Nineteen persons were added to the churches of the mission during the first half of the year 1859. This of course involved various local indications of progress, for which the limits of this history afford no space. A new place, however, is brought to our notice by Mr. Eddy, named Deir Mimas, a large village on the river Litany. A few had here professed Protestantism about two years before, and had encountered a storm of persecution from members of the Greek Church, and from the Mohammedan governor of their district. Yet they had constantly increased in numbers and strength. The missionary spending several days there, was delighted to find an audience each evening of more than one hundred, after their severe labors, all eager to hear. The number of men professing Protestantism was above sixty, and counting the women and the children, the number was one hundred and fifty, the largest in Syria. Their enemies were on the alert, and it was a sad fact, that no competent native teacher could be found to reside among them. They were then dependent on a native teacher, who came to them each Sabbath from a distance, having first preached in his own village. The annual meeting of the mission in this year was one of unusual interest. "From the beginning to the end of the meeting, it was apparent that there was much of a spirit of prayer among the native brethren. The native female prayer meeting in Beirut was more fully attended than usual; and the union meetings in Arabic and English, held in the chapel, in which the missionaries and native brethren united and large audiences assembled, were occasions of deep interest. The statements made in the meeting when the annual reports were read, at which W. A. Booth, Esq., of New York City, and Hon. Alpheus Hardy, of Boston, a member of the Prudential Committee, were providentially present, filled the minds of all with the conviction, that never before in the history of the Syria mission have we had so much encouragement, or such strong proofs that God is with us, and that the work is going forward in this land." Before this meeting, the mission had been favored with a visit from the Hon. James Williams, United States Ambassador at Constantinople, whose friendly and most useful agency was duly acknowledged by the mission. His reply to them may be found in the "Missionary Herald."[1] [1] See _Missionary Herald_, 1860, p. 163. The translation of the New Testament was now completed and published under the care of Dr. Van Dyck. The pocket edition was admitted to be one of the most beautiful books, in its typographical execution, in the Arabic language. It had this advantage, that it could be carried and read without attracting notice; which was something in a land where Bible readers met with so much determined opposition. CHAPTER XXXIX. SYRIA. 1860-1863.