In Constantinople, Alexandria, Cairo, Beirut, and Pesth there are also
well-appointed hospitals, some of them of spacious dimensions, and all
having excellent medical service and nursing that cannot be surpassed.

The orphanage and school at Beirut had a sad foundation. In 1860 came
the terrible news of the massacre of the Maronite Christians by the
Druses in the Lebanon mountains.

Kaiserswerth deaconesses were immediately sent out, and were among the
first to arrive to join the resident Europeans and Americans in caring
for the sufferers. Numbers of children were left fatherless and
motherless, and the sisters started the orphanage at Beirut to shelter
them. When its twenty-fifth anniversary was celebrated in 1885 over
eight hundred girls had received a home and education here, and had gone
forth to eastern homes, carrying with them the light and knowledge of
Christian faith into the dark, degraded social life of the Orient.[34]

From the two orphanages at Beirut and Jerusalem over forty have gone out
as teachers in girls' schools in Palestine and Syria. Twelve others have
become deaconesses, and are ministering in this capacity to their own
countrymen and to foreigners in eastern hospitals.[35]

In Smyrna there is also a girls' school, that was opened at the request
of some wealthy Protestants residing there. The school is not so needed
as formerly, since the government has started girls' high schools, but
it is still maintained, and aids in bringing new life into the hopeless
society of the East. There is also an orphanage at Smyrna, where some
girls of the poorer classes were gathered after the ravages of the
cholera had left them without parents or homes.

The eastern deaconesses have also their Salem. Just above the little
village of Areya, in the Lebanon, on the summit of a hill overlooking
the Mediterranean, stands the house of retreat, where, during the summer
months, the more than forty sisters stationed in Beirut, Alexandria,
Cairo, and Jerusalem can take refuge in seasons of overpowering heat.

The deaconess who superintends the house has a school for the native
children of the village, which is taught by one of the girls educated at
the Beirut orphanage.

Prosperous girls' schools are also in existence at Bucharest, and at
Florence, Italy. The Italian school was started in 1860 with four girls
in the upper floor of a rented house. It now possesses a beautiful house
and grounds of its own, and had one