Out From My Kindred

I

WHEN, in the late winter of 1893, I left New York for Pittsburg, at the urgent invitation of my friend Amin, I had no definite object in view. My vague longing ‘ to become an American ’ did not spring from any actual knowledge I had of American life and institutions, beyond the fragmentary information I had obtained from the missionaries in Syria and some countrymen in New York. I turned my back on the Syrian colony because of my dissatisfaction with its business and social life, and went out led by one of my alluring dreams. It seemed to me that the future could not be less fortunate than the past, and that it might prove greater and much more beneficent. The small assortment of Oriental silks which I carried in a valise, and the letters from Dr. Gregg and Dr. van Dyke, testifying to my honesty, were the only visible supports of my optimistic hopes for the future.

In Pittsburg, where I sojourned for about two months, Amin and I, like our countrymen of the primitive church in Jerusalem, ‘had all things common.’ We abrogated the law of private property between us altogether. Whether of books, clothing, money, or even letters, there was no ‘This is mine’ and ‘This is thine all that we possessed was ours. Oriental sentimentalism and brotherly feelings reached their height with us when we vowed that ‘so long as we both shall live, we will have a common purse and share to the utmost each other’s joys and sorrows.’ In our sharing the one bed and eating our meals at a restaurant on one ‘twenty-one-meal ticket’ there was nothing particularly interesting to the public. But when we wore one another’s clothes, being different in size, we attracted some attention.

Our final plan for the future was that we would enter college together at the earliest possible date. Amin, as I have already said in the preceding chapter, was a graduate of the Syrian Protestant College of Beyrout, Syria, but he was wise enough to suppose that there were ‘more things in heaven and earth’ than he had yet learned, and that a course of study in the higher branches of knowledge in one of the leading universities of this country would not, in his case, be superfluous. To secure funds for ; his worthy purpose we decided to travel in these states, and, wherever possible, lecture before churches and societies on the Holy Land, sell goods, seek financial aid by whatever other honorable means, and, as soon as our financial circumstances warranted, apply for admission at that great university which happened at the time to be nearest to us. My friend, who had a very fair knowledge of the English language, was to be the senior member of the firm. He was to address the large assemblies on Sundays and other occasions, and I, who had never spoken English in public, was to screw my courage to the sticking point and address small groups, in parlors and at prayer-meetings. Our choice of a vocation was to be made while in college, with the assistance of our professors.

But our snug plan was ere long destined to fail, and our fraternal vow to be broken. We started out on our ‘lecturing ’ tour in the summer, when the activities of the churches are at their lowest ebb. We encountered the absorbing excitement of the World’s Fair, which was in progress at Chicago, and plunged into the memorable financial panic of 1893. The public mind was not in tune for lectures on the Holy Land, or any other land, and there was very little money available in the hands of the public to invest in Oriental silks. And what I felt was the severest trial to me was that my beloved friend, Amin, proved decidedly ‘infirm of purpose.' The least difficulty discouraged him. He was a complete failure as a public speaker, and whenever he could dispose of a piece of silk, he sold it at cost and spent the money in defraying his expenses. Late that summer, utterly crushed by the many difficulties which beset our way, he left me, for aye, and joined some members of his family who were at the World’s Fair.

I was left alone, battling against a sea of trouble. However, I made a resolution which never was broken, namely, that, while I longed passionately for that unaffected, juvenile warmth of Syrian friendship, I would enter into no new partnership of any sort with any one of my countrymen. I thought I could hear the same voice which said to my namesake, Abraham, ‘Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, into the land I will show thee/ I renewed my resolution to do my utmost to secure a college education, or in some other way relate myself to the higher life of America.

Shortly after the departure of my friend Amin, my career as a ‘ silk-seller,’which had by no means been an ideal success, came to an end. I certainly lacked to a very large extent t he sagacity of the merchant. I did not believe in letting the customer ’look out for herself’; I deemed it my duty to guard her interests with a scrupulous care. I would point out to the prospective purchaser all the flaws in a piece of silk, in advance, believing that the excellencies were too obvious to be detailed. Whenever I was asked whether the goods were all handmade, I would answer that while I was morally certain that they were, ‘ I could not swear to it,’ because I had never seen the process with my own eyes. Such conduct was not due to the fact that my honesty never was accustomed to failing, but to my theory that the business I was in was mean enough wit hout lying about it. Consequently, the high prices of the goods, coupled with my uncalled-for conscientiousness, were by no means conducive to winning the confidence of would-be purchasers and to doing a ‘rushing business.' I returned the goods to the merchant who had been my source of supply in silks during my business career, and decided to pursue my life’s ideal as a ‘lecturer.'

