If the condition of women under Islam is degraded and wellnigh hopeless in other parts of the world, what must be the condition of such women in Turkey, the seat of Moslem power, the centre of the Caliphate, with the green flag of the Prophet kept at Seraglio Point, in Constantinople?

The picture of woman's degradation throughout the Empire is black enough, yet gleams of light play over the blackness, and these gleams grow steadily stronger and more frequent. Turkey not only borders upon Europe, and thus is nearer to Western civilization and its progress, but its extended coast-line affords many ports of entry, to which comes no inconsiderable part of the travel and trade of the world. Kaiser William's railroads are opening up the western portion of the empire, and cause a curious jumble of modern advance with so-called fixed Oriental ways.

With their parasols held low over their heads, even though the day be cloudy, or the sun be set, the veiled and costumed Turkish women may be seen in crowds on Friday, their Sabbath, and holidays, sitting upon grassy slopes, with their children playing about them. They go in groups or followed by a servant, if from richer families, as they are not trusted to go alone. In the interior, even, non-Moslem women are veiled almost as closely as the Mohammedans, when upon the street. Such is the power of prejudice that it is not thought proper for any woman to be seen in public.

They live behind their lattices, and woe to any Christian house whose windows command a view into a Moslem neighbor's premises, no matter how distant. Such juxtaposition is the reason for the unsightly walls and lofty screens which disfigure many an otherwise beautiful view, in any part of Turkey. No strange man may look upon any Moslem woman.

The slow but sure disintegration of these customs, prejudices, and superstitions, is going on, thank God! Darkness is fleeing before the light. If the churches of Christ will but take the watchword, "The Moslem world for Christ, in this century!" and put all needed resources of men and means, consecrated energy and prayer, into the campaign, even the False Prophet shall be vanquished before Him who is King of kings and Lord of lords!

I have travelled on the railroad in Turkey with Moslem women, in the special compartment, where in the freedom of the day's travel, they have thrown back their veils and silken wraps, showing their pretty French costumes and the diamonds upon their fingers, as they offered their Frank fellow-traveller cake, or possibly chocolates, and have more than once felt the embarrassment of a missionary purse too slender to allow of such luxuries, with which to return the compliment. Once a Moslem woman took from her travelling hand-basket paper and pencil, and proceeded to write, as I was doing! Page after page she wrote, though in just the reverse manner from our writing, and we soon established a feeling of comradeship.

I have been also a deeply sympathetic witness of moving scenes in which the proverbial love of the Turkish father for his children could not be concealed. As the train awaited the signal for departure from a station, one day, the evident distress of a pretty girl opposite me, broke into crying. She had climbed into the corner by the window, and the guard had not yet closed the door. Involuntarily my eyes followed the child's grieved gaze, until they rested upon a tall, gray-bearded Turkish officer standing by the station, who was evidently striving to control his emotion answering to the grief of the child. Finally he yielded to the heart-broken crying of the little one, and came to the car door to speak soothingly to her. The young mother sat stoically through it all, seemingly content with her rich dress and jewels, and her comfortable appointments for travelling. Not so with the father and his child, who were so grieved over their coming separation. When finally the door had been slammed by the guard, and locked, and our journey begun, some time elapsed before the still grieving child could be won to take any interest in the good things with which her mother then sought to beguile her. Surely such a human father, so tender toward his little child, could be taught the love of our Heavenly Father for each child of His, which has provided a Saviour for every repenting soul returning to Him! Thus the lion would be changed into the lamb, and the Turkish officer, often unspeakably cruel to his enemies, would become a man and a brother even to his foes.

Moslem women, although by the rules of their religion almost entirely secluded from the outer world, and from all men save those of their own families, are, nevertheless, being powerfully affected by the growing light of civilization, which has not only revealed their darkness, but has penetrated it to some degree, while the burning glow and love of Christianity, through zenana workers and schools, has far more than begun the work of transformation.

