A History of Protestant missions in the near East

Syria and Palestine 277
police supervision, and, if they too frequently enter the mission
house, they are forbidden to continue these visits. If
they still show signs of inclining to Protestantism, they disappear,
one perhaps to be a soldier far away in Asia Minor,
another never to be heard of again. Since the public preaching
of the Gospel is forbidden and there are, as yet, no native
congregations to unite in public worship, the missionary
activity is limited to three kinds of preparatory work.
(1) Journeys are undertaken from all three stations by the
missionaries, and even more by their colporteurs and other assistants,
far into the interior from
; Basra, by river boats
-through the delta of the Shatt el Arab, and from Maskat on
camel back. On these journeys they usually meet with a
hearty welcome and gain some foothold. In this way three
out-stations have been formed ;
Nasarieh and Amara in the
Shatt el Arab, and Kuweit, the projected terminus of the
Bagdad railway. In the mission stations, as on all these journeys,
a diligent work of colportage
is carried on. Several
bookstores are kept in connection with this branch of the work.
(2) Medical mission work is perhaps equally important, carried
on as it is at all the stations. In Maskat, however, there is
thus far only the missionary's wife to attend to the dispensary
work. In Basra the building of a hospital is
prevented by
Turkish jealousy, and unsuitable native houses have to be used
instead. There is, however, a fully equipped hospital in the
Bahrein Islands, the Mason Memorial Hospital, with two
physicians and a nurse. Altogether 31,000 patients are treated
in the course of a year. (3)
Work among women, and schools,
are still in their initial stage, both being much hampered by the
stupidity and fanaticism of the Moslems. In Basra only a small
school can be held in a private house. In Maskat it was hoped
that eighteen negro slaves who had been liberated by the English,
and entrusted to the care of the mission, might have
formed the nucleus of a school. No native Arab children,
however, came to it,
and the slaves showed no inclination to
learn. So the school had to be given up. But a second attempt
was made in Maskat in 1905. It is only in British