e every day, and I do not love to
think of suspending it even for a few weeks during the hot season. Day
before yesterday a wealthy Jewish lady came with her two daughters to
the school, and begged me to take the youngest as a scholar."

July 19. "At our Sabbath School to-day were _twenty-eight_ scholars,
twenty-one girls and seven boys."

July 31. "To-day I closed my school for the month of August by the
distribution of rewards to _thirty little girls_. The American and
English Consuls and a few Arab friends were present, and expressed much
pleasure at the sight of so many young natives in their clean dress. A
few of the more educated scholars read a little in the New Testament."

August 8. "On Saturday I closed my school for the month of August. It
was increasing every day in numbers and I would gladly have continued
it. Last Sabbath we had at the Sabbath School forty-six scholars, a
_fourth of whom were Moslems_."

September 29. "Yesterday I commenced my school again with twenty
scholars; which, for the first day, was a good number. Mrs. Whiting has
ten little Moslem girls in Jerusalem, and the promise of more."

December 14. "On Saturday, our native female prayer-meeting consisted of
twenty, besides two children. Fourteen were Arabs, more than were ever
present before. We met in the girls' school room, where we intend in
future to assemble. We sung part of a psalm, as we have begun to teach
music in our school. We find the children quite as capable of forming
musical sounds as those in our own country; but alas, _we have no psalms
or hymns adapted to their capacities_. The Arabic cannot be simplified
like the English, without doing violence to Arab taste; at least such
is the opinion now. What changes may be wrought in the language, we
cannot tell. Of this obstacle in the instruction of the young here, you
have not perhaps thought. It is a painful thought to us, that
_children's literature_, if I may so term it, is _incompatible with the
genius of this language_: of course, infant school lessons must be
bereft of many of their attractions."

It may be interesting to know whether present missionary experience
differs from that of Mrs. Smith and her husband in 1835, with regard to
children's literature in the Arabic language.

In 1858, Mr. Ford prepared, with the aid of Mr. Bistany, (the husband of
"Raheel," Mrs. Smith's adopted child,) a series of children's Scripture
Tracts in simple and yet perfectly correct