CHAPTER II.

PALESTINE.

1824-1843.

In February, 1824, the Grand Seignior, influenced, as it would appear, by Rome, issued a proclamation to the Pashas throughout Western Asia, forbidding the distribution of the Christian Scriptures, and commanding those who had received copies to deliver them to the public authorities to be burnt. The copies remaining in the hands of the distributors were to be sealed up till they could be sent back to Europe. But few copies were obtained from the people, and the Turks seemed to take very little interest in the matter.

Messrs. Fisk and King made their third and last visit to Jerusalem in the spring of 1825, arriving there on the 29th of March. On their way, they had stopped a few weeks in Jaffa, where their labors gave rise to some very absurd reports, which yet appeared credible to the superstitious people. Some said, that the missionaries bought people with money; that the price for common people was ten piastres, and that those ten piastres always remained with the man who received them, however much he might spend from them. Others said, that the picture of professed converts was taken in a book, and that the missionaries would shoot the picture, should the man go back to his former religion, and he would of course die. A Moslem, having heard that men were hired to worship the devil, asked if it were true, saying that he would come, and bring a hundred others with him. "What," said his friend, "would you worship the devil?" "Yes," said he, "if I was paid for it."

The brethren were cordially received by their acquaintances at Jerusalem. Two days afterwards, the pasha of Damascus sat down before the city, with three thousand soldiers, to collect his annual tribute. The amount to be paid by each community was determined solely by his own caprice, and what he could not be induced to remit was extorted by arrest, imprisonment, and the bastinado. Many of the inhabitants fled, and the rest lived in constant terror and distress. So great was the confusion and insecurity within and around the city, that the brethren decided to return to Beirût, where they arrived on the 18th of May. From 1822 to 1825 they and their associates had distributed nearly four thousand copies of the Scriptures, and parts thereof, in different languages, and about twenty thousand tracts. After staying a month at Beirût, Mr. King passed six weeks at Deir el-Kamr in the study of Syriac, with Asaad el-Shidiak for his teacher, a remarkable young Maronite, who will have a prominent place in this history. On returning to Beirût, Mr. King wrote a farewell letter to his friends in Palestine and Syria, which Asaad translated into excellent Arabic, and afterwards multiplied copies for distribution. It was a tract destined to exert an important influence.

Mr. King's term of service had now expired; and on the 26th of August, 1825, after three years of active and very useful missionary labors, he left Syria homeward bound. He went first to Tarsus by ship, and thence, by what proved a tedious land journey, to Smyrna. His clothes, books, papers, and several valuable manuscripts were sent by a vessel, that was taken by a Greek cruiser, and only a part of them were returned. On his arrival at Smyrna, December 4, he received the painful intelligence of the death of his beloved associate at Beirût.

Mr. King remained several months at Smyrna, waiting the recovery of his effects, making good progress, meanwhile, in the modern Greek language, and doing much service for the Greeks. He then visited Constantinople with the Rev. Mr. Hartley, of the Church Missionary Society, where he was received by several high Greek ecclesiastics with a kindness similar to that he had received from the Greeks of Egypt, Palestine, Syria, and Asia Minor. It was after his departure, that a copy of his Farewell Letter found its way into the hands of Armenians, who brought it before a council convened for the purpose, as will be related hereafter. He returned to France just four years from the time of his departure to enter upon his mission. Pious people were everywhere exceedingly eager to hear his statements. Enough was contributed by friends in Paris, to purchase a font of Armenian type for the press at Malta, which he ordered before leaving the metropolis. When in England he obtained funds for Arabic types, and left orders for a font in London. Mrs. Hannah More, then at an advanced age, was among the contributors. He returned home at the close of the summer of 1827, and soon after the annual meeting of the Board made a tour as agent through the Southern and Middle States, which occupied him till April of the following year. The Rev. Edward N. Kirk (now Dr. Kirk of Boston) was associated with him in this agency.

Mr. Fisk had a good constitution, and would probably have endured the climate of Syria for many years, with no more strain upon it in the way of travel, than subsequent experience warranted. The reader of the preceding pages will be prepared to apprehend special danger from his return to Beirût in a season, that was sickly beyond the recollection of the oldest of the Franks. He first spoke of being ill on Tuesday, October 11, having had a restless night. His experience was similar on several succeeding nights, but during the day he seemed tolerably comfortable, enjoyed conversation, and frequently desired the Scriptures to be read, remarking on the importance of the subjects, and the preciousness of the promises. His devotional feelings were awakened and his spirits revived by the reading or singing of hymns, such as he suggested. On the 19th his mind was somewhat affected, and he fainted while preparations were being made for removing him to his bed. The next day, according to a request he had made some time before, he was informed of the probable issue of his sickness. He heard it with composure; remarking that he believed the commanding object of his life, for the seventeen years past, had been the glory of Christ and the good of the Church. During the day he dictated letters to his father, and to his missionary brethren King and Temple. On Thursday he asked for the reading of that portion of Mrs. Graham's "Provision for Passing over Jordan," where it is said, "To be where Thou art, to see Thee as Thou art, to be made like Thee, the last sinful motion forever past,"—he anticipated the conclusion, and said, with an expressive emphasis, "That's Heaven." As the evening approached, he was very peaceful, and in the midst he spoke out, saying: "I know not what this is, but it seems to me like the silence that precedes the dissolution of nature." Becoming conscious that the fever was returning, he said, "What the Lord intends to do with me, I cannot tell, but my impression is, that this is my last night." The fever, however, was lighter than usual, and the next forenoon there was some hope that it might be overcome. Yet it returned in the afternoon, with all its alarming symptoms. At six o'clock he had greatly altered, and the hand of death seemed really upon him. At eight a physician, who had been sent for, arrived from Sidon, but Mr. Fisk was insensible. Though the physician expressed little hope of saving him, he ordered appliances which arrested the paroxysm of fever, and restored him temporarily to consciousness. He was quiet during Saturday, the 22d, and there were no alarming appearances at sunset. But before midnight all hope had fled. "We hastened to his bedside," say his brethren, "found him panting for breath, and evidently sinking into the arms of death. The physician immediately left him, and retired to rest. We sat down, conversed, prayed, wept, and watched the progress of his dissolution, until, at precisely three o'clock on the Lord's day morning, October 23, 1825, the soul, which had been so long waiting for deliverance, was quietly released. It rose, like its great Deliverer, very early on the first day of the week, triumphant over death, and entered, as we believe, on that Sabbath, of eternal rest, which remaineth for the people of God."

