Many of the students of the Asyut Training College are Copts. They belong to that class of natives who are said to be the only direct descendants of the ancient Egyptians. The Copts are more intelligent than the Mohammedans. They take naturally to education, and about four Copts go to school to every one Moslem. They are also shrewd clerks and, many of them being educated men, they have a large number of the minor government appointments. The British, however, tried to be partial to the Mohammedans because they form the great majority of the population, and to give them offices in preference to the Copts. During Lord Cromer’s administration, a committee of Copts objected to his crowding out these native Christians and giving their places to the followers of the Prophet. Applicants for any government posts or for training schools have to give their names, and the Copts can thus be easily distinguished from the Mohammedans. The Christian boys get their names from the characters of the Bible, while the names of the Mohammedan boys come from the Koran. When the examination papers were turned in, the judges were said to have been instructed to mark down all those bearing such names as Moses and Jacob, Peter and Paul, and to recommend for appointment the Mohammeds, the Alis, and the Hassans. The British governing class considered that the Copt and the Mussulman, being alike natives, were generally not capable of holding any responsible position. And now it is said also that it would be bad policy to put the Christian Egyptian over the Moslem.

The Copts are the sharpest business men of Egypt. It is a common saying here that no Jew can compete with them and they have driven the Jews out of the upper part of the Nile valley. In Asyut there are a number of rich Copts who have become Protestant Christians, and some of these men are very charitable. One, for instance, built a Protestant native church, after a visit to England, where he was much impressed by Westminster Abbey. Upon his return he said he was going to build a church for Asyut on the plan of Westminster. The missionaries advised him to make his building rectangular instead. But no! it must be Westminster Abbey or nothing; and the result is a great T-shaped structure of wood with a long hall in the centre and wings at the end. The church cost about twenty thousand dollars and will seat one thousand five hundred people. I attended it last Sunday and found the main hall filled with dark-faced men in gowns and fezzes. The wings were shut off by curtains, but I was seated in front and so near one side that I could look through the cracks. Each wing was filled with women clad in black balloon-like garments and veiled so as to conceal all but their eyes. Yet a few women wore European clothes and French hats, showing how the new civilization is coming in.

Another rich Copt established two large primary schools at Asyut, one for boys and the other for girls. In the boys’ school there are five hundred and fifty pupils, and in that for the girls more than two hundred. These schools are taught by native Protestants, and not one cent of American money is spent upon them.

I am much interested in the Copts. There are about eight hundred and fifty thousand of them in the country. They look very much like the Egyptians and dress in about the same fashion. The women veil their faces, both in public and private, and until about a generation ago the unmarried women wore white veils.

These people believe in the ancient form of Christianity. They are indeed the same Christians that Egypt had in Roman times. They claim St. Mark as their first patriarch and say that he preached the Gospel at Alexandria and started the sect there. They have a patriarch to-day, with twelve bishops and a large number of priests and deacons under him. They have their monks and nuns, who lead rigorous lives; they fast and pray, wear shirts of rough wool, and live upon vegetables.

The Copts believe in God the Father, and in the Lord Jesus Christ as his Son. They believe in prayer, and like the Mohammedans, pray five or six times a day. They begin their devotions at daybreak and are supposed to make five separate petitions before dark and to close with a final prayer at midnight. As they pray they recite a Psalm or chapter from the Gospel, and some have rosaries of beads on which they count forty-one times, saying the words:

“Oh! my Lord, have mercy.”

After this they end with a short petition. They wash before praying, and worship with their faces turned toward the east. They believe in baptism and think that an unbaptized child will be blind in the next life. They have fixed times for baptism, a boy baby being baptized at forty days and a girl baby at eighty days after birth.

There are Coptic churches all over Egypt, and I find several here at Asyut. The church usually consists of four or five buildings surrounding a court, and includes a chapel, a hall of worship, the residence of the bishop, and other rooms. The sanctuary proper contains an altar separated from the rest of the rooms by a screen, covered by a curtain with a cross worked upon it. Before this curtain stand the priest, the choir, and the more influential members of the congregation. Beyond them is a lattice work, on the other side of which are the less important men, with the women in the rear. Everyone is expected to take off his shoes when he comes in, and in many of the halls of worship, as there are no seats, the people lean upon sticks while the sermon is preached. The service begins at daybreak and often lasts four or five hours, so that it is no wonder that some of the members of the congregation fall to chatting during the preaching, and discuss business and social matters.

I am told that the Copts do not trust their wives any too much. Each has but one, but he does not make her his confidante, never tells her his business secrets, and pays her much less respect than the native Protestant Christians show their wives. He seldom sees his wife until he is married and is forbidden by his religion to marry any one but a Copt. As among the Mohammedans, marriages are usually a matter of business, with a dowry bargained for beforehand. The favourite wedding time is Saturday night, and the marriage feasts last through the following week. When the marriage contract is made all the parties to it say the Lord’s Prayer three times. Before the ceremonies are completed the bride and the bridegroom go separately to church where the Eucharist is administered to them. Just before her marriage, the bride is given a steam bath, and her finger nails and toe nails are stained red with henna. Immediately before the ceremony she sends the groom a suit of clothing, and a woman from her house goes to him to see that it is delivered properly and that he is taken to the bath. This provision ensures that both start the married life comparatively clean.