My struggles with the English language (which have not yet ceased) were at times very hard. It is not at all difficult for me to realize the agonizing inward struggles of a person who has lost the power of speech. When I was first compelled to set aside my mothertongue and use English exclusively as my medium of expression, the sphere of my life seemed to shrink to a very small disk. My pretentious purpose of suddenly becoming a lecturer on Oriental customs, in a language in which practically I had never conversed, might have seemed to any one who knew me like an act of faith in the miraculous gift of tongues. My youthful desire was not only to inform but to move my hearers. Consequently, my groping before an audience for suitable diction within the narrow limits of my uncertain vocabulary was often pitiable.

The exceptions in English grammar seemed to me to be more than the rules. The difference between the conventional and the actual sounds of such words as ‘victuals’ and ‘colonel’ seemed to me to be perfectly scandalous. The letter c is certainly a superfluity in the English language; it is never anything else but either k or s. In my native language, the Arabic, the accent is always put as near the end of a word as possible; in the English, as near the beginning as possible. Therefore, in using myadopted tongue, I was tossed between the two extremes and very often ‘split the difference’ by taking a middle course. The sounds of the letters v, p, and the hard g, are not represented in the Arabic. They are symbolized in transliteration by the equivalents of f, b, and k. On numerous occasions, therefore, and especially when I waxed eloquent, my tongue would mix these sounds hopelessly, to the amused surprise of my hearers. I would say ‘coal’ when I meant ‘goal,’ ‘pig man’ for ‘big man,’ ‘buy’ for ‘pie,’ ‘ferry’ for ‘very,’ and vice versa. For some time I had, of course, to think in Arabic and try to translate my thoughts literally into English, which practice caused me many troubles, especially in the use of the connectives. On one occasion, when an American gentleman told me that he was a Presbyterian, and I, rejoicing to claim fellowship with him, sought to say what should have been, ‘We are brethren in Christ,’ I said, ‘We are brothers, by Jesus.’ My Presbyterian friend put his finger on his lip in pious fashion, and, with elevated brows and a most sympathetic smile, said, ‘That is swearing!’ But in my early struggles with English, I derived much negative consolation from the mistakes Americans made in pronouncing my name. None of them could pronounce it correctly — Rih-ba’-ny— without my assistance. I have been called Rib’-beny, Richbany, Ribary, Laborny, Rabonie, and many other names. An enterprising Sunday School superintendent in the Presbyterian Church at Mansfield, Ohio, introduced me to his school by saying, ‘Now we have the pleasure of listening to Mr. Rehoboam!’ The prefixing of ‘Mr.’ to the name of the scion of King Solomon seemed to me to annihilate time and space, and showed me plain ly how the past might be brought forward and made to serve the present.

II

But my struggles with the technicalities of language were not the only pains of my second birth into the new environment. The social readjustments were even more difficult to effect. Coming into the house in Syria, a guest removes his shoes from his feet at the door, but keeps his fez or turban on. It was no easy matter, therefore, for me, on going into an American home, to realize instantly which extremity to uncover.

The poetic Oriental mind extends hospitality in a very warm and dramatic manner. The would-be guest, although able and willing to accept an invitation to dinner, expects to be urged repeatedly by the would-be host, to have all his feigned objections overruled, to be even pulled bodily into the house before he gives his consent. By following such tactics in this country, I lost many a precious privilege. The brevity of the American invitation distressed me greatly. Whenever I was told, ‘We should be much pleased to have you come in and have dinner with us, if you can,’ I would answer, ‘No, thank you; I cannot possibly come,’ when I had it in mind all the time that I would gladly accept if they would only urge me. But they would let me go! They would take me at my word (as they should not do, I thought, in such matters) to my great disappointment. It was not very long, however, before I became on this point thoroughly Americanized.

The prominence of woman in domestic and social affairs seemed to me, when I first came in close touch with American society, a strange and unnatural phenomenon. While in Syria, contrary to the view which generally prevails in this country, the woman is not considered a slave by the man, yet in all important domestic and social matters she is looked upon as only his silent partner. The American woman is by no means silent; she finds it neither convenient nor necessary to assume such an attitude.

