, which are different and are called \u201c_Sheikhs_,\u201d placed in\ndifferent parts of the string. To take the beads a Muhammadan turns\ntowards Mecca and says an Arabic collect. Then he divides the beads\nwithout looking, and tells them off two by two, saying over and over,\nas he does so, \u201c_Subh\u0101nu\u2019ll\u0101h_\u201d (God is glorious) \u201c_Alhamdu\u2019li\u2019ll\u0101h_\u201d\n(Praise be to God), \u201c_Va\u2019ll\u0101h_\u201d (and He is the God), passing two beads\nfor each word until he comes to a _Sheikh_, when he stops. If there\nare two beads for the last word, the answer is much more emphatic than\nif there is only an odd one. If the last word is \u201c_Subh\u0101nu\u2019ll\u0101h_\u201d the\nanswer is favourable, \u201c_Alhamdu\u2019li\u2019ll\u0101h_\u201d is doubtful and \u201c_Va\u2019ll\u0101h_\u201d\nis unfavourable. If the answer is doubtful a Persian generally follows\nhis own inclinations.\n\nIf the answer is not what the questioner likes, the beads may be taken\nagain in the mosque, and the answer in the mosque take precedence of\nthat in the house. If, however, the answer is still the same, there\nis a third method. For a small fee a mulla will do the same sort of\nthing with the Quran, and the text selected overrules the two previous\nanswers.\n\nA Persian lady sent for an English missionary to extract an aching\ntooth. The missionary found her in great pain, but she said she could\nnot have the tooth out as the beads were against it, but she had sent\nto the mosque and was hoping for a favourable answer from there.\nHowever, all methods gave an unfavourable answer, so she put off the\nextraction to another day.\n\n\u201cIt would be much better for me to have it out,\u201d she said, \u201cbut it is\nnot God\u2019s Will.\u201d\n\nThe Wise Men from the East looked for God\u2019s guidance among the\nstars, and there God sent them a message. And here and there where a\nMuhammadan earnestly seeks God\u2019s guidance, because he is trying to\nreally live as God\u2019s servant, who shall say that he does not receive it\nwhere he has been taught to look for it.\n\nBut taken as a system, how trivial, how childish, how irreverent it all\nis. They use God\u2019s name, but they take His name in vain. They profess\nto seek God\u2019s will, and profess to receive an answer from Him, and\noften try the next moment to set it aside and force or coax an opposite\nanswer out of Him.\n\nThe Muhammadans think that through their beads they can _use_ God for\nsettling the every-day matters of this world in a lucky way, while they\nare disobeying Him in the greater matter of godly living.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI\n\nPERSIAN SCHOOLS\n\n\nA great many things are topsy-turvy in Persia, but perhaps reading is\nas topsy-turvy as anything. It is not only that the lines, and indeed\nthe whole book, begin at the wrong end, but the lessons begin at the\nwrong end too.\n\nAn English boy learns to read his own language first, and does not\nalways go on to a foreign language. A Persian boy learns to read a\nforeign language first, and does not always go on to his own language.\n\nWhen a little Persian boy goes to school he is given a big Arabic book,\nwith a great many long words in it, and he is not taught how the words\nare spelt, but is told what they are, and made to repeat them from\nmemory, pointing to each word in the book as he says it, and gradually\nhe gets some idea of which word is which.\n\nThe boys sit on the floor round the room, all reading at the top of\ntheir voices at the same time in different parts of the book. They read\nin a monotonous sing-song voice, swaying their bodies in time to the\nsound.\n\nThe master sits and listens through the din to one and another\ncorrecting mistakes here and there, and calling up any boy who seems\nperfect in his lesson to learn the next bit, and then return to his\nseat and read it over and over till he knows it too.\n\nThe book is the Quran, which the Muhammadans think was dictated by God\nto Muhammad through the Archangel Gabriel. It would not be surprising\nif the Persians, being Muhammadans, wished all their boys to learn what\nthey believe to be God\u2019s Word; but the book is written in Arabic, which\nPersian boys do not understand, and even the letters are not quite the\nsame as in Persian; so when the little pupil reaches the end of the\nbook he can read the Quran with the proper intonation, but he can read\nnothing else, and he cannot understand the Quran.\n\nThe Muhammadans, however, think that reading the Quran, quite apart\nfrom understanding it, is a very good action, so the little Persian\nboys work away at it, and they do not think it hard lines because they\nknow all the men, and big boys began in the same way, so it seems the\nnatural thing to do. And perhaps it is a little consolation to know\nthat when they reach certain points they will be given sweets. One\nlittle boy, who was asked how far he had got in the Quran, said that he\nhad just got to his first sweets.\n\nHaving finished the Quran our little Persian boy goes on to Persian\nbooks. These, too, he studies in much the same way as he did the Quran,\nbut it is more useful, because now he understands what he reads. After\nplodding through the Quran it is a pleasant change for little Ghul\u0101m\nHusain to turn to the War between the Cats and Mice, the Hundred\nFables, or Stories of Husain and Hasan (Muhammad\u2019s two grandsons).\nLater on he reads the poems of H\u0101fiz and Sa\u2019adi, and other great\nPersian poets, for there is a great deal of beautiful poetry in Persian.\n\nThere is no convenient desk or table for Ghul\u0101m Husain to write on.\nHe sits on the floor and holds the paper in his hand or on his knee.\nHis pen is a bit of fine cane, cut like a quill, but with a slanting\nend. As he holds it the handle points directly to the right and it is\nthe horizontal lines which he must make broad, while the up and down\nstrokes must both be fine.\n\n[Illustration: A PERSIAN SCHOOL]\n\nGhul\u0101m Husain never spills his ink. Each boy has his own inkpot, which\ncontains a tangled piece of silk soaked in ink. It dries up between the\nlessons, so when Ghul\u0101m Husain wants to write he moistens it with water\nso that the silk is thoroughly wet, but there is no water lying in the\ninkpot. In among this wet silk he dips his pen.\n\nIf you look into Ghul\u0101m Husain\u2019s pen-box you will find pens cut to\nvarious breadths for large or small writing, a penknife, and a little\nslab to rest the pen-point on for the final cut; an inkpot, and a tiny\nbrass ladle for adding water.\n\nMany an English boy finds it tiresome to have to dot his i\u2019s, but\nlittle Ghul\u0101m Husain has to dot almost every letter, some above the\nline and some below, some with one dot, some with two, and some with\nthree. These dots are not round, but square, and the height of the\nletters is measured by the size of the dots. This letter must be one\ndot high, that letter two dots high, another three, and yet another\nfive dots high. The size of the dot itself depends on the breadth of\nthe pen.