His age was thirty-three. As soon as the fact of his death became known, all the flags of the different consuls were seen at half-mast. The funeral was attended at four P. M., in the presence of a more numerous and orderly concourse of people, than had been witnessed there on a similar occasion.

Mr. Fisk had a strong affinity, in the constitution of his mind and the character of his piety, to the late Miss Fidelia Fiske, of the Nestorian mission, who was his cousin, and whose praise is in all the churches. He was an uncommon man. With a vigorous constitution, and great capacity for labor, he possessed a discriminating judgment, an ardent spirit of enterprise, intrepidity, decision, perseverance, entire devotion to the service of his Master, facility in the acquisition of languages, and an equipoise of his faculties, which made it easy to accommodate himself to times, places, and companies. He was highly esteemed as a preacher before leaving home. "And who," said a weeping Arab, on hearing of his death, smiting on his breast, "who will now present the Gospel to us? I have heard no one explain God's word like him!" Aptness to teach was the prominent trait in his ministerial character, and in a land of strangers, he was esteemed, reverenced, and lamented.

The following tribute to his memory is from the pen of Mr. Bird:—

"The breach his death has made in the mission, is one which years will not probably repair. The length of time which our dear brother had spent in the missionary field, the extensive tours he had taken, the acquaintances and connections he had formed, and the knowledge he had acquired of the state of men and things in all the Levant, had well qualified him to act as our counselor and guide; while his personal endowments gave him a weight of character, sensibly felt by the natives. His knowledge of languages, considering his well-known active habits, has often been to us a subject of surprise and thanksgiving. All men who could comprehend French, Italian, or Greek, were accessible by his powerful admonitions. In the first-mentioned language he conversed with ease, and in the last two, performed with perfect fluency the common public services of a preacher of the Gospel. Even the Arabic he had so far mastered, as to commence in it a regular Sabbath service with a few of the natives. At the time of his death, besides preaching weekly in Arabic, and also in English in his turn, and besides his grammatical studies under an Arabic master, he had just commenced a work, to which, with the advice of us all, he was directing, for the time, his main attention. Having in a manner completed the tour of Palestine and Syria, and having become quite at home in Arabic grammar, he felt more than ever the need of a dictionary to introduce the missionary to the spoken language of the country. The ponderous folios of Richardson are for Persia; Golius, and the smaller work of Willmet, explain only the written language. We were therefore of the unanimous opinion, that a lexicon like the one in contemplation by Mr. Fisk, was needed, not only by ourselves, but by the missionaries who should succeed us. Our dear brother had written the catalogue of English words according to Johnson, and had just finished the catalogue (incomplete of course) of the corresponding Arabic, when disease arrested him. Had he lived, he hoped to visit his native country, and probably publish some account of his Christian researches in the Levant.

"Such were some of the plans and employments of our brother and companion in tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, when he was called off from all his labors of love among men. He is gone, but his memory lives. Never till called to sleep by his side, shall we forget the noble example of patience, faith, and zeal, which he has set us; and the churches at home will not forget him, till they shall have forgotten their duty to spread the Gospel."1

1 Missionary Herald for 1827, pp. 101, 102.

The station at Jerusalem was suspended for nearly nine years, when unsuccessful efforts were made to revive it. The Rev. William M. Thomson, and Asa Dodge, M. D., were sent for that purpose. Mr. Thomson was the first to remove his family to Jerusalem, which he did in April, 1834. Mr. and Mrs. Nicholayson, of the London Jews Society, went with them to commence a mission among the Jews. Everything looked promising for a few weeks, and Mr. Thomson went down to Jaffa to bring up his furniture. During his absence, the Fellâhîn, roused by an order to draft every fifth man into the army, rose against Mohammed Ali, the then ruler of Syria. Jerusalem was the centre of this sudden rebellion; and Mr. Thomson, for nearly two months, found it impossible even to communicate with his family, so closely was the city besieged by the rebels. The first sense of personal danger to the mission families, arose from an earthquake of unusual severity, which extended to the coast and shook their old stone habitation so roughly that they were compelled to flee into the garden, and sleep there. Here they were exposed to the balls from the muskets of the Fellâhîn outside the walls. At length the rebels within the city somehow let in their friends outside, and it was an hour of terror when they took possession of the mission house, which was near the castle, dug loopholes through its walls, and began to fire on the soldiers of the fortress. The fire was of course returned, and the building, already shattered by the earthquake, was torn by the Egyptian cannon; while both it and the garden were filled with a multitude of lawless and angry rebels. The families found refuge in a lower room of the house, where the walls were thick, and there listened to the cannon balls as they whistled above them. The arrival of Ibrahim Pasha at length quieted the city.

Able to return to his family on the 11th of July, Mr. Thomson found his wife suffering from ophthalmia, with high inflammatory fever. Two days afterwards, Mr. Nicholayson was attacked with a fever, and the children were all sick. The case of Mrs. Thomson baffled all their skill. Convinced herself that she would not recover, the thought did not alarm her. For many weeks, she had been in the clearer regions of faith, enjoying greater nearness to God in prayer than ever before, with greater assurance of her interest in the covenant of grace through the Redeemer. She had indeed cherished the hope of laboring longer to bring some of the degraded daughters of Jerusalem to the Saviour; but the Lord knew best, and to His will she cheerfully submitted. She died peacefully on the 22d of July, 1834. The bereaved husband was apprehensive of difficulty in obtaining a suitable place for her burial; but the Greek bishop gave permission, and took the whole charge of preparing the grave.

Mr. Thomson now visited Beirût to confer with his brethren, and was advised to remove to that place. The Rev. George B. Whiting and wife and Dr. and Mrs. Dodge, were to occupy the station thus vacated, aided by Miss Betsey Tilden. Dr. Dodge accompanied Mr. Thomson on his return, and assisted him in removing his babe and his effects to Beirût; and on the 22d of October he and Mr. Whiting were on their way with their families to Jerusalem.