The first, opportunity I had of making close observation of the social position of the American woman was at the home of a Methodist minister where I proved sensible and fortunate enough to accept ‘without controversy’ an invitation to dinner. His wife presided at the table with so much grace and dignity that my astonishment at the supreme authority she exercised on the occasion was deeply tinged with respect. How harmonious the husband and wife seemed! What mutual regard! What delicacy of behavior toward each other! But I could not avoid asking, subjectively, ‘Is all this really genuine? Does this man treat his wife in this manner always, or only when they have company? Why, my host seems to be in the hands of his wife like the clay in the hands of the potter! Why should a woman be given so much latitude?’ and so forth. When, later in the evening, upon retiring, the lady said to her husband, ‘Good-night, dear,’ and kissed him in my presence, the act seemed to me distressingly unseemly. It is no longer distressing to me.’²

It should not be counted against an Oriental that he is unable in a very short period of time to invest such phases of conduct with high idealism. If his instincts are normal, intimate associations with the better class of Americans cannot fail to change his sentiments and clarify his vision. Not many years will be required to reveal to him the elevating beauty of a woman’s being the queen of her home, with her husband as a knight-errant by her side; to teach him that America, as the heir to the noblest traditions of northwestern Europe, has discovered that which neither the Oriental peoples, ancient Egypt, Greece nor Rome succeeded in discovering, namely, that true civilization can arise only from a mutual regard of the equal rights, and, within the family circle, the mutual love of man, woman, and child.

All such discipline, however, was not to be compared with the economic difficulties which beset my way, put my optimism to the severest test, and seriously threatened my stoutest resolutions. In my travels westward, the expressions, ‘These are very hard times,’ ‘The summer is a dull season for the churches,’ ‘Not many people care for lectures this time of year,’ tortured my hearing everywhere. It was so difficult for me to secure money enough to keep soul and body together. In Oil City, Pennsylvania, I longed for the first time for the ‘flesh-pots of Egypt ’ and wished that I had never left Syria. In my search for a cheap lodging-place, I was directed by a police officer to an old house which seemed to me the symbol of desolation. An elderly lady, who appeared very economical in smiling, ‘showed me into my room’and disappeared. As my weary arm dropped the valise inside the door, every sustaining power in me seemed to give way. Sobs and tears poured forth simultaneously with, ‘Why did I ever leave Syria? ’ ‘ Why did I not stay in New York?’ ‘Is this what America has for me?’ and other questions with which I besieged the deaf ears of a lonely world. The fact that my hostess served no meals afforded me an excellent excuse to ask her to direct me to a ‘real’ boarding-house. She did so, and I transferred my headquarters to a more cheery dwelling, where the landlady smiled graciously and generously, and the presence of fellow guests helped to lighten my burdens.

The veiling of the future from mortal eyes, is, I believe, a divine provision whose purpose seems to be to tap the springs of heroism in human nature and to equip the soul with the wings of hope. Nevertheless, this blessed mystery has its drawbacks. Prolonged uncertainty of the future in those days of loneliness and poverty threatened to sink the goal of life below the horizon and make of me a wanderer in a strange land. The alternation of life between the two extremes, feast and famine, is never conducive to connected planning and constancy of endeavor.

At Columbus, Ohio, I spent a whole week in strenuous but utterly fruitless endeavor to secure opportunities to earn some money. Having had to pay in advance for my week’s keep at a very frugal boarding-house, I had only ten cents left, which I put in the ‘collection plate,’ at a Salvation Army meeting. To be penniless was not entirely new to me, but as the week drew to a close, the question where I was going to secure money enough with which to leave Columbus became terribly oppressive. There was one more venture for me to make. I had the name of a Methodist minister, a Mr. Jackson, whom I had not yet seen during my sojourn in the capital of Ohio. My courageous plan was to call on this clergyman and request him either to give me the chance to lecture in his church for a small financial compensation or to lend me money enough to enable me to leave Columbus. The distance from my boarding-house to his residence measured, if I may trust my memory, twenty-four blocks, which I walked in what seemed to me the hottest day in the calendar of the years.