\n\nAs he learns to write better he will run his letters into curious\ncombinations, and group his dots picturesquely in parts of the word to\nwhich they do not belong, or leave them out altogether, until at last,\nwhen he can write a really beautiful hand, the schoolmaster himself\nwill not be able to read the letter without careful study, and may even\nhave to guess at the meaning of particularly well-written passages.\n\nOne great beauty of a Persian letter is the way each line runs up at\nthe end, making a pile of words, syllables, and even single letters,\nsomething in this style:--\n\n                                  rew\n                                    s sc\n                                 Persian\n                              way the\n   \u201cMY DEAR CHILDREN,--This is the\n                                  ers.\n                                    lett\n                                   write\n                              en they\n    up the ends of their lines wh\n                                   f\n                                  k o\n                                    thin\n                                  ey can\n                             words th\n    They also use all the longest\n                                  eir\n                                 at th\n                                   so th\n                                arly all\n                             els or ne\n        and leave out all their vow\n                              ops.\u201d\n                                no st\n                               they use\n                             ecially as\n                           read, esp\n        letters are very hard to\n\nThe Persians do not apparently think much of their own system of\neducation, for they are always laughing at their schoolmasters.\n\nThey have a story of a _ch\u0101rv\u0101d\u0101r_, or muleteer, one of whose mules\nstrayed one day into a school. It was quickly driven out, and the\nmuleteer claimed damages from the schoolmaster to the extent of half\nthe value of the mule. The schoolmaster indignantly asked on what he\nbased his claim. The muleteer turned to the crowd which had gathered to\nlisten to the argument. \u201cMy beast,\u201d said he, \u201cwent into his school a\nmule and it has come out a donkey.\u201d You see a donkey counts half a mule\nin caravan travelling, just as a child counts half a person in train\ntravelling.\n\nThe punishments are as topsy-turvy as the lessons. When a boy is caned\nhe lies on his back and holds out his feet instead of his hands.\nSometimes his feet are held in a kind of stocks while he is caned\nacross the soles. They call it \u201ceating sticks\u201d or \u201ceating wood\u201d--the\nwords are the same.\n\nSome missionaries were picnicking one day in an orchard in a hill\nvillage, and the village children gathered round to watch the\nforeigners\u2019 strange ways. \u201cDo you often come and eat plums here?\u201d one\nof the ladies asked; and she was greatly bewildered by the curious\ntastes of Persian boys, when the owner of the orchard answered for\nthem, that the boys who came into his orchard ate not the plums but the\nwood.\n\nThis beating on the soles of the feet is a common punishment for every\none, from the slave and the schoolboy to the criminal and the political\noffender. With schoolboys it is of course not very severe, but in more\nserious cases it may be very severe indeed, even resulting in death.\nThe culprit in these cases is ordered not so many blows but so many\nsticks, _i.e._ he is to be beaten till so many sticks have been broken.\nA hundred sticks is not an uncommon punishment. If the culprit is rich\nenough he may bribe the _farr\u0101shes_ to strike the stocks when possible\nand so break the sticks quickly, and not over his feet; but a poor man\nhas to take his punishment.\n\nThere is no compulsory education in Persia and very little free\neducation. There was one man who tried to atone for sins, which he\nmade no pretence of giving up, by founding a large free school in one\nPersian town, but it is not a common form of benevolence. So it is only\nthose who can spare a little money who send their boys to school, and a\ngreat many never get beyond a very early stage of reading and writing.\n\nAs for the girls very few parents care to waste their money over their\ngirls\u2019 education. A certain number are taught to read the Quran, a\nless number go on to reading such books as they have studied, but very\nfew can read at sight, and writing is even rarer. Still in the matter\nof the education of girls Persia is in advance of other Muhammadan\ncountries.\n\nIn these days of general education it is difficult for us to realise in\nthis country how hard it is for the missionaries to teach the gospel\ntruths to the Persians. There is so much to be taught and there are so\nmany to be taught, and when it has to be done orally to people whose\nintelligence and memory have never been developed by study of any kind,\nwhose minds and brains have never grown up properly, and who forget so\neasily, it means an amount of work that would take up all the time and\nstrength of far more missionaries than are now in the field.\n\nMany of the converts cannot come regularly for oral teaching, and they\nare liable at any time to move out of the missionaries\u2019 reach, so the\nmissionaries try to teach all the converts and their children to read\ntheir Bibles at any rate, so that they can get teaching direct from\nGod\u2019s Word themselves.\n\nBesides the Persian schools there are now several Christian schools in\nPersia, but we will talk about those in the next chapter. Since they\nwere started there has been an attempt in some of the big towns to\nintroduce an improved system of teaching, and Persian reading-books\nare now printed with _ba-bi-bu_, _pa-pi-pu_, etc. etc.; but this is\nthe exceptional method of teaching, and not the rule in Persia, and I\ndoubt if any orthodox schoolmaster would care to teach Persian before\nhe taught the Arabic Quran.\n\nThe Parsees have a very good school in Yezd, largely supported by the\nParsees in Bombay, but this is only for Parsee boys.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII\n\nCHRISTIAN SCHOOLS\n\n\nThere are two branches of mission-work in Persia that bring the\nmissionaries into close touch with Persian children: one is the\nhospital, the other is the school. You will hear about the medical work\npresently; in this chapter we will look at the school work.\n\nThere are Europeans in Persia, wanting English-speaking servants and\nemploy\u00e9s; there are rich Persians wanting secretaries who can write\nFrench and English; there are business firms trading with England\nand India who want English-speaking clerks and correspondents; so\nnaturally many Persians want their sons to learn English; and who\nshould teach it better than the Englishman?\n\nBut this is not all they want. As they get to know the Christians they\nsee that there is something in English ways and English character that\nthe Persian lacks. And they bring their boys to the missionary, and\nask him not merely to teach them English, not merely to teach them\nbook-learning of any sort, but to teach them to be good boys.