the great study is the _Bible_. I am afraid that very few schools in
America have as much instruction in the Bible, as the girls in this
Seminary and the Sidon Seminary receive. You would be surprised to hear
the girls recite correctly the names of all the patriarchs; kings and
prophets of the Old Testament, with the year when they lived, and the
date of all the important events of the Old and New Testament History,
and the Life of Christ, and the travels of the Apostle Paul, and the
prophecies about Christ in the Old Testament, and then recite the whole
Westminster Assembly's Catechism in Arabic! I have given out _one
hundred and twenty_ Bibles and Hymn Books as rewards to children in the
schools in Beirût, who have learned the Shorter Catechism perfectly in
Arabic.

Five years ago there was a girl in the school who was once very rude and
self-willed, and very hard to control. She had a poor bed-ridden brother
who had been a cripple for years, and was a great care to the family.
They used to carry him out in the garden in fine weather and lay him on
a seat under the trees, and sometimes his sister would come home from
the school and read to him from the Bible, to which he listened with
great delight. Not long after this he died, and his sister was sent for
to come home to the funeral. On reaching home she found a large crowd of
women assembled from all that quarter of the city, shrieking and wailing
over his death, according to the Oriental custom. When A. the little
girl came in, one of the women from an aristocratic Greek family was
talking in a loud voice and saying that it was wrong for any person to
go from the house of mourning to another house before first going home,
because one going from a house of mourning would carry an _evil
influence_ with her. A. listened and then spoke out boldly before the
seventy women, "How long will you hold on to these foolish
superstitions? Beirût is a place of light and civilization. Where can