Wilson-Apostle To Islam.pdf - Radical Truth

48 Apostle 10 Islam
to come. The i\lission House in Bahrein is pleasantly situated on the seashore,
comfortable and well adapted to our needs. 1 could not help contrasting
my surroundings with those we endured in '93 when, during a bad
epidemic of cholera, ,ve were shut off from communication with the outside
world, with only one room to live in and that wholly unprotected from
the ~ugt1st 5un."13
Later in the year 1897 the Zwemers left for furlough in America. Their
daughter, Kath;rine, was born at Spring Lake, Michigan, i\Iay 23rd of
this vear. The father- was active among the churches in creating interest
and ~aising funds for the Mission in Arabia.
The following year the family returned from furlough, bringing with
them two new recruits. One of them ,vas l\Iiss lVIargaret Rice who became
the bride of the Reyerend F. J. Barny, already on the field. The other recruit
was the Reverend George E. Stone, who was to gh'e his life at :Muscat
after a short period of seryice. Two doctors also joined the r,lission in
1898; they were Dr. Sharon J. Thoms and Dr. Marion Wells Thoms, who
were sent out by the University of J\Iichigan.
Peter Zwemer had founded a school lor freed slave boys in Muscat and
was like a father to some eighteen of these little fellows who had been
rescued from the hold of a slave trader, "dispirited in mind, broken in
body and warped in morals."
\Ve have the following description from Robert E. Speer: "Six years
ago I stopped from a British Inclia steamer at Muscat to visit Peter Zwemer
who was working there alone, the signs of feyer plain upon his face so that
any man might read but abiding still by his work. He took us up to the
house where he was living and into the room where he said his family would
be found. There, sitting on little benches around the room, were eighteen
little black boys. They had been rescued from a slave ship that had been
coming up the Eastern coast of Arabia with these little fellows and other
slaves to be sold on the date plantations along the Tigris and the Euphrates
rivers. The British consul had gone out and seized them from the slavers
and had delivered them to Mr. Zwemer to keep until they were eighteen
years of age, when they were to be given their manumission papers. They
sat in the plain room, dressed in their brown khaki garments with their
little red fezes on their heads, just as happy as the children of a king. 'They
were not so,' said Mr. Zwemer, 'when I got them. The eighteen of them
huddled together in the middle of the floor just like rabbits, and every time
I came close they huddled nearer together. They distrusted everyone. For
months they had known nothing but abuse and cruelty, and had been shut
down in the hold of the slave ship in order that they might not betray their
presence.' I saw on the cheek of each child a little mark about the size of
a silver half dollar on the cheekbone, and I asked Mr. Zwemer what that
curious scar was. '"Why,' he said, 'that is the brand of the slaver's i'ron.
13. Pioneer Women of Arabia,. Eleanor T. Calverley, M.D., p. 7.
Pioneering in Arabia 49
E;'ery one of t~ese little boys was burned that way.' I understood somethmg
st~ndmg m t~e. presence o.f those eighteen little black boys with the
bra:r-d or the slaYer 5 Iron on theIr cheeks, of what it was that nerved \Vilber:orce
and Clarkson to endure ignominy and shame and social octracism
until at last they had stricken the shackles from the wrists of the last British
slaye and reinstated him in his rights as a man."H
A hospi~al building had been added to Bahrein station but in spite of
berter medIcal attentlOn Ruth Zwemer died on July 7th, 1904, at the age of
four, and .Katharma, t~e.eldest daughter, passed away at the age of seven,
on J.uly bth. Thus.w:thm .about a week these two young lives were given
t~ aad to tho~e of mISSlOnanes who had sacrificed themselves. On the graves
oI.the t\VO ~ltt1e. dau~~ters was recorded, "vVorthy is the Lamb that \vas
slam to receIve nches. Even such a severe loss could not in the least sha..1