with politics. If he wanted to
become a Christian, he must take up his cross and follow Christ. He said
that was just what he wanted to do, only he wished to benefit the cause
by bringing others to follow Him. He seemed very earnest, but there was
something dark and mysterious in his ways, and we were afraid of him.
Now the Arabs have a proverb, "No tree is cut down but by _one of its
own limbs_," _i.e._ the axe handle, and we thought a native only could
understand a native, so we took the famous convert around to see Yanni.
He went into Yanni's office, and Mr. L. and myself sat out in the
garden under the orange trees. After a few minutes Yanni called out,
"Come in, be preferred, your excellencies! I have found it all out. I
understand the case." We went in and climbed up upon the platform, next
the desk in the office. The Maronite candidate for the church sat
smiling, as if he thought he would now be received at once. Yanni went
on, "I understand the case exactly. This man is a son of a Sheikh in
Dunniyeh. He is in a deadly quarrel with his father and brothers about
the property, and says that if we will give him the protection of the
American Consulate, he will go home, kill his father and brothers, seize
all the property, and then come down and join the church, and live in
Tripoli!" We were astounded, but the brutal fellow turned to us and
said, "yes, and I will then make all the village Protestants, and if I
fail, then cut my head off!" We told him that if he did anything of that
kind, we would try to get him hung, and the American Consulate would
have nothing to do with him. "Very well," said he, "I have made you a
_fair offer_, and if you don't accept it, I have nothing more to say."
We rebuked him sharply, and gave him a sermon which he did not relish,
for he said he was in haste, and bade us a most polite good morning. He
was what I should call an Adullamite.

A Greek priest in the village of Barbara once took me aside, to a
retired place behind his house, and told me that he had a profound
secret to tell me. He wished to become a Protestant and make the whole
village Protestant, but on one condition, that I would get him a hat, a
coat, and pantaloons, put a flag-staff on his house, and have him
appointed American Consul. I told him the matter of the hat, coat and
pantaloons he could attend to at but slight expense, but I had no right
to make Consuls and erect flagstaffs. Then he said he could not become
Protes