New pupils would sometimes
steal, but the older ones were ready to detect them, and show them
a more excellent way. Miss Fiske says of this, "The frequent visits
of the Holy Spirit have removed an evil which mocked my efforts. God
made me feel my utter helplessness, and then he did the work." That
same term there was but one case of theft in the Male Seminary,
though formerly it was not infrequent there.
In reference to transgressions of the seventh commandment, much
detail is not expedient. It is sufficient to say, that the first
impressions of earlier missionaries respecting the purity of
Nestorian women were not sustained by subsequent acquaintance. The
farther they went beneath the surface of things, the more they found
of corruption. One might go to Persia supposing that he knew a good
deal of the degradation of the people, and yet really know very
little of the pit into which he was descending.
A seminary gathering together such a company of young females, was a
new thing in Persia, and it will readily be conceived that amid a
Mohammedan community it was an object of peculiar solicitude to its
guardians.
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