the education of her son and daughter, whom
she lived to see married.

From this example, to which many others might be added, it becomes clear
to what deep humiliations Mohammedan women are subject, and what
treasure of faithfulness and sacrifice are nevertheless hidden in some
of these oppressed and crushed lives. Without knowing the doctrines of
Christian religion, Chodsha's wife had practised them. What she dimly
anticipated, has been fulfilled in her son, whom I baptized as the
first-fruits in Kashgar, and received into the church. Did the
Mohammedan women but know to what height Christianity would raise them!
Could they but compare the Mohammedan proverb: "Do not ask a woman's
advice, and if she gives it, do the contrary," with the Apostle Paul's
words: "So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that
loveth his wife, loveth himself" (Ephes. V:28), and "There is neither
male nor female, for ye are all one in Christ Jesus," they would know
the distance which separates Christian views from those of Islam.

If on summer evenings when the heat of the day is over, the inhabitant
of a Mohammedan town goes out for a walk to enjoy the evening coolness
before the gates, he will sometimes pass the burial-grounds. Weeping and
wailing come to his ear. Pitifully he will look at the figures of
mourning women who are kneeling by the graves. But the sorrow which is
revealed there is not always meant for the loss of some beloved one
dead; very often women visit the graves of their relations or, if they
have none, of saints, in order to weep out undisturbed and unheard their
hopeless, desolate lives. In their houses they dare not give way to
their sorrows for fear of their husbands, therefore they go to the dead
in order to tell them their griefs!

May these words bring that sound of wailing to the hearts of Christian
women! May they, for whom Christian morality has made life fair and
worthy, who as a beloved husband's true friend and companion take part
in his joys and sorrows, or those who in the fulfilment of self-chosen
duties have found happiness and content, may they often remember the
hard fate of their Moslem sisters in the Orient, and help carry the
message of salvation to them.

XXII

IN FAR-OFF CATHAY

The social condition of Mohammedan women in Kansu Province in Northwest
China is not so hard as those of their sisters in the more western
countries. The Mohammedans, having been in China now