\n\nThey do not so often ask for a girls\u2019 school, for they do not think a\ngirl needs any book education as a rule, and only a few of the Persian\nwomen can even read. Yet in some of the Mission-stations girls\u2019 schools\nhave been started with great success, and year by year the demand for\nthem is growing.\n\nEnglish is less taught in these schools, but some of the girls learn\nit, especially those most closely connected with the mission. The\ngirls, of course, have to give a good deal of time to sewing and\nembroidery, which are more necessary for them than foreign languages.\n\nBut in all the Mission-stations sooner or later, generally sooner, a\nboys\u2019 school is started, and these schools vary very much according to\nthe needs of the different towns.\n\nIn one school Armenians and Muhammadans work side by side, in another\nwe find Muhammadans and Parsees, while a third contains all three.\n\nIn one school only English is taught, in another advanced Persian and\nArabic are added. In yet another, everything is taught from the Persian\nalphabet onwards.\n\nOne missionary works alone in his own house, another has a full staff\nof Armenian and Persian teachers and monitors, and a well-built\nconvenient school.\n\nBut whatever the race of the boys, whatever the subjects taught,\nwhatever the organisation, there are difficulties to be faced.\n\nIt is difficult to get teachers; sometimes none can be got on the spot,\nand they have to be fetched from some other town, perhaps several\nweeks\u2019 journey away. Sometimes the missionary has to be the only\nteacher till he can train some of his own boys to be first monitors and\nthen masters in the school.\n\nThen there is the school itself. Sometimes the small beginnings of a\nschool are started in the missionary\u2019s own dining-room; sometimes he is\nable to spare a room entirely for school purposes. In one case this was\nsupplemented by a rough tent or shed made of matting in the compound.\nBut as the school grows, separate buildings have to be found or built.\n\nBooks are another difficulty. All books for teaching English have to\nbe got from abroad, and many are not suitable. Readers which are very\nsuitable for the size of boy who reads them in England or India, are\nnot suitable for the young men who often use them in Persia. If you\ngive an educated young man, well read in the finest Persian poetry, the\nchildish stories and rhymes in many of the readers, he thinks English\nbooks are very, very foolish, and his opinion of English intelligence\nin both literary and religious matters falls very low.\n\nAll these things need money. The boys generally pay a very small fee\nand buy their own books, but the fees do not go far towards paying for\nthe schools and the teachers\u2019 salaries, and the getting together of the\nnecessary money is another difficulty.\n\nThe pupils themselves present three great difficulties. In our country\nboys under fourteen generally go to different schools from boys\nover fourteen, and those who wish to continue their education after\nseventeen or eighteen leave school and go to college, or attend special\nlectures. But in Persia the missionary is asked to take them all\ntogether in one school, even middle-aged men wishing to become pupils.\nBut it is quite impossible to make a satisfactory school of boys and\nmen together. It is sometimes possible, especially in the larger\nschools, to arrange separately for the men, but generally an age limit\nhas to be set.\n\nThe second difficulty arises from the number of boys who want to learn\nEnglish and who are never likely to have any use for it. They have an\nidea that it is so new and uncommon that any one who knows it is bound\nto get work at a good salary, and so they want to waste their time over\nit when they ought to be learning the subjects they will really need\nfor their work. It takes some time and trouble to sort these boys out\nfrom those who are really likely to need English. The third difficulty\nis not peculiar to Persia, though it presents some peculiarities there.\nIt is the problem of managing the boys.\n\nBoys in England, I am sorry to say, sometimes tell lies, but in Persia\nit would be more correct to say that they sometimes tell the truth.\n\nThen again the boys are of different ranks; some of them come with\ntheir servants, and a certain amount of tact has to be used to get\nthem to accept the ordinary rules of discipline. But in a school where\neverybody comes to learn most of these difficulties can be overcome.\n\nPersian boys want knowing, like all boys, but when one tries to do\none\u2019s best for them one finds them thoroughly lovable and possessed of\na large number of exceedingly good points.\n\nLastly, the _Mull\u0101s_, or Muhammadan clergy, see in the schools the\ngreatest danger to their religion, and they oppose them strongly. They\nknow that such close contact with Christians must open the boys\u2019 eyes\nto some extent to the contrast between Muhammadanism and Christianity,\nand they know Muhammadanism cannot stand such a comparison.\n\nMany Muhammadans, who believe that Muhammadanism is a true religion\ngiven to them by God through Muhammad, still see that Christianity is\nthe better religion, and Muhammadans have told me that God had given us\na better religion than He had given them.\n\nSo the _Mull\u0101s_ try to persuade or frighten the fathers into not\nsending their boys to the Mission-school, they try to frighten the boys\nout of going, and they try to get the governors to close the schools.\nBut it is God\u2019s work, and He does not allow them to stop it for long.\n\nThe boys themselves show the greatest interest in whatever they are\ntold about the Bible, and naturally in one way or another Bible reading\nis always a prominent feature of every class of Mission-school.\n\nSometimes there is a regular lesson on the Bible as one of the school\nsubjects, but in other places there are no Bible lessons, but only\nprayers and Bible-reading, with very simple explanations. But however\nthis may be, the gospel story of Christ Jesus, which is known by name\nto every Muhammadan, but by more than name to very, very few, is always\nof absorbing interest, and is not likely to be forgotten.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII\n\nWORK\n\n\n\u201cTo the house of \u2018Ali Akbar the pea-roaster,\u201d I said to my servant.\n\n\u201cThere are two \u2018Ali Akbars pea-roasters,\u201d he replied, \u201cone is alive,\nand one dead; which do you want?\u201d\n\nIt proved to be the widow who had sent for me, and we were soon great\nfriends.\n\n\u201cAnd do you go to school?\u201d I asked Husain, a merry little boy of eight.\n\n\u201cNo, I am an apprentice-baker,\u201d he said with an evident sense of\nimportance; he felt he was a wage-earner--a halfpenny a day, I think\nwas the amount, but where a labourer often only earns fivepence a day,\neven a halfpenny a day counts for something in the family.