One day she displeased her husband by not cooking the dinner to his liking, and he was so enraged with her that he behaved in the following abominable manner.
First of all he saw that the windows of his house were barricaded and the door locked: then he stripped the trembling, frightened child, and deliberately poured paraffin oil all over her body, and finally set a light to her and left her to her fate, taking care to lock the door after him, as he went out. The neighbours, hearing the girl's screams, rushed to the house, but the doors being locked and the windows fastened much precious time was wasted. When they finally smashed open the window it was only to find the child a mass of flames. They picked her up and rushed wildly with her into the street, and dropped her into the nearest stream to quench the flames! It was a marvellous thing to think that after all this there was any life left in the poor child. The neighbours took her to her mother, who plastered all her wounds with red earth and left her lying in the corner of the room for some ten days. Then, taking the advice of some friends, they procured a cradle and lifted the poor wee child into it, and hoisted the cradle and its occupant on the back of a donkey, and took her some five days' journey to Julfa. They had heard of the Mission Hospital through some of their villagers, who had been treated there, and so they brought this little victim of Persian cruelty to the lady doctor, who took her in, dressed her wounds, and laid her in a clean, comfortable bed. All that human love and kindness could do was done to alleviate her sufferings, but nothing could save her life, and after three days she passed away--a martyr indeed to the creed of Islam, which enables and allows men to treat their women as something lower than the beasts of the field.
Ought not the cries of distress and agony from the poor women of Persia so to rouse us, their sisters in England, that we shall determine to do all that lies in our power to lighten their burdens and to bring some rays of light into the dark lives of our Eastern sisters?
One thing which adds greatly to the misery of these women is the ease with which their husbands can divorce them. A wife never knows from day to day whether or no her lord may not divorce her. Often for most trivial matters a man will cast away his wife. This being the case, the woman will lie and deceive her husband in order to escape divorcement. If the wives of Persia could only be raised to the level of true womanhood I believe they would become good wives and mothers, but while they are what they are, how can there be any hope for them? There is nothing but utter darkness till the true Light shines into their lives, and then and then only will the day break for these downtrodden, degraded beings.