During the five weeks spent in the patriarchal mansion, Dr. Grant had an opportunity to see Nestorians of intelligence and influence from all parts of the mountains, and elicited from them information such as he could not have gained in any other way. At parting, the Patriarch presented him one of the ancient manuscripts of his library. It was the New Testament, written on parchment, in the old Estrangelo character, seven hundred and forty years before. It was presented by Dr. Grant to the library of the American Board, and is now there.

His next sojourn was in the castle of Nurullah Bey, chief of the independent Hakary Koords, two days from the residence of the Patriarch. The Bey was very sick; and becoming impatient under the slow operation of the medicine given him by the doctor, he sent a messenger for him at midnight. "The sentinels upon the ramparts," says Dr. Grant, "were sounding the watch-cry in the rough tones of their native Koordish. We entered the outer court through wide, iron-cased folding-doors. A second iron door opened into a long dark alley, which conducted to the room where the chief was lying. It was evident that he was becoming impatient; and as I looked upon the swords, pistols, guns, spears, and daggers—the ordinary furniture of a Koordish castle—which hung around the walls of the room, I could not but think of the fate of the unfortunate Schultz, who had fallen, as it is said, by the orders of this sanguinary chief. He had the power of life and death in his hands. I knew I was entirely at his mercy; but I felt that I was under the guardian care of One, who had the hearts of kings in His keeping."

The chieftain recovered, and, in token of his gratitude, made his benefactor the present of a horse. Dr. Grant describes him as a man of noble bearing, fine open countenance, and about thirty years of age. This important journey was completed on the 7th of December, 1839.

The Rev. Willard Jones and wife arrived in the month previous; and the Rev. Austin H. Wright, M. D., and wife, in the following July, to take Dr. Grant's place as missionary physician; and Mr. Edward Breath, a printer, in November. A press, made for the mission, to be taken to pieces and so rendered portable, came with the printer, much to the satisfaction of the people. A font of Syro-Chaldaic type had previously been received from London, through the kindness of the Rev. Joseph Jowett, editorial superintendent of the British and Foreign Bible Society's publications. The press was the more seasonable, because the Jesuits had commenced their characteristic and determined efforts to get possession of the field. The vain young bishop, Mar Gabriel, imagining himself to have been slighted by his clerical brethren, and being strongly assailed with flatteries and offers of money, had, in an evil hour, encouraged them to come among his people. On reflection he repented of his rashness, called in the aid of his Protestant friends, and wrote to Bore, the French Jesuit, warning him to keep aloof from his people. Bore was enraged, and replied that, having a firman from the King of Persia permitting him to open schools, he should open one at Ardishai. But Gabriel and the mission had already opened a school under one of the best teachers from the Seminary, and soon opened another,—the two containing sixty scholars; while the Jesuit's school, commencing with nine scholars, dwindled to four or five. One of the first works of the press was to print a tract in the Syriac language, entitled "Twenty-two Plain Reasons for not being a Roman Catholic." The Nestorians were exceedingly interested by the array of Scripture texts against the corrupt doctrines and practices of that sect. This was followed by a thousand copies of the Psalms.

The gradual revival of preaching in this ancient Church, became now apparent. At the earnest request of the people, a circuit was formed of seven preaching stations, at all of which the missionaries were aided by ecclesiastics, three of them bishops.

Thus, with the hearty approval of both bishops and priests, the missionaries began to preach in the churches, and so great was the demand for preaching that Mr. Stocking was ordained. The ordination took place in one of the Nestorian churches. Mr. Perkins felt that spiritual death, rather than theological error, was the calamity of the Nestorians. Their liturgy was composed, in general, of unexceptionable and excellent matter, and the charge of heresy on the subject of Christ's character, he pronounces unjust. The Nicene Creed, which they always repeat at the close of their worship, accords very nearly with that venerable document, as it has been handed down to us.1

1 Annual Report of the Board for 1841, p. 114.



CHAPTER XIII.

THE MOUNTAIN NESTORIANS.