\n\nSeven years old seems to be a very common age for apprenticing boys\nin Persia. A boy of that age can make himself useful and gradually\nlearn his trade, and if his master and his fellow-apprentices are kind\nhe may be very happy, like my little baker. He probably fetched and\ncarried, brought sticks for heating the oven, laid out the long thin\nflat loaves in rows as they were handed to him from the oven, and later\ncarried them in a tray on his head, or hanging over his shoulder, to\nsome of the customers.\n\nProbably our Lord Jesus Christ Himself started work in the carpenter\u2019s\nshop at Nazareth as soon as He could be of any use. He would fetch and\ncarry tools, sort out the nails, help to clear away the shavings, and\nlater He would learn to hammer nails, to saw and plane, just as the\nlittle Persian apprentices do to-day, and He would thoroughly enjoy\nhelping Joseph in the workshop and Mary in the house.\n\nThere was a little \u201capprentice-carpenter\u201d who looked such a baby he can\nhardly have been as old as seven. He used to run back to the shop for\ntools or nails, and hold the hammer, and he even succeeded in pulling\nsome nails out of a packing-case. But his master was not always kind to\nhim, and sometimes beat him, and he did not seem as happy as the baker\nboy.\n\nServants will often bring their little boys to the house to help them\nin their work, and gradually fit themselves for service. When they\nbegin to be really useful the master generally gives them a small wage.\nA servant who has no boy of his own will often bring a nephew or a\ncousin.\n\nIn every trade you find them, little boys whose business it is to\nlighten their elders\u2019 work a little in any way they can, for the\nPersians are not over fond of hard work.\n\nYou find them too in the houses of poor people, who cannot afford to\nkeep a regular servant, but pay a few coppers or a meal to a little boy\nto come in and make himself useful, sweeping the floor and watering\nit in hot weather, preparing the _qali\u0101n_, or hookah, running errands,\nchopping firewood, and a hundred other things. It is a system that\nworks very well when it is worked with kindness and consideration, but\nit is a terrible system when it is abused.\n\nIn the Persian carpet trade we see this. In the villages the whole\nfamily works at one carpet, and as the children grow old enough they\nare taught and made to join in the work. There need be no cruelty in\nthis, and often the little things are only too proud and happy to do as\ntheir elders do, and join in the family task. But unhappily even in the\nfamily there are many cases of cruel overwork and ill-treatment.\n\nBut for the horrors of child labour in the carpet trade we must turn to\nthe factories of Kirman.\n\nThese factories are filled with children from four years old upward,\nunderfed, overworked, living a loveless, joyless, hopeless life. The\nfactories are built without windows lest the children\u2019s attention\nshould be distracted, and the bad air, want of food, and the constantly\nkeeping in one position produce rickets and deformity in nearly all. Of\nthirty-eight children examined in one factory thirty-six were deformed.\n\nOne of the Governors of Kirman forbade the employment of children\nunder twelve in the factories, but the order did not last beyond his\ngovernorship. The same Governor gave the order still in force, which\nforbids the employment of children before dawn or after sunset, thus\nreducing their working hours to an average of twelve hours a day. A\nrecent Governor added to this an order limiting the Friday work to\nabout two and a half hours, \u201cfrom sunrise to full sunshine,\u201d so now the\nchildren share in part the general Friday holiday of Muhammadanism.\n\nOne of our medical missionaries was called to attend the wife of the\nowner of one of these factories, and consented to do so on condition\nhe made windows in his factory to allow the children air and light.\nHe objected at first, saying that it would prevent their working, but\nfinally consented, and admitted afterwards that the children did more\nwork with the windows than they had done without them.\n\nThe factory owners are glad to get the children, for they say children\nwork better than grown-up people at carpet-making, and of course they\nexpect less wages. But how can the parents allow their children to live\nthis cruel life? You will find the answer in the Persian saying that\n\u201cof every three persons in Kirman, four smoke opium.\u201d\n\nThe man who takes opium regularly becomes a wreck; first his digestion\nis ruined, then his heart gets weak and he get bronchitis and other\nchest troubles, and he become unreliable physically and morally; he is\nuntruthful and deceitful, and when he is once well under the power of\nthe habit, he goes almost mad if he cannot get his opium at the usual\ntime, and would sell his soul for it, and does sell his children. Over\nand over again comes the terrible story, the father and mother smoke\nopium; the little deformed child toils through the long days to earn\nthe money that buys it.\n\nIn the villages the children begin almost as soon as they can run about\nto take out the sheep and goats, not in green fields, for there are\nnone, but among the scattered plants on the mountain-side or under the\nvillage trees.\n\nOnly the boys are allowed to take the flocks out on the hills at any\ndistance from the village, and on mountains where there are thought to\nbe wolves, even the boys are forbidden to go without a man.\n\nBut in and around the villages boys and girls alike turn out.\nOften they carry a long pole, generally more than twice as long as\nthemselves. This pole serves at times as a fence to keep the flock\nfrom wandering into crops as they pass them on their way, or as they\ngraze on the stubble of the neighbouring crops which have been already\ngathered in. The stubble itself is not much, but there are more weeds\nthere because the ground has been watered. But neither on the hills nor\nin the fields can they find much pasture in the heat of summer, so the\nlittle shepherds and shepherdesses take their flocks under the trees\nand beat the leaves down with their poles for the animals to eat. When\nthe lower leaves are finished they climb, boys and girls alike, into\nthe trees, often to considerable heights, and beat the higher branches.\nThe leaves that are not eaten are dried and kept for the winter as we\nkeep hay. It is an awkward thing for a child to climb trees encumbered\nwith a long pole, and in the districts where they do this there are\noften accidents. One little boy of eight or nine was brought to the\nYezd hospital with a bad compound fracture of his skull through falling\nout of a tree while tending the sheep. He got nearly well, and then his\nmother took him home, so I do not know whether he fully recovered or\nnot.\n\nAmong the richer classes the children sometimes undertake nominal work\nat a very early age, but not actual work. One boy of about sixteen in\nour school held a position in the Persian army corresponding to that of\nColonel, and there was said to be a Field-Marshal of twelve in the army.\n\nMerchants consider it good training for their sons to do a little\nbusiness on their own account, and some of our schoolboys imported\ngoods from Bombay or elsewhere while they were still at school, and\ndisposed of them at a profit.