Early in the winter, Dr. Dodge was called to Beirût to prescribe for Mrs. Bird, who was dangerously sick. Mr. Nicholayson returned with him to Jerusalem, arriving there on the 3d of January, 1835, cold, wet, and exhausted with fatigue, having traveled on horseback nearly seventeen hours the last day. The peril of such an exposure in that climate was not realized at the time. Both were soon taken sick, and Dr. Dodge rapidly sunk, though a physician from one of the western States of America arrived at the critical moment, and remained with him to the last. He died on the 28th of January, and Mrs. Dodge removed to Beirût. The arrival of Rev. John F. Lanneau in the spring of 1836, furnished an associate for Mr. Whiting. A school was opened, and numerous books were sold to the pilgrims. Early in the next year, Tannûs Kerem of Safet was engaged as a native assistant. He was born and educated in the Latin Church, but in thought and feeling was with the mission, and enlarged their personal acquaintance and influence. In the summer the cholera appeared, and swept off four hundred victims in a month. Mr. Homes, of the mission to Turkey, was there at the time, and all devoted themselves to the gratuitous service of the sick, a thing unknown before in that region. They gave medical aid to many, nearly all of whom recovered, and thus gained many friends. Preaching was commenced in September to a small but attentive congregation. Mrs. Whiting and Miss Tilden had an interesting school, composed chiefly of Mohammedan girls. There was also a school for boys under a Greek teacher, with twenty-four pupils. In 1838, Mr. Whiting was obliged, by the protracted sickness of his wife, to visit the United States, and Mr. Lanneau was alone at Jerusalem, with Tannûs Kerem, and suffering from extreme weakness of the eyes; but was encouraged by the arrival of Rev. Charles S. Sherman and wife in the autumn of 1839. The new missionary expressed his surprise at finding the different classes so little affected by the prejudices of sect in their intercourse with members of the mission. The illness of Mr. Lanneau became at length so distressing, as to require his absence from the field for nearly two years. Before his return to the East, which was early in 1843, the Committee had expressed an opinion, that it was expedient to suspend further efforts at Jerusalem. Mr. Lanneau, however, resumed his abode there until the visit of the writer, with Dr. Hawes, in the spring of 1844, This was after there had been a protracted conference with the mission at Beirût, at which nothing appeared to affect the decision of the Prudential Committee, and Mr. Lanneau removed with his family to Beirût. Writing of Jerusalem to the Committee, Dr. Hawes says: "In regard to this city, viewed as a field for missionary labor, I saw nothing which should give it a special claim on our attention. It has indeed a considerable population, amounting perhaps to seventeen or eighteen thousand. But it is such a population as seemed to me to bear a near resemblance to the contents of the sheet which Peter saw let down from heaven by the four corners. It is composed of well-nigh all nations and of all religions, who are distinguished for nothing so much as for jealousy and hatred of each other. As to the crowds of pilgrims who annually visit the Holy City,—a gross misnomer, by the way, as it now is,—they are certainly no very hopeful subjects of missionary effort; drawn thither, as they are, chiefly by the spirit of superstition; and during the brief time they remain there, kept continually under the excitement of lying vanities, which without number are addressed to their eyes, and poured in at their ears."

The burying-ground belonging to the Board, on a central part of Mount Zion, near the so-called "Tomb of David," and not far from the city, inclosed by a stone wall, was reserved for a Protestant burying-place, to be for the use of all sects of Protestant Christians.

CHAPTER III.

SYRIA.

1823-1828.

The civil and social condition of Jerusalem and Palestine was such, on the arrival of Messrs. Bird and Goodell in 1823, that their brethren advised them to make Beirût the centre of their operations. The advice was followed; and this was the commencement of what took the name of the Syria Mission.

The ancient name of Beirût was Berytus. The city is pleasantly situated on the western side of a large bay, and has a fertile soil, with a supply of good water, sufficient in ordinary seasons, from springs flowing out of the adjacent hills. Its population and wealth have greatly increased of late. The anchorage for ships is at the eastern extremity of the bay, two miles from the city. Lebanon rises at no great distance on the east, stretches far toward the north and the south, and is a healthful and pleasant resort for Franks in summer. There is a large and beautiful plain on the south, abounding in olive, palm, orange, lemon, pine, and mulberry trees. Damascus was then distant three days, but less time is required now, by reason of the new macadamized road. Sidon might be reached in one day, Tyre in two, and Tripoli in three. An additional motive, in those troublous times, for making Beirût a central station, was the protection afforded by Mr. Abbott, a friendly English Consul.

The two brethren landed, with their wives, October 16th. During the nine mouths of their sojourn at Malta, they had made considerable progress in the Italian language, which was spoken extensively in the Levant; and now, without wholly neglecting the Italian, they applied themselves to the languages of Syria.

Mr. Bird made the Arabic—spoken by the Maronites and Syrian Roman
Catholics—his chief study; and Mr. Goodell the Armeno-Turkish,
—Turkish written with the Armenian alphabet,—which was the
language of the Armenians.

Going to Sidon for aid in his linguistic studies, Mr. Goodell formed the acquaintance of Yakob Agha, an Armenian ecclesiastic, who had dared to marry, a privilege not allowed to him as a bishop. That he might be able to defend his course, he began the study of the New Testament, and thus became impressed with the wickedness around him. He was at that time acting British agent at Sidon. Mr. Goodell also became acquainted with Dionysius, another Armenian bishop, who had committed a similar offense, and engaged him as a teacher; giving him the name of Carabet, the "Forerunner." He was a native of Constantinople, and had lived thirty-six years in the Armenian convent at Jerusalem. During the last nine of these years, he was a bishop. On account of his age, his services and acquirements, he was regarded as having the standing of an archbishop. Though in darkness on many points, and giving no satisfactory evidence of piety, he made himself useful as a teacher and interpreter, and in his intercourse with the people.

