ravel by land and sea for years, in trying to find
her, and when at length he found her, so forlorn and wretched and
degraded, yet loved her still because she was _his daughter_, do you not
think that Jesus loves us even more? We were lost and wretched and
forlorn. A worse being than Bedawin gypsies has put his mark on our
hearts and our natures. We have wandered far, far away. We have served
the world, and forgotten our dear Heavenly Father. We have even refused
to receive Him when he has come near us. Yet Jesus came to seek and to
save us. And when he found us so degraded and sinful and disfigured, He
loved us still, because we are His own children. Don't you think that
the little lost Damascene girl was thankful when she reached her home,
and was loved and kindly treated by father and mother and relatives and
friends? And ought we not to be very thankful when Jesus brings us
home, and calls us "dear children" and opens the gate of heaven to us?

This story of the lost Damascene child calls to my mind a little song
which the Maronite women in Lebanon sing to their babies as a lullaby.
The story is that a Prince's daughter was stolen by the Bedawin Arabs,
and carried to their camp. She grew up and was married to a Bedawin
Sheikh and had a little son. One day a party of muleteers came to the
camp selling grapes, and she recognized them as from her own village.
She did not dare speak to them, so she began to sing a lullaby to her
baby, and motioned to the grape-sellers to come near, and when the
Bedawin were not listening, she would sing them her story in the same
tone as the lullaby.

THE LULLABY.

Sleep, baby sleep! a sleep so sweet and mild,
Sleep, my Arab boy, my little Bedawin child!
_Aside to the } Once I was a happy girl,
grape-sellers_ } The Prince Abdullah's daughter.
Playing with the village maids,
Bringing wood and water.
Suddenly the Bedawin
Carried me away;
Clothed me in the Aba robe
And here they make me stay.
Sleep, baby sleep! a sleep so sweet and mild,
Sleep, my Arab boy, my little Bedawin child!
_Aside_ Ye sellers of grapes hear what I say.
I had dressed in satin rich and gay.
They took my costly robes away,
And dressed m