He was a man of prominent family in Homs and has been highly prospered in business, having become one of the most substantial men of the city. Most of the successful men of Homs owe their prosperity to business conducted in Egypt. They spend the winters in Egypt, advancing money to the peasants on their cotton crops and also furnishing them certain classes of imported goods on credit. It has been a profitable business, even to those who have not been led away by the temptation of avarice to impose on the simplicity of the Egyptian peasant. On one occasion I was talking to Mr. Nasser about the high standards of morality obligatory on the true Christian merchant. He then told me the following incident in the simplest manner. As a young man he started with his cousin on a very small capital. They invested their cash capital in stock for their little store, purchasing so far as they could on credit. Mr. Nasser returned to Homs, leaving his cousin in charge of the business in Egypt. Scarcely had he reached home when word came of the complete destruction of their store and all its contents by fire. It was a heavy blow for the young men, and the first impulse was to go through bankruptcy, settle up as well as they could and give up the enterprise. Friends and creditors came to their help and volunteered to scale down their claims and furnish new capital for the two men to start again. They were prospered from the beginning. After some years Mr. Rafool Nasser decided that he was unwilling to have the friends who were so kind to him suffer from the old loss. He wrote to his cousin, saying that he had no wish to control his partner's action, but asking him to pay off his share of those old losses carried by their friends after the fire, and charge the amount against his personal account. The cousin wrote back, "Whatever you do, I shall do also." In the light of this incident, will anyone say that commercial honor is confined to the West? There was a long period of hesitation, after Mr. Nasser was convinced intellectually of the truth of the evangelical faith, before he joined the Church. He has explained this to me in the following way: He knew that if he gave in his adherence to the Protestant doctrine, his conscience would require him to give far more of his possessions than he had been accustomed to do in the Greek church. It took a long time to bring his will to yield. In fact, his head was reached before his purse was opened. He gave up the conflict at last and then said, in closing the account of his experience, "I've gotten way beyond that now, for I have learned the joy of giving." He is not a millionaire, but the Lord has blessed him with considerable property, and he recognizes his position as that of steward. He has been the leading spirit in the enterprises of the Homs church, spoken of in another place.