My general appearance when I arrived at the parsonage was not exactly what I should call a clear title to confidence and the securing of credit. Nevertheless, I made my application with a creditable show of firmness, placing in the hands of the clergyman, who was just recovering from a long illness, my letters of recommendation, He disposed of my request to lecture in his church by saying, ’There is no possible chance for the present.’ When I applied for a loan of five dollars, his pale face lighted up with a short-lived smile as he asked, ’Do you expect you will get it?’ ‘Y-e-s,’ I answered, ‘and to return it, also.’ ‘When would you return it?’ he asked again. Falling back upon the Biblical language of my kinsmen, I said, ‘If God prolong my life and prosper me, I will pay you.’ Assuming the attitude of perplexed charity, Mr. Jackson said, ‘I do not know whether you are the man to whom these letters pertain, nor, if you are the man, how you secured them in the first, place; but I am going to try you. Here is five dollars.’ ‘Certainly God has not left this world,’ I said inwardly, as I received the money from the good man’s hand. It was only a week thence when God did prosper me just enough so that I was able to return to Mr. Jackson his money and I received a letter from him (which I still treasure) thanking me for my ‘promptness’ and wishing me all kinds of success.

But the choicest of the events of my Wilderness-of-Sinai discipline since I had left New York, occurred at Elyria, Ohio. I reached that town late in the evening with a very small sum of money in my purse — something less than two dollars. The severe economic struggles of the immediate past had taught me to be abnormally cautious in spending money. Failing to secure accommodation at either of the two cheap boarding-houses in the town, I ventured into a hotel with very noticeable timidity. As soon, however, as the clerk told me that my lodging there would cost me seventy-five cents, I departed. I had the name of a prominent minister in the town on whom I thought I would call first, and, if he promised me the opportunity to lecture in his church, I might feel free to indulge in the luxury of lodging at a hotel.

My experience with that divine was not pleasant enough to permit of the mention of his name and denomination. When I stated my case to him, he assumed a decidedly combative attitude. I was so weary that I should have been most grateful for a few minutes’ rest in one of the many upholstered chairs which graced the living-room, but the elderly gentleman stood in the door and kept me standing in the hall, while he quizzed me as follows: —

‘Did you say that your purpose in lecturing in the churches is to secure funds to go to college?’ ‘Yes.’

‘Well, I doubt it. I have seen many fellows such as you. What college do you expect to enter?’

‘I do not yet know, but it will be some good college.’

‘You don’t even know what college you expect to enter? I can say one thing for all of you “traveling students.” You are very cunning.'

‘But I can show good letters of recommendation from-.’

‘It would do no good. Keep your letters to yourself. I have seen many such documents.’

‘Now, Dr. W., all I ask for is that you give me the chance to prove to you that I am an honest man, for I feel badly hurt by your words.’

‘Do not trouble yourself about that. At any rate, I am sorry I can do nothing for you. Good-night, sir!’

The unexpected assault upon my integrity and veracity intensified the darkness of the night into which I plunged again, wounded to the heart. It was distressing enough to be homeless, weary, and in want; but to be accused of being a swindler seemed to overshadow all other trials. But hope triumphed over despair and pointed me to the best which was yet to be. I returned to the railway station with the intention of spending the night there. But the ticket-agent thought differently. His ‘orders’ required him to lock the doors of the station at a certain hour in the night, leaving no transient lodgers inside. I moved from the station to the park and stretched my weary mortal coil on one of the benches. The air was balmy, and I had as good a pillow (the iron arm of the bench) as my countryman of old, Jacob, had at Peniel. There I would spend the night under the beneficent heavens, meditating while awake upon the time when I should close the doors of some great university behind me, departing not thence until I had become a full-fledged scholar.

At about midnight, the sequel of the balmy air which enabled me to sleep in the park comfortably without extra covering arrived. The heavens wept over me large generous tears which drove me to a pretentious hotel near by, where the ‘night clerk’ met me in a stern business-like manner and most cruelly charged me fifty cents for half a night’s lodging in the cheapest room he had,

