THE MARTYR OF LEBANON. 1826-1830. The conversion, life, and martyrdom of Asaad Shidiak,1 so very early in the history of this mission, is a significant and encouraging fact. He not only belonged to the Arab race, but to a portion of it that had long been held in slavish subjection to Rome. His fine mind and heart opened to the truths of the Gospel almost as soon as they were presented; and when once embraced, they were held through years of suffering, which terminated in a martyr's death. With freedom to act, he would have gone forth an apostle to his countrymen. The Arab-speaking race is estimated at sixty millions, and they must receive the gospel mainly from those to whom the language is vernacular. It will tend greatly to strengthen the faith of Christians as to this result, to contemplate the grace of God as seen in the case of this early convert. Space cannot be afforded to do full justice to the facts, which were chiefly recorded by the Rev. Isaac Bird, but the reader is referred in the margin to more ample sources of information.2 1 Written also Asaad el-Shidiak, and Asaad esh-Shidiak. 2 See _Missionary Herald_ for 1827, pp. 68, 71-76, 97-101, 129-136, 169-177, 268-271, 369-372; for 1828, pp. 16-19, 115-119, 165, 373, 375; for 1829, pp. 15, 47, 111, 115; and _The Martyr of Lebanon_, by Rev. Isaac Bird, Boston, 1864, pp. 208. Asaad Shidiak was the fourth son of a respectable Maronite, and was born about the year 1797, at Hadet, a small village a few miles from Beirut. His early training was among the Maronites. Such was his ability and fondness for learning, that his family aided him in preparing for the Maronite college at Ain Warka, the most noted seminary on the mountains. He entered the college at the age of sixteen, and remained nearly three years, applying himself diligently to rhetoric, and to natural and theological science, all of which were taught in the Arabic and Syriac languages. Having completed his college course with the highest honor, he became a teacher, first of a common village school, and then of theology and general science in a convent. Occasionally he was permitted to deliver public lectures. His text-book in the instruction of the monks, was the theological treatise of St. Anthony of Padua, translated into Arabic; of which he made an abridgment, that is still used among the Maronites. From about the year 1820 to 1824, Asaad was successively in the employ of the Maronite bishop of Beirut, and of several Arab chiefs. These frequent changes were apparently not for his advantage.