handed him a hasty line, and he return- || before, saying, "If you will pass this ed. The line was as follows: "Much respected Brother,--Your note has reached me, and has added another proof to the many I have had already, of your kind regard to me. I now beseech you once more, to pray for me, that I may be delivered from the dark devices of men. I find myself reduced to quite an extremity. One or more of three things are before me; either to be thought mad, or to commit sin, or to offer up my life. I call upon God for deliverance. I cannot now write fully, but the bearer will tell you of all." The messenger said, that the emir of that district had threatened to send him to Bteddeen to be imprisoned. Asaad replied, that he was ready to go to prison and to death. He was engaged in daily disputations with the patriarch and others. His countenance wore a shade of melancholy, and his eyes were red with weeping. When it was proposed by the messenger to interfere with English authority for his rescue, he said such a course might exasperate his enemies, and cost him his life: it would be better to wait a while, and leave it for Providence to open a way for his escape. This assurance of his steadfastness was like a cordial to our spirits, and was not without a good influence on some that are about us. By the grace of God, he will witness a good confession before the dignitaries both of church and state, and by the same grace, he may open the eyes of some of them to the truth as it is in Jesus. Him that was with Daniel and with the three children in their dangers, we commend him. To 24. Called on the consul to inquire what could be done for the protection or relief of Asaad. He recommended a course of moderation and forbearance, and said it was not customary to extend English protection to natives, when abroad on their own business. 26. Two young emirs from Hadet called. I asked one of them, "Where is Asaad Shidiak at present?" He replied, "He is with the patriarch." "And is he contented there?" "Not very well contented. But what should he do, poor fellow, necessity is laid upon him." This remark proves to us, that it is not a secret among the priests and emirs, that Asaad is detained against his will. March 1. A youth called this morning, and said that Asaad Shidiak sent me salutation. He shewed me a line he had received from Asaad the day way about midnight, I will go with you to Beyroot." Owing to some circumstance, the young man did not go to the convent, and now he proposed to take a horse, by which Asaad may escape to night. As we had not perfect confidence in the youth, we did nothing, but having ascertained his plan, left him to go on as he chose. In the evening, we had a season of prayer, particularly on his account. Escapes and returns to Beyroot. 2. Rose early, and repaired to the room where Asaad would have been, had he come; but there were no tidings from him. Little expectation remained of his coming to day, and we were not without our fears, that the attempt had miscarried. It was not long, however, before it was announced, that Asaad was at the door. The meeting was one of great joy and thanksgiving to us all. After a little rest and refreshment, he gave us a brief account of his escape. دو He had not seen the youth, who had undertaken to befriend him, but finding he did not call the night before, as he expected, he resolved not to wait another day. Therefore, at about 12 o'clock last night, having written a paper and left it on his bed, with the quotation, "Come out of her my people,' &c. he set off on foot, committing himself to God for strength and protection. The darkness was such, that he often found himself out of his road, sometimes miring in mud, and sometimes wading in rivers. After some hours of weariness and anxiety, he came to the shore of the sea, where he found a large boat thrown up, under which he cast himself, and obtained a little rest. After this, he continued his walk without interruption, till he reached Beyroot. In the course of the forenoon, a messenger came from the neighboring shekh, or sheriff, requesting Asaad to come and see him; adding, that if he did not come, he would watch an opportunity to take his life. The messenger came a second time, and returned without accomplishing his object. We afterwards wrote a line to the shekh to say, that if he would favor us with a call in person, and take a cup of coffee, he could have the privilege of an interview with Asaad. Just as the note was sent, the consul providentially came in, and the shekh found him ready to give him a seasonable reprimand for presuming to threaten a person under English protection. The shekh declared, that 1 he had never sent such a message; that the man who brought it was but an ass, and said it from his own brain; that, having heard of Asaad's arrival, he merely wished to see whether the reports respecting his insanity were true or false; that Asaad was his bosom friend, his own son, and that whatever he had was his; and that as for church, and priests, and patriarch, he cared for none of them. Toward evening, the youth already mentioned entered the house, ready to faint with excessive fear and fatigue. He had fled from the mountains in all haste, under the absurd apprehension, that he should be suspected and taken up as an accomplice with Asaad. Having thrown himself upon a seat, and taken a little breath, he began to relate what had happened. He was at the convent, when it was first discovered that Asaad had fled. The patriarch and his train were occupied in the religious services of the morning, so that no great sensation was at first apparent among them. One individual spoke boldly in favor of Asaad, saying, "Why should