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A fourth class was admitted to the seminary at Abeih in October, 1849. One member of the class was from the most influential family in Hasbeiya, another was a Greek Catholic from Ain Zehalty, another a Maronite from Kefr Shema, another from the Greek sect at El Hadet, and the fifth was a young Druze emir of the Raslân family.
Asaad Shidiak was the fourth son of a respectable Maronite, and was born about the year 1797, at Hadet, a small village a few miles from Beirût. His early training was among the Maronites. Such was his ability and fondness for learning, that his family aided him in preparing for the Maronite college at Ain Warka, the most noted seminary on the mountains.
As the Patriarch, and the Bishop of Beirût, whose diocese included Hadet, were determined to shut him out from the people, and even threatened his life, Asaad resolved on escaping to Beirût, which he accomplished, as already stated, on the morning of Thursday, March 2, 1826.
I then wished to go even to some distant country, that I might find a Roman Catholic sufficiently learned to prove the doctrine above alluded to." Receiving two letters from the Patriarch, requiring him to leave the missionaries on pain of the greater excommunication, and promising to provide him a situation, he went to his friends at Hadet.
Too confiding, he really believed this insidious letter, and that he might now go home and live there with his religion unshackled. He wrote a favorable reply. The family was doubtless urged to make sure of the victim before anything occurred to change his mind, and the very next day four of his relations, including Phares, came to escort him to Hadet.
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