But with these signs of prosperity, there seems to have been a need of chastening. The clergy of the Greek church at Hums, excited, as was supposed, by foreign influence, set their people so against the Protestants, that it was feared few would be able to stand. The native brethren were stoned and beaten in the streets, and abused by all classes. Quite a large number returned, nominally, to the Greek church; but many of these commenced a Bible class in the Greek church itself, thus bringing the truth to many, who would not otherwise have heard it. About fifteen men stood firm, and met nightly with Suleeba, for reading the Scriptures, prayer, and conference. The priests had expected the utter overthrow of Protestantism, and were enraged at the firmness of these brethren, and forbade all dealings with them. Letters to Suleeba from the missionaries were taken from the mail, read, and destroyed, and the Protestant places of meeting were assailed with stones. In the midst of these trials, Suleeba wrote expressing his gratitude to God for sustaining grace. Some alleviation was experienced through the efforts of Colonel Fraser, Her Britannic Majesty's Commissioner, so that the Protestant community became regularly organized, with a representative in the Mejlis, and a tax roll distinct from other sects.
The Protestants in Ain Zehalty were also called to suffer. An order having come from Constantinople, requiring the restoration of all church edifices to their original sects, Daoud Pasha issued an order for giving up the edifice at Ain Zehalty. He must have acted under a misapprehension, since the building had never been the property of the bishop, but was built and still owned by the family of Khalil, the Protestant preacher. The Catholics were a very small minority in the village, yet the edifice appears not to have been recovered. Another convenient house of worship was soon after provided by Protestant friends.
Mr. H. H. Jessup wrote respecting Hums:—"Quite recently, one of the more enlightened among the Greeks was taken ill, and sent for Suleeba, the native helper. He went, and found quite a company of relatives and friends. The sick man asked him to read a portion of Scripture. The passage selected contained the ten commandments, and while he was reading the second, the wife of the sick man exclaimed,—'Is that the Word of God? If it is, read it again.' He did so, when she arose and tore down a wooden picture of a saint at the head of the bed, declaring that henceforth there should be no idol worship in that house; and then, taking a knife, she scraped the paint from the picture, and took it for use in the kitchen. This was done with the approbation of all present. The case is the more remarkable, as it was the first instance in Syria, in which a woman had taken so decided a stand in advance of the rest of the family."
The manifest agency of the Holy Spirit is the highest encouragement in the missionary work. "One of the members of the Beirût church," Mr. Jessup writes, "has passed through an interesting religious experience this summer. He was for a time troubled with blasphemous thoughts, till he gave himself up as lost. His language was not unlike that of Bunyan in his "Grace Abounding;" and only after protracted struggles in prayer, the study of God's word, and finally resolving to go forward and do his duty in both light and darkness, did he find relief. The case was interesting as indicating the presence of God's Spirit, in leading him through a most severe struggle into ultimate peace in believing. Several young Protestants of Hasbeiya, resident in Beirût, are now passing through very deep conviction of sin. I have rarely seen persons so completely broken down by a sense of their lost condition. On Monday I spent several hours with two young people, who were passing through deep waters. They burst into tears, exclaiming, "We are lost, we are lost!" The Spirit of God was striving with them. Never have I felt more deeply the need of Divine aid, than when trying to lead these heavy-laden ones to Christ. Yet the missionary can have no more delightful labor than this."
The mission was strengthened, in 1863, by the arrival of Rev. Messrs. Samuel Jessup, Philip Berry, and George Edward Post, M. D., and their wives. Miss Temple retired from the mission in consequence of the obstructions to the higher education of girls growing out of the massacres, but with the esteem of all her associates. Mr. Lyons, broken down by overwork, was also under the necessity of withdrawing from the field. The girls' boarding-school had been transferred from Sûk el Ghûrb to Sidon, where it was under the care of Miss Mason.
The population of Beirût was now not less than seventy thousand. A bank, a carriage road to Damascus, steamers plying to almost every maritime country in Europe, telegraphs in several directions, numerous schools and hospitals, and three printing presses, made it the commercial and intellectual capital of Syria.
The tendency was to intellectual rather than spiritual progress, and there was a growing demand for education. The Jesuits were striving to reap the benefit of this, by opening colleges and seminaries in various parts of the country; nor could the fact be overlooked, that zealous Protestant educators, from different parts of Europe, were becoming so numerous at Beirût as to embarrass the mission in its natural development. The exigency at length constrained the mission to consider whether advantage should not be taken of the offer of Christian friends at home to found a Protestant College at Beirût.
This was well, as will appear in the sequel. But it is impossible not to see, that the progress of the mission, in the years immediately following 1863,—in the increase of converts, and the multiplication of churches, with native preachers and pastors,—was not such as the facts already stated gave reason to expect. This the brethren on the ground foresaw, and their anxious appeals for help abound on the pages of the "Missionary Herald," and were enforced by appeals from the Prudential Committee. The "Annual Report" for 1863 thus states the deficiency of laborers at that time:—
"The field north of Beirût, a hundred miles long and fifty wide, has no missionary, although hundreds in Hums, and the large district of Akkar, are looking to the mission for instruction. A score of villages, in each one of which a faithful preacher would find an audience, do not receive a visit once a year from a gospel minister. Mount Lebanon, with its four hundred thousand inhabitants, scattered through its thousand villages, into nearly every one of which more or less light has penetrated, and from which cries for help constantly come, has but two missionaries; and one of them is confined, for the most part, to the Abeih Seminary. The southern district, comprising one half of the Syria mission field, with its ten regular preaching places, crippled by the disability of its oldest native helper and by the death of another, has but two missionaries, one of whom is just commencing to learn Arabic. Within the last eight years, thirteen missionary laborers, male and female, have entered the Syria field, while twenty-five have left it. During this period, the work has increased tenfold. Many who have fallen asleep took part in sowing, where now the harvest is so great that the few who remain cannot gather it; and unless the Lord of the harvest send more laborers, much precious fruit will be lost."
It is painfully evident, that the degree of missionary spirit in the churches at home then fell short of the providential calls for evangelical labor in this field. Yet it is by no means certain what would have been the effect of a very large, sudden increase in the working forces. Without the restraining grace of God, it might have been the occasion of a fierce and malignant outbreak of opposition.