Several English missionaries were added to the Protestant force at that time, and the Papal Church became thoroughly alarmed. Letters were addressed from Rome to the Patriarchal Vicar of Mount Lebanon, the Maronite Patriarch, and the Vicar of Syria and Palestine, urging them to render ineffectual, in every possible manner, the impious undertaking of those missionaries. These letters were dated in the first month of 1824, and the firman against the circulation of the Scriptures was issued by the Grand Seignior very soon after. Though feebly enforced by the Turkish authorities this gave weight and influence, for a time, to the "anathemas," of the Maronite and Syrian Patriarchs against the "Bible men." Peter Ignatius Giarve, the Syrian Patriarch, some years before, while Archbishop of Jerusalem, had visited England, and there obtained, under false pretenses, a considerable sum of money from Protestant Christians, to print the Holy Scriptures according to the text of his own Church. He now issued a manifesto, first defending himself from the charge of deception, and then warning his flock "not to receive the Holy Scriptures, nor any other books printed and circulated by the Bible-men, even though given gratis, and according to the edition printed by the Propaganda under ecclesiastical authority." Notwithstanding all this, the brethren took a hopeful view of their prospects. "To get a firm footing," they say, "among a people of a strange speech and a hard language; to inspire confidence in some, and weaken prejudice in others; to ascertain who are our avowed enemies, and who are such in disguise; to become acquainted with the mode of thinking and feeling, with the springs of action, and with the way of access to the heart; to begin publicly to discuss controversial subjects with the dignitaries of the Church, and to commence giving religious instruction to the common people; to be allowed to have a hand in directing the studies and in controlling the education of the young; and to begin to exert an influence, however circumscribed at first, yet constantly extending and increasingly salutary,—all this, though it be not 'life from the dead,' nor the song of salvation, yet is to be regarded as truly important in the work of missions."

In the year 1824, the schools were commenced at Beirût, which have since grown into an influential system. The first was a mere class of six Arab children, taught daily by the wives of the missionaries. Soon an Arab teacher was engaged, and before the end of the year the pupils had increased to fifty. In 1826 the average attendance in the free schools of Beirût and vicinity, was more than three hundred; in the following year it was six hundred in thirteen schools, and more than one hundred of these pupils were girls. The Arabs were thought to have less quickness than the Greeks, to be less studious and ambitious, and more trifling, inconstant, and proud of little things; but many of them were lively and promising, and did themselves honor by their punctuality and application. The Romish ecclesiastics were very hostile to all these schools.

It was in the summer of 1825, that Asaad el-Shidiak became first personally known to the mission, as the instructor of Mr. King in the Syriac language. His case soon acquired an extraordinary interest, and will occupy a separate chapter.

In March, 1826, several Greek vessels entered the port of Beirût, and landed five hundred men. They were unable to scale the walls, but plundered the houses of natives on the outside. The wild Bedawîn, whom the Pasha of Acre sent to drive them away, were worse than the Greeks. They plundered without making any distinctions, and among other houses the one occupied by Mr. Goodell, but Consul Abbott obliged the Pasha to pay for what they took from the missionaries. It was afterwards ascertained, that the Maronite bishop, having learned that the leases of the missionaries would soon expire, came to Beirût just before this invasion, with an excommunication for every Maronite who should permit his house to be hired by a missionary; and prepared by bribery and intrigue to bring also the Greek bishop and the Moslem rulers to act in concert with himself, in driving Protestant missionaries from the country. The sudden landing of the Greeks obliged him to flee in the night, leaving his wicked devices unaccomplished, while the Maronites were glad to place their best houses in the hands of the missionaries.

In 1827, the missionaries hoped that about twenty of those among whom they labored, had been created anew in Christ Jesus. Among them were Asaad and Phares Shidiak, from the Maronite Church; a lady from the Latin Church; Dionysius, Gregory Wortabet, Jacob, and the wife of Dionysius, of the Armenian Church; the wife of Wortabet and Yooseph Leflufy, of the Greek Catholic Church; and Asaad Jacob and Tannûs el-Haddad, of the Greek Church. Leflufy was described as a youth of great boldness and decision, and as thoroughly convinced of the errors of his Church. In April of this year, Dionysius revisited Jerusalem, as the interpreter of German missionaries. The Armenian Convent owed him a sum of money, which it refused to pay, and forbade any Armenian in the city to speak to him. The Greeks, on the other hand, treated him with attention, and so did the Moslem governor. He returned to Beirût in company with three hundred of the Armenian pilgrims, who were no sooner out of Jerusalem than they began to treat him with kindness and respect, while they were full of inquiries as to what he and the Protestants believed, what ordinances they had, and how they observed them, with many more such questions. He was engaged in conversation with them day and night, and had full opportunity to explain his religious views, and to show them the difference between the Christianity of the New Testament, and that of the Oriental Churches; and they expressed much astonishment at his statements. Some of them were persons of respectability and influence, and declared their indignation at the treatment he had received from the convent. It is probable that these conversations had some connection with the spirit of reform among the Armenians, which not long after appeared at Constantinople.

The Rev. Eli Smith reached Beirût early in 1827. At the monthly concert in March, kept as a day of fasting and prayer, and closed with the Lord's Supper, sixteen persons were present, who were all regarded as hopefully pious. They were from America, Europe, Asia, and Africa, and were members of nine churches,—Congregational, Episcopal, Lutheran, Reformed Lutheran, Moravian, Latin, Armenian, Greek Catholic, and Abyssinian. Dionysius Carabet, Gregory Wortabet, and their wives were then received into the mission church, as was also the wife of Mr. Abbott, the English Consul, a native of Italy. This admission of converts into a church, without regard to their previous ecclesiastical relations, was a practical ignoring of the old church organizations in that region. It was so understood, and the spirit of opposition and persecution was roused to the utmost. In the Maronite and Greek Catholic churches, severe denunciations were uttered against the missionaries, and all who should render them any service.

Messrs. Goodell and Bird gave more or less time, with the help of their native assistants, to preparing useful works in the native languages. These, with Mr. King's "Farewell Letter," were copied by the pen, and were eagerly sought and gladly transcribed, and the need of a printing-press on the ground began to be felt.

Beirût was visited by the plague in the spring of 1827, but the deaths were not numerous. In August Mr. Bird, finding it needful to take his family to the mountains, ascended to Ehden by way of Tripoli, from which Ehden was distant seven hours. He went by special permission of the Emir Beshir, and was received in the most friendly manner by the Sheikh Latoof, and his son Naanui. The "Patriarch of Antioch and all the East," who resided at Cannobeen, hearing of this, proceeded at once to excommunicate the sheikh and his family, who had dared to associate "with that deceived man, and deceiver of men, Bird, the Bible-man." An infernal spirit appears in the excommunications of the Romish Church. This of Latoof and family ran thus: "They are accursed, cut off from all the Christian communion; and let the curse envelope them as a robe, and spread through all their members like oil, and break them in pieces like a potter's vessel, and wither them like the fig tree cursed by the mouth of the Lord himself; and let the evil angel reign over them, to torment them by day and night, asleep and awake, and in whatever circumstances they may be found. We permit no one to visit them, or employ them, or do them a favor, or give them a salutation, or converse with them in any form; but let them be avoided as a putrid member, and as hellish dragons. Beware, yea, beware of the wrath of God." With regard to Mr. Bird and his family, the Patriarch said: "We grant no permission to any one to receive them; but, on the contrary, we, by the word of the Lord of almighty authority, require and command all, in the firmest manner, that not one visit them, nor do them any sort of service, or furnish them any sort of assistance whatever, to protract their stay in these parts or any other. Let no one receive them into his house, or into any place whatever that belongs to him, but let all avoid them, in every way, in all things temporal as well as spiritual. And whoever, in his stubbornness, shall dare to act in opposition to this our order with regard to Bird, and his children, and his whole family, shall fall, ipso facto, under the great excommunication, whose absolution is reserved to ourself alone."

