How pleasant it is to hear that sweet toned bell!  Let us climb up to the roof and read the inscription on it.  “From little Sabbath School Children in America to the Mission Church in Tripoli, Syria.”  It was sent in 1862 by the children in Fourth Avenue Church, New York, and in Newark, Syracuse, Owego, Montrose and other places.

The Moslems abhor bells.  They say bells draw together evil spirits.  We are not able yet to have a bell in Hums, on account of the Moslem opposition.  They do not use bells, but have men called Muezzins stationed on the little balconies around the top of the tall minarets, to call out five times a day to the people to come to prayer.  They select men and boys with high clear voices, and at times their voices sound very sweetly in the still evening.  They say, “There is no God but God.”  That is true.  Then they add, “and Mohammed is the Apostle of God,” and that is not true.  As the great historian Gibbon said; these words contain an “eternal truth and an eternal lie.”

The Moslems are obliged to pray five times every day, wherever they may be.  At home, in their shops, in the street, or on a journey, whenever the appointed time arrives, they fall on their knees, and go through with the whole routine of prayers and bodily prostrations.  One day several Moslems called on us in Tripoli, at the eighth hour of the day (about 2 o’clock P.M.), and after they had been sitting some time engaged in conversation, one of them arose and said to his companions, “I must pray.”.  They all asked, “Why?  It is not the hour of prayer.”  “Because,” said he, “when I went to the mosque at noon to pray, I had an ink-spot on my finger nail, and did not perceive it until after I came out, and hence my prayer was of no account.  I have just now scraped it off, and must repeat my noon prayer.”  So saying, he spread his cloak upon the floor, and then kneeling upon it with his face towards Mecca, commenced his prayers, while his companions amused themselves by talking about his ceremonial strictness.  One of them said to me, “He thinks he is holy, but if you could see the inside of him, you would find it black as pitch!” He kept his head turned to hear what was being said, and after he had finished, disputed a remark one of them had made while he was praying.  Such people worship God with their lips, while their hearts are far from him.

Moslems have a great horror of swine.  They think us barbarians to eat ham or pork.  In February, 1866, the Moslems of Beirut were keeping the Fast of Ramadan.  For a whole month of each year they can eat and drink nothing between sunrise and sunset, and they become very cross and irritable.  In Hums, some Moslems saw a dog eating a bone in Ramadan, and killed him because he would not keep the fast.  They fast all day, and feast all night.  Ramadan is really a great nocturnal feast, but it is hard for the working people to wait until night before beginning the feast.  During that fast of 1866, a Maronite