here
she was not safe. The Druzes of Lebanon at that time were at the height
of their feudal power. Girls and women were killed among them without
the least notice on the part of the mountain government. Abla was like a
prisoner in the missionary's house, not venturing to go outside the
door, and in order to be at peace, she went down with her brother to
Beirut, where she has since resided. Selim united with the Church, but
was afterwards suspended from communion for improper conduct, and joined
himself to the Jesuits, so that Abla has had to endure a two-fold
persecution from her Druze relatives and her Jesuit brother. On her
removal to Beirut she was disinherited and deprived of her little
portion of her father's estate, and her life has been a constant
struggle with persecution, poverty and want. Yet amid all, she has stood
firm as a rock, never swerving from the truth, or showing any
disposition to go back to her old friends. At times she has suffered
from extreme privation, and the missionaries and native Protestants
would only hear of it through others who happened to meet her. Since
uniting with the Church in 1849 she has lived a Christian life. In a
recent conversation she said, "I count all things but loss for the
excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, _for whom I have
suffered the loss of all things_ ... and I still continue, by the grace
of Him Exalted, and by the merits of Jesus Christ my Saviour, awaiting
a happy death, and everlasting rest."

KHOZMA.

Her Christian experience is like that of Khozma Ata. She is the only
female member of the Protestant church in Syria from among the Druzes,
except Sitt Abla. She was born, in Beirut of the Druze family of Witwat,
and when quite a child was taken by Dr. Beadle, then by Miss Tilden,
living at one time in Aleppo, then in Jerusalem, and finally settled in
the family of Dr. De Forest, where she continued until his departure for
America in 1854. For several years she has been an invalid, and is not
often able to leave her house, even to go to church. Two of her little
girls are in the Female Seminary. In 1861 she taught a day school for
girls in Beirut, and assisted Dr. De Forest in his work in the Beirut
Seminary. I called upon her a few days since, and she handed me a roll
of Arabic manuscript, which she said she had been translating from the
English. It is a series of stories for children which she has prepared
to be printed in our monthly jou