From the Press, the Sheikh went to the Church, and after gazing around on the pure white walls, remarked, "There is the Book, but I see no pictures nor images. You worship only God here!" He was anxious to see the Tower Clock, and although he had lost one arm, and the other was nearly paralyzed by a musket shot in a recent fight in the desert, he insisted on climbing up the long ladders to see the clock whose striking he had heard at the other end of the city, and he gazed long and admiringly at this beautiful piece of mechanism. On leaving us, he renewedly thanked us for The Book, and the next day he left by diligence coach for Damascus.

In the summer we sent, at Mr. Arthington's expense, a young man from the Beirut Medical College, named Ali, as missionary to itinerate among the Bedawin, with special instructions to persuade the Arabs if possible to send their children to school. He remained a month or two among them, by day and by night, sleeping by night outside the tents with his horse's halter tied to his arms to prevent its being stolen, and spending the evenings reading to the assembled crowd from the New Testament. He was present as a spectator at a fight between Mohammed's men and the Ruella Arabs east of the Sea of Galilee, in which the Ruella were defeated, but Mohammed's son Faur was wounded, and Ali attended him. The Sitt Harba told Ali that a papist named Shwiry, in Damascus, had taken the Arabic Bible from them! So Ali gave them another. This Bible-hating spirit of the Papacy is the same the world over. How contemptible the spirit of a man professing the name of Christian, and yet willing to rob the only woman among the Bedawin who can read, of the word of everlasting life! The whole family of the Sheikh were interested in reading an illustrated book for children of folio size, styled "Lilies of the Field," which we printed in Beirut last year. When Ali set out on this journey, I gave him a letter to the Sheikh, reminding him of his visit to Beirut, and urging again upon him the sending of his children to school. The Sheikh sent me the following reply, written by his wife, the Sitt Harba, and sealed with his own signet ring. I value the letter highly as being written by the only Bedawin woman able to write:

To his excellency the most honored and esteemed, our revered Khowadja Henry Jessup, may his continuance be prolonged! Amen.

After offering you the pearls of salutation, and the ornaments of pure odoriferous greeting, we would beg to inform you that your epistle reached us in the hand of Ali Effendi, and we perused it rejoicing in the information it contained about your health and prosperity. You remind us of the importance of sending our sons and daughters to be educated in your schools. Ali Effendi has urged us very strongly to this course; and has spent several weeks with us among the Arabs. He has read to the children from The Book, and tried to interest them in learning to read. He has also gone from tent to tent among our Bedawin, talking with them and urging upon them this great subject. He constantly read to them that which engaged their attention, and we aided him in urging it upon them. Inshullah (God grant) that there may soon be a school among the Arabs themselves. We Bedawin do not understand the language nor the ways of Europeans, and we should like to have one like Ali Effendi, who knows our way of talking and living, come to teach us and our children. We would also inform you that the book with pictures, which you sent to the Sitt Harba, has reached her, and she has read it with great pleasure, and asks of God to increase your good. She sends salams to you and to the Sitt, and all your family.

And may you live forever! Salam

MOHAMMED DUKHY.

29 Jemady Akhar 1289 of the Hegira

"Postscript.—There has been a battle between us and the Ruella tribe, and the Ruellas ate a defeat, Ali Effendi was present and will give you the particulars."

At the date of this writing, Ali has been again to Mohammed's camp, taking books and medicines, and has done his utmost to prepare the way for opening schools among the Bedawin in their own camps. Ali has brought another letter from Sitt Harba, in which she gives her views with regard to the education of the Bedawin. I sent several written questions to her in Arabic, to which she cheerfully gave replies. The following is the substance of her answers:

I. The Bedawin Arabs ought to learn to read and write, in order to learn religion, to increase in understanding, and to become acquainted with the Koran. They profess to be Moslems, but in reality have no religion.

II. The reason why so few of the Bedawin know how to read, is because it is out of their line of business. They prefer fighting, plundering, and feeding flocks and herds. Reading and books are strange and unknown to them.

III. If they wished to learn to read, the true time and place would be in the winter, when they migrate to the East in the Jowf, where they are quiet and uninterrupted by government tax-gatherers.

IV. I learned to read in the vicinity of Hums. My father brought for my instruction a Khoteeb or Moslem teacher, who taught me reading. His name was Sheikh Abdullah. The Sheikh Mohammed taught me writing.

V. The Bedawin esteem a boy better than a girl, because the boy may rise to honor, but the girl has nothing to expect from her husband, and his parents and relatives, but cursing and abuse.

VI. A man may marry four wives. If one of them ceases bearing children, and she be of his family, he makes a covenant of fraternity with her, and he supports her in his own camp, but she is regarded simply as a sister. If she be of another family, he sends her home, and pays her what her friends demand.

VII. The girls and women have no more religion than the boys and men. They never pray nor fast, nor make the pilgrimage to Mecca. But the old women repeat certain prayers, and visit the ziyaras, mazars, and welys, and other holy places.

VIII. If teachers would come among us, who can live as we do, and dwell in our camps, and travel with us to the desert, they could teach the great part of our children to read, especially if they understood the art of medicine.

Ali spent several weeks among them, sleeping in the camp, and attending upon their sick. The camp was on the mountains east of the Sea of Galilee. Fevers prevailed through the entire district from Tiberias to Damascus, and Ali devoted himself faithfully to the care of the sick. The Sheikh himself was ill with fever and ague, as were several members of his family. One day Ali prepared an effervescing draught for him, and when the acid and the alkali united, and the mixture effervesced, the Bedawin seated in the great tent screamed and ran from the tent as if the Ruellas were down upon them! What, said they, is this? He pours water into water, and out come fire and smoke! The Sheikh himself was afraid to drink it, so Ali took it himself, and finally, after explaining the principle of the chemical process, he induced both the Sheikh and the Sit Harba to drink the draught. On leaving the encampment, the Sheikh gave Ali a guard, and three Turkish pounds (about $14,) to pay for his medicines and medical services, saying, that as his Bedawin were growing poor since they were forbidden to make raids on other tribes, they could not pay for his services, and he would pay for all. He offered to give him a goat skin bottle of semin (Arab butter) and several sheep, but Ali was unable to carry either, and declined the offer. Ali brought a specimen of Bedawin bread. It is black, coarse, and mixed with ashes and sand. The Bedawin pound their wheat, and knead the coarse gritty flour without sifting, and bake it on the heated earthen ovens.

The Bedawin swarm with vermin. Their garments, their persons, their tents and their mats are literally alive with the third plague of Egypt, lice! Ali soon found himself completely overrun with them, and was almost driven wild. The Sitt Harba urged him to try the Bedawin remedy for cleansing his head. On inquiring what it was, he declared he would rather have the disease than the remedy! After his return to his village in Lebanon, he spent several days in ablutions and purifications before venturing to bring me his report. The Sitt Harba gave him a collection of the nursery rhymes which she and the Bedawin women sing to their little brown babies, and some of them will be found in the "Children's Chapter" of this volume. The Sheikh Mohammed, who can neither read nor write, repeated to Ali the following Kosideh or Song, which he composed in Arabic poetry, after his victory over Feisal, of the Ruella tribe, in 1866. The Ruellas had previously driven Mohammed's tribe from one of the finest pasture regions in Howian, and Ed Dukhy regained it after a desperate struggle.

Oh fair and beautiful plain, oh rich green Bedawin pasture. We had left you, too often stained, with the blood of violent battle; Ah, dark disastrous day, when brother abandoned his brother, Though riding the fleetest of mares, and safe from pursuit of the foeman, He never once turned to inquire, though we tasted the cup of destruction. Oh fair and beautiful plain, we yesterday fought and regained thee! I praise and honor His name, who only the victory giveth! O, Feisal, we've meted to you your deserts in royal measure; With our spears so burning and sharp, we cut off the necks of your Arabs, O, Shepherd of Obaid, you fled deserting your pastures, Biting your finger in pain and regret for your sad disasters— Savage hyena, come forth, from your lair in the land of Jedaileh, Howl to your fellow-beasts, in the distant land of Butina; Come and eat your fill of the dead in the Plain of Fada, O, fair and beautiful plain, you belong to the tribe of the victor; But Feisal is racked with pain, when he hears the battle story, Our right-handed spearmen have palsied his arm is its strength and power; A blow fell hard on his breast, from the hand of our Anazy warriors; Come now, ye who wish for peace, we are ready in honor to meet you! Our wrongs are all avenged, and our arms are weary of battle.

The Arabic original of these lines breathes the true spirit of poetry, and shows that the old poetic fire still burns in the desert. Feisal now lives in the region adjacent to Mohammed Dukhy, and they leave a space of several miles between their camps to prevent trespass, and the danger of re-opening the old blood-feud.