How can mothers consent that their daughters shall be sold, while yet children, to any man, no matter how old, who will pay the price her father demands for her, when she has learned even a little of the loving honor given to his wife and daughter by the Christian husband and father? How can she consent to see her given in a marriage to which her approval has not even been asked, or possibly where it has been refused? Yet, pity it is that without the consent of mother or girl, she may be conveyed, a bride, to the house of her lord, who has perhaps not deigned to be present,—and she of course not,—at the arrangement by their legal representatives, for signing the contract, and fixing the amount of dowry which she brings, or the sum which he shall give her in case he at any time shall decree her divorce. This is all that constitutes the marriage ceremony in Turkey. I once saw the arrival of a Turkish bride at her bridegroom's house. There was no welcome. She alighted with a woman friend from the closed carriage. Some one must have waited within the garden, for the heavy street-gate opened at their approach, received the women, closed upon them, and the bride was shut into her husband's house, from all the world. If she displeases him in any way, even if her cooking does not suit him, a word from her husband suffices to divorce a wife, according to Moslem law. He may have as many wives as he wishes, and another is easily found.

Mohammedan husbands are allowed to punish their wives with blows, to enforce obedience. A whole town pervaded by these Turkish ideas was filled with amazement at a burly non-Moslem friend of mine, whose wife had become a Christian. Although jeered at and ridiculed by his companions as one who could not make his wife obey him, he never lifted his hand against her, for he loved her too well. He did, however, cause her great unhappiness for years, until the Spirit of God broke his hard heart, and made him also a Christian.

No Turk expects a woman to speak to him in a public place, or if she does he will not raise his eyes from the ground. A friend of mine was in deepest distress in a lonely place in Turkey, wringing her hands and crying "Alas! Alas!" as she saw a man approaching her; but Agha Effendim gave her no heed until she walked straight up to him, so sore was her need, and told him her trouble. Then his heart was touched, and Mohammedan Albanian as he was, he rendered her the aid which she asked.

Forty Mohammedan women, living too distant from Mecca to allow a pilgrimage thither, made the ascent, one summer, of one of the loftiest mountain peaks in European Turkey. They did this as a religious duty. It was a feat which required all the vigor and strength of an American mountain-climber, who ascended the same peak some days later. She could not abandon the task, however, which they had accomplished, whose feet knew only the heelless slipper or the wooden clog, when about their household duties, or stepped noiselessly in their gaily embroidered homemade stockings, when indoors. The Turkish woman can climb. She can reach lofty heights. Slowly and painfully she will leave her dense ignorance, her habits of superstition, her jealousies, and her intrigues behind her and will emerge, led by the loving hand of her Christian sister, sometimes of her husband or child, into the glorious liberty of the children of God.

We admit that ofttimes the obstacles seem insuperable, when we meet the barrier of the unawakened life. What opportunity is there before the little mother but fourteen years old herself? How shall she escape the name which her own family perhaps give her—"a cow"? "Cattle" is a common term for women. Her men-folks will very likely hinder her education, in many instances, but she must be led out of her old life, along this way. The mothers of coming generations, with unlimited influence over their husband's inclination and conduct even when set toward progress—the Turkish woman must be reached! Christianity is the one means to allay her superstitions, her jealousies, her fears, and to give her a true outlook upon life and its meaning. The women of Christendom must help her who cannot help herself. The pitifulness of the condition of Turkish women, and the difficulty of reaching them, form the challenge of Islam to the Christian world. Shall we take up the gauntlet thrown down by the Crescent and the Star, and lifting high the banner of the Cross, go forward in Christ's name, because God wills their salvation as truly as ours, and sends us to them in His name?

The influence of civilization is necessarily felt far less in the interior of Turkey than in the maritime sections; yet here also, thanks to the multiplication of schools and teachers and loving Christian women trained in those schools, conditions are beginning to be changed. "In one city of western Turkey," we are told, "the Turks themselves asked for a kindergarten teacher from our American mission school, to open a kindergarten for them, and it was done. Girls' schools have sprung up among the Moslems in various parts of the country, from the same influences which affected Greeks and Armenians, though more slowly. Quite recently there has been an awakening among the Turks to the fact that if they would keep pace with the march of civilization they must provide for the education of their girls. So now, in some of the large cities, schools for Turkish girls have been established, and, although the attendance is still small and the work elementary, yet it shows the trend of opinion, and gives great hope of soon bettering the condition of women in the empire."

