Now, through Dr. Gobat, the Bishop of Jerusalem, the opportunity was given. The king offered two small houses in Jerusalem that were his private property, and volunteered to pay the expenses of the journey. Associations were formed in all parts of Germany to provide an outfit for the mission. Gifts flowed in rapidly, and March 17, 1851, Fliedner, accompanied by four deaconesses, two of them being teachers, set out on this new and peaceful crusade to the holy city. From that beginning has resulted a net-work of stations throughout the East. There is at Jerusalem a hospital[33] where, during 1887, four hundred and ninety-three patients were given medical aid and nursing, and seven thousand seven hundred and two patients were treated in the dispensary. No woman in the city is better known or more justly honored than Sister Charlotte, the head-deaconess. The Mohammedans at first regarded the work of the sisters with fanatical distrust, but a glance at the statistics of the last report will show how completely they have cast aside their prejudices. Of the 493 patients in 1887, there were 404 Arabians, 43 Armenians, 30 Germans, 5 Abyssinians, 4 Greeks, 3 Roumanians, 2 Russians, 1 Italian, and 1 Hollander. As to religion, there were 235 Mohammedans, 97 Protestants, 78 Greeks, 23 Roman Catholics, 45 Armenians, 6 Copts, 3 Syrian Christians, 4 Proselytes, 1 Jew, and 1 Maronite; so that in all nine nations and nine religious faiths were represented in the hospital. There is also a girls' orphanage, called "Talitha Cumi," just outside the city walls at Jerusalem, where one hundred and fourteen native girls were last year taught by the Kaiserswerth deaconesses. Over a hundred more made application to enter, but there was no room to receive them. In Constantinople, Alexandria, Cairo, Beirut, and Pesth there are also well-appointed hospitals, some of them of spacious dimensions, and all having excellent medical service and nursing that cannot be surpassed. The orphanage and school at Beirut had a sad foundation. In 1860 came the terrible news of the massacre of the Maronite Christians by the Druses in the Lebanon mountains. Kaiserswerth deaconesses were immediately sent out, and were among the first to arrive to join the resident Europeans and Americans in caring for the sufferers. Numbers of children were left fatherless and motherless, and the sisters started the orphanage at Beirut to shelter them. When its twenty-fifth anniversary was celebrated in 1885 over eight hundred girls had received a home and education here, and had gone forth to eastern homes, carrying with them the light and knowledge of Christian faith into the dark, degraded social life of the Orient.[34] From the two orphanages at Beirut and Jerusalem over forty have gone out as teachers in girls' schools in Palestine and Syria. Twelve others have become deaconesses, and are ministering in this capacity to their own countrymen and to foreigners in eastern hospitals.[35]