I would commend the Arabs of the Desert to the prayerful remembrance of the Women of America. How the gospel is to reach them, is one of the great problems of our day. Their women are sunken to the lowest depths of physical and moral degradation. The extent of their religion is in being able to swear Mohammedan oaths. "Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness; their feet are swift to shed blood; destruction and misery are in their ways, and the way of peace have they not known." Although their hand is against every man, and every man's hand against them, let them feel that there is one class of men who love them and care for them with a disinterested love, and who seek their everlasting welfare!



CHAPTER XV.

"WOMAN BETWEEN BARBARISM AND CIVILIZATION."

This is the title of an Arabic article in the "Jenan" for Sept. 1, 1872, written by Frances Effendi Merrash, brother of the Sitt Mariana, whose paper we have translated on a preceding page. It is evident that the Effendi writes from the atmosphere of Aleppo. The more "polite" society of that city is largely made up of that mongrel population, half French and half Arab, which is styled "Levantine" and too often combines the vices of both, with the virtues of neither. It will be seen that the able author is combatting the worst form of French flippant civilization, which has already found its way into many of the towns and cities of the Orient. He says:—

"Inasmuch as woman constitutes a large portion of human kind, and an essential element in society, as well as the leading member of the race in respect to its perpetuation, it becomes necessary both to consider and speak of her character and position although there are not wanting those who are coarse enough and rude enough to declare woman a worthless part of the creation.

"Woman possesses a nature remarkably impressible and susceptible to influence, owing to the delicacy of her organization and the peculiarities of her structure. Her proper culture therefore calls for the greatest possible skill and care to protect her from those corrupting influences to which she is by nature especially susceptible. We should therefore neither leave her locked in the fetters of the ancient barbarism and rudeness, nor leave her free to the uncontrollable liberty of this modern civilization, for both these extremes bring her into one common evil estate and both have one effect upon her.

"Have you not observed how the customs of ancient rude barbarism corrupted the manners of woman and obliterated all those virtues and excellencies for which she is especially designed by nature? It was deemed most opprobrious for woman to learn to read and write, to say nothing of other arts. It was thought indispensable to bind upon her mouth the fetters of profound silence so that none ever heard her voice but her own coarse husband, and the walls of the enclosure in which she was kept imprisoned. She had no liberty of thought or action. Every woman's thoughts were limited by the thoughts of her husband, and her character was cast in the mould of his, whether that were good or bad. And in addition to this, she always suffered from whatever of rudeness there might be in her rough companion, who availed himself of his superior brute physical strength as a weapon to overcome her moral power. He scourged and cursed and despised her in every possible way, when she was innocent of crime or error. As a result of this course, her own self respect, and the feeling that she was abused and insulted by her companion or partner, led her oftentimes to cast off all shame and modesty, whenever a suitable opportunity presented itself. This grew out of the fact that she no longer regarded herself as the companion of her husband and the sharer of all his natural and moral rights, his joys and sorrows, but she rather imagined herself his captive and bond slave. She thus sank to the position of a slave-woman who is never allowed peace or rest, and cares nothing for the training of her children or the ordering of her house, since she looks upon herself as a stranger in a home not her own, and we all know how difficult it is for a slave to perform the duties of the free!

"On the other hand, have you not observed how the influence of modern civilization is corrupting the nature of woman and making havoc with her morals?

"There is nothing strange in this, for her delicate nature, when it had escaped from the chains and imprisonment of the mildest barbarism, into the open free arena of civilization, lost its reckoning, and wandered hither and thither in bewilderment according to its own unrestrained passions. Woman thus became like a feather, 'Borne on the tempest wherever it blows, and driven about where no one knows.'

"Now since evil images and objects are far more numerous in this world than those which are good, it becomes evident that the influence of evil upon the mind of woman is stronger and more abiding than the influence of the good, owing to this intense delicacy of texture in her mental constitution. Let us suppose that one man and one woman were placed in a position where they should only see evil deeds, or only good deeds: the woman would leave that place either vastly worse than the man, or vastly better. Now the moral misconduct of woman is far more detrimental to the propagation of the race, than is the misconduct of man. It is therefore better for the woman not to go to the extremes of the modern civilization, whose evils are equal to, yes, and far surpass, its benefits. Have you not noticed that the leaders of modern civilization in our age, have imitated, if not surpassed, all the excesses of riot, and lust and rapine, ever practiced under the barbarism of the ages of antiquity? Do not the women of this age go lower in shamelessness than the women of ancient times? Here we see them veiling their faces with the flimsy gauze of artifice, and befouling the pure waters of life with the turbulent stream of their own vanity. They pollute the purity of real beauty by the foul arts of beautifying, and cry out in loud rude voices in every assembly and gathering. They strut about in vain-glorious conceit, and flaunt their gaudy apparel in indecent boldness. They claim what does not belong to them and meddle with what does not concern them. They do not blush to cloud the precious jewel of modesty with the selfish airs of passion. Nothing is said which they do not hear, nothing occurs which they do not see. They become bold, unblushing and unwomanly.

"Such being the state of things, there can be no doubt that an excess of this kind of civilization for woman amounts to about the same thing as the excess of her rude barbarism in ancient times. The two extremes meet. The dividing line between them then, that is, the middle course, is the proper one for woman to take. To this middle course there must be some natural and legitimate guide. This guide is a sound education, and on this subject we propose at some future time to write, inasmuch as the education of woman is one of the most important of subjects. Woman is the one fountain from which is derived the life of man in its earliest periods. She is the source of all training, and the root of character. Have you not heard that she who rocks the cradle, moves the world?"

It is evident that the author of this paper has not been so happy as to see the noblest type of a sanctified Christian civilization, such as can be seen in the Christian homes of America and England, or even in the truly Christian homes of Syria. Let us hope that the day is not far distant, when even in Aleppo, a pure Christianity shall have taken the place of that semi-barbaric system styled the papacy, which enthralls the intellects and hearts of so many of the nominal Christians of the Orient, and when the enslaved inmates of the Moslem hareems shall be set free, not to indulge in the license of a Parisian libertinism, but with that liberty wherewith Christ makes His people free!

THE VALUE SET ON WOMAN'S LIFE IN SYRIA.

The free license allowed to men by the Koran in the beating of their wives, has led the entire population of the East to set a low estimate upon the life of woman. Until recently in Syria women were poisoned, thrown down wells, beaten to death, or cast into the sea, and the government made no inquisition into the matter. According to Mohammedan law, a prosecution for murder must always be commenced by the friends of the victim, and if they do not enter complaint, or furnish witnesses, the murderer is not even arrested. And if he be convicted of the crime, he is released on paying to the relatives of the victim the price of blood, which is fixed at 13,000 piastres, or $520! A man may well "count the cost" before committing murder. This constant compounding of punishment has degraded the popular views of the value of human life, so that formerly the murder of a woman was never punished. In March, 1856, a Druze girl near B'hamdun married a man of her own choice, instead of marrying the man assigned to her by her family. She was waylaid by her own brother and the rejected suitor, murdered and thrown into a well.

About a year after the massacres of 1860, while the European Commissioners were still in Syria, and Lebanon was beginning to attain something of its wonted quiet, several Turkish soldiers made an assault upon a young Maronite girl from the village of Ain Kesur, who was carrying a jar of water to the workmen on the Deir el Komr road. Mr. Calhoun was requested by the Relief Committee in Beirut to devote the charity funds distributed in this part of Lebanon, to giving employment to the needy in road-building. This girl was employed to supply the men with water. The brutal soldiers attempted to gag her with a handkerchief, in order to accomplish their design, but she was too strong for them. The struggle was long and violent, but she finally effected her escape, leaving on the road the fragments of the broken jar, her shoes and shreds of calico which they had torn from her clothing. Just at that moment Giurgius el Haddad, Mr. Calhoun's cook, came up, and seeing the broken jar and the clothing, guessed what had happened, and after finding the girl, and hearing her story, started in pursuit of the soldiers to Ainab, whither they had gone, and where a Turkish officer was stationed. He stated the case to the officer, and received in reply a blow on his arm from a heavy cane. The case was reported to the Turkish Colonel in Abeih, who summoned all parties and ordered each of the soldiers to be beaten with forty lashes on the bare back. But word had reached Col. Frazier, the British Commissioner, and he came at once to Abeih in company with Omar Pasha, with order from Evad, Pasha, to examine the case de novo. The result was that two of the soldiers were condemned by military law to be shot, and were shot at sunset June 5th, in front of the old palace just below Mr. Calhoun's house. The event produced a profound impression, and Druzes and Moslems began to feel that a woman's life and honor were after all of some value.

