"You must know, that if you fail to come home, you will give us great pain, and this, you know, would be inconsistent with love. Jesus says, 'By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.' You well know how much joy and consolation it would give us to see you; do not then deny us this pleasure, but come at all events. If you do not come, it may be an injury both to yourself and me. I wish to see you, if it be only to say to you two words, and then act your pleasure; for not every word can be said with paper and pen. Farewell.
"Your brother and companion in tribulation,
Galeb took me aside, and begged me to urge his brother to go home. I said I had already advised him to do so, but that I could not force him to go--that if he found he could not enjoy liberty of conscience, and the privilege of reading the word of God, in Hadet, he was welcome to stay with me as long as he pleased. "You are a man," said Galeb, "that speaks the truth and acts uprightly, but Asaad and Phares are not like you; they talk very improper things." Among these things, he mentioned a report to which Asaad had given circulation, respecting the patriarch, to which I was obliged to reply, that instead of taking it for granted to be a _false_ report, he ought to believe it to be true, and that such a report was not abroad respecting the patriarch alone, but respecting a majority of patriarchs and bishops of the whole land.
After some further conversation on the wickedness of treating brothers, as they had done Phares and Asaad, we went to Phares, and endeavoured to persuade him to go home with his brother. But it was all in vain. "If I leave this house," said he, "instead of going to Hadet, I will go in the opposite direction." The brother returned without him.
_Conversation of Phares with the Bishop of Beyroot._
After Galeb had gone, we put a great many questions to Phares, and he communicated some interesting particulars. Among others was the following:
"The day that Asaad and myself left you, (the 17th,) the bishop of Beyroot was at the next house, and I went to salute him.
"He said to me, 'I understand _you_ have become English, too. You _reason on the subject of religion_.'
"But," said I, "is every one English, if he _reasons_ on that subject?"
_Bishop._--"But you read in the Bibles of the English."
_Phares._--"Yes, and from whom is the Bible? is it from the English, or from God?"
_B._--"But it is _printed_ by the English."
_P._--"Well, is it altered in any place?"
_B._--"See, now you have begun again to argue on the subject of religion. I tell you, young man, cease this heretical habit, or you are excommunicated."
Phares informed us of three or four Bibles and New Testaments, that we had given at different times to individuals in Hadet, which had lately been destroyed by order of the bishop. This news, together with a discovery we yesterday made in the neighbouring house, of two covers of the New Testament, whose contents had long ago been torn out, shews us anew, if new evidence were wanting, that if the Gospel is ever introduced again in its power and purity into this country, it will be with a desperate struggle.
Two brothers of Phares, Mansoor and Galeb, came to converse with him anew. We saw them seated together on the ground, at a little distance from the house, but afterwards saw them no more. It is singular that Phares should have left without coming either to take his cloak, or bid us farewell.[J]