that God would give her bread. Soon after, on her
way to the village fountain, she found part of a merkuk, loaf of bread,
by the wayside, which she picked up and ate most gratefully, regarding
it as a direct answer to her prayer. Another Ghuzaleh, was brutally
beaten because she would not swear and blaspheme, and all were
threatened and insulted because they would not work on Sunday.

In November, 1871, seven of these girls, on their own application, were
received into the membership of the Church. It was an interesting sight
to see that group of Nusairiyeh heathen girls standing to receive the
ordinance of Christian baptism. In the spring of 1872, another was added
to the list. These little ones of Christ have all thus far shown
themselves faithful. They were sent back to their homes in the summer,
and several, if not the most, of them may be forbidden to return again
to the school. Some may say, why allow them to go home? The policy of
encouraging children to run away from their parents and connect
themselves with foreign missionaries and missionary institutions, will
lead the heathen to hate the very name of Christianity, and to charge it
with being a foe to all social and family order, and on the broad ground
of missionary usefulness, the girls can do far more good in their own
homes than elsewhere.

CHAPTER V.

CHRONICLE OF WOMEN'S WORK FROM 1820 TO 1872.

It must not be inferred from what has been said on a preceding page with
regard to the favorable position occupied by the women of the nominal
Christian sects of Syria as compared with the Mohammedan women, that the
first missionaries found the Greek and Maronite women and girls who
speak the Arabic language eager or even willing to receive instruction.
Far from it. The effects of the Mohammedan domination of twelve hundred
years have been to degrade and depress all the sects and nationalities
who are subject to Islam. Not only were there not women and girls found
to learn to read, but the great mass of the men of the Christian sects
could neither read nor write. Many of the prominent Arab merchants in
Beirut to-day can neither read nor write. I say Arab merchants, and yet
very few of the Arabs of the Greek Church have more than a mere tinge of
Arab blood in their veins. To call them Syrians, would be to confound
them with the "Syrian" or "Jacobite" sect, who are found only in the
vicinity of Hums, Hamath and Mardin. So with the Maronites. They are
ch