III

But life’s smiles are, on the whole, much more numerous than its frowns, and, notwithstanding all its afflictions, this world is keyed to goodness. My first appearance before an American audience occurred at New Brighton, Pennsylvania, where, if I remember correctly, a minister of the United Presbyterian Church permitted me to speak on the Holy Land at his prayermeeting. As the meeting (which was not of the ordinary drowsy type) progressed, my whole soul said, ‘Lord, it is good to be here.’ The minister, who was past middle age and wore a most benignant countenance, conducted the service with such simple dignity and sweetness of spirit that the whole scene was transformed into a benediction. His lesson was from Acts XII, the story of Peter’s miraculous release from prison. I shall never forget the sweet, informing, and persuasive modulations of that preacher’s voice as he sought to show that although the band of Christians who were gathered together at the house of Mary, the mother of John, were praying for the release of the imprisoned apostle, yet when they were told by the damsel, Rhoda, that Peter stood at the door, they were afraid to open and receive the answer to their prayer. ‘They prayed God to bring Peter to them,’said the preacher. ‘God did bring the apostle to the door, but those praying Christians were afraid to open and say, “ Come in! ” ’

I have never been able to ascertain the initial cause of my decision to enter the ministry, nor to point to the exact time when I was ‘called’ to it. What I am certain of, however, is that the influences of such occasions as the one mentioned above did more than any others I know to lead me to the pulpit. It: was the virile and irresistible leaven of the characters of those Christians of the various denominat ions, who did not so much profess correct creeds as reflect the life of the Master in their own lives, which led me in a mysterious way to add to my decision to enter college the decision to make my life-work the holy ministry of religion.

When I stood up to address the meeting, the cordial, sympathetic attitude of the audience soon calmed the violent beating of my heart and stopped the knocking of my knees together, but it had no appreciable effect on my grammar and diction. The nouns and the verbs often stood at cross-purposes in my remarks, and the adjectives and adverbs interchanged positions, regardless of consequences. My impromptu literal translation of Arabic into English greatly puzzled the minds of my hearers, and, at times, it was difficult even for me to know fully what I was saying or wanted to say. Notwithstanding all that, however, I managed in closing to shift from Syria to America and eulogize George Washington. The minister asked for a contribution for me to help me go to college. As my engagement to speak had not been made known to my hearers before they came to the meeting, many of them were unprepared to give; the contribution was therefore small, but the meeting was rich in good things, and I went away in a happy and optimist ic frame of mind.

If any one had told me on that evening in New Brighton that less than three years later I was to become the regular minister of an American congregation and a ‘stump speaker’ in favor of the ‘gold standard,’ I should have considered him a very flighty daydreamer. But America, the mother of modern wonders, began to reveal itself to me and in me. I soon became possessed by the consciousness that the whole country was a vast university which offered a thousand incentives to progress; that I had the privilege of being born again in a land which more than any other on our planet establishes the truth of the New Testament promise, ‘Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.’

The Oriental, as a rule, lives his life in a general way, allowing a large portion of its area to remain rather chaotic. The American lives his life in detail, with order as its basic principle. I was very curious to know, after leaving New York and Pittsburg, how the smaller towns of America would impress me. Were they as insignificant and as wanting in enterprise and culture compared with those large cities, as the Syrian towns compared with Beyrout and Damascus? I was rapturously amazed to find every small city and town to be New York on a smaller scale. Each town had its ’Main Street’ and ‘Washington Street’ and many other streets. Each town had its Town Hall, post-office, banks, newspapers, schools, and churches. And, oh, the home libraries, the musical instruments, the pictures on the walls, the ‘striking’ clocks, and, above all, that idealism which makes the American woman, after doing her housework, ‘dress up for the afternoon,’ dash a little powder on her nose and turn to her books or her piano. Certainly, such a nation is not ‘sunk deep in crass materialism.’

I was told while in Syria that in America money could be picked up everywhere. That was not true. But I found that infinitely better things than money — knowledge, freedom, self-reliance, order, cleanliness, sovereign human rights, self-government, and all that these great accomplishments imply — can be picked up everywhere in America by whosoever earnestly seeks them. And those among Americans who are exerting the largest influence toward the solution of the ‘immigration problem’ are, in my opinion, not those who are writing books on ‘good citizenship,’ but those who stand before the foreigner as the embodiment of these great ideals.

