buy a
Testament?" asked the bookseller. "I did buy an Engeel Mushekkel," (a
voweled Testament.) "Be careful of it then," said Khalil, "for the
edition is exhausted, and you cannot get another for months." "It is too
late to be careful now, for the book _has been burned_." "Burned? by
whom?" "By the Jesuits, who gathered a large pile and burned them." God
grant that as Tyndale's English New Testament, first printed in 1527 was
only spread the more widely for the attempts of the Papal Bishop of
London to burn it, so the Arabic Bible may receive a new impulse from
the similarly inspired efforts of the Bishop's successors!

CHAPTER IX.

LUCIYA SHEKKUR.

The work done for Christ and for Syrian girls in the families of
Missionaries in Syria, may well compare with that done in the
established institutions of learning. Mrs. Whiting was not alone in the
work of training native Arab girls in her own home. The same work had
been done by other Missionaries before her, and has been carried on with
no little success by Mrs. Bird, Mrs. Calhoun and others, up to the
present time.

It is an interesting sight to see the Thursday afternoon Women's meeting
in the house of Mrs. Calhoun in Abeih, and to know that a large part of
that company of bright, intelligent and tidily dressed young native
women, who listen so intently to the Bible lesson, and join so heartily
in singing the sweet songs of Zion, were trained up either in her own
family, or under her own especial influence. By means of her own example
in the training of her children, she has taught the women of Abeih, and
through them multitudes of women in other villages, the true Christian
modes of family government and discipline, and introduced to their
notice and practice many of those little conveniences and habits in the
training of children, whose influence will be felt for many
generations.

When Mr. and Mrs. Bird removed to Deir el Komr in 1855, they not only
opened a large school for the education of girls, with Sada Haleby, one
of Dr. De Forest's pupils, as teacher, but received into their own
family three young girls, named Luciya, Sikkar and Zihry, all of whom
entered upon spheres of usefulness. Zihry became a teacher, in Deir el
Komr, and has continued to teach until the present time. She was at one
time connected with the Beirut Female Seminary, and is now teaching in
the Institution of Mrs. Shrimpton, under the auspices of the British
Syrian Schools.

L