Suk el Ghurb, Mt.  Lebanon,
          
                                        September 3, 1872.

Dear Sir—­I am thankful to say, in reply to your inquiry, that I was not persecuted when I became a Protestant, like my other native sisters were when they became Protestants, because I was very young.  I was about four years old when my father died, and a year after, my mother married a Protestant man.  I came to live with my mother in her new home, with my two brothers.  It was very hard to lose a dear loving father who loved his children so much as my mother tells me he did.  But the Lord does everything right, because if the Lord had not taken my father away from us I should not have known the true religion.  I lived in my step-father’s house till I was twelve years old.  I was then placed in Dr. De Forest’s school, in the year 1848.  I stayed there four years.  I was not clever at my studies, and especially the English language was very difficult for me.  Even until now I remember a lesson in English which was so hard for me that I was punished twice for it, and I could not learn it.  Now it will make me laugh to think of these few words, which I could not translate into Arabic:  “The hen is in the yard.”  My mind was more at play than at learning.  I was very clever at housework, and at dressing dolls, and was always the leader in all games.  From that you can see that I was not a very good girl at school.  After the two first years I began to think how nice it would be to become a real Christian like my dear teacher Dr. De Forest.  Then I used to pray, and read, especially the “Pilgrim’s Progress,” and my mind was so busy at it that I used sometimes to leave my lesson and go and sit alone in my room.  Nobody knew what was the matter with me, but Dr. De Forest used to ask me why I did not go to school?  I told him that I was very troubled, and he told me to pray to God very earnestly to give me a new heart.  I did pray, but I did not have an answer then.  Three or four times during my school time I began to wish to become a Christian.  I prayed and was very troubled.  I wept and would not play, and as I got no immediate answer, I left off reading and sometimes praying entirely.  Everybody noticed that I did not much care to read, and especially a religious book.  I felt that my heart had grown harder than before I had wished to become a Christian.  The greatest trial was that I had no faith, and for that reason I used not to believe in prayer, but still I longed to become a real Christian.  I left school in the year 1852, and went to live at home with my mother.  I was taken ill, and when I was ill I was very much afraid of death, for I felt that God was very angry with me.

Till about two years after I left school, I had no religion at all.  One evening a young man from Abeih came to our house.  His name is Giurgius el Haddad, who is now Mr. Calhoun’s