In April, 1862, when Daud Pasha was governor of Mt. Lebanon, a Druze, named Hassan, murdered a Druze girl of his own village, supposing that Daud Pasha would not interfere with the time-honored custom of killing girls! Much to his surprise, however, he was arrested, convicted and hung, and the poor women of all sects in the mountain began to feel that after all they had an equal right to life with the other sex.

In most parts of Syria to-day, the murder of women and girls is an act so insignificant as hardly to deserve notice. Mt. Lebanon and vicinity constitute an exception perhaps, but woman's right to life is one of those rights which have not yet been fully guaranteed in the Turkish Empire.

In October, 1862, the Arabic official newspaper in Beirut, contained a letter from Hums which illustrates this fact. A fanatical wretch from Hamath, one of the infamous Moslem saints, set up the claim that he had received the power to cast out devils by divine inspiration. He found credulous followers among the more ignorant, and went to Hums to practice his diabolical trade. A poor woman had lost her reason through excessive grief at the death of her son. The husband and others of her relatives went to consult the new prophet. He refused to go and see her, stating that he would not condescend to go to the devils, but the devils must come to him. The poor woman was accordingly brought to him, and left to await the opportune moment, when he could cast out the devils, which he declared to be raving within her. After a few days, her father called to inquire about her, and found her growing constantly worse. The Hamathite told him that he must bring a gallon of liquid pitch, to be used as a medicine, and the next day the devils would leave her. The pitch was brought, and after the father had gone, the lying prophet tied a cord around her feet, and drew her up to the ceiling, and while she was thus suspended, thrust a red hot iron rod into one of her eyes, and cauterized her body almost from head to foot! He then placed the pitch on the floor under her head, and set it on fire until the body was "burned to charcoal!" The next day the friends called, expecting to find her restored to her right mind, when the wretch pointed them to the blackened cinder. They exclaimed with horror and asked him the reason of this bloody crime? He replied that on applying the test of burning pitch, one of the devils had gone out of her, tearing out her right eye, and when he forbade the rest from destroying the other eye, they fell upon her and killed her! The body was buried, but the government took not the slightest notice of the fact. The official journal in Beirut simply warned the public against patronizing such a bloody impostor!



CHAPTER XVI.

OPINIONS OF PROTESTANT SYRIANS WITH REGARD TO THE WORK OF AMERICAN WOMEN IN SYRIA.

The following letters have been addressed to me by prominent native Syrian gentlemen, whose wives have been trained in the American Mission Seminaries and families. They all write in English, and I give their own language.

Mr. Butrus el Bistany, the husband of Raheel, writes me as follows:—

Beirut, Oct. 23, 1872.

"It would be superfluous to speak of the efforts of American Missionary ladies in training the females of Syria, and the good done by them.

"The sainted Sarah L. Smith, who was one of the first among them, established the first Female School in Beirut.

"Mrs. Whiting, also, who had no children of her own, trained five girls in her family, all of whom are still living.

"Mrs. De Forest had a very interesting female school in her family, and the girls educated in that school are of the best of those educated by American ladies in Syria.

"The obstacles in those times were very great, and the people believed that education is injurious to females. But these ladies obtained a few girls to educate gratuitously, and thus made a good impression on the minds of the people, and wrought a change in public opinion, so that year by year the people began to appreciate female education. And as we are now building on the foundation laid by those good ladies and reaping the fruit of their labors, we should pray to be imbued with the same spirit, and try as much as we can to follow their example, and carry on the work with the same spirit, zeal and wisdom as they did."

Mr. Naame Tabet, the husband of Miriam, who was educated by Dr. and Mrs. De Forest, writes as follows:—

Beirut, Oct. 21, 1872.

"It affords me unfeigned gratification that you give me an opportunity of recording my impressions in regard to the advantages of female education in this country under the guidance of the light of the Gospel of our Lord and Saviour, such as is exemplified by the American Mission, whose labors in diffusing and disseminating the Scriptures are so conspicuously manifest.

"That example chiefly has had the effect, in this neighborhood, to stir up gigantic efforts to fill the want of female education. The same feeling is extending itself throughout Syria, so that future prospects for the promotion of pure Christian knowledge and true civilization are brilliant and ought surely to encourage the benevolent in persevering in their action."

The Rev. John Wortabet, M.D., Professor of Anatomy in the Syrian Protestant College, and husband of Salome, writes as follows:—

Beirut, Oct. 20, 1872.

"Though I was very young when Mrs. Smith, Mrs. Whiting, and Mrs. De Forest began their labors in the cause of Female Education in Syria, I can distinctly recollect that they were the first to initiate that movement which has grown to so vast an extent at the present time. To them belongs the honor of having been the determined and brave pioneers in the important work of raising woman from her degraded position, brought on by ignorance and Mohammedan influence, to one of considerable respect, in a social, intellectual and moral point of view. I do not mean that they achieved then this great and worthy object, but they were first to begin the work, which is still going on, and destined apparently to grow much farther. And it is but just that their names and primary labors be embalmed in the memories of the past.

"Aside from the intrinsic good which they accomplished, and the direct fruits of their labors, and you are as well acquainted with them as I am—they gave the first and best teachers for the schools which have sprung up so abundantly since their time. Of the importance of giving well-trained female teachers for female schools, in the peculiar social system of the East, nothing need be said.

"I believe, however, that the main value of these earlier labors was the impulse which they gave to the course of Female Education in Syria. Prejudices and barriers, which had become hoary by the lapse of time, have been completely broken down, at least among the Christian Churches of the East."



CHAPTER XVII.

OTHER LABORS FOR WOMEN AND GIRLS IN THIS FIELD.

The following statements have been chiefly made out from documents furnished to me by those in charge of the various Institutions. I give them in order according to the date of their establishment.

THE IRISH AND AMERICAN UNITED PRESBYTERIAN MISSION IN DAMASCUS.

I have not received official statistics with regard to the work of this Mission in behalf of women, but they have maintained schools for girls and personal labors for the women through a long series of years. Mrs. Crawford, who is thoroughly familiar with the Arabic language, has labored in a quiet and persevering manner among the women of Damascus and Tebrud, and the fruits of these labors will be seen in years to come. Miss Dales, now Mrs. Dr. Lansing, of Cairo, conducted a school for Jewish girls in Damascus some fifteen years ago, which was well attended.

Mrs. E. Watson, an English lady of great energy and zeal in the cause of female education, after years of labor in North and South America, Greece and Asia Minor, came to Syria in 1858, and commenced a girls' school in her own hired house. She afterwards removed to Shemlan, in Mount Lebanon, where she erected a building at her own expense for a girls' boarding school, and afterwards gave it to the Society for the Promotion of Female Education in the East. She has since, with untiring energy, erected another building for a Seminary for Druze and Christian girls, the former Institution continuing as it has been for many years under the efficient management of Miss Hicks, assisted by Miss Dobbie. She has also recently erected a neat and substantial church edifice in Shemlan.

In Miss Hicks' absence, Mrs. Watson has addressed me the following letter:

Shemlan, August 28, 1872.

"Our first school for native girls was commenced in Beirut in 1858. The teachers have been Miss Hicks, Miss Hiscock, Mrs. Walker, Miss Dillon, Miss Jacombs, (now in Sidon,) Miss Stainton, (now in Sidon,) and Miss Dobbie. No native female teachers have been employed except pupils of the school under Miss Hicks' care. Masters Riskullah in Beirut, and Murad, Reshid and Daud, in Shemlan, have been connected with the school as teachers of the higher Arabic branches.

"The whole number of boarders under our care up to the present time, is above one hundred. The only teachers in my second boarding school are, my adopted daughter Handumeh, and Zarifeh Twiney, a pupil of the Prussian Deaconesses. Seventeen or eighteen of our pupils have been, or are now teachers, and ten are married.

"The school directed by Miss Hicks was given over to the Ladies' Society in England, some six or seven years ago, and has been supported by them since. The new school in the upper house is under no society and is not regularly aided by any. There are from twenty-six to twenty-eight boarders under the care of my daughter, Miss Watson, I aiding as I can. Several girls have been supported for the last two years by friends in America and England. We have had ten Druze girls in our school in the upper house. Miss Hicks has had three or four, and a number in her day school. We had also a number in our day school at Aitath, four of whom are married to Druze Sheikhs."

Mr. Elias Suleeby, aided by friends in Scotland, has for a considerable period conducted common schools in a part of Mount Lebanon and the Bukaa, and now the enterprise has been adopted by the Free Church of Scotland, who have sent the Rev. Mr. Rae to be their Superintendent.

Their schools are chiefly for boys, though in all the village schools it is usual for a few of the smaller girls to attend the boys' school. In Suk el Ghurb, however, they have a boarding school containing some twenty-five girls.