he not leave you? What inducement had he to remain here? What had he here to do? What had he to enjoy? Books he had none; friendly society none; conversation against religion abundant; insults upon his opinions and his feelings abundant. Why should he not leave you?" Others, especially the great ones, pitied the poor maniac, (as they called him,) and sent in quest of him in every direction, lest peradventure he might be found starving in some cavern, or floating in the sea, or dashed in pieces at the bottom of a precipice. On learning of Asaad all that had passed during his absence, we requested him to write a statement of the facts somewhat in the form of a journal. We wished this not only for our own information, but to produce it to those who shall inquire on the subject of Asaad's lunacy hereafter. ligion. The second, Tannoos, or Antony, has lived among us as a teacher, and has good native and acquired talents; but, though he might be a protestant if he were left at liberty, he thinks it altogether preposterous to attempt to quarrel with bishops and patriarchs on the subject of religion. These two brothers, and the uncle, (the last worse than the first,) came and conversed together with Asaad in his chamber a considerable time. Hearing them very earnest, I took the liberty also to go in. They continued their rebukes and arguments, (especially the uncle) in so harsh and unfeeling a manner, that it made me tremble to hear them. They contradicted Asaad, scoffed at and threatened him, calling him possessed, mad, under the power of Satan, and so on. Asaad consented to go home and leave the English, which was the great point they wished to gain, provided they would get an assurance from the patriarch in writing, to say, on the faith of a Christian, that he would not molest him. "But," said they, "then you must hold your tongue, and not broach your new opinions among the people." "What," replied Asaad, "must I go and live like a dumb man? No, that I will never do. My religion binds me not to do it. I must love my neighbor as myself." "Why do you not go," said they, "to the Druses, and the Moslems, and preach the Gospel to them? You answer, because there is danger. So there is danger in the present case; this is not a land of liberty, therefore be silent." Asaad.-"Secure me but the free exercise of my conscience, and I will go with you. My religion is my all, and I must be free in it." They.-"We can give you no such security. Nobody dares go to the patriarch with such a request. You cannot be permitted to publish your notions abroad among the people." "Then," said Asaad, "there is no more to be said;"-rising, and with clasped hands walking the room;-"Religion unshackled---Religion un The statement, which Asaad drew up, in consequence of this request, is the one which has been published in the Missionary Herald.shackled, is my doctrine." Interview with several of his Relatives. 6. Among those who came to see Asaad to day, were three of his brothers and an uncle. Mansoor, the oldest of the brothers, we had never before seen. He is a furious bigot, and perfectly ignorant and regardless of the first principles of re They rose and left the room in an angry despair. Mansoor returned, and wished to speak a word with Asaad at the door. In a moment, Asaad returned. "Do you know what Mansoor has told me?" said he. "His last words were, Even if the patriarch and the emir should do nothing; if they make no attempts to take your life; be assured, we ourselves will do the work: so take heed to yourself accordingly.' Asaad was much affected by the interview. As soon as he found himself at liberty, he stepped up into the loft where he sleeps, and threw himself on his couch in prayer. While in this attitude his next younger brother, Galed, knocked at the door. I called to Asaad to inform him of the fact; but he gave me no answer. I then invited Galed to another room, where Asaad soon joined us with a full and heavy heart. The two brothers saluted each other with embarrassment. Asaad evidently wished to be alone, and the brother, after a few mild, unmeaning inquiries, left him. Begins to converse more pointedly with the People. 7. I yesterday advised Asaad to direct his conversations with the people, as much as possible to their hearts, and say little or nothing on the corruption of their church. He objected to the counsel. I referred him to similar advice he gave me some months ago. "Ah," said he, "I thought so then, but I now see that you cannot stir a step, but you meet some of their corruptions." However, he to day made the experiment, and held an hour's conversation with two visitors on the subject of regeneration. They both thought themselves renewed, but took too little interest in the subject to confine their attention to it. "You see,' said Asaad, after they had gone, "how little they feel on such a subject. It is painful to talk with such men. I would rather see them contradict, and dispute, and get angry, or any thing, than to appear so dead." Interview with a younger Brother. دو Asaad's brother Galed came again to day, and discovered more feeling than yesterday on the subject of his brother's leaving the English. He said he had brought an insupportable shame upon the family. Asaad insisted, that such shame was no argument whatever for his leaving us; that all the disciples of Christ were to expect it as a thing of course. Galed assured him, that nobody would think of molesting him, if he were at Hadet. I asked Galed if his brother Mansoor did not threaten yesterday to kill him He turned away, colored, and muttered something that I did not understand; but the whole was a full acknowledgment of the fact. Asaad said, "I cannot confide