Why should he not leave you ?" Messengers were sent in quest of him in every direction, but in vain.
Asaad's written account of his experiences during his absence on the mountains, is very interesting, but there is not room for even an abridgment of it.1 A few of the incidents may be noted.

The chief object of the Patriarch was to induce him to say, that his faith was like that of the Romish Church.

This he declined doing, as it would be a falsehood.

The Patriarch offered to absolve him from the sin of falsehood, to which Asaad replied, "What the law of nature condemns, no man can make lawful." Accompanied by a priest, he visited his own college of Ain Warka, but gained no light; and the same was true of his visit to the superior of the convent of Bzummar, who desired to see him.

It is a suggestive fact, that the infallibility of the Pope, even then, was everywhere a controverted point between him and the priesthood.