that great
event."

The political changes have generally been very sudden in Syria. In
April, 1842, Omar Pasha imprisoned the leading Druze sheiks, and
Albanian soldiers were arriving daily, as if to disarm the Druzes.
And so it proved. The Turks decided to take the matter into their
own hands. An army was marched into Lebanon, accompanied by Moslem
sheiks and teachers, and the whole Druze nation was compelled to
appear, outwardly at least, as Moslem.1 The motives of the
government in this were chiefly political, but partly religious.
They wished to be able to draw recruits from this brave people for
the army, which could not be done should they become Protestant
Christians; and also, to retain a strong party in Lebanon, to be
used, as they afterwards were used, against the large nominally
Christian majority of its inhabitants. They expected thus to control
the mountains, and keep down the influence of foreign Christian
powers.

1 These statements are made on the authority of a document received
from the mission in the year 1869.

In this manner were the operations for educating and Christianizing
the Druzes suddenly arrested. In working out their policy, the Turks
necessarily resorted to measures intended to place the Druzes in
bitter antagonism to all the native Christians. In the atrocious
massacre of 1860, which, for the time, threw the Druzes far from all
Christian sympathy, that unfortunate people were used as tools by
the Turks to work out their own policy. Events such as these, are
among the deep mysteries of Providence. Nor is this mystery yet
solved; though, from facts that will appear in the sequel, we shall
see enough to authorize the hope of a renewal at some time, of the
former pleasing relations between the Druzes and Christian
missionaries.

CHAPTER XVI.

SYRIA.

1842-1846.

The mission was strengthened, early in 1842, by the arrival of Dr.
Henry A. DeForest and wife; and suffered a new bereavement in the
death of the second Mrs. Smith, but little more than a year after
her arrival. Some months later, Mr. and Mrs. Sherman retired from
the field, in consequence of failing health. Messrs, Beadle,
Wolcott, and Leander Thompson, and Miss Tilden, also returned home
soon after. Mr. Lanneau rejoined the mission, with his wife, early
in 1843.

The Foreign Secretary and Dr. Hawes, visited the mission in the
early part of 1844, and assisted in a meeting of the missionaries,
which continu