in you." "But," said Galed, "if any one were disposed to take your life, could they not do it as well here, as at home?" I answered, "no; that the emir Beshir himself could not enter my house without my permission, and that if the relatives of Asaad did not cease from their threats, I should feel myself bound to shut them out of it." After a long conversation, at the end of which he found Asaad as inflexible as ever, he rose abruptly, and was going out without a compliment, when Asaad started up, and asked, "Well, what do you conclude to do? Do you really intend to send some assassin to take my life in my room?" The youth, without deigning to look at him, closed the door in sullen grief, and departed. Asaad turning to me, said, "I cannot please these people. Whatever I say, they are sure to be angry. Soft words, or hard words, it makes no difference to them. They come as if I were under their kingly authority. They lay hold of my cloak, and say, 'Give me this.' If I say, 'I will not give it,' they are angry; and if I reason with them with all the mildness of which I am capable, and say, 'Cannot you be accommodated elsewhere? Can you not wait upon me in a few days?' &c. they are equally angry." Correspondence with his Family. 8. A messenger called this morning with the following note: "To our brother Asaad Esh Shidiak: May God bless you.-We beg you to come home to night, and not wait till Sunday. We have pledged our mother that you shall come. If you fail to do so, you will trouble us all. "Your brother, GALED." To this letter, Asaad set down, and instantly wrote the following reply. "To our much honored and very dear brother Galed: God preserve him.Your note has reached us, in which you speak of our coming home to night, and say, that if we do not come, we trouble you all. "Now if we were in some distant land, your longing after us in this manner might be very proper; but we are near you, and you have been here, and seen us in all health, and we have seen you. Then quiet our mother, that we, through the bounty of God, are in perfect health, and that we have great peace in our Lord Jesus Christ, peace above all that the world can afford, and abundant joy in the Holy Ghost above all earthly joy. But as to our coming up this evening, we do not find it convenient, not even though we had the strongest desire to see our mother and you. "I beg you all to love God, and to serve him in our Lord Jesus Christ. This is of all things the most important; for if we love God, if he but renew our hearts by the Holy Ghost, we shall enjoy each other's society for ever and ever. and ruin their souls;-by all this I should injure your feelings, enrage the people, excite the opposition of the emirs, and bishops, and patriarchs, and then return here just in the state I am in now. The youngest brother, Phares, who accompanied his mother, conversed freely and in good temper, and listened with attention to all Asaad's arguments, by which he endeavored to justify his views and determinations. But no argument or evidence could convince the disconsolate mother. A "And now we are prevented from coming to you, and you know we are not void of all desire to see you, but the hindrances to which we have alluded, are, we think, a sufficient apology. We beg you to accept our excuse, and to apologize for us to our mother, and we pray God to pour out his grace rich-saad had repeated the name of Christ, ly on you all, and lengthen your days.Your Brother, ASAAD. "P. S. Tell our mother not to think so much of these earthly things, but rather of God our Saviour." Is visited by his Mother. This letter had been gone scarcely time sufficient to reach Hadet, when the mother herself was announced at the loor. We welcomed her with all corality, and treated her with all the respect and attention we could. But all we could do or say did not alter her resolution to get her son away, if in her power. She besought him by the honor he owed her, by the love he professed for her, by his regard for the reputation of her family, for religion itself, and for his own personal safety, that he would immediately accompany her home; and when she found him inflexible, she declared she would never stir out of the house unless he went with her. To all this Asaad replied, "To what purpose would it be, that I should go home? You wish me to go, you say, that people may be convinced that I am not mad. But you, who come hither, and see, and converse with me, say, after all, that I am mad. How can it be expected that I should convince others that I am not mad, when my own mother will not believe it. Or do you think that if I once get out among you, the air of Hadet will change my opinions, or induce me to be silent? All these are vain expectations. I see no object to be gained. If I should go to Hadet, and be constantly disputing with the people, and telling them, that you are all going astray; that you are worshiping idols instead of the living God; that I could wish to tear down every picture in your churches; that the bread and wine of the Lord's Supper are not Jesus Christ; that I believe the pope to be the beast in the Revelation,* whose business is to deceive the people * When he first came to Beyroot, this same sentence was dictated to him, and it appeared in his eyes so much like blasphemy, that he refused to write it. and the word of God so often, that she, at last, in a fit of impatience exclaimed, "Away with Christ, and the word of God; what have we to do with them!" and when we pointed out to Asaad some text of Scripture, which we thought applicable in any case, she would endeavor to close the book, or catch it from him, as if it taught paganism, or witchcraft. During her stay we dined, and