1840-1844.

We paused in the history of the Nestorian mission at the return of Dr. Grant to Oroomiah, after a successful exploration of the mountains of Koordistan. He remained there till the 7th of May, 1840. During this time, two brothers of the Patriarch visited the mission, and urged its extension into the mountains. Mar Shimon also wrote, renewing his request for a visit in the spring. Dr. Grant had but little prospect of recovering his health on the plain; and the welfare of his two sons in the United States, children of his first marriage, and the three children then with him at Oroomiah, seemed to require that he revisit his native land. Two of these last mentioned sickened and died in January. Having then only one son to take with him, four years of age, he decided to return through the mountains, and revisit the Patriarch on his way. It was a perilous journey so early in the season, especially with so tender a companion; but the brave little fellow appears to have endured the snows and precipices of Koordistan as well as the father. The boy was everywhere a favorite, both with Koords and Nestorians. One night the snow was so deep near the summit of a mountain that they were obliged to sleep under the open sky, with the thermometer below zero; but the Patriarch's brothers had carpets enough to keep them warm until three in the morning, when the light of the moon enabled them to resume their journey. Mar Shimon was then a guest of Suleiman Bey, in the castle of Julamerk, and with him they spent ten days. Nurullah Bey had gone to Erzroom to negotiate for the subjugation of the Independent Nestorians to the Turkish rule, having already relinquished his own personal independence, and become a Pasha of the empire. Suleiman Bey was a relative of the Emir, and had been the leader of the party that murdered Mr. Schultz. He showed special kindness to Dr. Grant. His mother and sister, as also the sister and mother of the Patriarch, with womanly forethought, loaded the Doctor with supplies for the inhospitable road before them. He found the Emir at Van on his return home, and discovered what had been the object of his journey to Erzroom. When Dr. Grant arrived there, with clothes worn and ragged from the roughness of the journey, he had the happiness of meeting Dr. Wright, then on his way to Oroomiah. The two brethren called on the gentlemen of the Persian embassy, then at Erzroom, and one of them, observing Dr. Grant's erect and commanding person, remarked that a good soldier was spoiled when that man became a missionary. At Trebizond he gladly exchanged the saddle for the quiet of the steamer, which took him to Constantinople, and he arrived at Boston on the 3d of October.

Having embraced the theory, that the Nestorians are descendants of the lost Ten Tribes of Israel, Dr. Grant, with characteristic industry, employed such time as he could command during his missionary travels and his homeward voyage, in preparing a volume in support of these views. It was published both in this country and in England, and attracted considerable attention. The celebrated Dr. Edward Robinson deemed it deserving of an elaborate discussion in the "American Biblical Repository," in which he makes a strong argument against the theory.1

1 See American Biblical Repository, 1841, vol. vi. of new series, pp. 454-482, and vol. vii. pp. 26-68.

In January, 1841, Dr. Grant had the pleasure of witnessing the departure of the Rev. Messrs. Abel K. Hinsdale and Colby C. Mitchell, and their wives, for the Mountain Nestorians. They went by way of Aleppo and Mosul, that being the more practicable route for females; but the Doctor, thinking to reach the mountains before them, and prepare for their arrival, went himself by way of Constantinople, Erzroom, and Van. He was at Constantinople May 14th, and at Van on the first day of July. The journey from Erzroom to that place was wearisome and perilous, famine, the plague, and predatory Koords harassing him nearly all the way.

Van, with fourteen thousand Armenian population, though at that time difficult of access, was even then regarded as an important place for a missionary station, and preferable for residence to most others in the interior. Being five thousand feet above the level of the sea, it was not subject to oppressive heats. There were fruitful gardens on the one hand, stretching for miles over the plain, and on the other, the placid lake, and snow-capped mountains; altogether forming a very striking landscape. A small Nestorian community had formed a settlement on the mountains within three or four hours of Van.

