CHAPTER VII.

TRANSFERRED.

Y Beloved has gone down into His garden to gather lilies." One of the first - fruits of our

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Garden on the Golden Horn to be transplanted to that Paradise "where angels walk, and seraphs are the wardens," was Iskoohi, the wife of preacher Hohannes, formerly of Bardezag.

She was brought home to her native city to die, in the summer of 1861; and during one of my visits to Nicomedia, I stood beside her as the end approached, and saw the triumph of her faith in view of death.

She was lying upon a low couch, wasted by that slow, lingering consumption so distressing to witness, and so deceitful in its progress. Her eyes were closed, as if in sleep; but when she opened them, and saw me, a smile played over her wan features, and grasping my hand, she said, with husky voice, "O my dear teacher; how I have wanted to see you!" In broken utterances, she told me that her soul was filled with peace; there was no fear of death, for Christ had taken away the sting. I asked if she could say with the Psalmist: "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for Thou art with me:" and she replied, “O, yes! He is with me; I cannot

fear." I inquired how her past life appeared, and she said it seemed all vain and empty. "And your good works, do you place any reliance upon them?" "No, oh no!" she whispered," my hopes are all founded on Christ." "What word shall I give to your former companions, your sisters in Christ?" "Tell them," she said, with emphasis, raising her head from her pillow, " tell them to labor first for their own souls, and next for the souls of others; there is nothing else worth living for!" and with a deep sigh, she added, “Oh, I did desire to work for Christ in Bilijuk! but my little children, and sickness prevented." "What do you desire for your only remaining child?" "That he may live to preach Christ; that is my prayer for him!" Before leaving, I sang for her a verse or two of the new song, "Come, sing to me of heaven;" with which she was much pleased, and bade me a tender farewell, again and again expressing the deepest gratitude for all she had received from the "American Board Society" in connection with the school.

Early the next morning, word came that Iskoohi had gone where "the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest." Her husband was absent, attending a council of Protestant Armenian ministers, which held some of its sessions in Bardezag. He hesitated about leaving her, but she said, "Go, do not stay on my account!"

I found the body laid out on the floor, according to Eastern custom. The best dress of the deceased was spread over her person, and her head was attired as usual.

The mother and grandmother sat at the head of the low couch, rocking back and forth in their grief, and gazing upon the face of the departed with distressed countenances and low moans. A number of women were grouped on either

side; they had come, like the friends of Job, to mourn with and comfort the afflicted; and like them, they "spake not a word:" The silence was very impressive; but after a little sympathetic waiting, I tried to improve the moments in turning their thoughts away from the poor earthly tabernacle, to the "house not made with hands eternal in the heavens:" Read again that precious fourteenth chapter of John, and realized afresh the inexpressible blessedness and sweetness of work for Jesus!

me.

When I called a second time, B. Hohannes had returned. He seemed deeply afflicted, yet comforted: Said that God had visited him three times in six months; two little children went before the mother. Speaking of his departed companion, he said: "She was a good wife, and we were very happy together. I can say of her that she was a living, growing Christian; she was truly a helpmeet in my work; often when I was depressed, she encouraged and cheered Patience and self-denial were among her most prominent traits of character. She had many trials during her married life; poor health, a number of little children to care for, and little or no help. But she never murmured, or repined at the allotments of Providence; she was willing to live where her husband could be most useful in the Lord's work. When consumption fastened upon her frame, I thought it might make her irritable, as I had heard of others being thus affected by it; but it made no difference. She bore all her sufferings sweetly, never giving way to impatience, or complaining. She rejoiced that her two children were taken before her, saying, what a kind Providence it was that they were not left for me to care for when she was gone. That touched my heart; that she should think of my com

fort after she should be gone! I bless God that he gave me such a companion. Her last words of advice to me were, 'PREACH CHRIST! preach fervently, and with few words; that is the way to win souls, and I believe that it is the Lord's appointed way!'"

The funeral service took place at the house, and was attended by all the pastors comprising the council, besides a crowd of Protestants and Armenians. Pastor Simon, of Pera, preached a sermon from the words, "O grave, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?"

WAILING FOR THE DEAD.

A painful scene occurred when the body was removed; the Armenian relatives, women who still adhered to their old ideas and customs, gave way to distressing demonstrations of grief; wildly throwing themselves upon the corpse, shrieking, beating their breasts, crying out for her to come back, uttering the most doleful lamentations; and it was noticeable that those were most profuse in their outcries, and display of grief, who had shown the least love and care for their relative when she was living! It was custom, as tyranical as fashion, in other lands, that compelled this outward exhibition of a sorrow which in many cases was very little felt.

A friend once dropped in unexpectedly upon a family where the "mourning women," and especially the young wife of the deceased, had given way to the most extravagant expressions of grief, when the dead was carried forth, but a few hours before. To her surprise, she found them all as merry as though nothing had happened, and the wife, happily relieved of her unloved and unmerciful tyrant, was at ease,

evidently enjoying her supper, and laughing with the rest. But, on seeing the visitor, she set up a most unearthly howling, and went into fearful paroxysms and contortions of her physical frame. Some of the younger widows make themselves almost bald, at such times, tearing out their hair by handfuls, and casting it from the upper windows into the streets below, when the bier is born from the house. It is a costly, and often an unwilling sacrifice, for the women of the East, whose hair is so great an ornament and glory. "But we must do it! All the neighbors would talk about us, and reproach us if we did not show this honor to our dead," said a woman with whom I once argued the foolishness of the practice.

The same custom was observed in the time of the prophet Jeremiah. "Neither shall men lament for them, nor cut themselves, nor make themselves bald for them. Neither shall men tear themselves for them in mourning to comfort them for the dead."

Perhaps there is no sorrow so real and so deep to an Oriental, as the death of an only son. To this the prophet alludes: "They shall mourn for him as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him as one that is in bitterness for his first-born." This grief would be greatly intensified in the case of a widow, because her house would be "left unto her desolate," i.e., without a head; as in the case of Naomi, who said, "Call me Mara-bitterfor the Lord hath dealt very bitterly with me." And also the widow of Nain, whose real sorrow and utter desolation touched the compassionate heart of the Savior, and He said to her, "Weep not!"