The appearance of an open Bible, the preaching of the Gospel, free schools and open discussion of religious questions threw all things into confusion. Not a few received the Gospel and claimed the right to think for themselves.... Anathemas, the major excommunication, stripes and imprisonment, intimidated some, but drove multitudes out of the Oriental Churches, and as the imperial laws regarded every man outside the traditional sects as an outlaw, exile, death, or recantation seemed their only possible fate. But these storms of persecution developed some of the noblest types of Christian character. True heroic spirits, like Asaad esh Shidiak in Lebanon, preferred death to submission to the doctrines of a priestly hierarchy. The Maronite monastery of Connobîn, near the Cedars of Lebanon, where he was walled up in a cell under the overhanging cliff and starved to death, has become memorable in Syria as the scene of the first martyrdom for the evangelical faith in Turkey in modern times. Scourging, imprisonment and exile have been the lot of multitudes who have stood steadfast amid their sufferings. Mr. Butrus Bistany, a young Maronite scholar, who found the truth as Luther found it, in a monastery, fled for his life to Beirut, and remained concealed for two years in the American Mission, fearing death at the hands of the spies of the Patriarch. But he was spared to be a pillar in the Protestant Church, a learned Arabic author, the assistant of Eli Smith in Bible translation, and the biographer of Asaad esh Shidiak.... Kamil Abdul Messiah, a youthful Syrian convert to Christianity from Islam, who died in Bussorah in June, 1892, seemed baptized by the Holy Spirit and divinely instructed in the Word of God. He grasped the vital truths of the Gospel as by a Heavenly instinct. He was a youth of pure life and lips, of faith and prayer, of courage and zeal, and he was mighty in the Scriptures. In Southern Arabia he preached in the streets of towns, in Arab camps, on the deck of coasting ships, and even in mosques. His journals read like chapters from the Acts. His early death was a loss to the Arab race, but his memory is fragrant with the aroma of a pure and godly life and example. Time would fail us to recount the history of the able writers, the liberal Christian merchants, the faithful pastors and teachers, the godly physicians, the self-denying poor, the patient, loving, and exemplary women, who have been Christ's witnesses during these years of toil and prayer in Syria. In November, 1847, an Imperial decree recognized native Protestants as an independent community with a civil head.