Another observer writes concerning more progressive portions of Turkey: "The power of education is proving a sure disintegrator to the seclusion of Moslem social life. Turkish women have already taken enviable places among the writers of their nation. Others are musicians, physicians, nurses, and a constantly increasing number are availing themselves of the educational facilities afforded by the German, French, and other foreign institutions which have been established at Constantinople, Smyrna, and elsewhere in the Ottoman Empire. In the beautiful American College for Girls, on the heights of Scutari, Constantinople, Turkish girls, as well as those of all nationalities of the Orient and Franks, eagerly take advantage of the course, and a few have graduated with honor. A far larger number, however, are removed to the seclusion of their homes as they approach maidenhood. On the day when the first six girls from Moslem families were received, more than one of them learned the entire English alphabet. What a need for prayer that the Spirit of God shall reach those receptive young hearts from the very first day, in this and every other Christian educational institution to which Moslem girls turn their steps!" The most tactful and consecrated work of their missionary or native teachers must be done every day, for such Turkish girls, whether in more elementary schools or in colleges, inasmuch as the proverb of the country: "Either marry your daughter at sixteen or bury her!" is still very much in force beyond those limited districts where the influence of Western ideas has availed to modify somewhat the old thought. What they gain during the short time when they may remain in school, must be the food of their lives, in multitudes of instances.

We know the paucity of literature of all kinds in Turkey, where government press regulations prohibit any general output of publications; this, combined with the very general poverty of the people, makes many a home bookless, and the great majority of lives barren. Sometimes in missionary tours we have seen far up on the hillside a group of poor peasants descending. The sudden turning of the women of that party, drawing their filthy veils closer across their faces on hot July or August days, reveals to the passers-by that these are Moslems. They have discovered that there are men in the approaching party of travellers. They may have mistaken the ladies wearing hats as gentlemen also. A command has evidently been given by their lord and master, at which the women have sunk to the ground, with their backs to the road, while still far from it, lest one of those infidel eyes should peer through their veils, and look upon their faces. Yet women's curiosity compels those hidden eyes to seek at least a surreptitious peep at the foreign travellers, and they watch us furtively. Under such circumstances there can be no hope of any personal touch, save if occasion might arise which would allow a call at the hovel which constitutes their home. On one of my last journeys in Turkey I chanced to meet a Turkish soldier on a lonely mountain road. As I passed him, walking in advance of my horse and driver, filled with no small trepidation at such proximity in that lonely place, he gave me no salutation, and I confess to a feeling of relief when I had passed him unchallenged. But how that feeling changed to remorse when my driver overtook me, and said that the soldier had stopped him to inquire if the teacher who had just gone by were a doctor, for a little child of his lay at home grievously ill. What an opportunity had been missed! If he only had spoken, the pitiful need in that home would have been opened up to the missionary teacher, who, although not a doctor, would have done what she could to relieve the little sufferer, and to comfort the sorrowing parents. There would have been a chance to bring to that poor, ignorant mother in her miserable home, a token of love and tenderness out of the great world of which she knew nothing.

One of the most discouraging aspects of life in Turkey at the present time, is found in the fact that as men travel about in their business or professional life; come into contact in various ways with those of different views and more advanced thought than themselves; become influenced by them; and mildly enthusiastic to put the new ideas into practice; they are met on the very threshold of their homes by their uncomprehending and immovable wives, who with horror refuse to allow the souls of their families to be imperilled by tolerating any such heresies. This difficulty, instead of being cause for discouragement, constitutes a powerful challenge to the heart of Christianity, to help such an awakening man, and to find the dormant soul of this woman. No opposition can long stand before the appeal of the Gospel, when tactfully, lovingly, prayerfully brought to bear upon such souls.

Fatima Khanum ("my Sovereign Fatima"), a Bible woman, seventy years old, finds the joy of the Lord to be still her strength, as she goes from house to house, telling in her musical Turkish tongue the story of God's love for every man, and urges all to receive it. Very closely they get together on a wintry day, as visitor and visited gather about the brazier of coals, and talk over the wonderful words of life. May God greatly multiply the number of such faithful witnesses for Him, throughout the Turkish Empire!

"Evet, Effendim!" ("yes, my lord!") frequently says a missionary friend who, having learned the Turkish as her missionary language when a young teacher, still cherishes her love for it, and sometimes uses it to her best-beloved. Shall we not say, Yes, Lord! to Him who died on Calvary for all, and who is "not willing that any should perish," and with Him seek those "other sheep," and bring them to the fold of the Good Shepherd? There can be no failure here, although the church of Christ has but slowly and late come to the realization that the Mohammedan world too, with its millions of women and children, must be His. Hath not God said: "Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else.... Unto Me every knee shall bow"?