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV\n\nCHILD WIVES\n\n\nThe Persian girls stay at home longer than the little apprentices, but\nnot so long as the richer schoolboys.\n\nThe usual age for a Muhammadan girl to marry is thirteen or fourteen,\nbut in many places they marry as early as eight or nine.\n\nThis perhaps explains why the girl is given no voice in the choice of a\nhusband, and all is left to the parents.\n\nIt perhaps partly explains too why Muhammadans are allowed to beat\ntheir wives, though they will tell you, as a proof of their prophet\u2019s\nkindness to women, that he forbade them to do it with a chain. A little\ngirl who has not had time to grow up and learn to behave herself, will\noften no doubt be difficult to control.\n\nThe young wife of a shoemaker one day lost her temper because her\nhusband said he could not afford to buy her something she wanted. She\nproceeded to break all the ornaments in the house and to tear her best\n_ch\u0101dar_ to rags. Her husband, who was a Christian, went to the English\nmissionary to ask whether it would be allowable under the circumstances\nto beat her.\n\nAnother girl refused to cook her husband any food when he came home\nfrom his work, and would not even speak to him. She admitted that\nhe was very kind to her, and that she liked him better than her own\nbrothers, but still continued to sulk in this way. Her own relations\nsaid a good beating was what she wanted, but her husband had scruples\nabout wife-beating, and would not do anything. But not many Persian\nhusbands are so forbearing.\n\nAnother necessary result of these early marriages is the custom of\nliving with the husband\u2019s parents. A girl of even fourteen is not\nfit to be given sole charge of a house. So the bridegroom takes his\nbride home to his father\u2019s house, and puts her under the charge of her\nmother-in-law. When, however, the mother-in-law becomes a widow, she\nhas to take a secondary place, if her daughter-in-law is at all of an\nage to manage her own affairs. Then the old lady often prefers to leave\nher son\u2019s house, and to go and live with a married daughter, and the\nmen are generally very good in taking in their mothers-in-law.\n\nPoor little girl wives! They are taken away from home before they are\ngrown up, and although they are now married women they cannot help\nbehaving as children. There was one young wife of a Government official\nwho received her visitors with the utmost dignity and propriety, and\nthen could not resist the temptation to pinch the old black woman who\nwas handing the tea and make her jump.\n\nAnd they hardly know what to do with their babies. They love to nurse\nthem and play with them, but they get very tired of them and are often\nglad to hand them over to the grandmother. I went to condole with one\ngirl on the death of her dear little baby, and she said, \u201cIt was just\nas well it died before the winter. It would have been such cold work\ngetting up in the night to look after it.\u201d\n\nEven when the children grow older their mothers, grown-up children\nthemselves, do not know how to manage them. What do you think of\nmothers who lose their tempers with their children, and fly at them\nand bite them? And they are not ashamed of it, and their neighbours do\nnot seem surprised or horrified. One woman bit her little boy\u2019s hand,\ntill it bled badly. He was about seven, and had cried to have his best\ncoat on when he went to see the missionary. Another woman bit the cheek\nof a poor little consumptive girl of eight or nine, so that there was\na great bruise, and the skin was broken. She told a neighbour, with a\nlaugh, that she had got angry with the child because she was tiresome\nabout taking her medicine, which was very nasty.\n\nThere is no command in the Quran that girls should be married so\nyoung, but the mothers declare that it was the command of Muhammad,\nand certainly he himself set the example by marrying a girl of nine.\nSo when a mother thinks her girl is getting old enough to marry she\nbegins to look out for a suitable husband, and talks things over with\nthe mother or sister of any man she thinks likely. The man\u2019s mother is\nallowed to see the girl, but not the man himself, so you see even the\nmen cannot choose their own wives. Then the money matters are arranged.\nIt is settled how much the girl\u2019s father will give her, and how much\nher husband will settle on her, and there is often a great deal of\nhaggling over this.\n\nIf a girl has a cousin who is the son of her father\u2019s brother, he is\nconsidered the most appropriate husband for her, and it is considered\nan act of merit for him to marry her.\n\nIf a girl has a large dowry she can generally get a good husband as\nhusbands go out there. If she is poor she has more difficulty, but a\ncapable, industrious girl may do fairly well. But a penniless girl with\nnothing to recommend her fares badly indeed. When her mother fails to\nget any husband who is at all desirable instead of letting her girl\nremain single, she marries her to a madman or a drunkard or a deformed\nman, or someone utterly undesirable.\n\nThe engagement is celebrated by a formal sweet-eating to which the\nfriends on both sides are invited.\n\nThe bride and her family prepare her trousseau, and she also has to\nmake a complete suit of clothes for the bridegroom. In one town now it\nis customary for every well-to-do bride to have one European dress in\nher trousseau, and for her father to give her a table and chairs.\n\nThe wedding itself is a great affair, lasting a week, if the bride\u2019s\nfather can afford it, but only a day or part of a day in the case of\npoor people. The little bride in her finest clothes, of which she is\nvery proud, looks very disconsolate and cries a great deal. No doubt\nthe tears are sometimes genuine enough, for the child is leaving her\nhome and going to people she knows little of, but even if she feels\ninclined to laugh and smile she must not do anything so improper.\n\nAfter the wedding she must not leave her husband\u2019s house for a year,\nbut she may receive visitors.\n\nAs we have seen the marriage and wedding are arranged by the women,\nbut generally the bridegroom has more say in the matter than one young\nman I knew. He had been engaged for some time, and on going home\nfrom work one evening found his wedding prepared without his having\nbeen consulted, and had to be married then and there. He was fond of\nchildren, and quickly won the heart of his little wife, who cried when\nhe had to go back to his work.\n\nWe do sometimes find happy family parties in Persia, the husbands\ntreating their wives with consideration, and the wives being very fond\nof their husbands. One old lady told me, with tears in her eyes, how\ngood her husband always was to her, and how he always got up and made\na cup of tea for her in the morning if she was not well. But this is\nthe exception and not the rule. There does not generally seem to be any\ngreat affection between husband and wife. The husband expects implicit\nobedience from his wife, and is prepared to enforce it. On the other\nhand she has certain privileges. She generally has the best courtyard\nin the house, to which no men are admitted but near relations, and the\nsmaller courtyard is given up to her husband to receive his guests in.