IT was the dawn of a winter morning. Ding-dong-ding clanged the chapel bell. I sprang up and began to dress, while Marta went to the mission-house for a cup of coffee. As I fastened the last button, there was a rap at the door. “Come,” I called, and in walked the dear little maid with a cup of coffee carefully covered to keep in the steam, and a roll done up in a napkin, which the cook had insisted upon her bringing.

Ding-dong began the bell again. “Tell the girls not to wait for me,” I said; and soon the clatter of many feet on the stairs indicated their departure. The coffee must be swallowed, and the little roll must not be wholly neglected; then putting on bonnet and ulster, I started to follow. Fido, our little spaniel, was standing disconsolate in the hall below. Her eyes were full of entreaty, and wagging her tail persuasively, she accompanied me to the door.

“Go back, Fido. Can’t take little dogs to church!” I exclaimed. She knew it was no use to tease, and stood watching me as I opened the heavy door with difficulty, and slammed it after me—it would not latch unless slammed. As I reached the church door, I heard the organ—that meant the service had begun, and I was late! something I never meant to be, but this was so early to go to church! The Armenians are all accustomed in the Gregorian Church to a service even earlier, and when they become Protestant, or Evangelical, they still cling to the old way of making worship the first thing in the morning, and giving breakfast the second place.

Instead, then, of going up the men’s aisle, and sitting at the further end where we missionaries usually do, I went on to the door at the left—the women’s—and slipped into a back seat. A little girl just in front of me passed me her hymn book, so that I could join with the congregation in singing “Garode yem, voh garode yem”—“I need Thee, O, I need Thee.” Just as the hymn closed, the sun’s rays struck the eastern window and streamed in; then the preacher arose and read the epistle to Philemon, and also 1 Cor. vii. 22....

The benediction was pronounced, and the congregation slowly streamed out. The walk from the chapel to the street is narrow, and as it is not proper for women to crowd in among the men, we waited till they had mostly passed on. While standing outside, Shushan, one of our day pupils, came along with her mother; both were completely enveloped in the white crapy wrap which is worn by the Armenian women in this section. Shushan’s bright-colored dress showed through, and at the same time set off the figure in the wrap.

“Par-ee loo-is, Shushan; are you of the same mind as yesterday about going to Kozloo?”

She returned my good-morning, and said she was; yes, indeed!

“Why should we change our minds?” said her mother. “Are we not also Christ’s servants?” referring to the sermon we had just heard.

You see, Shushan’s brother was bitterly opposed to her going away to teach, and I thought it quite possible that he had influenced her to give it up. It was years after girls’ schools were opened before people were willing to send their children to a woman teacher—I mean a native—still worse if she was “only a girl.” They would far rather send them to a man, however ignorant and incapable. That long struggle has ended at last in victory, and we have no more trouble in finding work for our girls; but we have another difficulty now. Well-to-do parents and brothers consider it a disgrace—at least many of them do—to have their daughters and sisters work as though they were obliged to earn their support.

“Haven’t you food and clothes?” they ask indignantly, when a girl, filled with a desire to do something for her people, intimates a purpose to teach. Perhaps I may as well complete this little tale here and now, although it does not belong to the incident of the Sabbath I have been describing.

A few days later the (native) pastor came to me and asked anxiously, “Can’t you persuade Shushan, for the sake of peace, to give up going to Kozloo? Her brother is very violent, and talks terribly, declaring that even if she were mounted, and going through the most public street, he would drag her off the horse; if she should by any chance succeed in carrying out her plan, she should never come home again—he would never again acknowledge her as his sister.” The pastor went on to say that he thought the brother had offered to send her away to school if she would give up “this crazy scheme,” as he called it.

I sent for Shushan, and finding that her brother had made the offer referred to, advised her to accept it. The sacrifice of her will for the sake of avoiding scandal, would, I was sure, be as acceptable to the Master as the service she had intended. In less than a week thereafter, she was on her way to a distant school.

We passed out through the arched gateway, and then parted with a mutual “yer-tak par-rov”—“good-by.” How the sun sparkled on the snowy street, on the mountains which seemed to stand across it, so near they looked, and reared their dazzling summits into the brilliant blue of the winter sky.

The girls with their shawls modestly over their heads, crossed the street in a straggling little procession. Fido appeared in the window which she had pried open with her little black nose—windows are hung like doors—gave an eager and joyful bark or two, and rushed down to welcome them home. Then they sat down to their breakfast of tea and bread. The former was seasoned with white lump sugar (brown sugar is unknown), but there was no butter for the bread.

I doubt whether my readers would have recognized the thin, whity-brown sheets, or the rags placed before one of the girls who had elected to take the pieces, as bread, but so it was. They have many kinds in Turkey, and this thin kind, a little thicker than blotting-paper, is very popular here. In the autumn it is a very common thing for a girl to come and say, “Teacher, mother says will you please excuse me from school to-day?” And she explains that they are baking bread, and need her help.

“But why doesn’t your mother get some woman to help her?”

Then I find that it is a regular “bee”—a bread bee! The neighbors are already there, and they will work all night—it is no small job to roll it out so thin. There will be no more baking till the worst of the winter is over. It is stacked away in a dry place, and when wanted the requisite number of sheets (about two feet long by one wide) is taken, sprinkled as you would clothes for ironing, and after a few moments, folded once lengthwise and laid around the edge of the table. If, instead of being sprinkled, the bread is held over the fire a moment, it becomes crisp and really nice; but this is seldom done.

After the housework was done we had prayers, and then the girls were dismissed with a charge not to hang about the halls or stairways, as the boys were coming over again to sing, and to keep their doors closed. “Not ajar as last Sunday, to my mortification and your disgrace; most likely the boys thought you left them open on purpose so that they could look in.” Somehow the boys and girls are wonderfully interesting to each other all the world over.

Soon the young fellows filed in, looking half-pleased, half-shy—big, six-foot Isaac, and clever little Bo-ghos; Sumpad, with his bright, frank smile; poor, awkward Deekran, the best writer in school, and his brother Arsen. We practiced “Hold the Fort”; there were two bad mistakes with which we struggled for a while. Then we sang “What a Friend we have in Jesus,” “Sweet By and by,” “Almost Persuaded,” “Go Bury thy Sorrow,” “The Ninety and Nine,” and others—all in Armenian, of course.

Then I said just a word to Deekran about money I entrusted to him—merely a caution to be careful to return any money that might be left over. It was hardly the thing for the Sabbath, but I was not likely to see him for some days, and I wanted to prevent any carelessness—it is so important for boys that they learn to be careful and business-like.

Harriet G. Powers, in the Evangelist.