A Sabbath School, with five teachers and thirty pupils, was established at the same time, the majority of the scholars being girls.  A native female prayer-meeting was also commenced at this time, conducted by three missionary ladies and two native Protestant women.  At times, as many as twenty were present, and this first female prayer-meeting in Syria in modern times, was attended with manifest tokens of the Divine blessing.

As has been already stated, the seclusion of Oriental females renders it almost impossible for a male missionary to visit among them or hold religious meetings exclusively for women.  This must be done, if at all, by the missionary’s wife or by Christian women devoted especially to this work.  It was true in 1834, and it is almost equally true in 1873.  The Arabs have a proverb, “The tree is not cut down, but by a branch of itself;” i.e. the axe handle is of wood.  So none can reach the women of Syria but women.  The Church of Rome understands this, and is sending French, Italian and Spanish nuns in multitudes to work upon the girls and women of Syria, and the women of the Syria Mission, married and unmarried, have done a noble work in the past in the elevation and education of their Syrian sisters.  And in this connection it should be observed, that a sine qua non of efficient usefulness among the women of Syria, is that the Christian women who labor for them should know the Arabic language.  Ignorance of the language is regarded by the people as indicating a want of sympathy with them, and is an almost insuperable barrier to a true spiritual influence.  The great work to be done for the women of the world in the future, is to be done in their own mother-tongue, and it would be well that all the Female Seminaries in foreign lands should be so thoroughly supplied with teachers, that those most familiar with the native language could be free to devote a portion of their time to labors among the native women in their homes.

In 1834 and 1835 Mrs. Dodge conducted a school for Druze girls in Aaleih, in Lebanon.  This School in Aaleih, a village about 2300 feet above the level of the sea, was once suddenly broken up.  Not a girl appeared at the morning session.  A rumor had spread through the village, that the English fleet had come up Mount Lebanon from Beirut, and was approaching Aaleih to carry off all the girls to England!  The panic however subsided, and the girls returned to school.  In 1836 Mrs. Hebard and Mrs. Dodge carried on the work which Mrs. Smith had so much loved, and which was only temporarily interrupted by her death.

In 1837, Mrs. Whiting and Miss Tilden had an interesting school of Mohammedan girls in Jerusalem, and Mrs. Whiting had several native girls in her own family.