I
please; nor do I please _myself_. What shall I do?"

It was not altogether unpleasant to hear these professions of diffidence
in himself, and I endeavoured to turn off his attention from all other
sources of consolation than that of the "Comforter, which is the Holy
Ghost."

Asaad observed, that whatever might be said, and whatever might be true,
of our _object_, in coming to this country he saw that the _doctrines_
we taught were according to truth, and he was more than ever determined
to hold to them.

Asaad says, that wherever he goes, and to whomsoever he addresses
himself on the subject of religion, people say, "Ah, it is very well for
you to go about and talk in this manner: you have, no doubt, been well
paid for it all." These insinuations wear upon his spirit, and he
sometimes says, "O that I were in some distant land, where nobody had
ever known me, and I knew nobody, that I might be able to fasten men's
attention to the truth, without the possibility of their flying off to
these horrid suspicions."

He wishes also to have another interview with the patriarch, that he may
tell him his whole heart, and see what he will say. The patriarch is
not, he says, of a bad disposition by nature, and perhaps if he could be
persuaded that he was neither acting from revenge nor from love of
money, but simply from a conviction of the truth, he would be softened
in his feelings, and something might be done with him to the benefit of
religion. He desired, among other things, to propose, that an edition of
the New Testament should be printed under the patriarch's inspection at
Schooair, the expense of which, (if he chose) should be borne by the
English.[F]

_Visits the Patriarch._

6. For some time, we had been looking daily for a regular
excommunication to be published by the patriarch's order against Asaad;
but instead of this, a letter arrived from his holiness to-day, brought
by his own brother, priest Nicholas, containing his apostolic blessing,
inviting him to an interview, and promising him a situation in some
office. The messenger said, that the patriarch, his brother, had heard
that the English had given Asaad 40 purses, (2000 dollars) to unite him
with them, and that he had thought of giving Asaad the same sum, that no
obstacle might remain to his leaving them. "This money," said he, "with
which the English print books, and hire men into their service is but
the pelf of the man of sin, and could you but be