down, as the people
are anxious to see us. He lives in the church from necessity. He cannot
get a house in the village, excepting these dark cavern-like rooms with
damp floors, and so the missionaries told him to occupy one half of the
church room. A curtain divides it into two rooms and on Sunday the
curtain is drawn, his things are piled up on one side, and the women and
girls sit in that part, while the men and boys sit on the other side.
All sit on mats on the floor. Is that cradle hanging from the ring in
the arch between the two rooms, kept there on Sunday? Yes, and when I
preached here last June, Yusef's baby was swinging there during the
whole service. One of the women kept it swinging gently, by pulling a
cord, which hung down from it. It did not disturb the meeting at all. No
one noticed it. They have calves and cows, donkeys and goats in their
own houses at night, and sleep sweetly enough, so that the swinging of a
hanging cradle in the inside of the church is not thought to be at all
improper.

Do you see that shelf on the wall? It reminds me of a little girl named
Miriam who once came to your Aunt Annie in Deir Mimas to ask about the
Sidon school, whither she was going in a few weeks. She told Miriam that
she would have to be thoroughly washed and combed every day, and would
sleep on a _bedstead_. Then Miriam asked permission to see a bedstead,
as she did not know what it could be. The next night, about midnight,
Miriam's mother heard something drop heavily on the floor, and then a
child crying. She went across the room, and there was Miriam sitting on
the mat. "What is the matter, Miriam?" she asked. Miriam said, "mother,
the Sit told me I was to sleep on a bedstead in Sidon school, and I
thought I would practice beforehand, so I tried to sleep on the shelf,
and tumbled off in my sleep!"

Abu Asaad says the Nusairy Sheikh who was arrested some months ago has
been poisoned. Poisoning used to be very common in Syria. If we should
call at the house of a Nusairy, and he brought coffee for us to drink,
he would take a sip himself out of the cup before giving it to us, to
show that it was not poisoned. Once Uncle S. and Aunt A. were invited
out to dine in Hums at the house of the deacon of the church. His mother
is an ignorant woman, and had often threatened to kill him. When they
had eaten, they suddenly were taken ill, and suffered much from the
effects of it. It was found that the mother had put poison into