A copy of this document was furnished to Mr. Bird, by the Bishop of Ehden; who, though feeble in health, was second to no prelate of his sect in knowledge, prudence, and evangelical sentiment. On hearing the Patriarch's proclamation read in church, he is said to have fainted, and did not recover his health for weeks afterwards. As a consequence of this proclamation of the Patriarch, a rival sheikh was encouraged to make a violent assault upon Latoof, in which the latter received a severe contusion on the head, and his wife's mother had her wrist broken. Being warned of a still more determined effort to drive the missionary away, Mr. Bird thought it due to his friend to leave the place; which he did, accompanied by Naanui, leaving his wife and children, and descending to the Greek convent of Hantûra, and from thence to Tripoli. Thither the Patriarch followed him with his maledictions. He however obtained a quiet residence at Bawhyta, under Moslem protection, where he was rejoined by his family, and afterwards in the convent of Belmont. Naanui was his faithful companion through all his wanderings and sojourning on the mountains.

Mr. Bird returned to Beirût on the 22d of December, and was received by his Maronite acquaintances with unwonted cordiality.

The battle of Navarino was not the immediate cause of the suspension of the mission; but, in all the ensuing five months, there was constant apprehension of war between Turkey and the allies engaged in that battle, which was so destructive to the naval power of the Turks. The British Consulate was closed, and Mr. Abbott, their friend and protector, was obliged to withdraw privately. No reliance could be placed on the Pasha; and the Prince of the mountains had sent word, that no Frank refugees would be received in his dominions, in case of war. In the utter stagnation of trade, the missionaries could obtain no money for their bills, and no European or American vessels of war visited the port. Messrs. Goodell, Bird and Smith, in view of all these facts, thought it their duty to avail themselves of the opportunity afforded by an Austrian vessel to remove, for a season, to Malta.

They accordingly embarked on the 2d of May, 1828, taking with them Carabet, Wortabet, and their wives, and arrived at Malta on the 29th. No opposition was made. "The parting scene at our leaving, was more tender and affecting than we could have expected, and afforded a comforting evidence that, whatever may be the impression we have left on the general population, there are some hearts in Syria, which are sincerely attached to us. Many, as we passed them, prayed that God would protect us on our voyage. And others, notwithstanding the plague, came to our houses to bid us farewell. One thoughtful youth, who was with us daily, belonging to one of the first Greek families, was full of grief, and earnestly begged us to take him with us, though contrary to the will of his parents."

CHAPTER IV.

SYRIA.

THE MARTYR OF LEBANON.

1826-1830.

The conversion, life, and martyrdom of Asaad Shidiak,1 so very early in the history of this mission, is a significant and encouraging fact. He not only belonged to the Arab race, but to a portion of it that had long been held in slavish subjection to Rome. His fine mind and heart opened to the truths of the Gospel almost as soon as they were presented; and when once embraced, they were held through years of suffering, which terminated in a martyr's death. With freedom to act, he would have gone forth an apostle to his countrymen. The Arab-speaking race is estimated at sixty millions, and they must receive the gospel mainly from those to whom the language is vernacular. It will tend greatly to strengthen the faith of Christians as to this result, to contemplate the grace of God as seen in the case of this early convert. Space cannot be afforded to do full justice to the facts, which were chiefly recorded by the Rev. Isaac Bird, but the reader is referred in the margin to more ample sources of information.2

1 Written also Asaad el-Shidiak, and Asaad esh-Shidiak.

2 See Missionary Herald for 1827, pp. 68, 71-76, 97-101, 129-136, 169-177, 268-271, 369-372; for 1828, pp. 16-19, 115-119, 165, 373, 375; for 1829, pp. 15, 47, 111, 115; and The Martyr of Lebanon, by Rev. Isaac Bird, Boston, 1864, pp. 208.

Asaad Shidiak was the fourth son of a respectable Maronite, and was born about the year 1797, at Hadet, a small village a few miles from Beirût. His early training was among the Maronites. Such was his ability and fondness for learning, that his family aided him in preparing for the Maronite college at Ain Warka, the most noted seminary on the mountains. He entered the college at the age of sixteen, and remained nearly three years, applying himself diligently to rhetoric, and to natural and theological science, all of which were taught in the Arabic and Syriac languages.

Having completed his college course with the highest honor, he became a teacher, first of a common village school, and then of theology and general science in a convent. Occasionally he was permitted to deliver public lectures. His text-book in the instruction of the monks, was the theological treatise of St. Anthony of Padua, translated into Arabic; of which he made an abridgment, that is still used among the Maronites.

From about the year 1820 to 1824, Asaad was successively in the employ of the Maronite bishop of Beirût, and of several Arab chiefs. These frequent changes were apparently not for his advantage.

He next made application in person to his old college instructor, who had been elevated to the Patriarchal chair. His holiness gave him a cool reception, and reproached him for having preferred the service of sheikhs and princes to that of his bishop. Yet so valuable were his services, that he remained a while with the Patriarch, copying, illustrating, and arranging certain important documents of the Patriarchate, and making out from them a convenient code of church-laws for the Maronite nation, which has since been adopted for general use. But for some reason Asaad felt himself unwelcome, and returned home dissatisfied.

At this time the Maronite priesthood began to be alarmed by the distribution of the Scriptures, and the spread of Protestantism. The Patriarch issued a proclamation against the missionaries, and they replied. Asaad set himself to answer their reply. It was in this connection that his name first became known to the missionaries, to whom he was reported as a man of talent and high education. The dignitaries of the church did not see fit to allow his essay to be published.

