s, won the right to schools. The
prospects were at that time very hopeful. The country never seemed
more open to evangelical labors. For a year there had been no
opposition to the schools, except two or three among the Druzes. The
press was in operation without censorship, sending forth thousands
of copies each year, and there was an increasing demand for books.
The mission bookstore, in the centre of the town, was visited by all
classes, including very many high officers of government, and even
by the Seraskier himself, and there was no complaint against it. No
one had been persecuted for a long time for professing the religion
of the Bible, and Protestantism seemed to have gained a tacit
toleration.

In reply to the objection, that the mission had been long
established, and yet the conversions had been very few, Mr. Smith
wrote thus: "I ask, what labor? Has it, after all, been so
disproportioned to the results? The instrumentality highest on the
scale of efficiency for the conversion of souls in every country, is
oral instruction, especially formal preaching. Now how much of this
has there been in Syria? Before Mr. Bird could engage in it, Mr.
Fisk was called away by death. I had hardly been preaching in Arabic
a year, when Mr. Bird left for America. Mr. Thomson had but just
preached his first sermon when my family was broken up, and I became
a wanderer. Since then, we have both been here together but a few
months at a time, until the last year. And these are all the Arabic
preachers we have had at our station. In the mean time we have all
been away, once for nearly two years at Malta, and again for a while
at Cyprus. And when here, so many other cares have we had, that a
single sermon on the Sabbath has been, for most of the time, all the
formal preaching that has been done. Add to this a weekly
prayermeeting for six or seven months in the year."

Again he says: "The labor of years has been accomplished in gaining
experience, forming favorable acquaintances, doing away with
prejudice, disseminating evangelical truth, the successful
commencement of printing operations, etc. All this labor is in the
language of a vast nation of Mohammedans, the sacred language of the
whole sect, the language of their prophet. And when their power
falls, it will be so much done towards their conversion. Instead of
being alarmed and discouraged by the revolutions that are occurring
around me, I am interested in them as forerunners of