tCeam Woxk in ^txiia 
 
 I. With the Native Evangelists in 
 West Persia. 
 
 VERY Missionary in tour- 
 ing among Moslems will 
 have some strange ex- 
 periences, impossible in 
 any but an Eastern land. Imagine 
 the following interview an3rwhere 
 else than in Persia. The missionary 
 and his native associate were in the 
 town of M., a hot bed of fanati- 
 cism, they decided to beard the lion 
 in his den and visit the Muj tabid or 
 chief Mullah of the place. This they 
 did by appointment and found the 
 venerable ecclesiastic in his recep- 
 tion room surrounded by a crowd of 
 admirers assembled to see their chief 
 "do up" the Christian preachers. 
 Hardly had the usual salutations 
 passed before he began, "Seeing you 
 have come here to teach us your 
 faith I wish to see whether you really 
 know your own religion. Who was 
 the first idolater?" Unfortunately 
 neither of the preachers knew the 
 Mohammedan tradition upon this 
 
 I 
 
particular point, and frankly admit- 
 ted that they had no information on 
 the subject. "You don't know who 
 the first idolater was? And you 
 come here to teach us? Nimrod was 
 of course. But I will put to you 
 another question. What is Christ's 
 law concerning the trimming of the 
 mustache?" When told that Christ 
 gave no instructions about the way 
 one should wear his hair; that he 
 was only interested in the state of a 
 man's heart, the learned mullah 
 broke in indignantly, "Certainly he 
 had some law on the subject, and if 
 you don't know that, you surely can- 
 not teach us the greater things. I 
 am not well today and can give you 
 no more time. Go off and learn your 
 own faith and then come and teach 
 me. And so he dismissed us as he 
 would have done a pair of school 
 boys. 
 
 Once again the missionary and his 
 companion found a group of village 
 men squatting in a row on the sunny 
 side of the street with their backs 
 against a wall. They joined them 
 with their Bibles under their arms; 
 and soon the Missionary's compan- 
 ion was reading to them the Sermon 
 on the Mount, which more than any- 
 
 2 
 
thing else Christ spoke shows up the 
 shams and petty formaHsm of Islam, 
 But as he read, from every side came 
 the persistent question, "That is all 
 very good, but what do you think of 
 our prophet and our religion?" At 
 last not able to put off the question 
 any longer the Missionary begins, 
 "That is a very needless question; 
 for if I believed in your prophet I 
 would be a Mohammedan like your- 
 selves. I am a Christian and if you 
 wish to know why I am a Christian I 
 will gladly tell you." Instantly bed- 
 lam breaks loose ; an angry mob sur- 
 rounds the preachers, and in the up- 
 roar such taunts as these are fired at 
 them. "A man in our town after 
 swearing falsely upon the Koran fell 
 dead. The Koran killed him. Can 
 your Injil do that?" "When they 
 were building the sacred tomb at 
 Meshed to the Imam Rizza the stones 
 for the building got down them- 
 selves from the beasts of burden who 
 brought them and walked up them- 
 selves to their proper places on the 
 walls. Have you any sacred places 
 to equal that?" "We do not have 
 to be pure and holy to go to heaven: 
 our Prophet is so mighty that he can 
 
 3 
 
and will stoop down and pull us out 
 of the hottest place in hell. Your 
 Christ can't do that." 
 
 These same two preachers were in 
 another town never before visited by 
 Christian teachers. A captain in the 
 army, who had in his military career 
 lived in other parts of Persia and 
 come in contact with foreigners, was 
 the broadest-minded man in the 
 place. He invited the visitors to his 
 home for a tea drink; and while he 
 was much interested in what was go- 
 ing on in the world he cared little 
 for religion, frankly admitting that 
 he drank wine, had too good an 
 appetite to keep the Ramazan fast, 
 and found praying five times a day 
 with its accompanying ablutions too 
 much work. Yet he had a priceless 
 possession, which he showed us with 
 great pride, — a shirt on which the 
 whole of the Koran was beautifully 
 written in almost microscopic letters. 
 It had been handed down (un- 
 washed of course) from his grand- 
 father's or great grandfather's day, 
 and it was a sure protection against 
 any bullet; he wore it whenever he 
 went out to battle. And while that 
 man could listen without any resent- 
 ment to anything you might say 
 
 4 
 
about his prophet, it did hurt him to 
 be told, no matter how kindly, that 
 God's Word could do no one any 
 good unless written on the heart. 
 