In March, 1825, a well-dressed young man, of easy manners and sedate countenance, came to Beirût and asked to be employed by the mission as a teacher of Arabic. As soon as he gave his name, he was recognized as the man who was to have answered their reply to the Patriarch. He took no pains to conceal his agency in the matter, and even frankly begged the liberty of examining the original book, containing one of the most important quotations in the reply by the mission.

There was then no special need of another teacher; and though his very gentlemanly appearance and apparent frankness, and his good sense pleaded in his favor, it was thought prudent to decline his proposal. Little did those excellent brethren think, as this young man turned to go away, how soon they would welcome him to their hearts and homes, and how many thousands of Christian people, even across the ocean, would thrill in sympathy with his sufferings as a martyr for Christ.

Providence so ordered it, that Mr. King arrived from Jerusalem just in time to secure the services of Asaad before he went elsewhere. He was for several weeks Mr. King's instructor in Syriac. The two were well met, and in their frequent discussions, on the differences between the doctrines of the Gospel and those of the Papacy, Mr. King found him one of the most intelligent and skillful reasoners in all the mountains. He was shrewd, sensible, and inquisitive, candid and self-possessed, and was always as ready to hear as to speak. His age was then twenty-nine. There is no good reason to believe that Asaad was actuated, at this time, by higher than worldly motives.

At the close of his connection with Mr. King, he made another effort to secure employment from his Patriarch. Not succeeding, he became Arabic teacher to Mr. Fisk; at the same time assisting Mr. King, then about leaving the country, in preparing his celebrated "Farewell Letter" to his Arab friends. After having put this into neat Arabic style, he made a large number of copies, to be sent to different parts of the country.

On the day of Mr. King's departure from Beirût, Asaad, at the request of the mission, commenced an Arabic grammar-school for native boys. His leisure hours were devoted to composing a refutation of the doctrines contained in Mr. King's "Farewell Letter." This is his own account: "When I was copying the first rough draught of my reply, and had arrived at the last of the reasons, which, he said, prevented his becoming a member of the Roman Catholic Church; namely, their teaching it to be wrong for the commom people to possess or to read the Word of God, I observed that the writer brought a proof against the doctrine from the prophet Isaiah; namely, that if they spoke not according to the law and to the testimony, it was because there was no light in them.

"While I was endeavoring to explain this passage according to the views of the Roman Catholic Church, with no other object than the praise of men and other worldly motives, I chanced to read the twenty-ninth chapter of Isaiah from the fifteenth verse to the end. I read and was afraid. I meditated upon the chapter a long while, and feared that I was doing what I did with a motive far different from the only proper one,—the glory and pleasure of God. I therefore threw my paper by without finishing the copy, and applied myself to the reading of Isaiah.

"I had wished to find in the prophet some plain and incontrovertible proofs of the Messiahship of Christ, to use against Moslems and Jews. While thus searching, I found various passages that would bear an explanation according to my views, and read on till I came to the fifty-second chapter, and fourteenth verse, and onward to the end of the next chapter.

"On finding this testimony, my heart rejoiced and was exceeding glad, for it removed many dark doubts from my own mind. From that time, my desire to read the New Testament was greatly increased, that I might discover the best means of acting according to the doctrines of Jesus. I endeavored to divest myself of all selfish bias, and loved more and more to inquire into religious subjects. I saw, as I still see, many doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church, that I could not believe, and which I found opposed to the truths of the Gospel, and I wished much to find some of her best teachers to explain them to me, that I might see how they proved them from the Holy Scriptures. As I was reading an appendix to a Bible printed at Rome by the Propaganda, and searching out the passages referred to for proving the duty of worshipping saints, and the like, I found that these proofs failed altogether of establishing these doctrines, and that to infer them from such Scripture texts was even ridiculous. Among other things, I found in this appendix the very horrible Neronian doctrine, 'that it is our duty to destroy heretics.' Now every one knows, that whoever does not believe that the Pope is infallible, is, in the Pope's estimation, a heretic. And this doctrine is not merely that it is allowable to kill heretics, but that we are in duty bound to do it.

"From this I was the more established in my convictions against the doctrines of the Papacy, and saw that they were the doctrines of the ravenous beast, and not of the gentle lamb. After I had read this, I asked one of the priests in Beirût about this doctrine, and he assured me that it was even as I had read. I then wished to go even to some distant country, that I might find a Roman Catholic sufficiently learned to prove the doctrine above alluded to."

Receiving two letters from the Patriarch, requiring him to leave the missionaries on pain of the greater excommunication, and promising to provide him a situation, he went to his friends at Hadet. But his thoughts were drawn to the subject of religion, and finding nothing in which he could take delight, he returned to Beirût, and engaged himself to Mr. Bird for a year. This was in December, 1825. For greater security, a consular protection was now obtained for him from Mr. Abbott, which ensured him, while in the employ of the mission, all the liberty and safety of an English resident. There was no American Consul in the country at that time. He now applied himself to searching the Scriptures, and discussing religious doctrines. Discarding all unwritten traditions, the Apocryphal books, and all implied dependence on the fathers and councils, he found himself standing, in respect to his rule of faith, on Protestant ground.

With all his strong points of character, Asaad had the constitutional weakness of being artless and confiding. In January, 1826, the Patriarch sent his own brother, as a special messenger, inviting Asaad to an interview, and making him flattering promises. The consultation with the priest was private, but it soon appeared, that Asaad was disposed to comply with the patriarchal invitation. It was suggested to him, that the Patriarch was meditating evil against him; but his reply was that he had little fear of it, that the Maronites were not accustomed to take life, or to imprison men, on account of religion. So confident was he that good would result from the visit, that the brethren in the mission ceased to urge their objections. On reaching the Patriarch's convent, he thus wrote:—

"I am now at the convent of Alma, and God be thanked, I arrived in good health. As yet, however, I have not seen his blessedness.

"I pray God, the Father, and his only Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, that He will establish me in his love, and that I may never exchange it for any created thing; that neither death, nor life, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor riches, nor honor, nor dignity, nor office, nor anything in creation, shall separate me from this love. I beg you to pray to God for me, which request I make, also, to all the believers."

Several weeks brought no farther direct intelligence, and there were conflicting reports, which awakened apprehension as to his safety. In the latter part of February, a messenger was sent to obtain accurate knowledge of his situation. The man saw him at the convent of Alma, and had a short private interview. Asaad said, that three things were before him; either to be regarded as mad, or to commit sin, or to offer up his life; but he was ready, he said, to go to prison, or to death. He was engaged in daily controversy with the Patriarch, the Bishop, and others. The main topics on which he insisted, were the necessity of a spiritual religion in distinction from mere forms, the sufficiency of Scripture, and the absurdity of holding the Pope to be infallible. The Patriarch was highly displeased with these bold sentiments, and gave utterance to cruel threats, though at other times offering promotion and money.

