it over and over again until the girl was sure she should not make a mistake.  The woman above alluded to now said, “I would have said No in the right place, if I had been allowed to do it!” I then went to the house of the other bride and gave her similar instructions.  The surprise of the women who came in from the neighborhood, that the girl should have the right to say yes or no, was most amusing and suggestive.  That one thing seemed to give them new ideas of the dignity and honor of woman under the Gospel.  Marriage in the East is so generally a matter of bargain and sale, or of parental convenience and profit, or of absolute compulsion, that young women have little idea of exercising their own taste or judgment in the choice of a husband.

This was new doctrine for the city of Heliogabalus, and, as was to be expected, the news soon spread through the town that the next evening a marriage ceremony was to be performed by the Protestant minister, in which the bride was to have the privilege of refusing the man if she wished.  And, what was even more outrageous to Hums ideas of propriety, it was rumored that the brides were to walk home from the Church in company with their husbands!  This was too much, and certain of the young Humsites, who feared the effect of conferring such unheard-of rights and privileges on women, leagued together to mob the brides and grooms if such a course were attempted.  We heard of the threat and made ample preparations to protect Protestant women’s rights.

The evening came, and with it such a crowd of men, women and children, as had never assembled in that house before.  The houses of Hums are built around a square area into which all the rooms open, and the open space or court of the mission-house was very large.  Before the brides arrived, the entire court, the church and the schoolroom, were packed with a noisy and almost riotous throng.  Men, women and children were laughing and talking, shouting and screaming to one another, and discussing the extraordinary innovation on Hums customs about to be enacted.  Soon the brides arrived, accompanied by a veiled and sheeted crowd of women, all carrying candles and singing as they entered the house.  We took them into the study of the native preacher Sulleba, and after a reasonable delay, we forced a way for them through the crowd into the large square room, then used as a church.  My brother and myself finally succeeded in placing them in a proper position in front of the pulpit, and then we waited until Asaad and Michaiel and Yusef and Nasif had enforced a tolerable stillness.  It should be said that silence and good order are almost unknown in the Oriental churches.  Men are walking about and talking, and even laughing, while the priests are “performing” the service, and they are much impressed by the quiet and decorum of Protestant worship.