\n\nExcept in the highest classes Persian women go about a good deal, but\nalways have to wear a veil in the street or draw the _ch\u0101dar_ over\ntheir faces.\n\nThe man is absolute master in his own house, and unless his wife has\npowerful relations he may do what he likes to her and her children, and\nno one will take any notice.\n\nI knew one woman whose husband treated her like a slave. He forced her\nnot only to do all the work of the house, but the work of the stable\ntoo, for he was well enough off to keep a horse. He killed one child\nin her arms, and twice stole another away from her, sending it once\nto a town a week\u2019s journey off, and once to another part of the town.\nFinally he divorced her, without giving any reason, and left her ill\nand destitute. And she had at no time any redress.\n\nCertainly Muhammadanism does not tend to make good husbands, nor\nperhaps good wives either. The Persians are many of them kindly people,\nhowever, and treat their wives better than Muhammad taught them to\ndo. Otherwise the lot of women in Persia would be harder than it is.\nOne great evil they are spared, for the widows are not despised and\nill-treated as the Hindu widows are, but are allowed to marry again,\nand generally do so if they are of a suitable age.\n\nStill the condition of girls in Persia is not a happy one, and I think\nthat all of you who have Christian mothers, and know what the love of\nsuch a mother can be, will have something to pray about, when you think\nof mothers and their children in Persia.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV\n\nSICK CHILDREN\n\n\nMeasles, scarlet fever, whooping cough, mumps, chickenpox, Persian\nchildren have them all. Typhoid fever, diphtheria, rheumatic fever are\nall common. But almost the commonest illness of all is smallpox.\n\nA woman brought a child into the dispensary waiting-room one day\ncovered with a smallpox rash. The doctor, new to the country, ordered\nher out, condemning her reckless disregard for infection. \u201cIs there\nanyone who has not had smallpox?\u201d she asked, looking round at the\nthirty or forty other people in the room. As she expected, all had had\nit, and she came in.\n\nIt is considered a children\u2019s illness, because people hardly ever grow\nup without having had it. In fact, their parents take care they shall\nnot, for they are so afraid they will take it badly at an awkward time\nthat they choose a convenient time, and either put the child with a\nperson who has smallpox mildly, or, oftener, inoculate him with it,\njust as we inoculate our babies with vaccine.\n\nMy cook asked me one day, with tears, to go and see his baby; they\nhad given it smallpox to get it over, and it had taken it badly. I am\nglad to say it recovered. He had not thought it necessary to make any\ndifference in his cooking for us, while he was spending his nights with\na baby with smallpox. Another missionary\u2019s cook brought his little boy\nwith smallpox to the kitchen because it was more cheerful for him than\nbeing at home; he could lie and watch his father cooking.\n\nSo the Persians do not take much trouble to prevent their children from\ngetting ill. How do they care for them when they are ill?\n\nFirst of all they start doctoring them themselves, except in smallpox,\nwhen they say it is dangerous to give any medicine. For other illnesses\nthey give plenty of medicine, not in little teaspoonfuls, but in nice\nbig bowlfuls, and the nastier it is the more good they think it will\ndo. On the whole Persian children are exceedingly good about taking\ntheir medicine, but whether they are or not they have to take it. One\nway of giving it to naughty children is to pour it through their noses\nfrom a little tin cup with a long narrow spout.\n\nIf the child gets no better the doctor is consulted; very often two\nor three doctors are called in, and sometimes the parents follow the\ndoctor\u2019s advice, but very often they do not. It depends partly on the\nbeads, and a good deal on how much they have paid. If they pay much\nthey generally make the patient take all the medicine for fear their\nmoney should be wasted. If the doctor seems unable to cure the patient\na reader is called in, sometimes a man, sometimes a woman, who reads\nthe Quran over the patient in the hope that it may effect a cure where\nmedical treatment has failed.\n\nIn the case of a long, tiresome illness, or when they despair of\nrecovery, it is not uncommon for the patient\u2019s friends to hasten the\nend by giving a dose of poison.\n\nOne girl, who had very little the matter with her, but was always\nmaking a fuss over her ailments, gave her family a great deal of\ntrouble with her fancies. They found her recovery was likely to be\nslow, and although she was going on well they one day told the doctor\nthat \u201cthey had _given her sherbet_ and she had died.\u201d\n\nI myself was several times asked to give poison in the form of\nmedicine, and I think they were rather surprised when I told them how\nChristians regard such a thing.\n\nWhen the medical missionary starts work he may be puzzled by the very\ncommon request that he will give the second medicine first. It appears\nthat the people think, with how much truth I cannot say, that their\ndoctors give first a medicine to make the patient worse and then one to\nmake him better.\n\nPerhaps that was what the devoted old grandmother was thinking of, who\nhad brought her poor little granddaughter in from a village many miles\naway, very, very ill with rheumatic fever. She called in the English\ndoctor, and got her medicine from the dispensary, but when the doctor\ncalled next day, she said she had not given the child any, because she\nremembered she had never asked if it would do her good and so she was\nafraid to try it.\n\nIt must surely have been in the minds of the friends of one patient who\ncame to the missionary, and said their friend was worse every time she\ntook her medicine, and they wanted some more, it was doing her so much\ngood.\n\nWhen you are very ill, Mother keeps you very quiet and does not let you\nsee visitors, but when a little Persian is very ill all the neighbours\ncrowd in to see him, and the more ill he is the more people come in.\nAnd they do not tread on tiptoe and talk in a whisper, they all talk\nquite loud out and smoke _qali\u0101ns_ and drink tea, and make noise enough\nto give anyone in good health a headache, much more a sick child.\n\nOne day I was called in to see a child who was dangerously ill.