As Miss Fiske
says, playfully, "Whenever we went with them to visit pupils at a
distance, they always made us believe that it was a great privilege
to take us along;" and every lady who goes out, in a similar way, to
labor in the missionary field, will find just such Christian
kindness indispensable to her comfort and usefulness. In such a
sphere of action, a lady's dependence is her independence.
Another difficulty was the want of books. Such a thing as a school
book had been unknown among the Nestorians. The only ones to be had
in 1843 were the Bible in ancient Syriac,--a language unintelligible
to the common people,--and the Gospel of John, with a few chapters
of Genesis, in the spoken language, besides a few tracts. Later came
the Gospel of Matthew, and, after that, the four Gospels. Mr.
Stocking prepared a Spelling Book of fifty-four pages, 8vo, a Mental
Arithmetic of twenty-four pages, and afterwards a larger Arithmetic.
Mr. Coan, a Scripture Spelling Book of one hundred and sixty pages,
8vo. Mr. Stoddard issued a very full and complete Arithmetic for the
older scholars in 1856, but his System of Theology did not appear
till after his decease, in 1857.
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