The people had passed through severe sufferings. Several of the women had been beaten, and the men had a bitter tale to tell of oppression by their governor. He demanded a duplicate payment of taxes, and when the head man of the Protestants respectfully showed him a receipt, with his own seal affixed, he ordered him to be severely beaten and placed in confinement. He then sent officers to bring others of the Protestants before him, but, suspecting his intention, all except two fled into the open country. These two, when brought, were thrown down upon the ground before the governor, and beaten with staves without mercy upon their backs and feet, he encouraging his servants to deal harder blows with commands and threats. Thus beaten till their backs were livid and swollen, they were wounded also by being kicked and stepped on by those who beat them, to make them lie still. When hardly left alive, chains were placed upon their necks and feet, their hands were placed in wooden stocks, and they were cast into prison, where they spent the night with companions who had been previously beaten. Next morning they were brought before the governor, and two of them were again beaten, when they were dismissed with a threat, that if they left the village he would pull down their houses. They however, despite his threats, made their way to Tyre, whence they embarked in a vessel to Beirût, to seek redress from the Pasha, and sympathy from the missionaries. When they appeared before the Pasha's court, their backs were ordered to be uncovered, and their wounds exhibited; and the greatest indignation was expressed by the members of the council against him who had so barbarously treated them, in violation of the laws of the realm."
The governor was sent for, and the indications were, that he would be expelled from office. But he was not. The Pasha suddenly changed his tone towards the Protestants, ordered one of them to be cast into prison on a false charge by the governor, and forbade the council to proceed further against him. The Cana people were detained two months from their homes. The proffered interposition of the English Consul was rudely rejected, and their release, when it was effected, was with no regard to the claims of justice. The visit of Mr. and Mrs. Eddy at that time must have been very seasonable and acceptable.
From Cana they proceeded to Alma, where they remained about a week. The women here, being more numerous and more enlightened, and some of them members of the church, were prepared to receive greater benefit from the instruction of a Christian sister. Three additions were made to the church. The people, though poor, had here also been compelled by their governor to pay their taxes twice.
The Seminary at Abeih was now made more directly a training school for native preachers and helpers; and a female boarding-school was opened at Sûk el-Ghûrb, a village six miles north of Abeih, under the direction of Miss Temple. The training of female helpers was its leading object, and the removal of Mr. Bliss thither made a home for the pupils.
Ain Zehalty continued to be a marked village, and the papists made great efforts to reclaim it. A Maronite bishop at one time, and a wily Jesuit at another, repaired thither, at the urgent request of the papal party, to uproot the dangerous exotic. The coming of the bishop was with great boasting on the part of his adherents, but, much to their chagrin, he declined commencing a controversy with Khalil, the native helper there; and was afterwards so hotly plied with texts of Scripture by some of the church-members whom he ventured to attack, that he fled for refuge to the more accommodating "traditions of the elders." It was supposed that the disciple of Loyola would carry all before him; but the undaunted Bible-men were more than ready to meet him, which they did effectively; and his visit was productive of more good than harm.
The report of the mission for 1858, furnishes many striking evidences of the influence exerted, especially in the department of education. Soon after the opening of the first Protestant school at Tripoli, the Greeks opened a school for boys, which soon became large and prosperous. And when the Protestant girls' school became a success, a board of directors was organized, under the direction of the Greek bishop, to break up the other, if possible. Not finding an educated woman in Syria who was not a Protestant, the Greeks applied to two Protestant young ladies to take their school, but without success. To secure the needful pecuniary means, they constrained the Patriarch to surrender a part of the convent revenues for this purpose. The Russian government, moreover, took up the subject of education in Syria, and remitted twelve thousand piasters (four hundred and eighty dollars) to the Greek school directors in Tripoli for the city schools; but with the injunction, that the tenets of the Greek Church should be the chief subject of instruction.
Nineteen persons were added to the churches of the mission during the first half of the year 1859. This of course involved various local indications of progress, for which the limits of this history afford no space. A new place, however, is brought to our notice by Mr. Eddy, named Deir Mimas, a large village on the river Litany. A few had here professed Protestantism about two years before, and had encountered a storm of persecution from members of the Greek Church, and from the Mohammedan governor of their district. Yet they had constantly increased in numbers and strength. The missionary spending several days there, was delighted to find an audience each evening of more than one hundred, after their severe labors, all eager to hear. The number of men professing Protestantism was above sixty, and counting the women and the children, the number was one hundred and fifty, the largest in Syria. Their enemies were on the alert, and it was a sad fact, that no competent native teacher could be found to reside among them. They were then dependent on a native teacher, who came to them each Sabbath from a distance, having first preached in his own village.
The annual meeting of the mission in this year was one of unusual interest. "From the beginning to the end of the meeting, it was apparent that there was much of a spirit of prayer among the native brethren. The native female prayer meeting in Beirût was more fully attended than usual; and the union meetings in Arabic and English, held in the chapel, in which the missionaries and native brethren united and large audiences assembled, were occasions of deep interest. The statements made in the meeting when the annual reports were read, at which W. A. Booth, Esq., of New York City, and Hon. Alpheus Hardy, of Boston, a member of the Prudential Committee, were providentially present, filled the minds of all with the conviction, that never before in the history of the Syria mission have we had so much encouragement, or such strong proofs that God is with us, and that the work is going forward in this land."
Before this meeting, the mission had been favored with a visit from the Hon. James Williams, United States Ambassador at Constantinople, whose friendly and most useful agency was duly acknowledged by the mission. His reply to them may be found in the "Missionary Herald."[1]
[1] See Missionary Herald, 1860, p. 163.