iefly of a darker complexion than the Arab Greeks, and are supposed to
have had their origin in Mesopotamia. Yet all these sects and races
speak the common Arabic language, and hence it will be convenient to
call them Arabs, although I am aware, that while many of the modern
Syrians glory in the name "Oulad el Arab," many others regard it with
dislike.

The Syrian Christianity, moreover, so often alluded to in the history of
the Syrian Mission, is the lowest type of the religion of the Greek and
Roman churches. Saint-worship and picture-worship are universal. An
ignorant priesthood, and a superstitious people, no Bibles, and no
readers to read them, no schools and no teachers capable of conducting
them, prayers in unknown tongues, and a bitter feeling of party spirit
in all the sects, universal belief in the efficacy of fasts and vows,
pilgrimages and offerings to the shrines of reputed saints, churches
without a preached gospel, and prayers performed as a duty without the
worship of the heart, universal Mariolatry, a Sabbath desecrated by
priests and people alike, God's name everywhere profaned by men, women
and children, and truthfulness of lip almost absolutely unknown; the
women and girls degraded and oppressed and left to the tender mercies of
a corrupt clergy through the infamies of the confessional; all these
practices and many others which space forbids us to mention, combined
with the social bondage entailed upon woman by the gross code of Islam,
rendered the women of the nominal Christian sects of Syria almost as
hopeless subjects of missionary labor as were their less favored Druze
and Moslem sisters.

In order to present the leading facts in the history of Mission Work for
Syrian women, I propose to give a brief review of the salient points, in
the order of time, as I have been able to glean them from the missionary
documents within my reach.

The first Protestant missionary to Syria since the days of the Apostles,
was the Rev. Levi Parsons, who reached Jerusalem January 16, 1821, and
died in Alexandria February 10, 1822. In 1823, Rev. Pliny Fisk, and Dr.
Jonas King reached Jerusalem to take his place, and on the 10th of July
came to Beirut. Dr. King spent the summer in Deir el Kamr, and Mr. Fisk
in a building now occupied by the Jesuit College in Aintura.

On the 16th of November, 1823, Messrs. Goodell and Bird reached Beirut,
and on the 6th of December, 1824, they wrote as follows: "Mr. King's
Arabic i