Dr. Grant reached the summer residence of the Patriarch on the 9th of July, and was cordially received as before; and the same may be said of his intercourse with the mountaineers. He mentions several places in Koordistan as having strong claims for a missionary station, but gives the preference to Asheta in Tiary.

While at Asheta, he received painful tidings of the death of Mr. and Mrs. Mitchell, and the sickness of Mr. and Mrs. Hinsdale, and immediately started for Mosul, though at much risk from Koords on the frontier, and from roving Arabs near the Tigris. He reached Mosul on the 25th of August, in time to minister successfully to Mr. Hinsdale, whose life had been seriously endangered by a relapse of fever.

Messrs. Hinsdale and Mitchell were forty-one days on their voyage to Smyrna, from whence an Austrian steamer took them to Beirut. Mr. and Mrs. Beadle accompanied them as far as Aleppo, to commence a new station. Mr. Mitchell had a slight attack of fever and ague at Aleppo, which detained him till the 28th of May. That was rather late in the season, still all might have gone well, had they been able to press on with the usual speed. The abundant green grass on the plain, however, caused the muleteers to loiter, and, once on the road, the company was entirely at their mercy. Still the journey, as far as Mardin, where they arrived June 19th, was both pleasant and prosperous. On the plain below the city Mr. Mitchell, in efforts to keep their tent from being blown down in a storm, became wet and chilled. This brought on another fit of ague, which was repeated after three days. On the 25th, with scarcely any apparent disease, he lost his reason, and from that time drooped, like the withering of a plant, till he died on the morning of June 27th, 1841. The Koordish villagers refused the Christian a grave, nor would they aid in carrying the body a few miles to the Jacobite village Telabel, The survivors had not strength themselves to carry it, but secured its conveyance thither as best they could. There they buried the mortal remains in the village cemetery, and two rude stones mark the grave.

Eight hours brought them in sight of the Tigris, at Beshabor. The next day they crossed on rafts supported by inflated goat-skins, and, on the 30th, rode six and a half hours to a Yezidee village. Next morning, after riding an hour, Mrs. Mitchell became too ill to proceed, and she lay four days in a mud hovel, among Arabs so rude that they could not be kept from the sick room, where they laid their hands on whatever they fancied. To remain there was out of the question, so Mr. Hinsdale constructed a litter, and at exorbitant prices obtained men from a distant village to carry it. She had to be repeatedly laid upon the ground, while he rode far and near to find four men willing to perform the degrading service of carrying a woman. At length the sun became so hot, that they could travel only by night. Their troubles were somewhat relieved by the services of a man, whom Mr. Rassam had kindly sent to meet them. On the 7th of July, they entered Mosul, and were cordially welcomed by Mr. and Mrs. Rassam. Mrs. Mitchell's disease then assumed a new form, and from that time till her death, on the 12th, her reason was dethroned. Mr. Hinsdale was taken violently ill before the death of Mrs. Mitchell, and Mrs. Hinsdale was unable to render any assistance to her husband. It was in these trying circumstances, that Dr. Grant so opportunely arrived.

There was ample evidence in the subsequent experience of the mission, that these fatal results were not owing to any peculiar hazard in the journey itself, though they may have resulted from the lateness of the season. All the way from Aleppo to Mosul, they had the assistance of Mr. Kotschy, who, in addition to his medical knowledge, had travelled seven years in Western Asia and Africa. The route, moreover, had been, and is still, one of the great highways of nations.

No doubt Divine Providence is always consistent with itself, and with the Saviour's promise; and so would it always appear to us, could we see, as God sees, the end from the beginning. To the devoted missionary, who dies at the outset of his career, all is satisfactory, however painful the circumstances, as soon as he passes the dark portal. Then, too, in contemplating the reverses which were now beginning to thicken upon the mission, we should bear in mind, that the divine plan for the Mountain Nestorian mission, as afterwards appeared, was not that it be prosecuted from the western side of the mountains, but from Oroomiah, the position first taken by the mission; where, as we shall soon see, Gospel influences were gathering a peculiar and most needful strength.

