y house
without my permission, and that if the relatives of Asaad did not cease
from their threats, I should feel myself bound to shut them out of it."

After a long conversation, at the end of which he found Asaad as
inflexible as ever, he rose abruptly, and was going out without a
compliment, when Asaad started up, and asked, "Well, what do you
conclude to do? Do you really intend to send some assassin to take my
life in my room?" The youth, without deigning to look at him, closed the
door in sullen grief, and departed.

Asaad turning to me, said, "I cannot please these people. Whatever I
say, they are sure to be angry. Soft words, or hard words, it makes no
difference to them. They come as if I were under their kingly authority.
They lay hold of my cloak, and say, 'Give me this.' If I say, 'I will
not give it,' they are angry; and if I reason with them with all the
mildness of which I am capable, and say, 'Cannot you be accommodated
elsewhere? Can you not wait upon me in a few days?' &c. they are equally
angry."

_Correspondence with his family._

8. A messenger called this morning with the following note.

"To our brother Asaad Esh Shidiak: May God bless you.--We beg you to
come home to-night, and not wait till Sunday. We have pledged our mother
that you shall come. If you fail to do so, you will trouble us all. Your
brother,

GALED."

To this letter, Asaad sat down, and instantly wrote the following reply:

"To our much honoured and very dear brother Galed: God preserve
him.--Your note has reached us, in which you speak of our coming home
to-night, and say, that if we do not come, we trouble you all.

"Now if we were in some distant land, your longing after us in this
manner might be very proper; but we are near you, and you have been
here, and seen us in all health, and we have seen you. Then quiet our
mother, that we, through the bounty of God, are in perfect health, and
that we have great peace in the Lord Jesus Christ, peace above all that
the world can afford, and abundant joy in the Holy Ghost above all
earthly joy. But as to our coming up this evening, we do not find it
convenient, not even though we had the strongest desire to see our
mother and you.

"I beg you all to love God, and to serve him in our Lord Jesus Christ.
This is of all things the most important; for if we love God, if he but
renew our hearts by the holy Ghost, we s