A Word from the Lebanese Women's League

Our departed was one of the founders of the Lebanese Women's League, and one of those who accompanied its works and activities in an effective and steady way. Most recently she held the post of vice-president.

When Salwa Mahmasani Moumina closed her eyes with the closing of death, between the whiteness of the shroud and the blackness of pain —

she was like vitality alight, its lamp's pure oil running out, its unceasing resolve fading from its resolve, leaving within the frame of activity a wide emptiness that can be filled only from her own good spring.

She taught, and was the educator believing with her faith in the beauty of life, trusting her own conscience as much as she trusted the conscience of her homeland.

She gave of her spirit a nourishment: it was character clothed in the foundations of knowledge; it was letters pouring forth the methods of work; it was faithfulness strengthening the props of society.

And she was the good name that raises the repute of the Lebanese woman: she was no dead limb upon the resources of an aspiring society, no burden upon the threshold of the house and the shoulders of the family, no passing ornament to be displayed, kept, and covered over with the curtains of forgetfulness.

She took part in the works of the Lebanese Women's League: the faithful, active member, calling for the triumph of concord and supporting the endeavors of brotherhood, believing in Lebanon as a homeland for liberty — and there is no homeland save for the cause of liberty.

She had in her written style a woman's delicacy, the wisdom of experience, soundness of opinion, and boldness of speech.

She believed in progress — not a sweep that sweeps over society, nor a storm that rages, but a conviction that comes down by stages within the logic of life, an exchange of thought, and a careful choosing from the old to be a concentrated nourishment for the new.

May God have mercy on her: with her zeal she paid the mission its full share. She was the woman who honors woman, the citizen who sacrifices for the homeland, and the teacher who is generous in giving knowledge.

She was the educator who persevered in her faith for the reform of the ways of education, and she was the useful element in an aware and advancing society.

By her death the Lebanese Women's League has lost one of its pillars, a burning torch.

Her extinguishing has left in our souls wounds and chokings and moans.