The Arabic original of these lines breathes the true spirit of poetry, and shows that the old poetic fire still burns in the desert.  Feisal now lives in the region adjacent to Mohammed Dukhy, and they leave a space of several miles between their camps to prevent trespass, and the danger of re-opening the old blood-feud.

I would commend the Arabs of the Desert to the prayerful remembrance of the Women of America.  How the gospel is to reach them, is one of the great problems of our day.  Their women are sunken to the lowest depths of physical and moral degradation.  The extent of their religion is in being able to swear Mohammedan oaths.  “Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness; their feet are swift to shed blood; destruction and misery are in their ways, and the way of peace have they not known.”  Although their hand is against every man, and every man’s hand against them, let them feel that there is one class of men who love them and care for them with a disinterested love, and who seek their everlasting welfare!

CHAPTER XV.

“WOMAN BETWEEN BARBARISM AND CIVILIZATION.”

This is the title of an Arabic article in the “Jenan” for Sept. 1, 1872, written by Frances Effendi Merrash, brother of the Sitt Mariana, whose paper we have translated on a preceding page.  It is evident that the Effendi writes from the atmosphere of Aleppo.  The more “polite” society of that city is largely made up of that mongrel population, half French and half Arab, which is styled “Levantine” and too often combines the vices of both, with the virtues of neither.  It will be seen that the able author is combatting the worst form of French flippant civilization, which has already found its way into many of the towns and cities of the Orient.  He says:—­

“Inasmuch as woman constitutes a large portion of human kind, and an essential element in society, as well as the leading member of the race in respect to its perpetuation, it becomes necessary both to consider and speak of her character and position although there are not wanting those who are coarse enough and rude enough to declare woman a worthless part of the creation.

“Woman possesses a nature remarkably impressible and susceptible to influence, owing to the delicacy of her organization and the peculiarities of her structure.  Her proper culture therefore calls for the greatest possible skill and care to protect her from those corrupting influences to which she is by nature especially susceptible.  We should therefore neither leave her locked in the fetters of the ancient barbarism and rudeness, nor leave her free to the uncontrollable liberty of this modern civilization, for both these extremes bring her into one common evil estate and both have one effect upon her.