al reading book in use.
"Nor is the teaching of those things that concern salvation confined
strictly to the time spent in reading Scripture. A few questions, or a
remark in the course of a secular lesson, often shows them what is the
most important of all matters in our minds. Nothing positively
controversial is taught; that is to say, no contemptuous expressions
about the religion of any of the children are allowed, and the plainest
truths of the Gospel specially set forward; but occasionally something
comes into the lesson which shows to an intelligent learner the vanity
of the superstitions around them." [1]

[Footnote 1: _Among the Huts_, p. 116.]

The policy of employing Egyptians or Syrians as teachers was frequently
challenged by people in England, and vigorously defended by Miss
Whately. "The schools are under my personal superintendence," she wrote
in 1885, "receiving not only daily supervision, but examination from me,
and I never gave up the teaching of any part of Scripture into other
hands, until I had truly converted as well as educated teachers as
assistants." [1]

[Footnote 1:_The Times_, Aug. 15, 1885.]

In 1879 pupils had to be refused for want of room, and from that time
till her death the scholars numbered nearly seven hundred.

The period of the Arabi rebellion in 1882 was a severe testing time.
Though deliverance came at the eleventh hour, and Cairo was spared, "the
inhabitants," writes Miss Whately in her report for that year, "lived
for months in a sickening anxiety which can hardly be realized by those
who only know the general facts from the papers." Not only Jews and
Christians, but Moslems who remained faithful to the Khedive were
threatened with torture and death. Miss Whately stayed at her post long
after nearly all the Europeans had fled, and only left when the English
Consul informed her that he would be no longer responsible for her
safety. "The superintendent of the Mission Boys' School remained in
Cairo at great personal risk, to keep things together as much as
possible. The schools were not closed till the bombardment of
Alexandria, when the excited mobs in the streets made it unfit for
children to be abroad, and it soon afterwards was necessary to take away
the board with the notice of the 'British Schools,' &c." The school
buildings were used as a refuge for the homeless and persecuted, both
foreigners and Egyptians. A list of buildings doomed to pillage included
the Mission