a religious war, but a desperate struggle for political
ascendency. The Maronite clergy in the Druze part of the mountain
had been rapidly recovering power, and were as rapidly rising in
their opposition to the mission. The result of this war, as
aforetime, was the destruction of their villages and their power;
and the Patriarch sank under the disappointment and died. Moreover
the party in Hasbeiya, which stoned the Protestants and their
teachers, were driven out of the place by the Druzes, and great
numbers of them killed, so that the "Young Men's" party seemed to be
broken to pieces.1

1 There was a special enmity of the Druzes against the Christians of
Hasbeiya. The most celebrated sacred place of the Druzes is on the
top of a hill just above Hasbeiya, called Khulwat el Biyad. In their
revolt against Ibrahim Pasha in 1838, he was aided by the
Christians, and when the Druzes were defeated in a battle near this
place, their sacred place was entered, and several chests of books,
setting forth their tenets, were scattered through the land. The
Christians paid dearly for their trespass. The leader of the Hauran
rebellion became, for a time, the governor of Hasbeiya, and for this
loss imposed exorbitant indemnities on every one, who had been known
to take a book. The consequent enmity between the parties doubtless
had much to do with the events described above.

Abeih, now a missionary station, was inhabited by both Druzes and
Maronites, and the conflict began there on the 9th of May. Our
brethren were all along assured by both parties, that neither they
nor their property would be molested, whichever was victorious. The
Druzes early had the advantage, and the Maronite part of the village
was speedily in flames, and more than three hundred and fifty
Maronites were obliged to take refuge in a strong palace belonging
to one of the Shehab Emirs. About two hundred more, and among them
several of the most obnoxious, found an asylum in the houses of the
missionaries, and in the house of a native helper of the mission,
which, being in the centre of the Maronite quarter, was crowded with
refugees. Mr. Thomson ventured out in the midst of the tumult, and
succeeded in getting a guard of Druzes and Greeks whom he could
trust, placed around this house, and thus the people with their
goods were secured. The palace was in danger of being taken by
storm, and the people within it all massacred; when the leaders of
the Druzes, to avoid