The Women of the Arabs eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 357 pages of information about The Women of the Arabs.

The Women of the Arabs eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 357 pages of information about The Women of the Arabs.
no more he was beaten and his wife insulted, and so it was in almost every Protestant house.  They began to love the Gospel, and the men who knew how to read, would meet to read and pray together.  One evening, all the Protestants met together in one of the houses.  Their sufferings were very great.  Their winter stores had been plundered, their olives gathered by Beit Beshoor, and they talked and prayed over their trouble.  It was a dark, cold, rainy night, and the wind blew a gale.  While they were talking together, a man came rushing in crying, run for your lives! the horsemen are here!  Before they could get out, a squad of wild looking wretches were at the door.  The men fled, carrying the larger children and the women carrying the babies, and off they went into the wilderness in the storm and darkness.  Some women were seized and tied by ropes around their waists, to the horsemen, and marched off for miles to prison.  The men who were caught were put in chains.  Some time later they got back home again.  But they would not give up the Gospel.  Beshoor sent men who told them they could have peace if they would only go back to the Greek Church.  But he offered peace quite too late.  They had now learned to love the Gospel, and it was worth more to them than all the world beside.  One night they were assembled in a little low black house, when some men came to the door and threw in burning bundles of straw and then shut the door, so that they were almost stifled with the smoke.  They sent a messenger to Beirut.  The case was laid before the Pasha, and he telegraphed to have the Protestants let alone.  But Beshoor cared for nothing.  A Nusairy was hired to shoot Abu Asaad, the leading Protestant.  His house was visited in the daytime, and the man saw where Abu Asaad’s bed was placed.  In the night he came stealthily upon the roof, dug a hole through, and fired three bullets at the spot.  But see how God protects his people!  That evening Abu Asaad said to his wife; the floor is getting damp in the corner, let us remove the bed and mat to the other side.  They did so, and when the man fired, the bullets went into the ground just where Abu Asaad had slept the night before!  He ran out and saw the assassins and recognized one of them as the servant of Beshoor’s son.  The next day he complained to the Government and they refused to hear him because he did not bring witnesses!

But the poor people would not give up.  Every day they went to their fields, carrying their Testaments in their girdles and at noontime would read and find comfort.  Their children were half naked and half starved.  When word reached Beirut, the native Protestant women met together and collected several hundred piastres (a piastre is four cents) for the women and girls of Safita.  They made up a bale of clothing, and sent with it a very touching and kind letter, telling their poor persecuted sisters to bear their trials in patience, and put all their trust in the Lord Jesus.  That aid, together with the contributions made by the missionaries and others in Beirut, gave them some relief, and the kind words of sympathy strengthened their hearts.  The school was kept up amid all these troubles.  One of the boys was taught in Abeih Seminary, and two of the girls were sent to the Beirut Female Seminary.

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The Women of the Arabs from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.