beard is supposed to carry more weight because, as a rule, it is worn by the older men. To speak disrespectfully of one's mustache or beard, or to curse the beard of a person's father, is to invite serious trouble.

The sacredness of the beard to Orientals goes back to the remote past when all the hair of the head and the face was considered sacred. Growing a beard is still esteemed a solemn act in Syria, so much so that, having let his beard grow, one cannot shave it off without becoming a by-word in the community. To speak of the scissors or of a razor in the presence of one wearing a beard, especially if he be a priest, or of the aristocracy, is considered a deep insult to him. Such unseemly conduct seldom fails to precipitate a fight. In 2 Samuel, the tenth chapter, fourth verse, we have the record of Hanun's disgraceful treatment of David's men, whom he had thought to be spies. “Wherefore Hanun took David's servants, and shaved off the one half of their beards, and cut off their garments in the middle, even to their buttocks,

and sent them away. When they told it unto David, he sent to meet them, because the men were greatly ashamed: and the king said, Tarry at Jericho until your beards be grown, and then return."

It is because of this ancient conception of the hair that the Syrians still swear by the mustache and the beard, although the majority of them know not the real reason why they do so.

I remember distinctly how proud I was in my youth to put my hand upon my mustache, when it was yet not even large enough to be respectfully noticed, and swear by it as a man. I recall also to what roars of laughter I would provoke my elders at such times, to my great dismay.

Here it may easily be seen that swearing in the Orient had so lost its original sacredness and become so vulgar, even as far back as the time of Christ, that He deemed it necessary to give the unqualified command, "Swear not at all: neither by heaven, for it is God's throne, nor by the earth, for it is his footstool: neither by

Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black. But let your communication be yea, yea; nay, nay; for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil." This was perhaps the most difficult command to obey that Jesus ever gave to his countrymen.

CHAPTER VIII

FOUR CHARACTERISTICS

Of the other characteristics of Oriental speech, I wish to speak of four before I bring this part of my book to a close.

The first, the many and picturesque dialects. The entire absence of the public school, the scarcity of other educational institutions, as well as of books and periodicals, and the extreme slowness of transportation, have always tended to perpetuate the multitude of dialects in the speech of the Syrian people. The common language of the land is the Arabic, which is divided into two types the classical and the common, or the language of learning and that of daily speech. The classical language is one, but the common language is a labyrinth of dialects. Each section of that small country has its lehjah (accent), and it is no exaggeration to say that each town within those sections has a lehjah of its own. Certain letters of the alpha

bet are also sounded differently in different localities. Thus, for an example, the word for "stood" is pronounced qam in certain localities, and aam in others. The word for "male" is pronounced zeker by some communities, and deker by others.

That such a state of things prevailed also in ancient Israel and in New Testament times is very evident. In the twelfth chapter of the Book of Judges we have the record of a fight between the Gileadites and the Ephraimites, in which we find the following statement: "And the Gileadites took the passages of Jordan before the Ephraimites: and it was so, that when those Ephraimites which were escaped said, Let me go over; that the men of Gilead said unto him, Art thou an Ephraimite? If he said, Nay; then said they unto him, Say now Shibboleth: and he said Sibboleth: for he could not frame to pronounce it right. Then they took him, and slew him."

This simple means of identification might be used in present-day Syria with equal success.