The occasions on which I was made to feel that I was a foreigner — an alien — were so rare that they are not worth mentioning. My purpose in life, and the large warm heart, of America which opens wide to every person who aspires to be a good and useful citizen, made me forget that there was an ‘immigration problem’ within the borders of this great Commonwealth. When I think of the thousand noble impulses which were poured into my soul in my early years in this country by good men and women in all the walks of life; when I think of the many homes into which I was received in my uncomely appearance and with my crude manners, where women who were v isions of elegance served me as an honored guest, of the many counsels of men of affairs which fed my strength and taught me the lasting value of personal achievements, and that America is the land of, not only great privileges, but great responsibilities, I feel like saying (and I do say whenever I have the opportunity) to every foreigner, ‘ When you really know what America is, when you are willing to share in its sorrows, as well as its joys, then you will cease to be a whining malcontent, will take your harp down from the willows, and will not call such a country “a strange land.’”

Of all the means of improvement other than personal associations with good men and women, the churches and the public schools gripped most strongly at the strings of my heart. Upon coming into a town, the sight of the church spires rising above the houses and the trees as witnesses to man’s desire for God, always gave me inward delight. True, religion in America lacks to a certain extent the depth of Oriental mysticism; yet it is much more closely related than in the Orient to the vital issues of ‘ the life which now is.’ Often would I go and stand on the opposite side of the street from a public-school building at the hour of dismissal (and this passion still remains with me) just for the purpose of feasting my eyes on seeing the pupils pour out in squads, so clean and so orderly, and seemingly animated by all that is noblest in the life of this great nation. My soul would revel in the thought that no distinctions were made in those temples of learning between Jew and Gentile, Protestant and Catholic, the churched and the unchurched; all enjoyed the equality of privilege, shared equally in the intellectual and moral feast, and drank freely the spirit of the noblest patriotism.

My progress in the English language was as surprising to me as it was delightful. When I first met Edward Everett Hale in Boston, in 1903, the first thing he said to me when I slipped my hand into his ponderous palm was, ‘How in the world have you managed to speak English so well?’

‘I do not know,’ was my answer.

I really did not. It is wonderful what even a few months can do to equip with linguistic facilities a person who listens with his ears and his understanding alike. The vocabulary of every succeeding day shames that of the day before. My being entirely cut off from using the Arabic language was my greatest aid in acquiring English. My vocabulary, which has become varied and flexible enough for my purposes, was not acquired from a forced study of the classics. It poured into me from the lips of living men in all the walks of life. I listened with eager sympathy to the words of preachers, merchants, artisans, farmers, hackdrivers, housewives, and others who spoke as they felt in dealing with the various issues of life.

I owe a great debt to the live language of the English Bible. On occasions, I would open my Arabic Bible at church and follow the scripture lesson as read by the minister, and thus learn what the English words meant. On other occasions, I would open my English Bible and learn how the words were pronounced. Thus the English has come to me saturated and mellowed with feeling. The phrases of the English Bible are elemental human sentiments made tangible.

IV

It was in Chillicothe, Ohio, that I had my first glimpse into American history. The ‘hard times’ did not prevent me from buying A Brief History of the United States, the contents of which I virtually devoured. My instructors were my fellow guests at a comfortable and respectable boardinghouse. I would retire into my room, ponder the annals of this modern ‘chosen people’ until I reached a passage whose words proved too big for my mind to grasp (which was often the case), when I would go out and demand light on the subject from the first guest I happened to meet. A physician’s wife and the genial gray-haired proprietor of the boarding-house manifested deep interest in me and were ever ready to aid my strenuous endeavor to become ‘an enlightened American citizen.’

The proprietor who, I believe, had fought in the Civil War, would relate to me events of that great conflict in such a droll manner that my study of history under his supervision was a supreme delight.

‘Yes,’ he would say, ‘we did hang Jeff Davis on a sour-apple tree, or we would have done it but for our respectability. We whipped those fellows down there pretty soundly. We spanked them so hard that I am certain they never will do it again.’

But the genial proprietor enlightened me on other subjects than that of the Civ il War. He gave me my first real lesson in English on table-manners. One day he asked me, ‘How do you like our grub?’ ‘What is your grub, sir?’ I asked. With a mischievous smile which scarcely agitated his weeping-willow moustache and thick beard, he said, ’It is the things we eat, you know. And — and — it is part of good manners to show —in — in — some way that we like the grub, just to please our host.’ That was to me a most welcome bit of information. I had been greatly at a loss to know how to express my appreciation of a good dinner in the English language. Certainly now I had no longer an excuse to omit such a cultured formality. It was only a short time thereafter that I happened to dine with a Lutheran minister whose gracious wife served for the occasion a bounteous and elegantly appointed dinner. I could hardly wait for the proper moment to express my great appreciation of the repast. When the moment came, I turned to my hostess with cheerful dignity and said, ‘Mrs. F., I have greatly enjoyed your grub.’ But when her husband laughed so that he fell from his chair, I suspected that my instruction in table-manners at Chillicothe was somewhat defective.

