d grandsons of Mohammed. As in all religions, women are most
zealous and devoted in the performance of these duties, but the
practice of Islam has nothing to satisfy their soul hunger. Their belief
in God is cruel fatalism, and all their rites work no change of heart,
and give no peace of conscience.

The Gospel comes to them with a special appeal, and bringing its own
message. That they should have any message, or be considered at all, is
news to them; they are so used to neglect and disrespect. When two of
us, at the invitation of a lady of rank, attended their Passion Play, we
sat with her on the ground, among a crowd of women, who were pushed
about by ushers with long poles, while the "lords of creation" sat
comfortably above on chairs, and in booths.

So accustomed are Moslem women to being hustled about that they wonder
at Christ's "Forbid them not," which we are apt to apply only to the
children, forgetting that it was spoken for the mothers. It is sometimes
most amusing to see a pompous dignitary crowd his way into the
dispensary of the lady physician, and when made with difficulty to
understand that only women are treated there, retire crestfallen. There
at least women have not only the first, but the only entrance. They are
not surprised at the Syrophenician woman being called "a dog." They are
used to the epithet and employ it themselves. One often hears one
berating her own offspring, as "child of a dog." When driven to
desperation by want, the Persian woman can be as defiant, shameless,
and persistent, as she of old before the unjust judge. Not unfrequently
mobs of women led by a woman, attack the gates of the governors,
demanding bread.

Their often miserable and diseased condition of health makes them feel
how tender is Christ's compassion in His miracles of healing. They also
have often suffered much from quack nostrums, "only to grow worse." In
any crowd of village women, one may see an old hag, bent and "bowed
together--not able to lift herself up," and there is no more pitiful
sight than the old women of Persia. A neighbor, a hundred years old,
always appeals to our charity on the ground of being "an orphan."

Their life and occupations are so identical with those of Bible times,
that they feel at once familiar with the scenes described in the New
Testament. Every morning, a village woman must mix the leaven in her
meal for the daily baking, must sweep her mud floor, and often two of
them sit at t