of Christian people, even
across the ocean, would thrill in sympathy with his sufferings as a
martyr for Christ.

Providence so ordered it, that Mr. King arrived from Jerusalem just
in time to secure the services of Asaad before he went elsewhere. He
was for several weeks Mr. King's instructor in Syriac. The two were
well met, and in their frequent discussions, on the differences
between the doctrines of the Gospel and those of the Papacy, Mr.
King found him one of the most intelligent and skillful reasoners in
all the mountains. He was shrewd, sensible, and inquisitive, candid
and self-possessed, and was always as ready to hear as to speak. His
age was then twenty-nine. There is no good reason to believe that
Asaad was actuated, at this time, by higher than worldly motives.

At the close of his connection with Mr. King, he made another effort
to secure employment from his Patriarch. Not succeeding, he became
Arabic teacher to Mr. Fisk; at the same time assisting Mr. King,
then about leaving the country, in preparing his celebrated
"Farewell Letter" to his Arab friends. After having put this into
neat Arabic style, he made a large number of copies, to be sent to
different parts of the country.

On the day of Mr. King's departure from Beirut, Asaad, at the
request of the mission, commenced an Arabic grammar-school for
native boys. His leisure hours were devoted to composing a
refutation of the doctrines contained in Mr. King's "Farewell
Letter." This is his own account: "When I was copying the first
rough draught of my reply, and had arrived at the last of the
reasons, which, he said, prevented his becoming a member of the
Roman Catholic Church; namely, their teaching it to be wrong for the
commom people to possess or to read the Word of God, I observed that
the writer brought a proof against the doctrine from the prophet
Isaiah; namely, that if they spoke not according to the law and to
the testimony, it was because there was no light in them.

"While I was endeavoring to explain this passage according to the
views of the Roman Catholic Church, with no other object than the
praise of men and other worldly motives, I chanced to read the
twenty-ninth chapter of Isaiah from the fifteenth verse to the end.
I read and was afraid. I meditated upon the chapter a long while,
and feared that I was doing what I did with a motive far different
from the only proper one,--the glory and pleasure of God. I
therefore threw my pap