Page:On the Desert - Recent Events in Egypt.djvu/291

Rh flag protection and liberty, and experienced (what he never knew before in his short, sad life) true Christian kindness. At the last advices he was still there. He was thus snatched from a fate worse than death, and introduced to what, it is to be hoped, will prove a happy and useful life.

This touching incident was told not at all in the way of boasting, but was called out simply by the fact that Dr. Post was from Beirut, which led to a conversation in regard to the Arabic Bible, that had been translated and printed there, a copy of which had made its way into such a remote part of Africa, and been used to purchase the freedom of a child who seemed born to hopeless bondage.

In his present field at Gaza, this devoted missionary has need of a rare combination of wisdom, patience, and courage — of all the virtues indeed which go to make up a true hero. He is virtually an exile from his country. He and his wife are the only Europeans in the place, and have to meet all the disagreeable associations of a petty Oriental town. But worse still is the danger of ophthalmia. Nine out of ten persons in Gaza have lost either one or both eyes! From this the missionary himself has suffered greatly, while his wife finds her eyes so weakened that she cannot use them at all at night.

Mr. Schapira is the first man whom I have met who has expressed any hope of reaching the Bedaween. It is sufficiently discouraging to attempt to do anything for the people of the cities; perhaps as they are more bigoted Moslems, they are more unapproachable than the children of the desert. Their fanaticism extinguishes all natural feeling. They have not even the common instinct of gratitude for favors received. "No matter how much you do for them," said my friend, "it is never enough, and they are never grateful." He told me of a man whose poverty and destitution were such as moved him to pity, and he