Asaad objected to the plan of rescuing him by consular authority, as it might endanger his life. He thought it best to await some providential opening for his escape. One soon occurred. After a week, he left the convent at midnight. The mountain paths were narrow, stony, and crooked, and he often found himself astray, stumbling over rocks and hedges, wading in brooks, or miring in mud. Reaching the sea-shore, he found a shelter under which he rested for a while, and then walked on to Beirût, where he was received most joyfully. The Patriarch and his train were engaged in morning prayers when Asaad's escape was announced. There was great excitement. One man among them, who had sympathized with Asaad, ventured to speak out in his justification. "You had reason," he said, "to expect nothing else. Why should he stay with you here? What had he here to do? What had he to enjoy? Books he had none; friendly society none; conversation against religion abundant; insults upon his opinions and feelings abundant. Why should he not leave you?" Messengers were sent in quest of him in every direction, but in vain.

Asaad's written account of his experiences during his absence on the mountains, is very interesting, but there is not room for even an abridgment of it.1 A few of the incidents may be noted. The chief object of the Patriarch was to induce him to say, that his faith was like that of the Romish Church. This he declined doing, as it would be a falsehood. The Patriarch offered to absolve him from the sin of falsehood, to which Asaad replied, "What the law of nature condemns, no man can make lawful." Accompanied by a priest, he visited his own college of Ain Warka, but gained no light; and the same was true of his visit to the superior of the convent of Bzummár, who desired to see him. It is a suggestive fact, that the infallibility of the Pope, even then, was everywhere a controverted point between him and the priesthood. The weakness of the reasoning on the papal side was everywhere so apparent to him, as greatly to strengthen his evangelical faith. In one of his interviews with the Patriarch he said: "I would ask of you the favor to send from your priests two faithful men to preach the Gospel through the country; and I am ready, if necessary, to sell all I possess and give it towards their wages." He afterwards offered to go himself and preach the Gospel. But neither of these proposals was accepted.

1 See Missionary Herald for 1827, pp. 71-76, 97-101.

He was at length deprived of his books, and severely threatened by the Patriarch. "Fearing," he says, "that I should be found among the fearful (Rev. xxi. 8), I turned, and said to him, 'I will hold fast the religion of Jesus Christ, and I am ready, for the sake of it, to shed my blood; and though you should all become infidels, yet will not I;' and so left the room."

Asaad says, in his narrative: "A friend told me, that the Patriarch wondered how I should pretend that I held to the Christian religion, and still converse in such abusive terms against it. And I also wondered, after he saw this, that he should not be willing so much as to ask me, in mildness and forbearance, for what reasons I was unwilling to receive the doctrines of the Pope, or to say, that I believed as he did. But, so far from this, he laid every person, and even his own brother under excommunication, should they presume to dispute or converse with me on the subject of religion. Entirely bereft of books, and shut out from all persons who might instruct me, from what quarter could I get the evidence necessary to persuade me to accept the Patriarch's opinions?

"Another cause I had of wonder was, that not one of all with whom I conversed, when he thought me heretical, advised me to use the only means of becoming strong in the faith, namely, prayer to God Most High, and searching his Holy Word, which a child may understand. I wondered, too, that they should ridicule and report me abroad as insane, and after all this, be afraid to engage in a dispute with the madman, lest he should turn them away from the truth."

As the Patriarch, and the Bishop of Beirût, whose diocese included Hadet, were determined to shut him out from the people, and even threatened his life, Asaad resolved on escaping to Beirût, which he accomplished, as already stated, on the morning of Thursday, March 2, 1826.

Asaad's statement was forthwith copied and sent in various directions through the mountains, and afterwards it had a much wider circulation in a printed form.

The Patriarch's first effort to recapture the fugitive, was by means of a Turkish sheriff, and it failed. On the following Monday, an uncle and the two elder brothers of Asaad came to see what they could do; and they were followed by another brother, and then by the mother and her youngest son. The older brothers were loud and violent in their denunciations. All these the persecuted young Christian met with a calm firmness, but he was at one time almost overcome by the distress of his mother. She was at length pacified by the declarations, that he was not a follower of the English, that he derived not his creed from them, that he believed in the Trinity, that Jesus was God, and that Mary was his mother. Phares, the youngest brother, consented to receive a New Testament, and was evidently affected and softened by the interview.

On the 16th of March, Asaad received a kind and fatherly epistle from the Patriarch, begging him to return home, and relieve the anxieties of his mother and family, and giving him full assurance, that he need not fear being interfered with in his freedom. He was thus approached on his weak side. Too confiding, he really believed this insidious letter, and that he might now go home and live there with his religion unshackled. He wrote a favorable reply. The family was doubtless urged to make sure of the victim before anything occurred to change his mind, and the very next day four of his relations, including Phares, came to escort him to Hadet. The missionaries all believed it perilous, and so he thought himself, but he believed, also, that there was now a door opened for him prudently to preach the Gospel. At Beirût, he said, he could only use his pen, "but who is there in this country," he asked, "that reads?" One of the sisters of the mission said, as she took him by the hand, that she expected never to see him again in this world. He smiled at what he regarded her extravagant apprehension, returned some quiet answer, and proceeded on his way, never to return.

Asaad was treated harshly by his older brothers, and had reason to regard his life as imperiled: "I am in a sort of imprisonment," he said, "enemies within, and enemies without," Towards the last of March, twenty or more of his relations assembled, to take him to the Patriarch by force. He expostulated with Tannûs, the eldest of the family except one, as the chief manager in the affair, and besought him to desist from a step so inconsistent with their fraternal relations. The unnatural brother turned from him in cold indifference, which so affected Asaad that he went aside, and prayed and wept.

In the evening, he at one time addressed the whole assembled company in this manner: "If I had not read the Gospel, I should have been astonished at this movement of yours; but now I see through it all. It is just what the Gospel has told me to expect; 'The brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and a man's foes shall be they of his own household.' Here you see it is just so. You have assembled together here to fulfill this prophecy of the Gospel. What have I done against you? What is my crime, that it should have called together such an assemblage? Be it that I take the blessed Bible as my only guide to heaven, does that injure you? Is it a crime that renders me worthy of being taken as a malefactor, and sent into confinement?"

