The Jordan and the Rhine, or, The East and the West being the result of five years' residence in Syria, and five years' residence in Germany / [William Graham].
- William Graham
- Date:
- 1854
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The Jordan and the Rhine, or, The East and the West being the result of five years' residence in Syria, and five years' residence in Germany / [William Graham]. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![THE TWO PARTIES COMPARED. thing that constitutes character, efficiency, and respectability, she is far behind her. Take the following particulars :— 1st. I have said the Maronite priests are comparatively illite- rate. This is true. But they are two centuries before the Greeks. All the Christian literature of Syria is among the ]\daronites. The best Arabic school in the world, perhaps, is among them, and they have produced some good grammars and lexicons of that noble and ponderous dialect. 2nd. The clergy of the Maronites are forbidden to engage in secular employments. They must live by the altar. The Greek priests are employed, like the other peasants, in the labour of the fields. 3rd. The Maronite priest must go through a regular course of preparatory studies. He is prepared in the schools and colleges of the nation, and not unfrequently finished in the Maronite Arabic College, at Borne. This gives him a great advantage over the poor Greek. 4th. The Greek Church has, in Syria and the East generally, the character of a quiet, inoperative, dormant community ; the Papal, on the contrary, assumes the attitude of an earnest, ambitious, conquering, missionary church, which claims and is destined to possess the dominion of the world. Consequently multitudes of the Greeks have come over to the papacy, and, generally speaking, the poorer portion of the Christians in Syria belong to the Greek, the more wealthy, fashionable, and influential to the Papal, Church. These are the two bodies of Christians that inhabit the Mountain, and among these have the American missionaries been labouring for a considerable period. Missionary schools have been opened for many years; a high school or college is now established at Abeih, under the superintendence of the Bev. Dr. Yandyke, for the education of the higher classes. The object of these Christian missionaries is not to dismember, but D 2](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b29352733_0065.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
