European shoes are unlawful because sewed with a swine's bristle, but Moslem Muftis strut about the streets in French gaiters, and the women of their harems tottle about in the most absurd of Parisian high-heeled slippers.
The Arabic Bible translated by Drs.

Eli Smith and Cornelius Van Dyck, is voweled with the grammatical accuracy and beauty of the Koran with the aid of a learned Mohammedan Mufti, and yet has all the elegant simplicity of the original and is intelligible to every Arab, old and young, who is capable of reading at all.

The stories of Joseph, Moses, and David, of Esther, Daniel and Jonah are as well adapted to the comprehension of children in the Arabic as in the English.
Not a few of the hymns in the Children's Hymn book are original, written by M.Ibrahim Sarkis, husband of Miriam of Aleppo, and M.Asaad Shidoody, husband of Hada.

This Hymn book was published in 1862, with Plates presented by Dr.Robinson's Sabbath School of the First Presbyterian Church, Brooklyn.
This digression seemed necessary, in order to show the great progress that has been made since 1836, in preparing a religious literature.

It is no longer true as in Mrs.Smith's day, "that we have no psalms or hymns adapted to the capacities of children." Nor is it longer true that "_children's literature is incompatible with the genius of the Arabic language_." In a letter addressed to the young women in the "Female Academy at Norwich," February, 1836, Mrs.Smith gives a vivid description of the "average woman" of Syria in her time, and the description holds true of nine-tenths of the women at the present day.