The aish was something more than mere matter. Inasmuch as it sustained life, it was God's own life made tangible for his child, man, to feed upon. The Most High himself fed our hunger. Does not the Psalmist say, "Thou openest thine hand, and satisfieth the desire of every living thing'? Where else could our daily bread come from?

I have often heard it said by 'up-todate' religionists in this country that the saying in the Lord's Prayer, 'Give us this day our daily bread,' was at best a beggar's lazy petition. It has been suggested that those words should be omitted from the prayer, because they pertain to 'material things.' And at any rate we can get our daily bread only by working for it.

Yes; and the Oriental understands all that. But he perceives also that by working for his daily bread he does not create it, but simply finds it. The prayer, 'Give us this day our daily bread' is a note of pure gratitude to the 'Giver of all good and perfect gifts.' The Oriental does not know 'material things' as the Occidental knows them. To him organic chemistry does not take the place of God. He is, in his totality, God-centred. His centre of gravity is the altar and not the factory, and back of his prayer for daily bread is the momentum of ages of mystic contemplation. The Oriental finds kinship, not with those who go for their daily bread no farther than the bakery, but with the writer of this modern psalm:

Back of the loaf is the snowy flour,
Back of the flour the mill;

:

Back of the mill is the wheat and the shower And the sun and the Father's will.

It is not my purpose to exaggerate the piety and moral rectitude of the Oriental. I am fully aware of the fact that he is lamentably lacking in his efforts to rise to the height of his noblest traditions. Nevertheless, those who know the Oriental's inner life know

also that from seed-time until harvest, and until the bread is placed upon the family board, this man's attitude toward the 'staff of life' is essentially religious. In the name of God he casts the seed into the soil; in the name of God he thrusts the sickle into the ripe harvest; in the name of God he scatters his sheaves on the threshing floor and grinds his grain at the mill; and in the name of God his wife kneads the dough, bakes the bread, and serves it to her family.

In my childhood days 'kneadingday' at our house was always of peculiar significance to me. I had no toys or story-books to engage my attention, and it was with the greatest interest that I watched my mother go through the process of kneading. Her pious words and action made kneading a sort of religious service.

After making the sign of the cross and invoking the Holy Name, she drew the required quantity of flour out of a small opening near the bottom of the earthen barrel in which the precious meal was stored. It was out of such a barrel that the widow of 'Zarephath which belongeth to Zidon' drew the 'handful of meal' she had, and made of it a cake for Elijah, for which favor the fiery prophet prayed that the widow's barrel of meal 'shall not waste.'

-

Then my mother packed the flour in the shape of a crescent on one side of the large earthen maajan, kneading basin, which is about thirty inches in diameter. She dissolved the salt in warm water, which she poured in the basin by the embankment of flour. Then with a 'God bless' she took out the leaven a lump of dough saved from the former baking—which she had buried in flour to keep it 'from corruption,' that is, from over-fermentation. This leaven she dissolved carefully in the salt water, and by slowly mixing the meal with this fluid, she

'hid' the leaven in the meal. It was this process which Jesus mentioned very briefly in the parable of the leaven in the thirteenth chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel. "The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened.'

The kneading done, my mother smoothed the surface of the blessed lump, dipped her hand in water, and with the edge of her palm marked a deep cross the whole length of the diameter of the basin, crossed herself three times, while she muttered an invocation, and then covered the basin and left the dough to rise. The same pious attitude was resumed when the raised dough was made into small loaves, during the baking, and whenever the mother of the family put her hand into the basin where the loaves were kept, to take out bread for her family's needs.

Does it now seem strange, unnatural, or in any way out of harmony with the trend of her whole life, for such a woman to pray, 'Give us this day our daily bread'? Shall we receive the gifts and forget the Giver? However circuitous our way to our daily bread may be, the fact remains that we do feed on God's own life. "The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof.'

The use of iron stoves was unknown to the Syrians in my childhood days; and this modern convenience is now used only by some of the well-to-do people in the large cities. The rank and file of the people, as in the days of ancient Israel, still bake their bread at semi-public ovens, a few of which are found in every village and town. This baking-place is mentioned often in the Bible, but the word 'oven' in the English translation is somewhat misleading. It is so because the tennûr translated 'oven' in the Bible is unknown to the English-speaking world,

if not to the entire Occident. The tennûr is a huge earthen tube about three feet in diameter and about five feet long; it is sunk in the ground within a small, roughly constructed hut. The women bake their bread at the tennûr in turn, certain days being assigned to certain families. The one baking comprises from one hundred to two hundred loaves. The fuel, which consists of small branches of trees, and of thistles and straw, is thrown into the tennûr in large quantities. It is to this that Jesus alludes in the passage, 'If then God so clothe the grass which is to-day in the field, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, how much more will he clothe you, O ye of little faith?'

When I recall the sight of a burning tennûr, I do not find it difficult to imagine what the old theologians meant by the 'burning pit.' The billows of black smoke, pierced at intervals by tongues of flame issuing from the deep hole, convert the chimneyless hut into an active crater. No one who has seen such a sight can fail to understand what the prophet Malachi meant when he exclaimed, 'For behold, the day cometh that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble.' And no one who has seen that little hut virtually plastered with the blackest soot can fail to understand the full meaning of that passage in the fifth chapter of the book of Lamentations which says, 'Our skin was black like an oven, because of the terrible famine.'

broken the staff of your bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall deliver you your bread again by weight: and ye shall eat and not be satisfied.' My mother often admonished us to be thankful that we were not like those who had to buy their bread by weight—that is, in that is, in small quantities.

