he hand mill grinding wheat or salt. Every one who can,
wears a necklace of silver coins, and counts each one precious. The
custom of covering the face "lest a man look upon a woman" is so
inwrought into their earliest training that they are able to draw their
veils _instantly_, whatever they are doing, if a man approaches.

They marvel, as did Christ's disciples, that He talked with a woman,
especially of a foreign race, and that He asked for a drink of water,
for to-day the Persians think a cup defiled if a Christian drink from
it. In a wedding procession in a village, the musicians lead with fife
and drum, and "the virgins" follow in all the finery they can muster. At
times of mourning also, they act just as the Gospels describe. Friends
gather to "weep and bewail." I have seen a roomful of women swaying and
sobbing, while a mother chanted a plaintive refrain: "Alas! alas!"
repeating the beloved name of the dead; often tearing her hair, and
beating her breast. I have often seen blear-eyed women, who said they
had become so by excessive weeping over the death of a child. To such
comes Jesus' message, "Weep not."

Religious observances in Persia are such as give special significance to
Gospel teaching. I had a visitor whose lips were continually mumbling
while she fingered her beads. She told me she was making merit, by
repeating the hundred names of Allah. Often when in their homes, our
hostess will excuse herself, because "it is the hour of prayer," and
going to a corner of the same room, will go through the forms and
gestures of Mohammedan worship. "Vain repetitions" they seem, when we
know the words are Arabic, a language she does not understand; and as in
the midst of her prayers she calls out directions to her servants, one
can see there is no devotion in them.

Fasting is a terrible burden, when, for a month, from dawn to dark, not
a morsel of food, or drop of water, or a whiff of the loved cigarette or
pipe can pass their lips. The people acknowledge that it is the cause
of quarrelling and reviling, so irritable do they become under the
strain, yet they dare not "break their fast" for fear of others.

All who can afford it make the long pilgrimage to Mecca, or in lieu of
that to Kerbela or Meshed; and bear thereafter the holy name of Haji,
Kerbelai, or Meshedi. To them it is a new thought, given by Christ to
the woman of Sychar, that no special location is "the place where men
ought to worship." Of all His w