THE PRUSSIAN DEACONESSES INSTITUTE IN BEIRUT

The Orphan House, Boarding School and Hospital with which the Prussian Deaconesses are connected, were established in 1860. The two former are supported by the Kaiserswerth Institution in Germany, and the latter by the Knights of St. John.

In the Orphan House are one hundred and thirty orphan girls, all native Syrians, who are clothed, fed and instructed for four or five years, and often transformed from wild, untutored semi-barbarians to tidy, well behaved and useful young women. They have ordinarily about fifty applicants waiting for a vacancy in order to enter.

The Boarding School is for the education of the children of European residents, Germans, French, Italians, Greeks, Maltese, English, Scotch, Irish, Hungarians, Dutch, Swiss, Danish, Americans and others. The medium of instruction is the French language.

Since the Orphan School began, many of the girls have married, thirty have become teachers, and about twenty of them are living as servants in families.

In August of the year 1861, the Deaconesses had received about 110 orphans. The children entering are received for three years, and the surviving parent or guardian is required to sign a bond, agreeing to leave the child for that period, or if the child is withdrawn before that time, to pay to the Deaconesses all that has been expended upon her.

In the summer of 1861, several of the parents came and tried to remove their children, though they had no means of supporting them, but the contract stood in the way, and they had no money to pay. The Jesuits then came forward and furnished the parents with French gold in Napoleons, and withdrew in one day fifty orphan girls from the institution, sending them, not to an institution of their own, but turning them back upon their wretched parents and friends to be trained in poverty and ignorance. A few days later, thirty more of the girls were removed in the same way, leaving only thirty. The parents had a legal right to remove the children on the payment of the money, but what shall be said of the cruelty of the Jesuits who turned back these wretched children to the destitution and misery of a Syrian orphan? The Jesuits are the same everywhere, unscrupulous and intriguing, counting all means as right, which promote their own end.

THE BRITISH SYRIAN SCHOOLS.

These Schools, so numerous and widely extended, have grown up since the massacre year 1860. I remember well the first arrival of Mrs. Bowen Thompson in Beirut, and her persevering energy in forming her little school for the widows and orphans of Hasbeiya, Deir el Komr and Damascus.

From that little beginning in 1860, the school increased the following year, until finally other branch schools were organized in Beirut and Lebanon, and then in Damascus and Tyre, until now, the following schedule, furnished to me by the officers of the Institution, will show to what proportions the enterprise has grown. The Memoir of Mrs. Thompson, entitled "The Daughters of Syria," gives so full a history of these schools, that I need only refer the reader to that volume for all the information desired. Since the lamented death of Mrs. Thompson, the direction of the schools has been entrusted to her sister, Mrs. Mentor Mott. The Central Training School in Beirut was under the care of Mrs. Shrimpton, who labored with great earnestness and wisdom in that important institution until the spring of 1873, when she resigned her position and became connected with the work of Female education under the American mission in Syria. She was aided by English and native teachers. The schools in Zahleh, Damascus, Hasbeiya and Tyre are under the care of English and Scotch ladies, who have certainly evinced the most admirable courage and resolution in entering, in several of these places, upon outpost duty, without European society, and isolated for months together from persons speaking their own language. I believe that such instances as these have demonstrated anew the fact that where woman is to be reached, woman can go, and Christian women from Christian lands, even if beyond the age generally fixed as the best adapted to the easy acquisition of a foreign language, may yet do a great work in maintaining centres of influence at the outposts, and superintending the labors of native teachers. These young native teachers trained in Shemlan, Sidon, Suk el Ghurb and Beirut, cannot go to distant places as teachers, and ought not to go, without a home and proper protection provided for them. Such protection is given by a European or American woman, who has the independence and the resolution to go where no missionary family resides, and carry on the work of female education. Even at the risk of offending the modesty of the persons concerned, I cannot refrain from putting on record my admiration of the course of Miss Wilson in Zahleh, Miss Gibbon in Hasbeiya, and Miss Williams in Tyre, in making homes for themselves, and carrying on their work far from European society and intercourse.

The British Syrian Schools are doing a good work in promoting Bible education. Many of the native teachers, male and female, have been trained in our Mission Seminaries, and not a few of them are members of our evangelical churches. It has always been my aim, from the time when Mrs. Bowen Thompson first landed in Syria to the present time, to do all in my power to "help those women which labored with me in the gospel."

We are engaged in a common work, surrounded by thousands of needy perishing souls, Mohammedan, Pagan and Nominal Christian. The work is pressing, and the Lord's husbandmen ought to work together, forgetting and ignoring all diversities of nationality, denomination and social customs. There should be no such word as American, English, Scotch or German, attached to any enterprise that belongs to the common Master. The common foe is united in opposition. Let us be united in every practicable way. Let our name be Christian, our work one of united sympathy, prayer and cooeperation, and let not Christ be divided in His members. I write these words in connection with the subject of the British Syrian Schools, because I can speak from experience of the value of such cooeperation in the past. As Acting Pastor of the Native Evangelical Church in Beirut, to the communion of which I have received so many young teachers and pupils from the various Seminaries and schools, I feel the great importance of this hearty cooeperation and unity of action among those who are at the head of the various Protestant Educational Institutions in Syria.

The Emissaries of Rome are laboring with sleepless vigilance to win Syria to the Papacy. Sisters of Charity, Sisters of Nazareth, Jesuits, Lazarists, Capuchins, Dominicans, and Franciscans, monks, nuns and papal legates, are swarming throughout the land. Though notoriously jealous of each other's progress, they are always united in their common opposition to the Evangelical faith, and an open Bible. We have thus not only the old colossal fortresses of Syrian error to demolish, but the new structures of Jesuitical craft to overturn, before Syria comes to Christ.

It has been stated on a preceding page that in 1835, the American wife of an English merchant, Mrs. Alexander Tod, gave a large part of the funds to build the first school-house for girls ever built in Syria. That substantial union has been happily reproduced in the cordial cooeperation of the Anglo-American and German communities in Beirut, both in the Church, public charities and educational institutions, up to the present time.

Let us all live in Christ, work for Christ, keep our eye fixed on Christ, and we shall be with Christ, and Christ with us!

BRITISH SYRIAN SCHOOLS, 1872.

BEIRUT.

No. Established. Name. Scholars. Teachers.

1 1860 Training Institution, 92 16 2 1863 Musaitebeh, 85 3 3 1868 Blind School, men & boys, 16 2 4 1868 Blind girls' School, 11 1 5 1860 Boys' School, 85 5 6 1861 East Coombe, 120 4 7 1860 Elementary, 30 2 8 1872 Es-Saifeh, 100 4 9 1860 Infant School, 125 3 10 1860 Moslem, 50 4 11 1860 Night School, —— 5 12 1863 Olive Branch, 85 4

DAMASCUS.

13 1867 St. Paul's, 170 6 14 1869 Blind School, 15 1 15 1870 Medan, 80 2 16 1867 Night School, 30 1

LEBANON.

17 1863 Ashrafiyeh, 53 3 18 1868 Ain Zehalteh, 50 2 19 1869 Aramoon, 40 2 20 1863 Hasbeiya, 160 3 21 1867 Mokhtara, —— —— 22 1868 Zahleh, 75 4

TYRE.

23 1869 Girls' School, 50 2 —— —— Totals, 1522 79 Bible Women, 7

MISS TAYLOR'S SCHOOL FOR MOSLEM GIRLS.

This worthy Christian lady from Scotland is doing a quiet yet most effective work in Beirut, with which few are acquainted, yet it is carried on in faith from year to year, and the fruits will no doubt appear one day, in a vast reformation in the order, morality and general improvement of the Moslem families of Beirut.

Ever since the days of Mrs. Sarah L. Smith, and Mrs. Dr. Dodge, Moslem girls have been more or less in attendance upon the schools of the Syria Mission, but the purely Moslem schools of Miss Taylor and of the British Syrian Schools are making a special effort to extend education into every Moslem household.

This school was opened in February, 1868, for the poorest of the poor. It received the name of "The Original Ragged school for Moslem Girls." No one is considered as enrolled, who has not been at least three weeks in regular attendance. The number already received has reached very near five hundred, all Mohammedans, except five Jewish and fifteen Druze girls. Native teachers are also employed, and the pupils are taught reading, writing, geography, and arithmetic. The principal lesson-book is the Bible. The early history of this institution is replete with interest; but it has attracted little public notice hitherto. It has always been a prudential question whether it would not be wiser to proceed with its work in a quiet unobtrusive way, so as not to awake fanatical opposition. But steady and appreciative friends have stood by it from the beginning, and those who know the school best have commended it most earnestly.

CHURCH OF SCOTLAND SCHOOL FOR JEWISH GIRLS IN BEIRUT.

This school has been in operation since 1865. Although established originally for Jewish girls alone, of whom it frequently had fifty in regular attendance, it has also had under instruction, Greek and Moslem girls.

