Page:On the Desert - Recent Events in Egypt.djvu/289

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A BRAVE MISSIONARY.
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determined to see what patience and faith could do. He opened schools for the children of the very men who cursed him, and so slowly but surely did he win his way to their respect and confidence, that he now has two hundred children, most of them Moslems, who, it is to be hoped, will not be like their fathers.

Then he found that slaves were brought from Egypt and sold in Gaza. Indeed so open were the slave-dealers in their business, that hearing of the arrival of a Howadji, they thought they should find him a profitable customer — for of course he would prefer a slave to a hired servant — and came to ask if he did not want a "likely" boy or girl. So much was he annoyed by this that finally he determined to pay them in their own coin; and when they came again with the offer of a boy of unusual attractions, he said he could not decide to purchase till he had seen the lad, and had him in his house. So they brought him for a couple of days inspection. Apparently they had forgotten, if indeed they ever knew, that a slave thus in the house of a British subject is free. Straightway the missionary applied to the English Consul at Jerusalem, who forthwith gave the desired protection; so that when the slave-dealers (there were five of them) returned, they found that their prize was free, while they were put in prison for breaking the law! Nor did this brave missionary cease his efforts till the boy had been sent back to Egypt and up the Nile, to be restored to the home from which he had been stolen. After that he received no more offers of bargains in human flesh, and those who plied the iniquitous trade were more retired in their operations. So much for the Christian courage of one man!

Perhaps his interest in this matter was intensified by his experience in Africa. He had been for two years a missionary at Sierra Leone, during which time he made many