wn reckoning, and after 1000 years it will cease to exist. Others have
fixed this present year as the year of the great cataclysm, but the
interpreters are so secret and reserved in their statements, that it is
only by casual remarks that we can arrive at any idea of their real
belief. Lying to infidels is such a meritorious act, that you cannot
depend on one word they say of themselves or their doctrines. Their
secret books, which were found in the civil wars of 1841 and 1845, have
been translated and published by De Sacy, and we have a number of them
in the original Arabic manuscripts in the Mission Library in Beirut.
From a chapter in one of these, entitled "Methak en Nissa," or the
"Engagements of Women," I have translated the following passages, to
show the religious position of women, as bearing upon my object in
describing the condition of Syrian females.

"Believers are both male and female. By instruction women pass from
ignorance to knowledge, and become angels like the Five Ministers who
bear the Throne: _i.e._, the Doctrine of the Unity. All male and female
believers ought to be free from all impurity and disgrace and dishonor.
Believing women should shun lying (to the brethren) and infidelity and
concupiscence, and the appearance of evil, and show the excellency of
their work above all Trinitarian women, avoiding all suspicion and taint
which might bring ill upon their brethren, and avoiding giving attention
to what is contrary to the Divine Unity.

"We have written this epistle to be read to all believing women who hold
to the Unity of Hakem, who knows His Eternity and obey their husbands.
But let no Dai or Mazun read it to a woman until he is well assured of
her faith and her religion, and she shall have made a written profession
of her faith. He shall not read it to one woman alone, nor in a house
where there is but one woman, even though he be worthy of all
confidence, lest suspicion be awakened and the tongue of slander be
loosed. Let there be assembled together at least three women, and let
them sit behind a curtain or screen, so as not to be seen. Each woman
must be accompanied by her husband, or her father, or brother or son, if
he be a Unitarian. The Dai in reading must keep his eyes fixed on his
book, neither turning towards the place where the women are, nor casting
a glance towards it, nor listening to them. The woman, moreover, must
not speak a word during the reading, and whether she is affect