as Asaad took the meat upon his plate, and ate it without a scruple, in this season of Lent, it was remarked with what a gaze of wonder she regarded him. She seemed to say in her heart, "All is over-my son is lost!" After some hours of troublesome expostulation and entreaty, during which Asaad once said he could bear it no longer, and rose, and shook my hand to go, it was finally settled that the mother should go home without him, but that to save the family from the insupportable shame, which threatened it, Asaad should give her a paper, stating, in effect, that he was not a follower of the English. When the paper was finished, "Now," said Asaad, "go to your home in peace; ' and walked away: but suddenly recollecting himself, he called his brother back, and said, "Phares, I wish you fully to understand, that I love you; and I have one request to make of you, which is, that you will take the New Testament, and read it attentively."-"Give me a New Testament," said Phares, quickly. We gave him the book, and he went his way, evidently affected and softened by the interview. (To be continued.) The manner in which Asaad fell into the hands of his enemies, the cruelties inflicted on him, and his inflexible Christian character; together with occasional notices of his family, and of the ecclesiastical and civil state of the country,-will call for attention in the next number.-Phares manifested more and more susceptibility of religious impression, and the mother at length regretted that her son was no longer in the society of the missionaries. American Board of Foreign Missions. Palestine Mission. TO THE LETTER FROM ASAAD JACOB A LETTER from this young and promising August 15, 1826. I went to the city for to see one of my friends, who had been absent. I went also to my uncle's house, for to see my uncle's family. When I went to the house, and had seen them, I wished to come back. They at my uncle's told me, there is time yet; after a little, you can go. "Well," I said. I thought, they wished to see me one day, because I had not been in their house a long time. But they did not wish to see me, but to have me go with them to the church. I stayed with them one hour, and then was the time for evening prayer. They told me, “A long time you did not go to the church; will you come now?" I told them, "Yes." I thought no one talk with me; but not so. When I entered in the church, the first one in the church said, "This is the farmason." They think the farmason is bad; that is, one who don't worship the saints, and who eat meat in the fast. When I entered, I did not worship the saints, nor put one candle before the saints. Another said, "This is not worthy to enter in the church; this is heretic." One said, "Go from our church, farmason." I asked him, "Why?" He said, "You eat meat in the fast, and in Wednesday and in Friday." I told him, "This is not sin, you talk lie." Then they said, “Let him go from our church." One from my friends said, "Why? he is Christian." They said, "No, if he is Christian, let him bow now before the saints." I said "This is not the sign of a Christian." One said, "Let no one talk with him, he is foolish a little;" and he who said so was priest. When the priest came to the place where I was, he wished to cross me. The people said, "No, no, our priest, this is not worthy for this blessing oil." The priest was formerly friend to me, above all the priests. They told him, "Don't you know, he eat meat every Then the priest said, "I did not know day, and he don't worship the saints." this before," and went away without crossing and blessing me. What follows, places in a clear and affecting light the inadequate notions entertained by priests and people in Syria, and indeed in all Catholic countries, of the nature of sin. They look upon it as a breach of a ceremonial law, rather than of one which is moral, and spiritual, and having primary reference to the state of the affections, as they appear to the eyes of an all searching and most holy God. August 26. When the fast for the virgin Mary was finished, my father came to the house where I was, and told ne, "Come with me unto the mountain for to see your mother, and your brother, and sister." Well I went with him. I wished to go, because I wished to see my mother and neighbors. When I arrived to the house, it was evening time, and I was tired and slept. In the second day, my father awaked me before the sun-rise, and told me, “Come to the church with me." Well I went with him. When I entered into the church, he told me "now you must confess." I told him, "Well, if I confess, I confess the sin just as I please." He said, "Very well, confess the sin just as you please.' I began to confess. Now when any one confess to the priest, the priest tells him before he confess, to say, 'I confess to Almighty God, and to his only begotten Son, and to the virgin Mary, and to the saints, and to the angels, and to you our priest.'-I told him, "Let all this go, I do not wish to say that." "Very well," said the priest. Then I began and confessed without saying that. I told him, "Good many times I do not pray. Good many times I become lazy, when I read the Holy Scriptures. I do not think very much about the Gospel. I am a sinner." The priest said “Confess the sin." I toid him, "Is not this sin, which I have In that time was fast, and the fast confessed?" He said, "You have not was for the virgin [Mary,] and in that great sin." I told him, "My sin is day the priest took oil on a little cotton great and many." He said, "No, before from the candle which was before the you had great sin; this time, have not virgin, and crossed all in the church. "like before;" because I confessed to VOL. XXIII. 18 |