\nInstead of showing me into her room, the mother, together with a\nvariety of aunts, sisters, and other relations, escorted me to their\nreceiving-room. I asked for the sick child, and was told I should\nsee her after tea, which meant at least half an hour\u2019s delay. As\nthe account they had given of her sounded very bad, I said I could\nnot wait, that it was not our custom to think of tea-drinking and\nentertainment when our patients were perhaps dying. With great\ndifficulty I managed to persuade them to take me to the poor little\ngirl, whom they had left alone while they all came to have tea and\nsweets with me. She was, as they had said, very ill, her recovery was\nvery doubtful, yet as soon as we left the room, and had sent for the\nmedicine, they were all eager to entertain me, and I do not think\nanyone would have stayed with the child if I had not insisted, and they\nwere all as gay and lively as if they had had no one dangerously ill in\nthe next room.\n\nThe Persians are very hospitable and like to put their best before\na visitor, and they consider it very necessary to provide something\nnice for the doctor. Some Persian doctors send word beforehand what\nrefreshments they would like got ready.\n\nSometimes this deters the very poor from calling in even the mission\ndoctor, who, they know, would treat them free. They cannot even provide\ntea and sugar. It was a great relief to more than one poor person, when\nit was discovered that the mission ladies were fond of boiled turnips,\nfor a plate of turnips was within the reach of the poorest, costing\nonly about a halfpenny. The news spread, and several sick people were\nable at once to have a doctor.\n\nBut it is in surgery that one sees the Persian doctor at his worst.\n\nHere comes little Husain with his head plastered up with mud; on\nremoving the mud we find a broken skull and a large wound in a foul\ncondition. Next comes little Sak\u012bneh with both hands burnt; the burns\nare smeared with sticky white of egg covered over with leaves; it will\ntake days of proper dressing to get the wounds clean. But she is not so\nbadly off as Rub\u0101beh, whose burn has been dressed with camphorated oil,\nand is so inflamed that she screams and cries the whole time.\n\nA more fortunate child was the little girl who was scalded nearly all\nover, but not deeply, and who looked like a little nigger with the\n_ink_ they had put on. She got well very quickly. It is like Indian\nink, and seems to be the best of the remedies the Persians use for\nburns.\n\nWith broken bones the Persian doctors are not very successful either.\nLittle Hasan, aged four, fell and broke both arms. The Persian doctor\nas usual tied them up with splints that were too small to be any real\nuse, but he tried to make up for that by tying the bandages very tight,\nand poor little Hasan had both arms partly destroyed. How proud he was\nwhen, after some weeks at the C.M.S. hospital, he was able to carry an\nEnglish doll clasped to his heart with the two poor bandaged stumps.\n\nThere was some truth in what one doctor said, that more than half the\ncases that came into the hospital had come there in consequence of the\nPersian doctors\u2019 treatment. The remedy is generally worse than the\ndisease.\n\nThere are exceptions, and I have met Persian doctors, who not only had\nreal knowledge of medical treatment, but had some of the true doctor\u2019s\nspirit of pity and self-sacrifice. Especially I would mention the\nbrave Persian doctor who stayed at his post in Shiraz in the cholera\nepidemic of 1904, and fought that terrible disease instead of yielding\nto the panic that had seized his fellow countrymen.\n\nIt is evident, however, that there is a great and crying need for\ndispensaries and hospitals in Persia. So in the north the American\nPresbyterians, and in the south the Church Missionary Society, have\nfounded them in a number of towns.\n\nAs a rule a dispensary is started first, to which out-patients can come\nto get medicines and have their hurts attended to. Later a hospital is\nopened. Generally the first hospital is a very poor affair, but as the\nwork grows money is collected, and nice, clean, convenient hospitals\nare built and furnished. Armenian and Persian boys and girls are\ntrained as nurses and assistants, the boys for the men\u2019s hospital, the\ngirls for the women\u2019s and children\u2019s.\n\nHere Hasan and \u2018Ali, F\u0101timeh and Rub\u0101beh, and a great many other little\nPersian children are made as comfortable as their illness allows, and\nare kept clean and happy in comfortable beds, and well fed and cared\nfor.\n\n[Illustration: A MISSION HOSPITAL]\n\nMorning and evening they hear prayers read, and soon they too venture\nto join in the \u201cOur Father.\u201d And every day someone reads and explains\nin the ward something about the Lord Jesus Christ, and His love and His\nteaching, and they learn that He knows and loves each little Akbar or\nSak\u012bneh and wants them for His own, and they learn to love Him because\nHe first loved them. They learn hymns too, and love to sing them,\nthe same hymns that you know so well, \u201cWhiter than snow,\u201d \u201cSimply\ntrusting,\u201d \u201cHere we suffer grief and pain,\u201d and many others.\n\nThe last recalls the story of little B\u0101gum, the child-wife, who was\ndeliberately and cruelly burnt by her husband, and was brought to the\nmission hospital. There was no hope of recovery, but all was done that\nwas possible to relieve her pain and brighten her last days.\n\nShe had heard something of the Gospel story from a missionary who had\npaid a visit to her native village, and she had been so interested that\nshe had asked two Persian children to teach her more. When she was\nbrought to the hospital even the terrible pain she was suffering did\nnot make her forget the wonderful story, and she begged to be told more\nand more. And resting in the love of Christ and trusting wholly in Him\nand His salvation, she loved to sing of the joy to which He was going\nto take her and kept begging for \u201cHere we suffer grief and pain,\u201d and\nrepeating over and over the refrain, \u201cSh\u0101d\u012b, Sh\u0101d\u012b,\u201d (joy, joy), until\neven the Muhammadan women would sit beside her and sing the hymn that\ncomforted her so much.\n\nIn a small village in another part of Persia lived a little lame girl.\nShe could not walk at all, and her leg was drawn up so that she could\nnot straighten it, and she suffered very much. She was a good deal\nof trouble to her parents, and they got tired of taking care of her,\nand neglected her a good deal, till at last her father heard of the\nmission hospital in the neighbouring town, seventeen miles off, and\ntook her there to see if the _Ferangis_ (Europeans) could cure her.\nShe was taken in, washed, and dressed in clean clothes and put to\nbed. At first she used to scream when her leg was touched, but it was\noperated on, and gradually, very gradually, the pain grew less, and the\nleg grew straighter. But still, as the months went on, the recovery\nwas very slow, and when the weather grew so hot that the hospital had\nto be closed and her father took her home, though free from pain while\nshe lay still in bed, the pain was so great when she tried to stand\nthat she could not walk a step. But as she lay alone on her bed at home\nshe thought over all she had heard at the hospital, and one day a new\nthought struck her. Surely the _Kh\u0101nums_ had told her that the Lord\nJesus Christ, Who used to cure people so wonderfully, was alive still\nand could hear when anyone spoke to Him. Why had she never asked Him\nto make her leg well? And then and there, in her ignorance and simple\nfaith, she asked Him, Who in the old Gospel days had made the lame\nto walk, to make her walk, and, confident in His love and power, she\n\u201carose and walked.