st attention to
the preached word.

"In our labors for the reconstruction of society here, we feel more and
more the absolute need of a sanctified and enlightened female influence;
such an influence as is felt so extensively in America, and whose
beneficent action is seen in the proper training of children, and in the
expulsion of a thousand superstitions from the land. Christian schools
seem the most evident means of securing such an end. Commerce and
intercourse with foreigners, and many other causes are co-operating with
missionary effort to enlighten the _men_ of Beirut and its vicinity, but
the women, far more isolated than in America, are scarcely affected by
any of these causes, and they hinder materially the moral elevation of
the other sex. Often the man who seems full of intelligence and
enterprise and mental enlargement when abroad, is found when at home to
be a mere superstitious child; the prophecy that his mother taught him
being still the religion of his home, and the heathenish maxims and
narrow prejudices into which he was early indoctrinated still ruling the
house. The inquirer after truth is seduced back to error by the many
snares of unsanctified and ignorant companionship, and the convert who
did run well is hindered by the benighted stubbornness to which he is
unequally yoked.

"While exerting this deleterious influence over their husbands and
children, the females of the land have but little opportunity for
personal improvement, and are not very promising subjects of missionary
labor. His faith must be strong who can labor with hope for the
conversion of women, with whom the customs of society prohibit freedom
of intercourse, and who have not learning enough to read a book, or
vocabulary enough to understand a sermon, or mental discipline enough to
follow continuous discourse."

In the Report for 1852, Dr. De Forest writes: "At the date of our last
Annual Report, Miss Whittlesey was in good health, was rapidly acquiring
the Arabic, and was zealously pressing on in her chosen work, with
well-trained intellect, steady purpose and lively hope. But God soon
called her away, and she departed in "hope of eternal life which God
that cannot lie promised before the world began." The Female Boarding
School has suffered much from the loss of its Principal, but the same
course of study has been pursued as before, though necessarily with less
efficiency. One of the assistant pupils, (Lulu,) who has been rel