As soon as Mr. Hinsdale was able to travel, he accompanied Dr. Grant on a tour among the Yezidee and Nestorian villages lying near to Mosul.1

1 For an account of this tour, see Missionary Herald, 1842, pp. 310-320.

The Jacobites are a branch of the venerable Church of Antioch, and were then painfully struggling to repel the inroads of the Papacy. As soon as they learned the adherence of the American missionaries to the Bible, and their opposition to Papal innovations, they began to welcome them as friends. Having been duped by the plausible pretenses of the Papists, they were at first cautious in their advances; but a priest from the Syrian Christians in India, named Joseph Matthew, on his way to be ordained metropolitan by the Syrian Patriarch at Mardin, did much to dispel their fears, and promote friendly relations with the missionaries. He was a graduate of the English college at Cotayam, was evangelical in his views, spoke English with propriety, and at once gave the right hand of fellowship to the missionaries, and bespoke for them the confidence of the people. Early in the following year, he returned from Mardin as Bishop Athanasius, and consented to remain and preach among the Jacobites during Dr. Grant's absence in the summer.

Nurullah Bey had now commenced making war on the mountain Nestorians, with the aid of the Turks; and the Nestorians, split into hostile parties, were incapable of combined resistance. Suleiman Bey, being opposed to an alliance with Turkey, had seized the reins of government in the absence of the Emir; and since the object of the Osmanlis was to subjugate the Nestorians, as well as the Koords, the Patriarch naturally, but as it proved unhappily, sided with Suleiman.1

1 Dr. Grant and the Mountain Nestorians, p. 203.

Dr. Grant believed it would now be easier to enter the mountains from the east, than from the west. Accordingly he set out for Oroomiah, on the 6th of June, 1842, going the southern route by way of Ravandooz. Mr. Hinsdale and Bishop Athanasius accompanied him the first day. When about to return, the bishop offered prayer in the English language, and thus they parted, not all to meet again. Athanasius wrote a letter to Dr. Grant from Malabar, but with a date nearly a year subsequent to Dr. Grant's death, in which he stated, that his people had welcomed him with great joy, and gladly received the Word of God.1

1 Dr. Grant and the Mountain Nestorians, p. 219.

Dr. Grant crossed the plain of Arbela, where Alexander conquered Persia, and in ten days arrived at Oroomiah. Being impatient to get into the mountains, the mission assembled immediately, and delegated Mr. Stocking to accompany him. Dr. Wright said of him, at this time, that "his spirits were buoyant, his step elastic, and his energy untiring." Two Nestorians went with them, and they had letters from the governor and some Persian nobles to the Persian Khan and the Emir of the Hakary Koords. At Khosrawa, Mr. Stocking was constrained by sickness to return; and both the native assistants were so alarmed by the warlike aspect of things, that they declined going farther. The now solitary traveller succeeded, at the last moment, in getting the brave bishop Mar Yusuf to be his companion.

The Emir had now broken his treaty with the Sultan, formed two years before in the hope of immediate aid to subdue the Nestorians; and had sworn perpetual allegiance to the Shah, who promised him support against the Sultan. Dr. Grant found Yahya Khan and the Emir at the castle of Charreh, on the summit of an isolated rock near the river of the same name. The tents of more than a dozen chiefs dotted the green banks of the stream. Nurullah Bey still professed to regard Dr. Grant as his physician and friend, and in the presence of the Khan promised to protect him and his associates, and permit them to erect buildings in Tiary for themselves and their schools.

The Khan, to whose friendly agency with the Emir Dr. Grant was specially indebted, had a good reputation for integrity. He was a Persian subject, then governor of Salmas, and also chief of a branch of the Hakary tribe. He had married a sister of the Emir, and given him one of his own in return, and another was in the harem of the Shah. He assured his missionary guest of the Emir's personal friendship, and interested himself for his future safety.