 Any one touring among Moslems 
 must be prepared to meet with all 
 sorts of ideas and arguments, from 
 the unutterably trivial ones to those 
 which are profound, and urged with 
 all the keenness and subtelty of the 
 Moslem theologians trained to de- 
 bate. These, even the petty ones, 
 often tax a man's ingenuity to ans- 
 wer; and while the missionary must 
 ever try to avoid discussion and seek 
 to present the positive truths of the 
 Gospel to his hearers, yet he cannot 
 refuse to debate at times; and an 
 objection which may seem to him as 
 trivial, may be a very real difficulty 
 with the man with whom he is talk* 
 ing. It is in this respect that the 
 native born worker so wonderfully 
 assists and supplements the mission- 
 ary. No matter how long the for- 
 eigner is in the country he never 
 learns the language quite like the 
 natives; nor can he wholly get their 
 point of view and enter into their 
 ways of thought. A man of the 
 country even though he is not a con- 
 vert from Islam, instinctively under- 
 
 5 
 
stands what lies back of a question 
 in the man's mind; or some veiled 
 remark in village patois, wholly un- 
 intelligible to the missionary, is per- 
 fectly clear to the native born evan- 
 gelist. 
 
 Here for example is the Rev. 
 A.M. — a graduate of McCormick 
 Theological Seminary, but none the 
 less born and brought up in Persia. 
 He grew up side by side with Mos- 
 lem boys; he spoke their language 
 as well as he did his own, the Syriac. 
 He is today the best preacher in 
 Turkish in West Persia Mission, log- 
 ical, simple, earnest and winsome, 
 knowing just what are the weak 
 points he is attacking and how to 
 present the truth in the most con- 
 vincing manner. His preaching pow- 
 er attracts many new faces to the 
 Sunday services in the church at 
 Tabriz; but his chief power is per- 
 sonal conversations with Moslems in 
 their homes or shops, or with the 
 callers at the Bible depot. Always 
 tactful and unruffled he sticks to the 
 main point no matter how often he 
 may be sidetracked, — salvation 
 through Jesus Christ and Him alone. 
 Indeed seldom has there been so 
 much encouragement and hope in 
 
 6 
 
this branch of the work in the large 
 city of Tabriz as there has been since 
 he took hold. 
 
 Then there is Baron G — an Ar- 
 menian, who is a man of a very dif- 
 ferent type. He has had but very 
 little education; the most that he 
 knows has been learned during his 
 active service as an evangelist. His 
 language is not the elegant diction 
 of the Rev. A.M — but the village 
 dialect; in that he is an adept. For 
 years he has been most earnest and 
 untiring in the work of evangelistic 
 touring; few parts of the province of 
 Azerbajan have not been visited by 
 him, and in many localities he has 
 been the pioneer of the Gospel. He 
 has had many thrilling experiences. 
 Once he was in a town alone, the 
 only Christian in the place. It was 
 a town that was cursed with blood 
 feuds and most of the men went 
 armed. There in the city streets he 
 was surrounded by a crowd, who 
 demanded that he tell them what he 
 thought of their Prophet. No tem- 
 porizing nor evading the issue was 
 permitted. "Was he a true prophet 
 or a false one?" they demanded, as 
 they brandished their guns. "Well 
 since you insist" he shouted "he was 
 
 7 
 
false." But before anyone could 
 harm him, a young man completely 
 armed sprang to his side, and ex- 
 claimed "This man has been brave 
 enough to tell us what he thinks at 
 such a time. Whoever shoots him 
 must shoot me first." These years 
 of service have been far from easy 
 for Baron G — More than once he 
 had had to spend a cold winter's 
 night in the streets of a village too in- 
 hospitable to take a Christian in. 
 Once in the middle of the night his 
 host put him out of his house into 
 the cold rain on learning that he was 
 a Christian. 
 