Three European teachers and two native teachers have been connected with it, under the supervision of the Rev. James Robertson, Pastor of the Anglo-American congregation in Beirut.



CHAPTER XVIII.

THE AMOUNT OF BIBLICAL INSTRUCTION GIVEN IN MISSION SCHOOLS.

There has been great difference of opinion with regard to the proper position of Education in the Foreign Missionary work. While some have given it the first rank as a missionary agency, others have kept it in the background as being a non-missionary work, and hence to be left to the natives themselves to conduct, after their evangelization by the simple and pure preaching of the gospel. The Syria Mission have been led, by the experience of long and laborious years of labor in this peculiar field, to regard education as one of the most important auxiliaries in bringing the Gospel in contact with the people. Society and sects are so organized and constituted, that while the people of a given village would not receive a missionary as simply a preacher of the Gospel, they will gladly accept a school from his hands, and welcome him on every visit to the school as a benefactor. They will not only receive the daily lessons and instructions of the school-teacher in religious things, but even ask the missionary to preach to them the Word of life. Schools in Syria are entering wedges for Gospel truth.

Our schools are of two classes, the High schools or Seminaries for young men and young women, and the common schools for children of both sexes. In the former, Biblical instruction is the great thing, the chief design of the High schools being to train the young to a correct and thorough acquaintance with Divine truth. The course of Bible instruction conducted by Mr. Calhoun in Abeih Seminary, is, I doubt not, more thorough and constant, than in any College or High School in the United States. While the sciences are taught systematically, the Bible is made the principal text-book, and several hours each day are given to its study. In our common schools, likewise, Bible reading and instruction hold a prominent place. Owing to the paucity of books in the Arabic language proper to be used as reading books, a reading book was prepared by the Mission, consisting almost exclusively of extracts from the Scriptures. In addition to this book, the Psalms of David and the New Testament are used as regular reading books in all the schools. There are daily exercises in reading the Bible and reciting the Catechism. It will be observed from what I have stated, that the amount of spiritual knowledge acquired by the children, in the very process of learning to read, is not small. Being obliged to commit to memory texts, paragraphs, and whole chapters, from year to year, their minds become stored with the precious words of the Sacred Book. Very much depends upon the teacher. When we can obtain pious, praying teachers, the Scripture lessons can be given with much more profit and success, and it is our aim to employ only pious teachers where we can get them. And the example of the teacher receives a new auxiliary, as it were, in impressing these lessons on the mind, where the pupils can attend a preaching service on the Sabbath. Sometimes a pressing call comes from a village, where it seems important for strategic reasons, to respond at once. A pious teacher cannot be found, and we send a young man of well-known moral character. But only necessity would oblige us to do this, and a change for the better is always made as soon as practicable.

Bible schools are a mighty means of usefulness. I think nothing strikes a new missionary with more grateful surprise on entering the Syrian Mission-field, than to witness the great prominence given to Biblical instruction, from the humblest village school of little Arab boys and girls, to the highest Seminaries. The examinations in the Scriptures passed by the young men in Abeih, and the girls in the Beirut and Sidon Seminaries, would do credit to the young people in any American community. Bible schools are not merely useful as an entering wedge to give the missionary a position and an influence among the people; they are intrinsically useful in introducing a vast amount of useful Bible knowledge into the minds of the children, and through them to their parents. In countries where the people as a mass are ignorant of reading, they are an absolute necessity, and in any community they are a blessing. Had all Mission Schools been conducted on the same thorough Biblical basis as those in Syria, there would have been less objection to schools as a part of the missionary work.

THE SPHERE AND MODES OF WOMAN'S WORK IN FOREIGN LANDS.

In this age, when Christian women in many lands are engaging in the Foreign Mission work with so much zeal, it is important to know who should enter personally upon this work, and what are the modes and departments of labor in which they can engage when on the ground.

No woman should go to the Foreign field who has not sound health, thorough education, and a reasonable prospect of being able to learn a foreign language. The languages of different nations differ as to comparative ease of acquisition, but it is well for any one who has the Arabic language to learn, to begin as early in life as practicable. It should be borne in mind that the work in foreign lands is a self-denying work, and I know of no persons who are called to undergo greater self-denial than unmarried women engaged in religious work abroad. They are doing a noble work, a necessary work, and a work of lasting usefulness. Deprived in many instances of the social enjoyments and protection of a home, they make a home in their schools, and throw themselves into a peculiar sympathy with their pupils, and the families with which they are brought into contact. Where several are associated together, as they always should be, the institution in which they live becomes a model of the Christian order, sympathy and mutual help, which is characteristic of the home in Christian lands. Christian women, married and unmarried, can reach a class in every Arabic community from which men are sedulously excluded. They should enter upon the foreign work as a life-work, devote themselves first of all to the mastery of the language of the people, open their eyes to all that is pleasant and attractive among the natives, and close them to all that is unlovable and repulsive, resolved to love the people, and what pertains to them, for Christ's sake who died for them, and to identify themselves with the people in every practicable way. Persons who are incapable of loving or admiring anything that is not American or English had better remain in America or England; and on the other hand, there is no surer passport to the affections of any people, than the disposition to overlook their faults, and to treat them as our brethren and sisters for whom a common Saviour died. Let no missionary of either sex who goes to a foreign land, think that there is nothing to be learned from Syrians or Hindoos, Chinese or Japanese. The good is not all confined to any land or people.

Among the departments of woman's work in foreign lands are the following:—

I. Teaching in established institutions, Female Seminaries, Orphan Houses and High Schools.

II. Acting as Nurses in Hospitals, as is done by the Prussian Protestant Deaconesses of Kaiserswerth, who are scattered over the East and doing a work of peculiar value.

III. Visiting from house to house, for the express purpose of holding religious conversation with the people in their own language. This can only be done in Syria by one versed in the Arabic, and able to speak without an interpreter.

Ignorance of the language of the people, is a barrier which no skill of an interpreter can break down, and every woman who would labor with acceptance and success among the women of Syria, must be able to speak to them familiarly in their own mother tongue. Interpreters may be honest and conscientious, but not one person in a thousand can translate accurately from one language to another without previous preparation. And besides, interpreters are not always reliable. There is still living, in the city of Tripoli, an old man named Abdullah Yanni, who acted as interpreter for a Jewish Missionary some forty years ago. He tells many a story of the extraordinary shape which that unsuspecting missionary's discourses assumed in passing through his lips. One day they went through the principal street to preach to the Moslems. A great crowd assembled, and Abdullah trembled, for in those days of darkness Moslems oppressed and insulted Christians with perfect impunity. Said the missionary, "Tell the Moslems that unless they all repent and believe in Christ, they will perish forever." Abdullah translated, and the Moslems gave loud and earnest expression to their delight. They declared, "That is so, that is so, welcome to the Khowadja!" Abdullah had told them that "the Khowadja says, that he loves you very much, and the Engliz and the Moslems are 'sowa sowa,' i.e. together as one."

Abdullah soon found it necessary to tell his confiding friend and employer, that it would not do to preach in that bold manner, for if he should translate it literally, the Moslems would kill both of them on the spot. The missionary replied, "Let them kill us then." Abdullah said, "it may do very well for you, but I am not prepared to die, and would prefer to wait." The very first requisite for usefulness in a foreign land is the language. It might be well, as previously intimated in this volume, that in each of the Female Seminaries, the number of the teachers should be large enough to allow the most experienced in the language to give themselves for a portion of each week to these friendly religious visits. The Arab race are eminently a sociable, visiting people, and a foreign lady is always welcome among the women of every grade of society, from the highest to the lowest.

IV. Holding special Women's Meetings of the Female Church members from week to week in the homes of the different families. The neighboring women will come in, and the native women, who would never take part in a women's prayer-meeting, in the presence of a missionary, will gladly do it with the example and encouragement of one of their own sex. Such meetings have been conducted in Hums and Tripoli, in Beirut, Abeih, Deir el Komr and Sidon, and in Suk el Ghurb, B'hamdun, Hasbeiya, and Deir Mimas for many years. Mrs. Smith, Mrs. Isaac Bird, Mrs. Thomson, Mrs. Van Dyck, Mrs. Whiting, Mrs. Goodell, Mrs. Dr. Dodge, Miss Williams, Miss Tilden, Mrs. De Forest, Mrs. Calhoun, Mrs. Wilson, Mrs. Ford, Mrs. Foot, Mrs. Eddy, and Mrs. W. Bird, Mrs. Lyons and Mrs. Cheney, Mrs. Bliss, Miss Temple, Miss Mason, Mrs. S. Jessup are among the American Christian women who have labored or are still laboring for the welfare of their sisters in Syria, and younger laborers more recently entered into the work, are preparing to prosecute the work with greater energy than ever. There are other names connected with Woman's Work in Syria as prosecuted by the American Mission, but the list is too long to be enumerated in full. Many of them have rested from their labors, and their works do follow them.

