CHAPTER VII.

GREEK PRIEST-ANSWER TO OBJECTIONS TO SCHOOLS-GEBILEE -CASTLE OF MERKAB-EFFECTS OF EARTHQUAKE-COURTEOUS GOVERNOR-COLONY OF OLD MAHOMETANS-CASTLE OF KADMOOS-THE ISMAELEEH, OR ASSASSINS-DREARY COUNTRY -CORRUPT FAITH-ISMAELEEH, CHURLISHNESS-HOW TO FIND ONE'S WAY - BIVOUAC BATTLE-SAFFEETA-SHEIKH MUHAMMED YOOSEF-HIS HARSHNESS AND CONCEIT-ABUNDANCE OF GAME.

ON my return I found that my proceedings had been the talk of the consuls and gossips of the place. One of the first to ask me about my trip was the Greek priest, whom I had seen. with the Patriarch at Antioch. His name is Gerasimus; and as he is well known, and generally allowed to be one of those very few of his order (amounting, as he himself said, to three or four) who possess anything like learning or intelligence, the conversation I had with him may be worth mentioning.

He spoke without any apparent dislike of the project of a school for the Ansyreel; and here

I will make a remark or two in answer to any objection which may be made to the establishment of a Church of England mission among that people, on the score that the districts in which they reside are within the proper province of the Greek Church, and that it is for it to provide for the instruction of all, whether Christians or others, within its limits. I would observe that, setting aside the almost impossibility of the Greek Church making any attempt, under the present political arrangements of the country, to convert either Mahometans or Ansyreeh, and that in reality its members form but a section, and that not the most numerous one of the Christian inhabitants of Syria, there is not the remotest probability that it will attempt anything of the kind. On the contrary, the views of its members, as well as those of the other native Christians, are, that a Christian will remain a Christian, a Mahometan a Mahometan, a Druze a Druze, and an Ansyreeh an Ansyreeh, till the consummation of all things. The conversion of those who are not Christians appears to them impossible without the aid of miracles, and is a thing which excites no lively interest. An attempt, therefore, on the part of the Anglican

Church to bring into her fold, and so into the fold of Christ, those who are now in utter darkness, and among whom no Christian missionary has ever yet worked, could in no case be construed into an act of interference with any Christian church. But, on the other hand, the effects of such a mission would have a beneficial effect, by its indirect influence, on the Christian churches of the East, an influence, it may be, greater than any obtainable by more direct means. May we not add that the mission might, in the lapse of time, be no less effectual in its influence on the Mahometans? But to return to my conversation with the priest.

We first spoke of prayers to the saints, the consul and his brother being present and joining in the conversation. His position was that St. Paul often desired the benefit of prayers of just men on earth, and since the saints at their death are not separated from the church, but only pass from the church militant to the church triumphant, we cannot but suppose that their sympathies for every member of that church become enlarged rather than narrowed, while they can concentrate their whole thoughts on the salvation of others, since their own sal

vation is already secured; not to mention that their prayers are now without any stain of imperfection. For all this, there is more reason to ask the benefit of the prayers of the saints in heaven, than of the saints on earth. I argued that, in the first place, there is no example of St. Paul or the other apostles having asked for the prayers of glorified saints, and that there was no assurance, from revelation or reason, that they could hear our prayers; and I deduced from this, what he could not but own, that our prayers might be all lost. I urged, farther,

that there was in fact no reason for them, since our Saviour Christ is alway ready to hear, and St. Paul had said that there is but one mediator between God and man. Moreover, I said, that there was a difference between asking for the benefit of the prayers of our fellow Christians on earth, and praying to the saints in heaven, since the enlarging of the mutual love of Christians was a good reason for the command to do the one, while prayer to invisible beings was what belonged only to God. He contended, on the other hand, that the prayers of the saints are said in the Revelation to ascend up with the incense before the throne. I replied

that these were the prayers of the saints on

earth, but he referred to the passage in which the spirits of the just are represented as praying for vengeance on the inhabitants of the earth, to which I said that this might be merely figurative language.

At the same time that he held to his views, he declared that there was a great difference between the prayers which they offered to the saints and those used in the Church of Rome, for in their case they did not seek for anything from the personal merits and power of the saints, but only from their intercession to God on their behalf.

He spoke of transubstantiation, and said that he found the dogmas of the Protestants and of the Papists with regard to it equally hard to be believed. He could not, he said, bring himself to believe that after the prayer of consecration there was present, under every crumb of bread, perfect God and perfect man, and that he contented himself with the literal acceptation of our Saviour's words, "This is my body," without attempting nicely to explain their purport and operation. He said that he had been, on the other hand, shocked at the saying of a Protestant, whom he had met at Safad (I believe sent by some society in England), who had