The teacher from Beirut having returned to her home, it was proposed to Miriam’s father that she should teach in the Protestant school.  Quite unexpectedly he consented, with the understanding that she was to spend every evening at home.  At first, little was said to her on the subject of religion; soon she sought religious conversation herself, and brought questions and different passages of Scripture to be explained.  After about a month, having previously conversed with the missionary about her duty, when her father came for her at night, she told him that she did not want to go home with him, but to stay where she was.  She ought to obey God rather than her parents.  They had made her act the part of a hypocrite long enough; to pretend to be a Catholic when she was a Protestant at heart, and they knew that she was.  Her father promised that everything should be according to her wishes, and then she returned with him.

Two or three days passed away and nothing was seen or heard of Miriam.  A servant was then sent to her father’s house to inquire if she was sick, and he was rudely thrust away from the door.  The missionary felt constrained to interfere, that Miriam might at least have the opportunity of declaring openly her preference.  According to the laws of the Turkish government, the father had no right to keep her at her age, against her will, and it was necessary that she have an opportunity to choose with whom she wished to live.  The matter was represented to the American Consul, who requested the father to appear before him with his daughter.  When the officer came to his house, he found that the father had locked the door and gone away with the key.  From an upper window, however, Miriam saw him and told him that she was shut up there a prisoner, not knowing what might be done with her, and she begged for assistance.  She had prepared a little note for the missionary, telling of her attachment to Christ’s cause, and closing with the last two verses of the eighth chapter of Romans, “For I am persuaded, that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  The janizary proposed to her to try if she could not get out upon the roof of the next house, and descend through it to the street, which she successfully accomplished, and was soon joyfully on her way to a place of protection in the Consulate.

Miriam, after staying three days at the Consul’s house, returned to that of the missionary.  Her parents tried every means to induce her to return.  They promised and threatened and wept, but though greatly moved at times in her feelings, she remained firm to her purpose.  They tried to induce her to go home for a single night only, but she knew them too well to trust herself in their hands.  Her mother had artfully arranged to meet her at the house of a friend; but her brother came, a little before the time, to warn her that a plan was laid to meet her at this house with a company of priests who were all ready to marry her forcibly to a man whom she knew nothing about, as is often done in this country.  Miriam thus gave up father and mother, brothers and sisters, for the sake of Christ and his gospel.