eks, and Mr. Thomson went
down to Jaffa to bring up his furniture. During his absence, the
Fellahin, roused by an order to draft every fifth man into the army,
rose against Mohammed Ali, the then ruler of Syria. Jerusalem was
the centre of this sudden rebellion; and Mr. Thomson, for nearly two
months, found it impossible even to communicate with his family, so
closely was the city besieged by the rebels. The first sense of
personal danger to the mission families, arose from an earthquake of
unusual severity, which extended to the coast and shook their old
stone habitation so roughly that they were compelled to flee into
the garden, and sleep there. Here they were exposed to the balls
from the muskets of the Fellahin outside the walls. At length the
rebels within the city somehow let in their friends outside, and it
was an hour of terror when they took possession of the mission
house, which was near the castle, dug loopholes through its walls,
and began to fire on the soldiers of the fortress. The fire was of
course returned, and the building, already shattered by the
earthquake, was torn by the Egyptian cannon; while both it and the
garden were filled with a multitude of lawless and angry rebels. The
families found refuge in a lower room of the house, where the walls
were thick, and there listened to the cannon balls as they whistled
above them. The arrival of Ibrahim Pasha at length quieted the city.

Able to return to his family on the 11th of July, Mr. Thomson found
his wife suffering from ophthalmia, with high inflammatory fever.
Two days afterwards, Mr. Nicholayson was attacked with a fever, and
the children were all sick. The case of Mrs. Thomson baffled all
their skill. Convinced herself that she would not recover, the
thought did not alarm her. For many weeks, she had been in the
clearer regions of faith, enjoying greater nearness to God in prayer
than ever before, with greater assurance of her interest in the
covenant of grace through the Redeemer. She had indeed cherished the
hope of laboring longer to bring some of the degraded daughters of
Jerusalem to the Saviour; but the Lord knew best, and to His will
she cheerfully submitted. She died peacefully on the 22d of July,
1834. The bereaved husband was apprehensive of difficulty in
obtaining a suitable place for her burial; but the Greek bishop gave
permission, and took the whole charge of preparing the grave.

Mr. Thomson now visited Beirut to confer with hi