Page:Syria, the land of Lebanon (1914).djvu/199

SOME SALT PEOPLE early career was an argument with a Protestant Bible-seller, which developed into a fierce fistic combat, with the result that the governor of Lebanon exiled both parties from their native town of Zahleh.

Some years later, after he had been ordained priest, Butrus journeyed to Rome and presented to the Holy Father a novel petition.

"We Catholics," he said, "build our church upon St. Peter, the first bishop, the rock, the holder of the keys; and we remember that the apostle's divine commission was given by Christ at Cæsarea Philippi on the slopes of Mount Hermon. How is it that the original bishopric of the Christian Church, the first see of Peter, has been so long allowed to remain unoccupied? "Now Butrus is the Arabic pronunciation of Peter. So he continued, "Here am I, bearing the very name of the greatest apostle, a native of the holy land of Lebanon, and ready to take up the arduous labors which shall reclaim for the church its first, long neglected bishopric."

The pope was so struck by the force of the argument that he promised to consecrate the young priest as bishop of Cæsarea, or Banias, as it is now called. Then the bishop-elect went through France, preaching a kind of new crusade. His idea was novel and striking, and met with enthusiastic approval. Indeed, with such eloquence did he appeal for the proposed diocese that he became immensely popular throughout all France, and gifts for the Bishopric of [ 157 ]