THE BEIRUT FEMALE SEMINARY.

The last Annual Report of the Board of Missions of the Presbyterian Church of the United States, speaks of these two Female Seminaries as follows:

"The Beirut Seminary is conducted by Miss Everett, Miss Jackson and Miss Loring, containing forty boarding and sixty day scholars, where the object is to give an education suited to the wants of the higher classes of the people, to gain a control over the minds of those females who will be most influential in forming society and moulding opinion. This hold the Papal Sisters of Charity have striven earnestly to gain, and its vantage ground was not to be abandoned to them. The institution is rising in public esteem and confidence, as the number and the class of pupils in attendance testify. The Seminary is close to the Sanctuary, not less in sympathy than in position, and its whole influence is given to make its pupils followers of Christ."

In addition to this brief notice, it should be said that there are in the Beirut Seminary thirty charity boarders, who are selected chiefly from Protestant, Greek and Druze families, to be trained for teachers of a high order in the various girls' schools in the land. A special Normal course of training is conducted every year, and it is believed that eventually young women trained in other schools will enter this Normal Department to receive especial preparation for the work of teaching.

The charity boarders are supported by the contributions of Sabbath Schools and individuals in the United States, with especial reference to their being trained for future usefulness.

After an experience of nearly ten years in conducting the greater part of the correspondence with the patrons of this school, and maintaining their interest in the pupils and teachers whom they were supporting by their contributions, I would venture to make a few suggestions to the Christian Mission Bands, Societies, Bible Classes, Sabbath Schools and individuals who are doing so much for the education of children in foreign lands.

I. Let all contributions for Women's Work and the education of girls, be sent through the Women's Boards of Missions, or if that is not convenient, in the form of a banker's draft on London, payable to the Principal of the Seminary with whom you have correspondence.

II. If possible, allow your donation to be used for the general purposes of the Seminary, without insisting that a special pupil or teacher be assigned to you. But if it be not possible to maintain the interest of your children and youth in a work so distant without some special object, then by all means,—

III. Do not demand too much from your over-taxed sisters in the foreign field in the way of letters and reports. The labors of a teacher are arduous everywhere. But when instruction is given in a foreign language, in a foreign climate, and to children of a foreign nation, these labors are greatly increased. Add then to this toil correspondence with the Board of Missions, the daily study of the language, the work of visiting among the people, and receiving their visits, and you can understand how the keeping up of correspondence with twenty or thirty Sabbath Schools and Societies is a burden which no woman should be called on to bear.

IV. Do not expect sensational letters from your friends abroad. Do not take for granted that the child of ten years of age you are supporting, will develop into a distinguished teacher or Bible woman before the arrival of the next mail. Do not be discouraged if you have to wait and pray for years before you hear good tidings. Should any of the native children ever send you a letter, (and they have about as clear an idea of who you are and where you are, as they have of the satellites of Jupiter,) do not expect from their youthful productions the elegance of Addison or the eloquence of Burke.

V. Pray earnestly for the conversion of the pupils in Mission Schools. This I regard as the great advantage of the system of having pupils supported by Christians in the home churches, and known to them by name. They are made the subjects of special prayer. This is the precious golden bond which brings the home field near to us, and the foreign field near to you. Our chief hope for these multitudes of children now receiving instruction, is, that they will be prayed for by Christians at home.

THE SIDON FEMALE SEMINARY.

The Annual Report above mentioned, speaks thus of the Sidon Seminary: "It is conducted by Miss Jacombs and Miss Stainton, and has numbered about twenty boarders and six day scholars. The boarders are exclusively from Protestant families, selected from the common schools in all parts of the field, and are in training for the Mission service, as teachers and Bible readers. Four of the graduates of last year are already so employed. One difficulty in the way of reaching with the truth the minds of the women in the numerous villages of the land, will be obviated in part, as the results of this work are farther developed.

"There has been considerable seriousness and some hopeful conversions, in both these seminaries during the past year.

"The work is worthy of the interest taken in it by the Women's Boards of Missions, and by societies and individuals in the church who have co-operated in it."

The Sidon Seminary, as stated on a previous page, was begun in 1862, and has had four European and six native teachers. Of the latter, one was trained in Mrs. Bird's family, one in Shemlan Seminary, three in the Sidon school, and one by Mrs. Watson.

Ten of its graduates have been employed as teachers, and eight are still so engaged.

I annex a list of Girls' Schools now or formerly connected with the Syria Mission.

No. of No. of When begun Location. Pupils. Teach'rs

Beirut, Day School, 50 2 1834 " Seminary, 50 10 1848 Sidon, Seminary, 20 3 1862 " Day School, 6 1 1862 Abeih, " 60 1 1853 Deir el Komr, " 50 2 1855 To be resumed soon. Ghorify, " 40 1 1863 All Druzes. El Hadeth, " 40 1 1870 Shwifat, " 70 2 1871 Dibbiyeh, " 20 1 1868 B'Hamdun, " 30 1 1853 Discontinued. Meshgara, " 30 1 1869 Boys and girls, Ain Anub, " 20 1 1870 and 60 boys. Kefr Shima, " 40 1 1856 Boys and girls. Rasheiya el Fokhar, " 30 1 1869 Jedaideh, " 40 1 1870 El Khiyam, " 25 1 1868 Ibl, " 30 1 1868 Deir Mimas, " 15 1 1865 Kana, " 35 1 1869 Hums, " 40 1 1865 Safita, " 30 1 1869 Hamath, " 30 1 1872 ——————- ————————- Totals 23 801 36

This gives a total of twenty-three girls' schools besides the twenty-four boys' schools under the care of the Mission, and three schools where there are both boys and girls. I have kept the name of B'hamdun in the list, for its historical associations, but the thirty pupils credited to it, will be more than made good in the girl's school about to be resumed in Tripoli under the care of Miss Kip.

The total number of girls is about 800, and the number of teachers 36. The total cost of these twenty-three schools, including the two Seminaries in Beirut and Sidon, is about eight thousand dollars per annum, including rents, salaries of five American and English ladies, and thirty-one native teachers.

The average cost of the common schools in the Sidon field is sixty dollars per annum, and in the Lebanon field it varies from this sum to about twice that amount, owing to the fact that the Deir el Komr and other schools are virtually High Schools.

The teacher in the Sidon field, and in Abeih, and Safita, are graduates of the Sidon Seminary.

It is probable that a High School or Seminary for girls will be opened by Miss Kip in Tripoli during the coming year.

The preceding schedule can give but a faint idea of the struggles and toil, the patient labors, disappointments and trials of faith through which the women of the American Mission have passed during the last forty years, in beginning and maintaining so many of these schools for girls in Syria.

Did I speak of trials? The Missionary work has its trials, but I believe that its joys are far greater. The saddest scenes I have witnessed during a residence of seventeen years in Syria, have been when Missionaries have been obliged to leave the work and return to their native land. There are trials growing out of the hardness of the human heart, our own want of faith, the seeming slow progress of the gospel, and the heart-crushing disappointments arising from broken hopes, when individuals and communities who have promised well, turn back to their old errors "like the dog to his vomit" again. But of joys it is much easier to speak, the joy of preaching Christ to the perishing,—of laboring where others will not labor,—of laying foundations for the future,—of feeling that you are doing what you can to fulfil the Saviour's last command,—of seeing the word of God translated into a new language,—a christian literature beginning to grow,—children and youth gathered into Schools and Seminaries of learning, and even sects which hate the Bible obliged to teach their children to read it,—of seeing christian families growing up, loving the Sabbath and the Bible, the sanctuary and the family altar.—Then there is the joy of seeing souls born into the kingdom of our dear Redeemer, and churches planted in a land where pure Christianity had ceased to exist,—and of witnessing unflinching steadfastness in the midst of persecution and danger, and the triumphs of faith in the solemn hour of death.

These are a few of the joys which are strewn so thickly along the path of the Christian Missionary, that he has hardly time to think of sorrow, trial and discouragement. Those who have read Dr. Anderson's "History of Missions to the Oriental Churches," and Rev. Isaac Bird's "History of the Syria Mission," or "Bible Work in Bible Lands," will see that the work of the Syria Mission from 1820 to 1872 has been one of conflict with principalities and powers, and with spiritual wickedness in high and low places, but that at length the hoary fortresses are beginning to totter and fall, and there is a call for a general advance in every department of the work, and in every part of the land.

Other agencies have come upon the ground since the great foundation work was laid, and the first great victories won, and in their success it becomes all of God's people to rejoice; but the veterans who fought the first battles, and overcame the great national prejudice of the Syrian people against female education, should ever be remembered with gratitude.

