Asaad says, in his narrative: "A friend told me, that the Patriarch wondered how I should pretend that I held to the Christian religion, and still converse in such abusive terms against it. And I also wondered, after he saw this, that he should not be willing so much as to ask me, in mildness and forbearance, for what reasons I was unwilling to receive the doctrines of the Pope, or to say, that I believed as he did. But, so far from this, he laid every person, and even his own brother under excommunication, should they presume to dispute or converse with me on the subject of religion. Entirely bereft of books, and shut out from all persons who might instruct me, from what quarter could I get the evidence necessary to persuade me to accept the Patriarch's opinions? "Another cause I had of wonder was, that not one of all with whom I conversed, when he thought me heretical, advised me to use the only means of becoming strong in the faith, namely, prayer to God Most High, and searching his Holy Word, which a child may understand. I wondered, too, that they should ridicule and report me abroad as insane, and after all this, be afraid to engage in a dispute with the madman, lest he should turn them away from the truth." As the Patriarch, and the Bishop of Beirut, whose diocese included Hadet, were determined to shut him out from the people, and even threatened his life, Asaad resolved on escaping to Beirut, which he accomplished, as already stated, on the morning of Thursday, March 2, 1826. Asaad's statement was forthwith copied and sent in various directions through the mountains, and afterwards it had a much wider circulation in a printed form. The Patriarch's first effort to recapture the fugitive, was by means of a Turkish sheriff, and it failed. On the following Monday, an uncle and the two elder brothers of Asaad came to see what they could do; and they were followed by another brother, and then by the mother and her youngest son. The older brothers were loud and violent in their denunciations. All these the persecuted young Christian met with a calm firmness, but he was at one time almost overcome by the distress of his mother. She was at length pacified by the declarations, that he was not a follower of the English, that he derived not his creed from them, that he believed in the Trinity, that Jesus was God, and that Mary was his mother. Phares, the youngest brother, consented to receive a New Testament, and was evidently affected and softened by the interview.