And in order to add to the shame of the inhospitable village the stranger adds, "Yet there is both straw and provender for our asses; and there is bread and wine also for me, and for thy handmaid [the wife], and for the young man which is with thy servants: there is no want of any thing." What a rebuke to that community! "And the old man said, Peace be with thee; howsoever let all thy wants lie upon me; _only lodge not in the street_. So he brought him into his house, and gave provender unto the asses: and they washed their feet, and did eat and drink." The old man saved the name of the town. {213} One of the noblest and most tender utterances of Job is the thirty-second verse of the thirty-first chapter. Here the afflicted patriarch, in pleading his own cause before the Most High, says, "The stranger did not lodge in the street, but I opened my doors to the traveller." Syrian rules of hospitality make it improper for a householder to ask a guest who has suddenly come to him such a question as "Have you had your lunch?" before putting food before him. The guest, even though he has not had the meal asked about by the host, considers it below his dignity to make the fact known. Upon the arrival of such a visitor, the householder greets him with the almost untranslatable words, "_Ahlan wa sahlan_." Literally translated, these words are "kindred and smooth ground"; which, elucidated further, mean, "You have come not to strangers but to those who would be to you as your kindred are, and among us you tread smooth and easy ground." And even while the guest is being yet saluted by the man of the house in the {214} protracted manner of Oriental greeting, the good wife proceeds to prepare "a morsel" for the wayfarer, whatever hour of the day or night it may happen to be. The food then is placed before the guest and he is "compelled" to eat. There is in the eleventh chapter of St. Luke's Gospel a parabolic saying which is uncommonly rich in allusions to Syrian home life. Beginning with the fifth verse we read: "And he said unto them, Which of you shall have a friend, and shall go unto him at midnight, and say unto him, Friend, lend me three loaves; for a friend of mine in his journey is come to me, and I have nothing to set before him; and he from within shall answer and say, Trouble me not: the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give thee?"