 I am glad to say that work for 
 Moslems is made a growing part of 
 the course in our Theological classes. 
 The students in addition to studying 
 Islam by lectures and text books are 
 expected to spend their week-ends 
 under the superintendence of their 
 instructors in missionary work in the 
 Moslem villages and the many tea 
 houses along the way. Rabi S— — one 
 of these students at Urumia in addi- 
 tion to his training has been my com- 
 panion on a long and most inter- 
 esting tour into more distant sections 
 of Azerbajan; and never have I had 
 a more helpful associate. His zeal 
 
 8 
 
never flagged; rain, cold, uncom- 
 fortable lodgings and hard experi- 
 ences with the Mohammedans never 
 daunted him. He loved most of all 
 to take his Bibles to the bazaars to 
 sell; and he would come back from 
 one of these trips all aglow with en- 
 thusiasm over the opportunities 
 given him to testify to his Master. 
 Were I to make another tour I would 
 choose him rather than anyone else I 
 know, to be my companion; and I 
 know that wherever he may labor, 
 either as pastor of one of our Urumia 
 churches or in direct work for Islam, 
 he will never lose his deep interest 
 in the evangelization of the Moslems 
 of Persia. 
 
 But others, besides these and 
 many other paid workers, are busy 
 in this form of Christian endeavor. 
 Let me give you one example, a 
 woman, S — by name in the village 
 of G — She is a member of that 
 church and an untiring worker. 
 Once after preaching in the church I 
 asked for volunteers to go with me 
 to some nearby Moslem villages. S — 
 offered her services, and with some 
 misgivings at going with a woman to 
 such work, I at last ventured out. 
 We visited that afternoon a number 
 
 9 
 
of villages, and had audiences in 
 each one. At first S — in deference to 
 the missionary kept silence and let 
 him do the speaking; but evidently 
 she felt that he was talking over the 
 heads of the village people, and so 
 at last she asked permission to say 
 a few words; and after that there 
 was no more shooting high. She 
 called a spade a spade with absolute 
 frankness; but her frankness was 
 well seasoned with salt and she held 
 her audience through to the end. 
 That night the missionary as he 
 reviewed the work of the day rea- 
 lized that the best preaching had 
 been done by the woman end of the 
 team. This is only one incident of 
 her many activities. Recently, since 
 the great number of mountaineers 
 have come as refugees to the plain 
 of Urumia, she has taken those in 
 near villages under her care. She 
 visits them, helps their sick, sews for 
 the naked, advises and scolds them 
 like the children that they are, and 
 preaches to them. They call her 
 Kasha (Priest) S— and no one has 
 a stronger influence over them. 
 
 10 
 
The Missionary is needed for 
 Persia, and for many years to come 
 we must send an increasing force 
 there if that country is to be evan- 
 gelized; but I am even more sure 
 that the larger part of the work must 
 and will fall to the native agents ; and 
 the hope of Persia lies in multiplying 
 many hundred times the workers, 
 paid and volunteer, who spring from 
 the people and know their ways as 
 no foreigner can hope to know them. 
 
 R. M. LABAREE. 
 
 11 
 
11. With the Medical Missionary in 
 E. Persia. 
 
 N JUNE. 1916, Dr. Jos- 
 eph W. Cook of the 
 Teheran station of the E. 
 Persia Mission, started 
 on an itinerating trip in the Elburz 
 mountains, the point aimed for being 
 60 miles northeast of Teheran. With 
 him was a native evangeUst, a Bible 
 seller and two servants. After sev- 
 eral days of travel with numerous 
 patients seen by the way, and oper- 
 ations for cataracts performed, the 
 party reached Firus Kuh and pitched 
 their camp in a garden by the river. 
 A tent was loaned to Dr. Cook by 
 the Governor and in this he and his 
 associates lived and held the dis- 
 pensary and operated for cataracts. 
 
 While there Dr. Cook was sent for 
 to visit the governor of a place some 
 seven hours distant over the moun- 
 tains and perform for him a cataract 
 operation also. The old governor 
 was about 80 years of age. In his 
 prime he had charge of all the Shah's 
 horses and in this way had acquired 
 'j'reat wealth. In recent years, when 
 
 12 
 
the former Shah visited him and the 
 Baktiaris came in pursuit, several 
 hundred mares were taken and much 
 property destroyed. 
 
