[CHAPTER XII.]
MISSION-WORK.
"'Tis time
New hopes should animate the world, new light
Should dawn from new revealings to a race
Weighed down so long."
Browning.
There was comparatively little known among Friends about the land of the Bible from personal observation before 1870, and some of the best works on the history, the geography, the manners, and customs of Palestine have been written since that date. The visits of Eli and Sybil Jones to Syria, and the letters which they and their companions, Alfred Lloyd Fox and Ellen Clare Peason (born Miller), wrote from there have done much to bring that country to the careful notice of Friends; and the interest felt in the missions at Brumanna and Ramallah has induced many to study their situations and to become better acquainted with that whole region, incontestably the most important on the globe if we associate with the soil what has transpired there for the benefit of the race. We call it the "Holy Land," and the religious enthusiasts of the Middle Ages felt that it was a profanation for infidels to hold the sepulchre of the Lord and the cities where He taught; so that thousands rose from all Christian lands to win back the captured territory, and blindly gave their lives for what they thought a sacred cause. In those days the Crusades opened the eyes of Europe and showed to the people the civilization and wonders of this Eastern land, and they brought back accounts from the cradle of early civilization which changed the thoughts and ideas of the age. American missionaries began to work in Syria in 1823, not to win the soil from the hands of infidels, but to gain the souls of those living in blindness, ignorance, and sin; and their endeavors have been greatly blessed, although these strongholds yield slowly to the most vigorous assaults.