, and no one would mind him. But
where these Institutions are the rottenest existing he will be minded
too well, and reminded, too, of the fate of those who preceded him.

The case of Habib Ish-Shidiak at Kannubin is not yet forgotten. And
Habib, be it known, was only a poor Protestant neophite who took
pleasure in carrying a small copy of the Bible in his hip pocket, and
was just learning to roll his eyes in the pulpit and invoke the
"laud." But Khalid, everybody out-protesting, is such an intractable
pro_test_ant, with, neither Bible in his pocket nor pulpit at his
service. And yet, with a flint on his tongue and a spark in his eyes,
he will make the neophite Habib smile beside him. For the priesthood
in Syria is not, as we have said, a peeled, polished, pulpy affair.
And Khalid's father has been long enough in their employ to learn
somewhat of their methods. Bigotry, cruelty, and tyranny at home,
priestcraft and Jesuitism abroad,--these, O Khalid, you will know
better by force of contact before you end. And you will begin to pine
again for your iron-loined spiritual Mother. Ay, and the scelerate
Jesuit will even make capital of your mass of flowing hair. For in
this country, only the native priests are privileged to be shaggy and
scrubby and still be without suspicion. But we will let Shakib give us
a few not uninteresting details of the matter.

"Not long after we had rejoined our people," he writes, "Khalid comes
to me with a sorry tale. In truth, a fortnight after our arrival in
Baalbek--our civility towards new comers seldom enjoys a longer
lease--the town was alive with rumours and whim-whams about my friend.
And whereso I went, I was not a little annoyed with the tehees and
grunts which his name seemed to invoke. The women often came to his
mother to inquire in particular why he grows his hair and shaves his
mustaches; the men would speak to his father about the change in his
accent and manners; the children teheed and tittered whenever he
passed through the town-square; and all were of one mind that Khalid
was a worthless fellow, who had brought nothing with him from the
Paradise of the New World but his cough and his fleece. Such tattle
and curiosity, however, no matter what degree of savage vulgarity they
reach, are quite harmless. But I felt somewhat uneasy about him, when
I heard the people asking each other, "Why does he not come to Church
like honest folks?" And soon I discovered that my apprehensions w