 From Savat Kuh the home of the 
 governor the party went to Simnon 
 stopping a few hours at Abe Garm 
 and bathing in the hot sulphur 
 waters. At certain seasons 200 or 
 more sick people congregate at these 
 hot springs looking for cures of all 
 kinds of diseases. 
 
 "It is my earnest hope", writes 
 D. Cook, "to some day establish a 
 little hospital in Simnon. It is a city 
 of 20,000 inhabitants with perhaps 
 15,000 more in the dozen or so 
 villages in the plain and mountains 
 in the vicinity. The plain unfor- 
 tunately lacks water so that enough 
 grain and barley for the local in- 
 habitants cannot be raised and sup- 
 plies from the outside have to be 
 brought in. The inhabitants of Sim- 
 non are simple and hospitable. All 
 along the streets the men, women 
 and children greet you with 'Salaam*. 
 Foreigners are not looked upon as 
 unclean, we were treated as brothers, 
 taken into their mosques and holy 
 places and allowed to eat from the 
 same dishes as the Moslems them- 
 
 13 
 
selves. This is all due to a Mullah 
 or old priest, recently deceased. 
 He was said to be over 1 00 years 
 old, had ruled the whole district 
 and was well known all over 
 Persia. He had publicly declared 
 that Christians were their brothers, 
 had himself so treated Christians, 
 and in fact at one time had 
 asked one of our missionaries to 
 preach for him in the leading 
 mosque of the city. From that time 
 Christians have been free to come 
 and go in the mosques of Simnon. 
 When Dr. Esselstyn who had visited 
 him, said Goodbye, the old priest 
 held out his hand and said — 'In this 
 religion of yours be steadfast, the 
 right is with you'. The old man had 
 a Bible which he knew well. 
 
 "Leaving Simnon we travelled 
 over the same road on which Alex- 
 ander the Great pursued Darius, 
 2000 years ago. The road runs due 
 east over a desert which rises grad- 
 ually to a pass and then drops into 
 another series of valleys and plains 
 where the country is more irregular 
 and mountainous. Several times we 
 had to get out and walk while the 
 horses with great difficulty pulled 
 the heavy canvas-covered wagon up 
 through the sandy slopes. 
 
 14 
 
"The leading native doctor of 
 Simnon accompanied us and was 
 with us for the following month, 
 assisting us in every way and trying 
 to learn, as he said, more about 
 medicine. 
 
 "The second day out as we were 
 driving across a hot sandy desert 
 we saw a donkey with a woman and 
 sick-looking child on its back and a 
 man walking by the side. The doc- 
 tor called out 'Where are you go- 
 ing?* 'To Simnon to see the foreign 
 doctor', was the reply. 'Well, here's 
 the doctor, turn around and come on 
 to Denghan and we'll take care of 
 him.' They had brought the child 
 over 40 miles from a village down 
 in the desert south of Sharood. 
 We operated on the little fellow 
 only five years of age, two days 
 later and a few hours after he was 
 carried away wrapped in dirty 
 clothes and kept in a caravansari. 
 Every day for eight days the report 
 was circulated that the child had 
 died, but every day, much to the 
 surprise of us all the child was 
 brought to the hospital and dressed 
 and little by little recovered. 
 
 15 
 
"The day before the operation 
 the father had gone to the chief 
 Kullah or priest of the city to ask 
 advice. The priest, a sensible young 
 fellow of 27 years of age said — 
 'Well, the child will die anyway so 
 you had better have him operated 
 on and give him a chance.' 
 
 "Our work was watched in 
 Denghan with a good deal of critical 
 interest. The house we were in had 
 been lent to us by a prominent man. 
 It was his own house in the process 
 of construction, bricks and lime were 
 lying about in great confusion. The 
 young Muj tabid the leading priest 
 of the city and district was most 
 cordial. He was suflFering from 
 neurasthenia so fortunately we were 
 able to help him very much by ad- 
 vice and medicine, chiefly jollying 
 him until he forgot his troubles. For 
 this treatment we received 50 
 tomans and his friendship. He with 
 eight or ten other prominent citizens 
 proposed giving 1200 Tomans and 
 a house and garden for three years 
 to our hospital with the understand- 
 ing that within six months we should 
 start work. A paper was drawn up 
 and properly signed by the governor, 
 chief priest and leading merchants 
 and given to me. 
 
