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The Corresponding Secretaries of the Board are Rev. SELAH B. TREAT, Rev. GEORGE W. WOOD, and Rev. N. G. CLARK. Letters relating to the Missions and General Concerns of the Board, may be addressed

SECRETARIES OF THE A. B. C. F. M.,

Missionary House, 33 Pemberton Square, Boston.

Letters for the Corresponding Secretary resident in New York, may be addressed REV. GEORGE W. WOOD, Bible House, Astor Place, New York city. Donations and letters relating to the Pecuniary Concerns of the Board, (except etters on the subject of the Missionary Herald,) should be addressed LANGDON S. WARD, Treasurer of the A. B. C. F. M.,

Missionary House, 33 Pemberton Square, Boston.

Letters for the Editor of the Missionary Herald, should be addressed

REV. ISAAC R. WORCESTER, Missionary House, 33 Pemberton Square, Boston. Letters relating to the business department of the Herald, subscriptions and remittances for the same, should be addressed

CHARLES HUTCHINS, Missionary House, 33 Pemberton Square, Boston.

Letters for Rev. Rufus Anderson, D. D., may still be addressed to the Missionary House.

GENERAL AGENCIES.

The following arrangement has been made in the system of General Agencies, by the Prudential Committee, with a view to efficiency in the raising of funds.

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The payment of $50 at one time constitutes a minister, and the payment of $100 at one time constitutes any other person, an Honorary Member of the Board.

LEGACIES.

In making devises and legacies to the Board, the entire corporate name "The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions" - should be used; otherwise the intent of the testator may be defeated.

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On the lower spurs of the mountain chain which rises from the great plain of Akkar, north of Tripoli, and runs northward along the Syrian coast as far as Antioch, at a distance of about nine hours from Tripoli, lies the picturesque village and castle of Safeeta, of which a view is given in the accompanying sketch.

This castle, which, with the famous fortress of El Husn, four hours to the eastward, was one of the northernmost bulwarks of the Crusaders' power, is built on the site of very ancient substructions of beveled stones, indicating that the site was used in times earlier than that of the Greeks, for a fortified military post one of the "fenced cities" of the Hebrew period. In this Safeeta resembles most of the fortifications of Syria, as the castle of Banias, and Kulaatesh, Shukeef, and El Husn, the foundations of which are laid in the Cyclopean style of those distant ages, and on which Greeks, Romans, Christians, and Saracens have successively built. Nothing now remains of the ancient buildings at Safeeta except the moat and foundation-stones of the fort. These are, however, very extensive, covering the top of the central hill of the three hills on which the modern village is built. The stones are large, beveled, and admirably laid, and will doubtless stand for centuries more without exhibiting a trace of the march of time, save in the piles of ruins of more modern structures, which are crumbling into the moat, and heaped above the vaults and cisterns.

The present tower, which is built in the centre of the now ruined fortification, is about one hundred feet high from the ground, and about eighty by forty on the ground plan. It answered the double purpose of a chapel and a keep for the castle. It is built of large hewn stones, very accurately fitted, and is three stories high. The lower story would appear to have been used as an arsenal, or magazine. The second, which is the chapel, has a fine, high, groined, arched roof, ornamented with good carvings, and is lined with squared stones, perfectly jointed. A stone stairway at one side of this chapel leads to the third story, which is a long, low hall, supported by columns, and which was evidently used as a garrison and armory. The roof is flat, covered with gravel, battle

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mented around the sides, and the walls of all three stories are pierced with slits for the discharge of arrows. The walls are everywhere perfect except at the western face, where a lightning bolt has cracked the wall, and forced one of the stones out at a right-angle with the surface, leaving it suspended by about a fourth of its substance, which still remains implanted, while the remainder hangs threatening, at a height of sixty or seventy feet from the ground.

The view from this lofty castle is grand in the extreme. Lebanon, with its snowy summits, towers magnificently to the southwest. Beyond it, to the eastward, appear the distant peaks of Anti-Lebanon, and the cleft between these two ranges and the mountains of the Nusairîyeh—"the entering in of Hamath." Then turning to the northward, the eye reaches nearly to Latakiyeh and Mount Cassius. To the westward, the blue Mediterranean stretches away to the horizon, while toward the south lies the rich plain of Akkar and Tripoli in the distance, and behind it the cape of the "Divine Countenance," shutting out the view in the direction of Beirut.

Under this tower are immense cisterns, perforating the sides and summit of the hill. The fortress, as is seen in the drawing, is in ruins, only a few of its many picturesque arches and walls being yet erect. The miserable government of the district has repaired a very small portion of the ruins with an insignificant structure, which may be seen to the left of the wall, and which is occupied by the executive of the county.

The village is built on three conical hills, of which the tower occupies the central one. The houses are low, being, with the exception of the dwellings of Beit Beshshoor, all of one low story. They are built of large cobble-stones, laid up without mortar precisely as we lay up a stone wall in America; have no windows, and only one low door. The roofs are of great beams, overlaid with hewn boards and covered with earth. The floor is of mud, beaten flat. They repair it when broken by pouring fresh deposits of liquid mud over it, and suffering it to dry. The houses have but one room, in which the wretched people store their grain and straw, and house their cattle, sheep, goats, and chickens, and live themselves. There is no chimney, nor any fire-place, and the smoke is permitted to find its way out from a small hole in the roof, and through the cracks in the door.

The sides of the hills are covered with olive and fig trees, and with low trimmed groves of mulberry-trees, the leaf of which is employed in raising the silk

worm.

The population of the village, at the time of the introduction of the gospel, was composed of members of the Greek Church, and Nusairîyeh, a heretical Moslem sect.

The history of the introduction of the Protestant doctrines into Safeeta is briefly this. The members of the house of Beshshoor, a race of scribes of the government tax bureau, genuine descendants of the publicans of ancient times, had by fraudulent means obtained possession of the lands of a large number of the villagers. They had appealed in vain to the government, and to consuls, for aid; but finally it was suggested to them, without the knowledge of the missioraries, that if they turned Protestants they would come under the protection of the English government, and realize their possessions again. They accordingly, about three years ago, to the number of about 400 or 450, enrolled their

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