Here is a new event that inspires hope and awakens confidence — an event the dreamers once dreamed of, which today has become an embodied reality. It is a first, cautious step, but it is — at all events — a firm one.
As for the godfathers of this event, they are the emigrants, for — beyond what they send to their families and kin — they have begun to feel a new impulse, whose substance is the lasting, fruitful revival of the whole clan.
## In the Shade of the Cedars
This truly constructive event was inaugurated by Lebanon's dutiful son Mr. Aziz Nader, of the village of Qoubaiyat. His wife, Mrs. Evelyn Tarabay, took to the air the moment the war ended — she was the first Lebanese woman to fly from America to Lebanon — and her descent from the sky was like the falling of dew! She quenched the thirst of every thirsting soul, and then she brought the pebble that props up the jar... for she and her husband founded the first free dispensary in the Lebanese village.
## What Fadlo Hourani Did for His Birthplace
Whoever passes through that good town, Marjayoun, sees a cemetery distinguished in its arrangement and its form from all the cemeteries of Lebanon's villages: there is a wall of handsome construction, trees whose shade breathes quiet and stillness, and a new atmosphere at whose sight your imagination carries you off to God's countries, where death has sanctity and majesty... This cemetery is among the good deeds of that worthy man, Fadlo Hourani.
And there is a bold feat besides: his joining of several schools into a single school... And there are others, whose telling I leave to Mr. Saeb Salam, member of the committee of the Asfuriyeh Hospital.
He said at the hospital's fiftieth jubilee, in the presence of His Excellency the First President:
"After the last war the hospital passed through grim and bitter days that all but swept away its very existence.
"And I remember, with contentment filling my soul, how in the month of October of the year 1946 I went to His Excellency the First President to present to him that venerable elder, Mr. Fadlo Hourani, who explained to His Excellency the state of affairs and asked him to extend his generous hand to ward off the catastrophe.
"Hourani stood before you — and he is a standard-bearer of devoted, silent work, and a pillar of this humane edifice — he stood before you with tears in his eyes, and he addressed a sound mind, appealed to a great heart, and begged of a generous hand; and you heeded the words, answered the call, and gave abundantly — and Mr. Hourani returned to his companions carrying in his hand a check in the amount of a thousand lira, bestowed on him by the President of Lebanon."
Is not he who goes seeking good the equal of him who does it?
## And the People of Zahle?
As for the sons of "the Abode of Peace and the Nursery of Lions," there stands the Tel Chiha Hospital, with its modern building,
its furnishings, and its equipment, testifying to the generosity of Zahle's sons across the seas. Nor does it harm the young men and women of the Berdawni that they quarreled over the hospital. That quarrel — over the hospital — is past and gone. What matters is that the sick are being treated today in the Tel Chiha Hospital. And after all, are the people of Zahle the only ones who quarrel?
## Mr. Najib Zallakat
And to Zahle comes a dutiful son, Mr. Najib Zallakat — and he finds a generous circle of ladies who have turned commendable efforts toward the child. They began a small work which at the start held thirty children; after six months the number was doubled, and at the year's end it was doubled again — so that the children now number 120, who are taught, clothed, and given one meal a day, and sometimes two.
As for the contribution of the benefactor Mr. Najib Zallakat, it is the hand of a generous man, son of generous folk: he registered a house of two stories and ten rooms as the lawful property of the Child Nursery Association, on condition that it remain at work in the children's cause.
Mr. Najib Zallakat, and before him his wife, honorary president of the association, surrounded by the executive board of the child nursery project.
This picture was taken on the day the association received the house and the official papers.