It was in the little town of Elmore, Ohio, in the early autumn of 1893, that I felt for the first time that I could hold the attention of an American audience. There I was permitted to address a union meeting of the churches in the Presbyterian church on a Sunday evening. The little building was crowded to the doors. My subject was ‘Turkey and America Contrasted.’ I do not know what did it, but my auditors were so deeply moved that they interrupted me twice with loud and prolonged applause, regardless of the fact that the service was essentially religious, the time Sunday, and the place a Presbyterian church. At the close of the meeting, the minister of the church with a cordial handshake reinforced my ambition with the generous prophecy, ‘My brother, whatever else you might, or might not, become, you are going to make a very effective public speaker. Keep right on.’

Well, I am still keeping on.

It was in that little town also that I first heard America sung. The line, ‘land where my fathers died,’ stuck in my throat. I envied every person in that audience who could sing it truthfully. For years afterward, whenever I tried to sing those words, I seemed to myself to be an intruder. At last, a new light broke upon my understanding. At last, I was led to realize that the fathers of my new and higher self did live and die in America. I was born in Syria as a child, but I was born in America as a man. All those who fought for the freedom I enjoy, for the civic ideals I cherish, for the simple but lofty virtues of the typical American home which I love, were my fathers! Therefore, I could sing the words, ‘Land where my fathers died,’ with as much truth and justice as the words, ‘Land of the pilgrim’s pride.’

From Elmore I proceeded to Wauseon, Ohio, a town which numbered then about three thousand inhabitants, and where a new chapter was opened in my life’s history. Upon my arrival in this town, I called on the Congregational minister, and, finding him willing to open his church for me to lecture,’ requested him to direct, me to some ‘Christian boarding-house.’ The friendly divine conducted me to a private house where lived two widowed sisters who had room and time enough to care for a few of the ‘good class’ of boarders. I was not long in that modest home before I discovered that the two ladies were lovers of good books and profoundly religious. Through the kinship of our spirits, and upon hearing my story and learning of my life’s purpose, they became deeply interested in me. They said they seemed to perceive that I had ‘a bright and useful future’ before me and they wished to share in its realization.

The two good sisters, Mrs. Susan Baldwin and Mrs. Rosa Kolb, were not rich in this world’s goods. But they had a home, and, so long as I had none,

I was most cordially invited to share that home with them as a younger brother. There I might return from my travels and find sympathetic friends ready to aid me, by their counsel and ot her friendly services, to conquer my difficulties and get nearer to my life’s goal. In my wanderings up to that time, I had not lacked words of encouragement and inspiration which seemed to pour out from the heart of a nat ion whose spirit is friendliness and whose genius is progress. Notwithstanding all that, however, my being tossed about by every wind of difficulty while I had nowhere to lay my head, had begun to tell on me. Down beneath my conscious resolution a counter-current had set in. A keen yearning for friends and a fixed abode (which is strongest in the Oriental nature) would at intervals flood my soul with sadness. No doubt that friendly, though humble, home in Bethany furthered mightily the triumph of the Gospel.

The gracious, friendly offer of the two sisters came to me as a most timely reinforcement. When I think how my strength and courage were renewed and my cup of inspirat ion was refilled by their manifold and never-failing services to me, I realize most clearly that we do not need to be rich in order to be helpful, nor known to fame in order to be inspiring. I cannot contemplate what success I have achieved or might achieve in life without feeling that but for the influence of those two good women the story of my life might have been entirely different from what it is.

V

In the slate of Indiana I first came into close touch with the well-known religious ‘revivals,’ and formed a clear idea of what Protestantism calls ‘conversion.' I was deeply impressed by the zeal with which the Christians labored to bring ‘sinners’ to Christ,and the fact, that during a revival the religious idea loomed highest in the community. But I must say it was not long before I developed a decided dislike to the methods of professional ‘Evangelists,’whose message contained infinitely more fear of hell-fire than love for the Christ-life, and to whom the clearest evidence of the religious interest in a community was the size of the collection.

