e to me to learn English, I have one, the son
of a rich Roman Catholic jeweller of this place. So important is the
commercial relation between this place and India become, that the
number who wish to learn English of me, is much greater than I can
possibly take charge of, as this is not with me a primary object; but
it is a most important field of labour, and one that might have, I
think, very interesting results, for they will bear opposition to
their own views more easily in another language than in their own: it
does not come to them like a book written to oppose them, and thus
truth may slide gently in. My Moolah, who is teaching me Arabic, and
whose son I teach English, told me, that in two or three years he
would send his son to England to complete his knowledge of English.
Now to those who know nothing of the Turks, this may not appear
remarkable, but to those who do, it will exhibit a striking breaking
down of prejudice in this individual.

There is a famous man here, a Mohammedan by profession, but in reality
an infidel, who is the head of a pantheistic sect, who believe God to
be every thing and every thing to be God, so that he readily admits,
on this notion, the divinity of our blessed Lord. Infidelity is
extending on every side in these countries. My Moolah said, that now
a-days, if you asked a Christian whether he were a Christian, he
would say, Yes; but if you asked him who Christ was, or why he was
attached to him, he did not know. And in the same manner he said, if
you asked a Mohammedan a similar question, he would also say, he did
not know, but that he went as others went; but, he added, now all the
_Sultans_ were sending out men to teach, the Sultan of England--the
Sultan of Stamboul, &c. By this I imagine his impression is, that we
are sent out by the king of England.

Our school is, on the whole, going on very well. We have introduced
classes, and a general table of good and bad behaviour, of lessons, of
absence, and of attendance; and they all go on, learning a portion of
Scripture every day in the vulgar dialect. This is something.

I am beginning to feel my acquaintance with Arabic increase under the
plan which I am now pursuing with the boys who learn English. They
bring me Arabic phrases, and as far as my knowledge extends, I give
them the meaning in English; and when that fails, I write it down for
inquiry from the Moolah next day, and then by asking words in Arabic
every day for the boys