It has been my aim in this little volume to recount the history of Woman's Work in the past. Who can foretell what the future of Christian work for Syrian Women will be?

May it ever be a work founded on the Word of God, aiming at the elevation of woman through the doctrines and the practice of a pure Christianity, striving to plant in Syria, not the flippant culture of modern fashionable society, but the God-fearing, Sabbath-loving, and Bible-reading culture of our Anglo-Saxon ancestors!

A few years ago, a Greek priest named Job, from one of the distant villages high up in the range of Lebanon, called on me in Beirut. I had spent several summers in his village, and he had sometimes borrowed our Arabic sermons to read in the Greek Church, and now, he said, he had come down to see what we were doing in Beirut. I took him through the Female Seminary and the Church, and then to the Library and the Printing Press. He examined the presses, the steam engine, the type-setting, and type-casting, the folding, sewing, and binding of books, and looked through the huge cases filled with Arabic books and Scriptures, saw all the editions of the Bible and the Testament, and then turned in silence to take his departure. I went with him to the outer gate. He took my hand, and said, "By your leave I am going. The Lord bless your work. Sir, I have a thought; we are all going to be swept away, priests and bishops, Greeks and Maronites, Moslems and Druzes, and there will be nothing left, nothing but the Word of God and those who follow it. That is my thought. Farewell."

May that thought be speedily realized! May the coarseness, brutality and contempt for woman which characterize the Moslem hareem, give way to the refinement, intelligence, and mutual affection which belong to the Christian family!

May the God of prophecy and promise, hasten the time when Nusairy barbarism, Druze hypocrisy, Moslem fanaticism, Jewish bigotry and nominal Christian superstition shall fade away under the glorious beams of the rising Sun of Righteousness!

May the "glory of Lebanon" be given to the Lord, in the regeneration and sanctification of the families of Lebanon!

Too long has it been true, in the degradation of woman, that the "flower of Lebanon languisheth."

Soon may we say in the truly Oriental imagery of the Song of Songs,—"Come with me from Lebanon, look from the top of Amana, from the top of Shenir and Hermon, from the lions' dens, from the mountains of the leopards,"—and behold, in the culture of woman, in society regenerated, in home affection, in the Christian family, what is in a peculiar sense, "a fountain of gardens, a well of living waters, and streams from Lebanon!"

"Is it not yet a very little while, and Lebanon shall be turned into a fruitful field?" When "the reproach of the daughters of Syria," shall be taken away, and when amid the zearas of the Nusairiyeh, the kholwehs of the Druzes, the mosques of the Moslems and the tents of the Bedawin, may be heard the voice of Christ, saying to the poor women of the Arab race, weary and fainting under the burdens of life:

"Daughter be of good comfort, Thy faith hath made thee whole, Go in peace!"



THE CHILDREN'S CHAPTER.

PART I.

Abeih, Mount Lebanon, Sept., 1872.

My Dear Son Willie:—

It is now eight years since you left Syria, and you were then so young, that you must have forgotten all about the country and the people. I have often promised to tell you more about the Syrian boys and girls, what they eat and wear, and how they study and play and sleep, and the songs their mothers sing to them, and many other things. And now I will try and fulfil my promise.

Here is a little boy at the door. His name is Asaad Mishrik, or "happy sunrise," and his name is well given, for he comes every morning at sunrise with a basket of fresh ripe figs, sweet and cold, and covered with the sparkling dew. This morning when he came, your brother Harry stood by the door looking at the figs with wistful eyes, and I gave him a large one, which disappeared very suddenly. Asaad is a bright-eyed boy, and helps his mother every day.

When he comes in, he says, Subah koom bil khire, "Your morning in goodness." Then Assaf, the cook, answers him, "Yusaid Subahak," "May God make happy your morning." If I come out when he is here, he runs up to kiss my hand, as the Arab children are trained to be respectful to their superiors. When a little Arab boy comes into a room full of older people, he goes around and kisses the hand of each one and then places it on his forehead. Asaad wears a red tarboosh or cap on his head, a loose jacket, and trowsers which are like a blue bag gathered around the waist, with two small holes for his feet to go through. They are drawn up nearly to his knees, and his legs are bare, as he wears no stockings. He wears red shoes pointed and turned up at the toes. When he comes in at the door, he leaves his shoes outside, but keeps his cap on his head.

The people never take off their caps or turbans when entering a house, or visiting a friend, but always leave their shoes at the door. The reason is, that their floors are covered with clean mats and rugs, and in the Moslem houses, the man kneels on his rug to pray, and presses his forehead to the floor, so that it would not be decent or respectful to walk in with dirty shoes and soil his sijjady on which he kneels to pray. They have no foot-mats or scrapers, and it is much cheaper and simpler to leave the shoes, dirt and all at the door. Sometimes we are much embarrassed in calling on the old style Syrians as they look with horror on our muddy feet, and we find it not quite so easy to remove our European shoes. But it must be done, and it is better to take a little extra trouble, and regard their feelings and customs, than to appear coarse and rude.

It is very curious to go to the Syrian school-houses, and see the piles of shoes at the door. There are new bright red shoes, and old tattered shoes, and kob kobs, and black shoes, and sometimes yellow shoes. The kob kobs are wooden clogs made to raise the feet out of the mud and water, having a little strap over the toe to keep it on the foot. You will often see little boys and girls running down steps and paved streets on these dangerous kob kobs. Sometimes they slip and then down they go on their noses, and the kob kobs fly off and go rattling over the stones, and little Ali or Yusef, or whatever his name is, begins to shout, Ya Imme! Ya Imme! "Oh, my mother!" and cries just like little children in other countries.

But the funniest part of it is to see the boys when they come out of school and try to find their shoes. There will be fifty boys, and of course a hundred shoes, all mixed together in one pile. When school is out, the boys make a rush for the door. Then comes the tug of war. A dozen boys are standing and shuffling on the pile of shoes, looking down, kicking away the other shoes, running their toes into their own, stumbling over the kob kobs, and then making a dash to get out of the crowd. Sometimes shins will be kicked, and hair pulled, and tarbooshes thrown off, and a great screaming and cursing follow, which will only cease when the Muallim comes with his "Asa" or stick, and quells the riot. That pile of shoes will have to answer for a good many schoolboy fights and bruised noses and hard feelings in Syria. You would wonder how they can tell their own shoes. So do I. And the boys often wear off each other's shoes by mistake or on purpose, and then you will see Selim running with one shoe on, and one of Ibrahim's in his hand, shouting and cursing Ibrahim's father and grandfather, until he gets back his lost property. Sometimes when men leave their shoes outside the door of a house where they are calling, some one will steal them, and then they are in a sorry plight. Shoes are regarded as very unclean, and when you are talking in polite society, it will never do to speak of them, without asking pardon. You would say, "the other day some one stole my new shoes, ajellak Allah," i.e., May God exalt you above such a vile subject! You would use the same words if you were talking with a Moslem, and spoke of a dog, a hog, a donkey, a girl or a woman.

They do not think much of girls in Syria. The most of the people are very sorry when a daughter is born. They think it is dreadful, and the poor mother will cry as if her heart would break. And the neighbors come in and tell her how sorry they are, and condole with her, just as if they had come to a funeral. In Kesrawan, a district of Mount Lebanon near Beirut, the Arab women have a proverb, "The threshold weeps forty days when a girl is born."

There is a great change going on now in Syria in the feelings of the people in regard to girls, but in the interior towns and villages where the light of the Gospel has not shone as yet, and there are no schools, they have the ancient ideas about them up to this very hour.