\u201d\n\nWhen the hospital was reopened she came back again still lame, still in\npain, but able to walk about with a stick. And she loved more than ever\nto hear of Him who had not only done so much for the sick Jews of old\ntimes, but had done so much too for her.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI\n\nCONCLUSION\n\n\nA Persian was one day talking to an English missionary and asked why\nour King did not annex Persia.\n\n\u201cIt is not right,\u201d said the missionary, \u201cto take what belongs to\nsomeone else, and Persia belongs to your Shah.\u201d\n\n\u201cStill your King is surely bound to do as the Bible tells him, and the\nBible tells him to annex it.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhere does the Bible say that?\u201d\n\n\u201cDoes it not say that if you see your neighbour\u2019s ox or ass fallen into\na pit you are to pull it out? And Persia is an ass fallen into a pit,\nand your King should pull her out.\u201d\n\nYes, Persia has indeed fallen into a pit, and we must pull her out,\nbut the pit is not simply one of political difficulty, it is the pit\nof Muhammadanism, Persia\u2019s most real difficulty, and we must annex\nPersia for the King of Kings. As long as the Persians are Muhammadans\nlying and dishonesty will be the rule, cruelty and injustice will go\nhand in hand, the poor will be oppressed, the girls and women will be\ntreated as inferior creatures, the children will be liable to overwork\nand cruelty, and religious persecution will continue. And the Persians\nare finding out that they are in the pit and they are struggling to get\nout, they are crying to us for help. Are we going to help them?\n\nThousands of Muhammadans in Persia are dissatisfied with their\nreligion, and are looking for something better. Many are trying a\ndissenting form of Muhammadanism, called B\u0101b\u012bism, but many are looking\nto Christianity for help.\n\nAt first they distrusted the Christians, and Christian work was\nconstantly hindered or stopped. Now they have learnt to know and trust\nthe Christians, and the work is not greatly interfered with. Indeed\neverywhere the Persians are asking for teachers and doctors, for\nschools and hospitals, and for Christian teaching.\n\nIf we do not help them in their search after the Way, the Truth, and\nthe Light, Muhammad\u2019s mistake, which has caused so much misery, may be\nrepeated, and Christianity rejected in favour of some new religion made\nto suit the needs of the moment, but not the needs of eternity. We must\nall put our shoulder to the wheel to prevent that.\n\nThe Persians are well worth an effort. Numbers of Babis went to their\ndeath in 1903 rather than deny their prophet, and even children have\nstood persecution for Christ. \u201cI have a foolish husband,\u201d said one\nlittle girl. \u201cHe says he will beat Jesus Christ out of me, but he can\nonly beat my body, and Jesus Christ is in my heart, so he cannot beat\nHim out.\u201d\n\nAnd the Persians are naturally a religious people, and if their\nreligious energy could be turned from dead works, formal prayers,\nfastings, pilgrimages, divining,--turned to the service of the true and\nliving God, what a splendid people they might be again, what a force\nfor God in Asia, and in the world. For the wave of true religious life\nwould act again on us and help us on. God grant we may yet see the\nPersian, stunted as he is by Muhammadanism, grow up to a perfect man to\nthe measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. And what is _our_\npart in this great work? It is threefold.\n\n1. _Prayer._ Persia wants our prayers. God wants our prayers for\nPersia. We none of us know all the power and possibilities of prayer,\nand most of us are surprised when we get direct and obvious answers\nto our prayers. It takes us a long time to find out that God answers\nall our prayers, but He does. And there are many in Persia who need\nour prayers: the missionaries; the converts, often standing alone in a\nMuhammadan house or even in a village or in a quarter of the town, with\nno Christian friend to encourage them; the inquirers, perplexed as to\nthe truth, or struggling with their fears of confessing the Saviour in\nWhom they have learnt to believe; the untouched Muhammadans, oppressing\nor oppressed; the schools, the hospitals and dispensaries, and the\nservices held week by week in the name of Jesus Christ.\n\n2. _Giving._ We may help to send out missionaries and to keep up the\nschools and hospitals, either by giving some of our money, or our time\nand work. Have you only five loaves and two small fishes? Our Lord can\nuse them to feed five thousand men besides women and children.\n\n3. _Personal service._ We cannot all be missionaries in the foreign\nfield. No, but those who cannot give themselves for foreign service can\ndo \u201cgarrison duty\u201d at home. People often try to dissuade missionaries\nfrom going abroad, telling them they are wanted at home. But they ought\nnot to be wanted at home; every Christian who cannot go abroad ought to\nbe doing his share of the work at home, so that those who can go abroad\nmay be spared.\n\nAnd you who read this book, if you want to help forward God\u2019s kingdom\nin heathen and Muhammadan lands, set to work now at once to fit\nyourselves to work as Christian teachers, that you may be ready to\ntake your place in the ranks here or there as the great Captain\nplaces you. Get to know your Bibles well, studying them if possible\nwith commentaries or aids. Do not let shyness stand in the way of\nyour undertaking direct Christian work if you are old enough. Do your\nlessons or your work thoroughly and well, and so make yourselves more\nfit to be used when the time comes. Get into good habits of healthy\nliving and simple food. Put away all unkind words and thoughts and\nlearn to live in charity with all men. Be regular in your prayers\nmorning and evening, and if possible get a regular time for midday\nprayer, even if it is only two minutes, but speak to God too all\nthrough the day--get into the habit of turning to Him at all times. For\nwhether we work here at home or far away in foreign lands we can only\ndo God\u2019s work by keeping in close touch with Him.\n\n\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[A] For the credit of the hospital authorities it must be stated that\nthey were making every effort to destroy the cat, but had hitherto\nfailed owing to its wildness and cunning.\n\n[B] This description is taken from the Shiraz copper bazaar.\n\n\n\n\nTRANSCRIBER\u2019S NOTES:\n\n\n  Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.\n\n  Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.\n\n  Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.","title":"Children of Persia","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":25514}