In Nazareth, in Tiberias, in Damascus, in Cæsarea, in Safed, in Jerusalem, in "goodly Lebanon," and elsewhere, churches and schools, largely aided by medical missions, have been planted by various sections of the Christian Church, and they are doing a great work for God. Recently Dr Zaytoun, a Druse by birth, has been pleading the cause of his co-religionists in this country, with the view of bringing Christianity and its attendant blessings to bear upon them. It is for us to hope that by all these agencies the Scripture may soon be fulfilled: "Tabor and Hermon rejoice in Thy Name."

At Jerusalem in 1865 a leper-home was opened by Baron von Keffenbrinch-Ascheraden of Pomerania and his benevolent lady, who had visited the Holy Land and had seen with pitying eye the distressing state of the lepers, who lived and died in spiritual and bodily misery, unsoothed and unattended, outside the gates of the city. Soon after it was handed over to the Moravian Church, which is always ready to undertake the most toilsome and most loathsome work in the mission-field. Mr and Mrs Schubert are now presiding over it with unswerving and selfsacrificing devotion, assisted by nurses of like character,- Mr and Mrs Tappe having been obliged to withdraw through failing health, after seventeen years of unremitting labour. A small pamphlet, drawn up by the Moravian bishop La Trobe, giving an account of the work among the lepers in South Africa, helped greatly to create an interest in this work at Jerusalem, which is in consequence now supported by Christians of many denominations on the Continent and in Britain. The home has been repeatedly enlarged, and being conducted with faith.

and prayer, it has very largely enjoyed the blessing of God. Many of its wretched inmates have been soothed and relieved, and not a few "have returned to embrace the feet of their Saviour, and to glorify God in songs of deliverance."

Recently an influential meeting was held in Edinburgh to hear Mr Waldmeier from Beyrout, who is making a tour in Europe and America to procure the means of building a small institution for the insane in Syria, where they are treated with great barbarity. They are loaded with chains, kept in caves, and cruelly beaten. The belief is that they are possessed with devils, and that such treatment will drive out the demon. No ray of sympathy or compassion reaches them. Dr Clouston, the wellknown Superintendent of the Edinburgh Asylum, who had been in Syria, bore testimony to the urgent need of such an institution, and added that the scheme is founded upon a broad humanitarian basis with no distinction of religion or race, the committee embracing Mohammedans, Maronites, Greek Christians, native Protestants, Druses, and influential European and American missionaries, doctors, and business men. So, as far as man can make it, the scheme will be attended with success, and assuredly the blessing of God will rest upon it.

Beyrout is the seat of the great missionary college maintained by the American Presbyterian Church. It was long presided over by Dr Eli Smith, who was aided by other learned men. The Rev. Dr D. Bliss is now the President, and the Rev. Dr H. Jessup is the General Secretary. The town stands out on the sea as a lighthouse, "holding forth the word of life" in its various Christian institutions.

It has very much taken the place of Tyre on the Syrian coast, and may we not transfer the promise, "Her merchandise and her hire shall be holiness to the LORD"? It contains about 100,000 people, and it is the chief seaport for Damascus and for the greater part of Syria, through which several railways will be opened within a few years. I take the following summary of Christian and non-Christian work carried on there from a recent issue of the 'Scotsman':—

The credit for the fact that the Syrians are being universally educated, whatever may have been its motives, must ever remain with the American Presbyterian missioners, who, coming to Beyrout in 1833, have ever since made that city the chief centre of their labours. They began by preaching, but soon the large-minded and truly earnest men who composed the mission knew that other modes of influencing and elevating Syria were needed, and they therefore took to educational and medical work. Like wise men, they were not content with failure to convert the adults. They sought new methods and new forces to act on humanity. They set up a printing-press and a college as well as schools. They issued secular literature as well as sacred. One of them, Dr Van Eyck, combined many qualities that enabled him to exert a wide influence in Syria. He was a great Arabic scholar, and translated the Scriptures into that language, while at the same time he was a good practical physician and a sound medical teacher. Above all, he was a shrewd man, of great common sense. By 1866 their college was in good working order, turning out well-taught teachers, clerks, doctors, ministers, and civil servants of the Government, many of whom attained distinction, and their success gave an impetus to the cause of education all over the country. The Syrian is a very shrewd race, and knows what pays. The "British Syrian Schools" were established by Mrs

Baily Thompson in 1860, and now 3000 children are under instruction in them. A Prussian deaconesses' orphanage, schools by the Free Church and by the Church of Scotland, and by an energetic and earnest town's-woman, Miss Taylor, all followed in quick succession; while the Jesuits, who had been doing some work in one or two villages in Lebanon, began in Beyrout about twenty years ago, and, following almost slavishly the American procedure, set up schools, colleges, and a printing-press there. The head of their Order went on a begging tour and raised nearly £200,000, so that in size, in the number of its students, and in thorough organisation, their college stands now unrivalled in Syria. Not that they turn out better-qualified doctors or teachers: they educate more of them. Their work was soon supplemented by that of two orders of Sisters of Charity, in whose schools 2600 children are now educated. The French Government, which turned the Jesuits out of France, pays salaries of £480 a-year to each of the medical professors in the Jesuit College, while in other direct and indirect ways it helps them! It sends examiners from Lyons for the medical degree, whose possessors can legally practise in France. One cannot live long in Syria without seeing that the French Government is making strenuous efforts to acquire paramount political influence there. Certainly the Syrians seem to take far more readily to the French language than to ours. Soon the Greeks and the Maronites woke up, and established schools and colleges, where now 4000 pupils are instructed. The Italians, Jews, and Armenians joined in the educational crusade, and now do their share of the work. At last, even the Moslem who rules Syria, whose language is the common tongue of the people, and who forms the larger number of the people, took alarm, and by State and private effort has provided schools almost everywhere, especially where Christians had already established them. The Jesuit and the Mussulman have the distinction of being now the greatest poachers on other people's educational preserves. The Civil Service

was being manned by educated Syrian Christians. The Turk has put a stop to that, and now fills up his Government appointments by scholars of his own faith from his own Gymnasium. We saw many of the Beyrout schools at work, and, without pretending to the knowledge of educational specialism, we thought that the teaching was honest and vigorous, and the results fairly good. All sects except the Moslems educate girls and boys alike. They only educate one girl to four boys in their schools.

Miss Taylor, who is named in this résumé of work, assuredly deserves all the support that can be given her. She carries on her mission schools with much zeal and success, and her influence for good is very great. And with no less zeal and success does Miss Walker-Arnott carry on her equally noble and selfdenying work in Jaffa, naming her schools from "Tabeetha, which by interpretation is called Dorcas : this woman was full of good works and alms-deeds which she did." In giving this name, she has unintentionally given her own character and that of many other Christian women engaged in missionary work throughout the world. To such it might be said

"Thy care is fixt, and zealously attends

To fill thy odorous lamp with deeds of light,
And hope that reaps not shame."

Considering how many there are in this country, the number of these workers might be largely increased. No doubt many of them are usefully employed at home, but assuredly some might be much more usefully employed in the various mission-fields of the Church of Christ.

Since writing this, I read in the 'Helpmeet' for June 1896, published in connection with the "Women's