I knew an old Syrian grandmother in Tripoli who would not kiss her granddaughter for six months after she was born, because she was born a girl! But I know another family in that city of Tripoli that do not treat girls in that style. The father is Mr. Antonius Yanni, a good Christian man, and a member of the Mission Church. He is American Vice Consul, and on the top of his house is a tall flag-staff, on which floats the stars and stripes, on Fourth of July, and the Sultan's birthday, Queen Victoria's birthday, and other great feast days. One day when the Tripoli women heard that "Sitt Karimeh, Yanni's wife, had another "bint," (girl) they came in crowds to comfort her in her great affliction! When Yanni heard of it, he could not restrain himself. He loved his older daughter Theodora very dearly, and was thankful to God for another sweet baby girl, so he told the women that he would have none of this heathenish mourning in his house. He then shouted to his janizary or Cawass, a white bearded old Moslem named Amr, "Amr, haul up the Bandaira el Americaniyeh, (American flag) to show the world how glad I am that I have another daughter." "On my head, on my head, sir," said Amr, and away he went and hauled up the stars and stripes. Now the Pasha's palace is not far away, and soon the Turkish guards saw the flag, and hastened to the Pasha with the news that the American Consul had some great feast day, as his flag was raised. The Pasha, supposing it to be some important national feast day of the American Government which he was so stupid as not to know about, sent his Chief Secretary at once to Mr. Yanni to ask what feast it might be? Yanni received him politely and ordered a narghileh and coffee and sherbet, and after saying "good-morning," and "may you live forever," and "God prolong your days!" over and over and over again, and wishing that Doulet America might ever flourish, the Secretary asked which of the great American festivals he was celebrating that day. Yanni laughed and said, "Effendum, you know how many of the ignorant in Syria are so foolish as to mourn and lament when God sends them a daughter, but I believe that all God's gifts are good, and that daughters are to be valued as much as sons, and to rebuke this foolish notion among the people, I put up my flag as a token of joy and gratitude." "Sebhan Allah! you have done right, sir," ... was the Secretary's reply, and away he went to the Pasha. What the Pasha said, I do not know, but there was probably more cursing than usual that day in the grand palace of Tripoli, for the Mohammedans think the birth of a daughter a special judgment from God.

When a boy is born, there is great rejoicing. Presents are sent to him, and the people call to congratulate the father, and the whole house is gay and joyous. After a few days a dainty dish called "Mughly" is made and sent around as a present to all of the relatives. It is made of pounded rice, and flavored with rich spices and sugar and put into little bowls, and almonds and other nuts sprinkled over the top. One of these little bowls is sent to each of the friends. But when a girl is born, there is no rejoicing, no giving of presents, and no making of the delicious "mughly."

Here come two little girls bringing earthen pots of milk. They are poor girls, daughters of two of our neighbors who are fellaheen or farmers. One has no shoes, and neither have stockings. They wear plain blue gowns, made of coarse cotton cloth, dyed with indigo, and rusty looking tarbooshes on their heads, and a little piece of dirty white muslin thrown over their heads as a veil to cover their faces with, when men come in sight. One is named Lebeeby and the other Lokunda, which means Hotel. They behave very well when they come here, as they have the fear of the big Khowadja before their eyes, but when they are at home running about, they often use dreadful language. Little boys and girls in Syria have some awful oaths which they constantly use. I suppose the poor things do not know the meaning of half the bad words they use. One of the most common is "Yilan Abook," "curse your father!" It is used everywhere and on every side by bad people, and the children use it constantly in their play. When the little girls come into our Schools and Seminaries, it is a long time before they will give up "abook"-ing. One of our friends in America is educating a nice little girl in the Beirut Seminary, and we asked the teacher about her a few days ago. The answer was, "She still lies and swears dreadfully, but she has greatly improved during the past two years, and we are encouraged about her."

Sometimes a boy will say to another Yilan abook, "Curse your father," and another will answer, Wa jiddak, "and your grandfather," and then they will call back and forth like cats and dogs. I saw a Moslem boy near my house standing by the corner to shield himself from the stones another boy was throwing, and shouting wa jid, jid, jid, jid, jidak, "and your great-great-great-great-grandfather," and away went the other boy, shouting as he ran, "and your great-great-great-great gr-e-at," and I heard no more. And then there are a great many very naughty and vile words which the children use, which I cannot write, and yet we hear them every day. It is very hard to keep our children from learning them, as they talk Arabic better than we do, and often learn expressions which they do not know the meaning of. One of the most common habits is using the name of God in vain. The name of God is Allah, and "O God," Yullah. Then there is Wullah and Bismillah, "In the name of God," Hamdlillah, "Praise to God," Inshullah, "If God will." The most awful oaths are Wullah and Billah. The people use Yullah at all times and on all occasions. The donkey-drivers and muleteers say Yullah when they drive their animals. Some years ago a good man from America, who fears God and would not take his name in vain was travelling in the Holy Land, and came on to Beirut. When he reached there, some one asked him if he had learned any Arabic during his journey. He said yes, he had learned Bakhshish for "a present," and Yullah for "go ahead." His friend asked him if he had used the latter word much on the way. He said certainly, he had used it all the way. His friend answered, Professor, you have been swearing all the way through the Holy Land. Of course he did not know it and meant no wrong. But it shows that such words are used so commonly in Syria that strangers do not think them bad language, and it also shows that travellers ought to be careful in using the words they learn of muleteers and sailors in Arab land.

In some parts of the country the little boys and girls swear so dreadfully that you can hardly bear to be with them. Especially among the Nusairiyeh, they think that nothing will be believed unless they add an oath. Dr. Post once rebuked an old Sheikh for using the word "Wullah" so often, and argued so earnestly about it that the man promised never to use it again. The old man a moment after repeated it. The doctor said, "will you now pledge me that you will not say 'Wullah' again?" He replied, "Wullah, I will."

Sometimes a donkey-driver will get out of patience with his long-eared beast. The donkey will lie down with his load in a deep mud-hole, or among the sharp rocks. For a time the man will kick and strike him and throw stones at him, and finally when nothing else succeeds he will stand back, with his eyes glaring and his fist raised in the air, and scream out, "May Allah curse the beard of your grandfather!" I believe that the donkey always gets up after that,—that is, if the muleteer first takes off his load and then helps him, by pulling stoutly at his tail.

I told you that one of the girls who bring us milk, is named "Lokunda," or Hotel. She is a small specimen of a hotel, but provides us purer and sweeter cow's milk than many a six-storied hotel on Broadway would do. You will say that is a queer name for a girl, but if you stop and think about many of our English names you would think them queer too. Here in Syria, we have the house of Wolf, the house of "Stuffed Cabbage," Khowadji Leopard, the lady "Wolves," and one of our fellow villagers in Abeih where we spend the summer is Eman ed Deen "faith-of-religion," although he has neither faith nor religion.

Among the boys' names are Selim, Ibrahim, Moosa, Yakob, Ishoc, Mustafa, Hanna, Yusef, Ali, Saieed, Assaf, Giurgius, Faoor, and Abbas. I once met a boy at the Cedars of Lebanon, who was named Jidry, or "Small-Pox," because that disease was raging in the village when he was born. It is very common to name babies from what is happening in the world when they are born. A friend of mine in Tripoli had a daughter born when an American ship was in the harbor, so he called her America. When another daughter was born there was a Russian ship in port, so he called her Russia. There is a young woman in Suk el Ghurb named Fetneh or Civil War, and her sister is Hada, or Peace. An old lady lately died in Beirut named Feinus or Lantern. In the Beirut school are and have been girls named Pearl, Diamond, Morning Dawn, Dew, Rose, Only one, and Mary Flea. That girl America's full name was America Wolves, a curious name for a Syrian lamb!

Sometimes children are named, and if after a few years they are sick, the parents change their names and give them new ones, thinking that the first name did not agree with them. A Druze told me that he named his son in infancy Asaad (or happier) but he was sickly, so they changed his name to Ahmed (Praised) and after that he grew better! He has now become a Christian, and has resumed his first name Asaad.

I once visited a man in the village of Brummana who had six daughters, whom he named Sun, Morning, Zephyr breeze, Jewelry, Agate, and Emerald. I know girls named Star, Beauty, Sugar, One Eyed, and Christian Barbarian. Some of the names are beautiful, as Leila, Zarifeh, Lulu, Selma, Luciya, Miriam and Fereedy.

All of the men are called Aboo-somebody; i.e. the father of somebody or something. Old Sheikh Hassein, whose house I am living in, is called Aboo Abbas, i.e. the father of Abbas, because his eldest son's name is Abbas. A young lad in the village, who is just about entering the Freshman class in the Beirut College, has been for years called Aboo Habeeb, or the father of Habeeb, when he has no children at all. Elias, the deacon of the church in Beirut was called Aboo Nasif for more than fifty years, and finally in his old age he married and had a son, whom he named Nasif, so that he got his name right after all. They often give young men such names, and if they have no children they call them by the name of the son they might have had. But they will not call a man Aboo Lulu or Aboo Leila. If a man has a dozen daughters he will never be called from them. They are "nothing but girls." A queer old man in Ghurzuz once tried to name himself from his daughter Seleemeh, but whenever any one called him Aboo Seleemeh, all the fellaheen would laugh as if they would explode, and the boys would shout at him "there goes old Aboo Seleemeh," as if it were a grand joke.

The Moslems and Druzes generally give their children the old unmixed Arabic names, but the Maronites, the Greeks, and the Protestants often use European names. A young lady named Miss Mason was once a teacher in the Sidon Seminary, and spent the summer in the mountain village of Deir Mimas. One of the women of the village liked her name, and named her daughter "Miss Mason," and if you should go there you would hear the little urchins of Deir Mimas shouting Miss Mason! to a little blue-gowned and tarbooshed Arab girl.