Stations in Egypt. 31 Visiting Women in their Homes.

Some of the women missionaries at Old Cairo, besides the nurses, take part in the spiritual work among the patients, and as far as possible they follow them up in their homes, whether in Old Cairo or in the villages, when they leave the hospital, and also visit others who may be willing to receive them. In some houses they find it impossible to gain a hearing; in others they are baffled by the dense ignorance of the people and by their apparent inability to grasp or remember even the simplest teaching, as when women, questioned as to what had been said to them, replied, ‘ We are like donkeys: we do not understand reading’; and in others again they are warmly welcomed. Miss M. Cay wrote in 1893 :— ‘In avery poor house I found a woman who had been ill. Her child had only attended the school a very short time, and I had not known where she lived, but found the mother in a house where I had gone to look for somebody else. She had never heard of the Lord Jesus, not even by the name of Saeedna Hesa, by which the Moslems usually speak of Him. When I had explained Who He was, I read to her the story of His casting out the evil spirit in the synagogue (St. Mark i.), and of His healing Simon’s wife’s mother. She was intensely interested. I have often seen the women listen before, but never devour the words as this onedid. Atlast when I asked if she would like to pray to our Lord, and ask Him to save her, she was much astonished. “Can I pray to Him? I don’t know the right words to say, and ought I not to put ona clean dress to pray in? He will not like me dirty like this.”’” When I suggested that it was no use trying to make oneself better before going to the doctor, and that she had better come just as she was, she consented to pray, and said the words after me.’

Efficacy of School Work.

The schools at Old Cairo, one for boys and the other for girls, each with a fair proportion of Moslems among the pupils, have had an uneventful history, but those engaged in them have from time to time been cheered by an evident work of grace in the hearts of those under their charge, shown by Mohammedan girls often engaging in prayer at the weekly prayer-meeting, and declaring emphatically their belief in Christ as the Son of God and the Saviour of the world, and by the anxiety of some of the