II

The hospitality of Orientals is proverbial the world over. And while And while some Westerners have an exaggerated idea of Oriental generosity, the son of the East is not unjustly famous for his readiness to offer to wayfarers the shelter of his roof and his bread and salt. The person who fails to extend such hospitality brings reproach, not only upon himself, but upon his whole clan and town.

But whether hospitality is extended to strangers or to friends, it is the man who entertains, and not the woman. The invitation is extended in the name of the husband alone, or, if the husband is not living, in the name of the eldest son. In the case of a widow who has no male children, a man relative is asked to act as host. The man of the house should not allow a wayfarer to pass him without offering him a 'morsel of bread to sustain his heart.' So did Abraham of old extend hospitality to the three mysterious strangers who came upon him 'in the plains of Mamre,' as stated in the eighteenth chapter of Genesis: 'And he lift up his eyes and looked, and lo, three men stood by him: and when he saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent door, and bowed himself toward the ground, and said, My Lord, if now I have found favor in thy sight, pass not away, I pray thee, from thy servant... and I will fetch a morsel of bread, and comfort ye your hearts: after that ye shall pass on."

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How natural and how truly Syrian all this sounds! Sarah was not at all slighted because Abraham did not say, 'Sarah and I will be glad to have you stop for lunch with us, if you can.' On the contrary, she was greatly honored by not being mentioned in the invitation.

We have another striking illustration of this Syrian custom in the parable of the prodigal son, in the fifteenth chapter of St. Luke's gospel. Here we are told that, when the wayward boy returned to his father's house, desolate but penitent, it was the father who ran out to meet the son and 'fell on his neck, and kissed him.' It was the father who said to his servants, 'Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet; and bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat and be merry.' I know well that the mother of the prodigal could not have been less affectionate nor less effusive in her welcome to her poor son than his father was. But in harmony with the best traditions of the East, and without the least intention of slighting the good mother, the record takes no notice of her.

It should be stated here that the prominent mention in the Gospels of Mary and Martha as Jesus' friends and entertainers is due to the fact that to those women the Master was not merely a guest, but a saint, nay, the 'promised One of Israel.' As such Jesus was a privileged personage. Yet - and it is not at all strange in view of Oriental customs Jesus took with him none of his women friends and disciples on such great occasions as the Transfiguration and the Last Supper.

To extend hospitality in genuine Syrian fashion is no small undertaking. Brevity on such occasions is the soul of stinginess. Oriental effusiveness and intensity of speech are never more strenuously exercised than at such

times. The brief form of the American invitation, 'I should be pleased to have you dine with us, if you can,' however sincere, would seem to an Oriental like an excuse to escape the obligation of hospitality. Again, the ready acceptance of an invitation in the West would seem to the son of the East utterly undignified. Although the would-be guest could accept, he must be as insistent in saying, 'No, I can't,' as the would-be host in saying, 'Yes, you must.'

Approaching his hoped-for guest, a Syrian engages him in something like the following dialogue, characterized by a glow of feeling which the translation can only faintly reveal:

'Ennoble us [sherrifna] by your pres

ence.'

'I would be ennobled [nitskerref] but I cannot accept.'

"That cannot be.'
'Yea, yea, it must be.'

'No, I swear against you [aksim 'aleik] by our friendship and by the life of God. I love just to acquaint you with my bread and salt.'

'I swear also that I find it impossible [gheir mimkin] to accept. Your bread and salt are known to all.'

'Yea, do it just for our own good. By coming to us you come to your own home. Let us repay your bounty to us [fadhlek].'

'Astaghfero Allah [by the mercy of God] I have not bestowed any bounty upon you worth mentioning.'

Here the host seizes his guest by the arm and with an emphatic, 'I will not let you go,' pulls at him and would drag him bodily into his house. Then the guest, happy in being vanquished 'with honor,' consents to the invitation.

Do you now understand fully the meaning of the passage in the fourteenth chapter of Luke's gospel? 'A certain man made a great supper, and bade many... and they all with one

consent began to make excuse. And the Lord said unto the servant, Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled.' So also did Lydia, ‘a seller of purple, of the city of Thyatira,' invite the apostles, who had converted her to the new faith. In the sixteenth chapter of the book of Acts, Paul says, 'And when she was baptized, and her household, she besought us, saying, If ye have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house, and abide there. And she constrained us.'

In the interior towns and villages of Syria the ancient custom still prevails that, when a stranger arrives in a town late in the day, he goes and sits in the 'open space' [saha]. While not designed to be so, this open space corresponds to the village common. In the English Bible it is called 'the street.' Streets, however, are unknown to Syrian towns. Sitting in the saha, the stranger is the guest of the whole village. The citizen who first sees such a wayfarer must invite him to his home in real Syrian fashion. Failing in this, he brings disgrace, not only upon himself, but upon the whole town. It is needless to say that no people ever rise to the height of their ideals, and that failure to be 'given to hospitality' occurs, even in the East.

In the nineteenth chapter of the book of Judges we have the record of a stranger who sat in the saha of a certain village, but was not offered the usual hospitality very readily. This man was a Levite, and, with his wife, servant, and a couple of asses, was on his way from Bethlehem 'toward the side of Mount Ephraim.' 'And the sun went down upon them when they were by Gibeah, which belongeth to Benjamin. And they turned aside thither, to go in and to lodge in Gibeah: and when he went in, he sat him down in the street of the city; for there was no man that