One of my first experiences (and it was rather grim) at a revival took place in the town of Kokomo, Indiana. The meetings were being held in a Methodist church, but I am not certain whether it was the regular Methodists or some other branch. Toward the close of the meet ing, which I attended, tearful sentiments converted the service into a veritable Babel. Presently a woman, who, as I was told later ‘got the power,’ sprang up from her seat and, shouting, ‘Glory to Jesus!’ dashed about, embracing whosoever came in her way. I remained reasonably collected until I saw her heading for me with open arms. Just think of a Syrian youth with all his psychological antecedents with regard to woman, in such a situation! I instantly decided that I would not be embraced, even though the motive of my pursuer was purely spiritual. I slipped precipitately behind a large pillar; the lady, seemingly not particular whom she embraced, bestowed her affections on more courageous worshipers, while I effected my escape. I never returned to those meetings.

In contrast with the above experience, I will relate another I had in Columbia City of the same state. Through the kindness of its minister, I was permitted to mount the pulpit of the Presbyterian Church on a Sunday morning and give a talk on Syria. I spied in the audience a gentleman of a penetrating but kindly eye who seemed to listen with rapt attention. The next morning the minister of the church told me that a gentleman, who had heard me the day before, wished to see me at his office; that he was a lawyer and a ’fine gentleman’ by the name of Marshall. The minister went with me to the law office, introduced me to the gentleman, whom I recognized as the good listener I had seen at the church, and departed, leaving us alone. Mr. Marshall asked me a few questions about my birthplace and my plans for the future, and I answered that my plans were to become a good American citizen, and, if possible, a preacher. He smiled in a very genial manner, and, reaching into his pocket, handed me a five-dollar bill as his contribution which he was not prepared to give at the Sunday service, saying, ‘I am sure you will make good use of it.' The years passed, and, while I often thought of that good Mr. Marshall, I lost connection with him until 1912, when Mr. Thomas R. Marshall was nominated for Vice-President of the United States and later elected. The appearance of his picture in the newspapers, and the fact that he practiced law in Columbia City in 1893, brought me again in touch with my benefactor.

But I have still more — much more — to say about Indiana. Late in the winter of 1894, I happened to be in the small town of Butler in the Hoosier State, where I delivered two addresses. One of my hearers, the principal of the schools, became deeply interested in me ‘at first sight’ and made me an offer right then and there which made me wildly interested in him. Mr. K.’s entrancing story was this. An anonymous philanthropist had placed at his disposal one million dollars as an endowment for a small college. The high purpose of the donor was not only to equip such a college with every modern educational facility, and thus make it rival the great universities, but that no promising young man who sought to enter this institution, especially if his goal were the ministry, should be turned out for lack of funds.

What seemed obvious to Mr. K., and even I could see it, was that my case came most snugly within the purpose of the donor. I was ‘promising,’ I lacked funds, my goal was the ministry. Therefore, all my fretting and worrying about securing a college education should now cease. Furthermore, being a stranger in a strange land, I was to enjoy the personal attention and friendship of Mr. K., who, according to the terms of the endowment, was to be the president of the college. I was to be provided with everything I needed as a student, in return for which favors I was to deliver a certain number of lectures (dates to be made by the president) every year in various parts of the state and thus advertise the college. The prospective president further informed me that he was about, to secure control of a small college at North Manchester, Indiana, of which he expected to take actual possession in the following September and transform it so as to fit the plans of the hidden millionaire.

While Mr. K. was unfolding his proposition, streaks of lightning ran up and down my spine. I felt as if I were in a dream of sanctifying beauty, and was afraid to move even a muscle for fear of waking up and losing the vision. At last, college! All my pain and sorrow, hunger and fatigue, were about to be transfigured into glorious victories; my prayers were to be answered and my highest hopes fulfilled. Could it be true? College? And on such terms! A million dollars back of me and the president of the college my personal friend. It was difficult for me not to believe that in some way I was a millionaire myself. Somehow I managed to break the enthralling spell of the occasion enough to thank Mr. K. with genuine Oriental effusiveness for his surpassing kindness, and to promise most solemnly to be at North Manchester College on the fourth day of the following September.

(To be concluded.)