r his own inspection. He seems a man unusually
conscientious for an Arab, unusually open to conviction in argument, and
has promised to do his utmost to save Asaad from further abuse, and in
the end to deliver him from his state of confinement. Thus, while all
our own efforts have failed of essentially benefitting the poor man, the
Lord, without any of our instrumentality, has raised up a friend from
the midst of his persecutors, who has already saved him from impending
death, and we hope and pray, will soon open the way for his complete
deliverance from this Syrian Inquisition."

_Brief history of Asaad Esh Shidiak, from the time of his being betrayed
into the hands of the Maronite Patriarch, in the spring of 1826._

=Translated from the Arabic of Naami Latoof.=

When the relatives of Asaad brought him to the convent of Alma in the
district of Kesroan, and gave him up to the patriarch, the latter began
by way of flattery to promise him all the worldly advantages he could
bestow; but withal demanding that he should put away all the heretical
notions, and all the corrupt knowledge, which the Bible-men, those
enemies of the pope, had taught him. He replied, "These things which you
hold out to me, are to me of no value. I no longer trouble myself about
them, for they are vain and of short duration. Every christian is bound
to think, and labour, and strive to be accounted worthy to hear that
blessed welcome, 'Come ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom
prepared for you from the foundation of the world.' As to rejecting from
my mind those things which I have learned from the Bible-men, I have to
say, that, for many years, I had read, occasionally, the holy
scriptures, which are able to make us wise unto salvation, but could not
live according to them; for I was given to the indulgence of all wicked
passions: but since my acquaintance with these men, I see myself,
through the merits of my Saviour, possessed of a new heart, though it is
not yet, I confess, in all respects such as I could wish it to be."

During the few days they remained in the Kesroan, the patriarch shewed
him every attention, and suffered no one to oppose his opinions saying,
"The protestants, by the great sums they have given him, have blinded
his eyes, and inclined him to join them, and diffuse their poisonous
sentiments, so that he cannot, at once, be brought to leave them. Let
him alone for the present, do nothing to oppose or to offend him, un