terference or
of discovery, the blows and kicks are applied in the most merciless and
barbarous manner. Women are killed in this way, and no outsider knows
the cause. One of my Moslem neighbors once beat one of his wives to
death. I heard her screams day after day, and finally, one night, when
all was still, I heard a dreadful shriek, and blow after blow falling
upon her back and head. I could hear the brute cursing her as he beat
her. The police would not interfere, and I could not enter the house.
The next day there was a funeral from that house, and she was carried
off and buried in the most hasty and unfeeling manner. Sometimes it
happens that the woman is strong enough to defend herself, and conquers
a peace; but ordinarily when you hear a scream in the Moslem quarter of
the city and ask the reason, it will be said to you with an indifferent
shrug of the shoulder, "that is only some man beating his wife."

That thirty-eighth verse of Sura iv. is one of the many proofs that the
Koran is not the book of God, because it violates the law of love.
"Husbands love your wives," is a precept of the Gospel and not of the
Koran. Yet it is a sad fact that the nominal Christians of this dark
land are not much better in this respect than their Moslem neighbors.
The Greeks, Maronites and Papal Greeks beat their wives on the slightest
provocation. In the more enlightened towns and cities this custom is
"going out of fashion," though still often resorted to in fits of
passion. Sometimes the male relatives of the wife retaliate in case a
husband beats her. In the village of Schwire, in Lebanon, a man beat his
wife in a brutal manner and she fled to the house of her brother. The
brother watched his opportunity; waylaid the offending husband, and
avenged his sister's injuries by giving him a severe flogging. In
Eastern Turkey, a missionary in one of the towns noticed that not one
woman attended church on Sunday. He expostulated with the Protestants,
and urged them to persuade their wives to accompany them. The next
Sunday the women were all present, as meek and quiet as could be wished.
The missionary was delighted, and asked one of the men how they
persuaded them to come? He replied, "We all beat our wives soundly until
they consented to come!" This wife-beating custom has evidently been
borrowed by the Christian sects from their Moslem rulers and oppressors,
and nothing but a pure Christianity can induce them to abandon it.

III. S