Note 90 — XXV THE LITERATURE OF THE ARABS

“It would take a long list to exhaust the religious, literary and scientific contributions to the Arabic language from the missionaries in Syria. They include the translation of the Scriptures and the stereotyping of the same in numerous styles; the preparation of a Scripture guide, commentaries, a concordance, and a complete hymn and tune book; text-books in history, algebra, geometry, trigonometry, logarithms, astronomy, meteorology, botany, zoölogy, physics, chemistry, anatomy, physiology, hygiene, materia medica, practice of physic, surgery, and a periodical literature which has proved the stimulus to a very extensive native journalism. The Protestant converts of the mission, educated by the missionaries, have written elaborate works on history, poetry, grammar, arithmetic, natural science, and the standard dictionary of the language, and a cyclopædia which will make a library by itself, consisting of about twenty volumes of from six hundred to eight hundred pages each.”—Dr. G. E. Post, in New York Evangelist.