"Before finishing their work that Sunday morning, they sent men to our school-room, broke it open, sprinkled it with holy water, and stole our bell."
The firmness of some of the church-members is thus described: "After exhausting their catalogue of promises and threats on one, he said to them,—'Take my property, my house, my clothes, my family, even my body, and do with them what you will, but my soul you cannot have, and nothing will induce me to leave Christ.' Another said, when they came to his house,—'Come in, and let us read in the New Testament together, and perhaps you will see that we are right.' One girl, who had been two years in the Sidon school, saw her parents and relatives all fall into the procession; but when special effort was made to induce her to yield, she said,—'Though you should cut my body in pieces, I will never go with you.'
"I reached Safeeta a few days after, and found that those who had stood firm had been obliged to flee for safety, and did not dare return until I went there. The wrath of their persecutors seems to have reached its height, and the poor people know not what to do. Appeal to the government seems useless, for it is from the government that their chief oppressor gets his power to persecute. All who went back came to call on me, and most of them attended the services. They said, in palliation of their course, 'We are flesh and blood, and have families to support. We have waited for deliverance for years, and now Tamir (the chief oppressor) says, Come back and I will restore to you all; remain as you are, and I will strip you of the little you have left, and drive you out of the country. And so we went back, but our hearts are with you, and we will come here too, though they compelled our bodies to go with them.' One woman showed a striped gown, threw it on the ground, and trampling on it said, with tears in her eyes, 'With that they bought my husband.' Some of the women, with tears and entreaties, tried to keep their husbands and friends from going, telling them that death was better."[1]
[1] Missionary Herald, 1869, pp. 407-409.
Twenty men were standing firm at Safeeta in February of the following year, though there had been little abatement of persecution. In April Dr. Jessup wrote, that it had just terminated, and the brethren at the Tripoli station had good hopes that there would be peace in that long persecuted community. This was owing, in great measure, to the interference of the American and English Consuls-general, and their influence with the Governor-general of Syria.
The people of Hums becoming dissatisfied with their pastor, Suleeba, his connection was dissolved, three years after his settlement. The church remained in a divided condition for a year or more, without any celebration of the Lord's Supper. In the summer of 1869, Mr. Samuel Jessup visited the city, and finding the Protestants in a better state of feeling, invited the communicants to assemble at the Lord's table. All came and seemed to enjoy it as a season of rest and refreshment, after a long and weary wandering. They were ready to take a native pastor who suited them, and pay the larger part of his salary. They needed one well acquainted with the historical defenses of the Gospel, because of the inroads of European Jesuits and French infidel literature. Suleeba found demands for his faithful labors in other places. "The news," says Dr. Jessup, "from 'scattered and peeled' Safeeta and from distracted Hums, is alike cheering, and indicative of progress in the right direction."
The Tripoli station sent forth two of the Safeeta church-members as missionaries to visit the villages to the north and east, sending two together, as it would not be safe for one to go alone. The native missionary society at Beirût employed a zealous colporter, whose tours took a wide range, from Acre on the south to Hamath and even to Aleppo on the north, and his monthly reports showed that, throughout the country, there was not only urgent need of such labor, but also an increasing number prepared to profit by the visits of the gospel messenger. During the latter part of the year, another person was employed in similar work near Beirût. He also testified to a great increase of desire among the people for religious instruction.
Daoud Pasha, alter inaugurating important reforms and improvements on Lebanon, was promoted to a seat in the cabinet at Constantinople. He had started a newspaper, "The Lebanon," established telegraphic lines, commenced a carriage road, encouraged education, and made his pashalic the safest in the empire for travelling. His successor was Franco Pasha, a Latin Catholic. The Beirût Arabic official journal, in speaking of his arrival, says, that "although attached to his own religion, he is free from bigotry, and will guarantee liberty of conscience to all."
The mission was strengthened in 1867 by the arrival of Samuel S. Mitchell and Isaac N. Lowry, and their wives; and in 1869, of James S. Dennis, and Misses Eliza D. Everett, and Nellie A. Carruth. Messrs. Berry and Mitchell were constrained, by the failure of health after a short service, to leave the mission. Miss Carruth, also, though deeply interested in the work, and after valuable service in the girls' school, felt constrained soon to return to the United States.
Among the books printed in this time, were Edwards' "History of Redemption;" Bickersteth's "Scripture Hand-book," with additions by Mr. Calhoun; a large Psalm and Hymn Book; Curwen's "New System of Musical Notation;"[1] a Children's Hymn Book; Bistany's Arabic Dictionary, and his Elements of Grammar; and an Arabic Almanac, probably the first ever printed in Arabic, although "Al-Manakh" (the climate) is an Arabic word. The press was now under the direction of Mr. Henry Thomson, a son of Dr. Thomson, who relieved the Beirût station of a heavy burden of care. The necessary preparations were completed in 1868 for electrotyping the Arabic Scriptures in Beirût.