They believe in one God and in a fixed number of human souls that can never be increased or diminished. This resemblance to the religions of India is probably due to Persian teaching. They recognize the claims upon them of no other religion, and yet with manifest indifference they join in the prayers of the Mohammedans in their mosques and sprinkle the holy water of the Catholic Church with the Maronites, according as expediency may require. They have seven commandments: 1. Speaking the truth (only between Druses, however). 2. Combination for mutual defense. 3. Renunciation of all other creeds. 4. Social separation from all who are in error. 5. Recognition of the unity of Hakim with God. 6. Complete resignation of the will. 7. Obedience to orders. They believe in free will and reject the fatalism of the Mohammedans. When the Mohammedans inaugurated the massacre of the Maronites to check their growing strength under Christian enlightenment, the Druses joined with the Turks as the enemies of Christianity. It was this massacre which led to the intervention of Europe, resulting in the exclusion of Turkish officials from the Lebanon and the establishment of a special government for that district with a Roman Catholic governor and a mixed council under a constitution drawn by the European Powers. This has made a great change in the Lebanon, affording the people of that vilayet larger freedom of action and greater exemption from Turkish persecution than are enjoyed in any other part of the Turkish empire. The Druses and Maronites live on terms of harmony. They are a brave, fine-looking and enterprising people, living mostly by agriculture. THE JEWS The Jews are too well known in both ancient and modern history to demand space here. While they are found in considerable numbers in Syria, possibly as many as eighty thousand, they do not hold an important position in relation to the government of that country, or in the mission problems. While the Jews in Russia are always at the front, in Turkey they seldom appear. The Turks seem to have no fear that they will interfere in any way with the affairs of state. They do not command the prominence commercially in Turkey that they do in most other countries. In the city of Constantinople it is estimated that there are seventy-five thousand Jews, and in the other large cities of the empire they exist in smaller numbers. They are an inoffensive people, attending to their own affairs and not interfering with the other races, all of whom look down upon them as inferior. In many places in the interior where they appear in small numbers they are, for the most part, extremely poor. SYRIANS OR JACOBITES