 16 
 
"Denghan is the chief city of the 
 plain in which it is situated and is 
 famous for its pistachio nuts, said to 
 be the finest in the world. It has a 
 population of 12,000, and the 350 
 villages in the flat plains surrounding 
 have a population of perhaps 30,- 
 000 more. Denghan has the reputa- 
 tion in consequence of its water sup- 
 ply and grain products, of being the 
 richest city in all this province. In 
 all this district there is no trained 
 physician or surgeon. Two men 
 practice but neither has had even 
 the most elementary education. 
 
 "The hereditary prince of Mazen- 
 deran invited us to spend a few days 
 with him investigating the needs of 
 the mountain districts of his terri- 
 tory. His son had been a patient of 
 mine in Teheran so he sent his own 
 animals and servants to escort us 
 over the mountains to his own home. 
 
 "We were his guests for ten days, 
 but in spite of the hospitality we 
 were at the beck and call of every 
 one, especially the family of the 
 hereditary prince and practical 
 owner of this province. He is a fine 
 man and his son too, but the many 
 brothers and relatives are much like 
 
 17 
 
the general run of Persian grandees. 
 A number of patients were brought 
 to us for treatment, and one an old 
 man of 70 who was willing to have 
 an operation but would not come, 
 was brought by two soldiers. The 
 old man had not slept for five 
 months because of constant pain, but 
 after working for an hour and a half 
 amid a thousand difficulties we man- 
 aged to relieve him of his trouble. 
 Fully forty men and boys were wait- 
 ing outside while we worked, several 
 times the old man's pulse almost 
 stopped, such bleeding I had never 
 seen, but finally it was finished and 
 I asked the crowd outside that they 
 all pray for his recovery. A cry of 
 'En Shah Allah' or 'God willing* 
 went up. Our prayers were 
 answered and he recovered. 
 
 "After the operation the old man 
 was carried to an adjoining room 
 dark and dirty and was put on a 
 thick piece of felt on the floor and 
 wrapped in his own rags and 
 blankets. I think every one ex- 
 pected him to die. I dared not 
 hope much myself, but he improved 
 
 18 
 
day by day and recovered his 
 strength. After this our reputation 
 spread widely and we saw scores of 
 new people every day, many com- 
 ing from the shores of the Caspian 
 Sea and others from the mountains 
 four or five days* journey away. 
 The day I planned to leave an old 
 fellow with a cataract in one eye, 
 the other gone entirely, came, so I 
 operated immediately and left. My 
 Mirza who remained for several 
 days, said he got a good result. 
 
 "Before leaving, Masudul Molk, 
 the hereditary prince, gave me a 
 letter promising to build and equip 
 a little hospital and pay all running 
 expenses provided I furnish a resi- 
 dent native physician for the four 
 summer months, and spend one 
 month of that time there myself. 
 
 "We were away seven weeks, 
 treated about 3,500 patients, per- 
 formed 1 30 operations and took in 
 receipts amounting to 460 Tomans 
 (about $500 gold) which more than 
 paid the expense of the trip. 
 
 "This to me is the fascinating side 
 of medical mission work. I dare 
 
 19 
 
say that nine-tenths of the operations 
 we performed would have gone un- 
 done and the patients left to suffer 
 indefinitely perhaps till death, had 
 we not gone and hunted them up. 
 I am equally sure that several of the 
 patients had they been operated on 
 in a hospital would have died. Why 
 this is I do not understand but in 
 the three years I have been on the 
 field I have observed that many 
 Persians do not do well in hospital 
 surroundings. Separated from their 
 friends, their customary food and 
 surroundings, they wilt and die with- 
 out apparent cause. But it is helpful 
 to know that operations can be suc- 
 cessfully performed on a touring 
 trip. 
 
 20 
 
The Board of Foreign Missions of the 
 Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. 
 156 FIFTH AVE., NEW YORK 
 
 Form 2-160 
 
 November, 1916