Page:On the Desert - Recent Events in Egypt.djvu/296

282 torch-bearer. Any native venturing into the streets at night without a lantern, would be arrested by the police: for these dark passages are the hiding-places for thieves who lie in wait for unprotected strangers. But little we thought of any precautions needed for our safety, as we entered a paved courtyard, and mounting by a stone staircase to the second story, found within doors the light and warmth and cheerfulness of a Christian home. The society of one such family is a great resource to a missionary who finds himself almost alone among strangers. To "hold the fort" in a city of Moslems, full of fanaticism and hatred, requires the courage of a soldier, as well as the faith of a Christian. But he who is equal to the task is doing a work the full result of which he cannot hope to see. At the beginning it is a very humble work — that of opening schools, and gathering in poor and neglected children; but the seed thus sown by education, accompanied by the influence of a Christian home, a Christian life and example, is not sown in vain, and will spring up and bear fruit long after he who scattered it has passed away.