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SOME SALT PEOPLE that any change of position was quite impossible, except for a few mothers with babies, who sat near the door.

Throughout the long Christmas sermon the cramped audience showed a reverence and an attentiveness that would have shamed many an American congregation. Suppose that a full-blooded Arab in his flowing native dress, should enter one of our churches at home—what a crafting of necks there would be, and how few persons would be able to recall the text! We appeared just as outlandish to the people of Feruzi; yet, although we sat at the back of the room, not a person turned to look at us, except that the man at my side would always help me find the place in the hymn book. It was not indifference, but consideration for the stranger and respect for the occasion; and we who had come merely to see an unusual sight, stayed to worship God with these new friends, and went away with a fuller realization of the meaning of Christmas.

After the service was over, however, there could be no charge of indifference brought against these Chaldean villagers—and here too American congregations might well learn from them. The same men who just now had seemed to ignore our existence came crowding around to greet us as "brethren." They inquired about our life at Beirut and our own wonderful country far beyond the western ocean; they expressed a complimentary surprise at the extent of [ 155 ]