Surrounded, as he was, by men insensible to pity, the mother's heart was deeply moved seeing him arrested and borne away as if he had been a murderer. She wept, and Asaad sympathized with her, and turned his back on the home of his childhood, weeping and praying aloud.

He was first taken to the convent of Alma, and then to Canobeen. That convent, where he was destined to wear out the miserable remainder of his life, was in one of the wildest and least accessible recesses of Lebanon.

More than a mouth passed without intelligence, when the Mission received reliable information, that Asaad was in prison, and in chains, and that he was beaten a certain number of stripes daily. A cousin was afterwards permitted to visit him, and reported that he found him sitting on the bare floor, his bed having been taken from him, with a heavy chain around his neck, the other end of which was fastened to the wall. He had also been deprived of all his books and writing utensils. Fruitless efforts were made to effect his deliverance, and his family at last relented, and joined in the efforts. The mother accompanied one of the older sons to Canobeen, and found him in chains, which she had not been willing to believe till she saw it for herself. So decided were the two younger brothers in their movements on his behalf, that they had to consult their own safety in flight. Once they almost succeeded. Asaad himself, under the pressure of his sufferings, made several attempts to flee, but not knowing the way, he was easily apprehended, and the only effect was an aggravation of his misery. A priest gives the following account of his treatment, after one of these failures. "On his arrival at the convent, the Patriarch gave immediate orders for his punishment; and they fell upon him with reproaches, caning him, and smiting him with their hands; yet as often as they struck him on one cheek, he turned to them the other. 'This,' said he, 'is a joyful day to me. My blessed Lord and Master has said, Bless them that curse you; and if they strike you on the right cheek, turn to them the other also. This I have been enabled to do; and I am ready to suffer even more than this for Him who was beaten, and spit upon, and led as a sheep to the slaughter on our account.' When they heard this, they fell to beating him anew, saying, 'Have we need of your preaching, you deceiver? Of what avail are such pretensions as yours, who are in the broad road to perdition?' He replied, 'He that believeth that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, hath eternal life.' 'Ah,' said they, 'this is the way you are blinded. Your salvation is by faith alone in Christ; thus you cast contempt on his mother, and on his saints. You believe not in the presence of his holy body on the earth.' And they threw him on the ground, and overwhelmed him with the multitude of their blows."

For three successive days he was subjected to the bastinado, by order of the Patriarch. Remaining firm to his belief, he was again put in chains, the door barred upon him, and his food given him in short allowance. Compassionate persons interceded, and his condition was alleviated for a time, but no one was allowed to converse with him. After some days, aided, it is supposed, by relatives, he again fled from the convent, but was arrested by soldiers sent out in search of him by the Emeer Abdallah, and delivered to the Patriarch. "On his arrival," says a priest who was with him at Canobeen, "he was loaded with chains, cast into a dark, filthy room, and bastinadoed every day for eight days, sometimes fainting under the operation, until he was near death. He was then left in his misery, his bed a thin flag mat, his covering his common clothes. The door of his prison was filled up with stones and mortar, and his food was six thin cakes of bread a day, and a cup of water."

To this dungeon there was no access or outlet whatever except a small loop-hole, through which they passed him his food. Here he lay several days, and its ever-increasing loathsomeness need not be described. No wonder he cried: "Love ye the Lord Jesus Christ according as He hath loved us, and given himself to die for us. Think of me, O ye that pass by; have pity upon me, and deliver me from these sufferings."

A certain priest, who had been a former friend of Asaad, was touched with compassion, and by perseverance succeeded in once more opening his prison doors, and taking off his chains. But he also became suspected in consequence of his kindness to Asaad, and it is not known how long the sufferer was allowed this partial freedom. One of his brothers visited him in 1828, and found him inclosed within four solid stone walls, as in a sepulchre "full of all uncleanness." In 1829, there appears not to have been any mitigation of his sufferings. For three years or more, the priestly despot had him under his heel, and inflicted upon him the greatest amount of suffering compatible with the continuance of life.

His death is supposed to have occurred in October, 1830. Public opinion was divided as to the cause and manner of it. The Patriarch said it was by fever. There is the same uncertainty as to the manner of his burial. But though thrown down into the ravine and covered with stones, as was alleged, his dust will ever be precious in the eyes of the Lord.

Asaad maintained his Christian profession to the last, and he must ever have an honorable place among the Christian martyrs of modern times.

Soon after the capture of Acre by Ibrahim Pasha, in 1832, Mr. Tod, an English merchant, accompanied by Wortabet, obtained an audience with him, and made known the case of Asaad. The Pasha directed the Emir Beshir to furnish ten soldiers to Mr. Tod, with authority to search the convent of Canobeen by force, if necessary. He was received by the Patriarch and priests of the convent with dismay. They asserted that Asaad had died two years before, pointed out his grave, and offered to open it. The convent was thoroughly searched, but he was not found, and Mr. Tod was convinced that he was really dead.1

1 Missionary Herald for 1833, pp. 51-57.

When it is considered how severely and in how many ways Asaad was tried, his faith and constancy appear admirable. His pride of intellect and authorship, and his reputation for consistency, were opposed, at the outset, to any change in his religious opinions. Then all his reverence for his ecclesiastical superiors and his former tutors, some of whom were naturally mild in their tempers, and his previous habits of thought, withstood his yielding to the convictions of conscience and the authority of Scripture. Next, the anathemas of the Church, the tears of a mother appalled by the infamy of having an apostate son, the furious menaces of brothers, and the bitter hatred of masses stirred up by an influential priesthood, combined to hold him back from the truth. All these things were preparatory to being seized by indignant relatives, chained to his prison walls, deprived of the New Testament and other books, and of every means of recreation, refused even those bodily comforts which nature renders indispensable; in such a forlorn condition, exposed to the insults of a bigoted populace and the revilings of a tyrannical priesthood, beaten till his body became a mass of disease, and held in this variety of grief for years, without one ray of hope, save through the portals of the tomb, who expected that he would endure steadfastly to the end?

On the other hand, if he would only recant, promotion awaited him, and wealth, indeed everything that could be offered to prevent a dreaded defection. How many are there, with all our knowledge and strength of religious principle, who, in his situation, would like him be faithful unto death?