agent was informed, that the Pasha of Damascus had been
instructed to protect the Protestants. The British Ambassador
afterwards made inquiries, and received a copy of the document,
which proved satisfactory. The Pasha sent a strong order to the Emir
at Hasbeiya in 1848, for their protection; and he, though extremely
reluctant to obey, sent word to the Protestants, that they might
meet and worship together as Protestants, and he publicly forbade
all parties to interfere with them.

When the Greek Patriarch saw that the Turkish government had
recognized the principle of toleration, and acknowledged the
Protestants as a Christian sect, he resolved to try the effect of a
bull of excommunication. The form of these missives is similar in
the Latin and the Oriental Churches, and the reader will recall some
of the specimens already given.1 The consequence at Hasbeiya, for a
time, was that no Protestant could buy, sell, or transact any
business, except with his fellow Protestants, and many of the poorer
ones were at once thrown out of productive employment, and cut off
from the means of living. They were compelled to pay their debts,
but could collect nothing due to them, and no redress could they get
from the Governor. Many suffered for the necessaries of life. But
the faith of the brethren, with a single exception, did not fail.
The Druzes and other sects remonstrated against the whole
proceeding, and the rigor of the excommunication began at length to
fail, and in December it had lost its force.

1 See in the case of Dr. King, chapter xvii.; and Mr. Bird, chapter
iii.

The most important event in the year 1848, was the formation of a
purely native church at Beirut. Hitherto the native converts had
joined the mission church, formed at an early period of the mission,
which was composed mostly of the missionaries and their families.
Circumstances had made it seem inexpedient, hitherto, to form a
church exclusively of native converts. Whether the brethren were
right in this, it is not needful now to inquire. The new church
originated in the best manner. At the annual meeting of the mission,
a petition was presented from the native Protestants at Beirut to
the American missionaries, asking that they might be organized into
a church, according to certain principles and rules embodied in
their petition. The whole originated with the native brethren. The
principles proposed for the constitution and discipline of the
church were