After sundry adventures among precipitous mountains and savage Koords, Dr. Grant was once more the guest of Mar Shimon, who kindly received the New Testament, the Psalms, and other books from the mission press. The Doctor was himself suffering from the effects of exposure in a wet dormitory the previous night; but the bracing air of that elevated region renewed his strength, and he was glad to resume his journey towards Asheta, which he had proposed as the site of his first mountain station. On this part of the way he had the company of Mar Shimon, who had then decided not to join the Koords and Persians against the Turks, having discovered that the strife between them was for the supremacy over his own people. Of the two he preferred the Turks. He was, however, advised by Dr. Grant to cultivate the friendship of the Emir. Further than this Dr. Grant would not interfere, being, fully resolved not to meddle with their political relations. A secret correspondence of the Patriarch with the Turkish Pasha, when discovered, cost him the favor of the Emir; and it soon became apparent that the Turks, whatever their pretensions, were resolved upon nothing short of the complete subjugation of his people. It was but too evident, also, to his missionary friend, that the Patriarch was himself more concerned for their political, than for their religious and moral condition.

Amadia, on the western frontier of the Nestorians, had now surrendered to the Turks; and the war on that side of the mountains being ended, Mr. Hinsdale left Mosul on the last day of September, and in eight days was at Asheta. The prospect from the summit on the western side of the valley was of singular beauty. The village of Asheta extended below him for a mile and a half, with numerous plats of grain and vegetables interspersed, the whole diversified with shade trees of various kinds. A short distance above the village was a deep ravine, from which the snow never disappeared. The spot selected for the mission house, was on the summit of a hill, near the centre of the village.

Soon after the arrival of Mr. Hinsdale, the papal bishop of Elkosh and an Italian priest found their way to Asheta. They stated to the Patriarch, that many boxes of presents were on their way from Diarbekir, and requested permission to remain till they arrived. The following Sabbath the Patriarch, with Mar Yusuf and several priests, held a public discussion with them on the prominent errors of the Papacy. The result was not favorable to their object, and the next day their presents were returned, and they had permission to leave the country. They left during the week, but not till they had taken much pains, though apparently without success, to shake the Patriarch's confidence in the American missionaries. Soon after, early in November, Mr. Hinsdale returned to Mosul.

Up to this time, Mar Yusuf had been fearless and tolerably patient, but he had now become heartily tired of the mountains, and longed for his peaceful home on the plain. It was the first time in a life of fifty years, that he had been ill when far from home. Yet he had been faithful in imparting religious instruction, and the missionary regretted his departure. Near the close of November, Dr. Grant received a letter from Nurullah Bey, requesting his professional services at Julamerk. His Nestorian friends strongly objected to his going, as they were apprehensive of treachery, and not without some reason; but he went, committing his way unto the Lord. He found the chief sick of fever, from which he recovered, through the blessing of God on the remedies employed. There was now opportunity to counteract reports intended to enlist the Emir in measures to destroy the mission. He became convinced that Dr. Grant was neither building a castle at Asheta, nor a bazaar to draw away the trade. Elsewhere, as will appear in the sequel, these reports had a more serious effect.

Dr. Grant had already heard of the arrival of the Rev. Thomas Laurie and wife at Mosul; and two days after, returning from Julamerk, he received the painful intelligence that Mr. Hinsdale was dangerously sick. He at once hastened to his relief, but he was too late. The devoted missionary rested from his labors on the 26th of December, at the age of thirty-five, after a sickness of twenty-four days. His disease was typhus fever. Mr. Hinsdale was a native of Torrington, Connecticut, and received his education at Yale College, and the Auburn Theological Seminary. "On the night of his decease," says Dr. Grant, "while his deeply afflicted wife and Mr. Laurie were sitting by him, he was heard to say, amid the wanderings of his disordered intellect; 'I should love to have the will of my Heavenly Father done!' It was his 'ruling passion strong in death.' Desiring to have the will of God done in all the earth, he had toiled to fit himself for the missionary work, and then, regardless of sacrifices, he had come to a field rich in promise, but full of hardships. His daily spirit, as evinced in all his actions, made me feel that he was just the man for this portion of the Lord's vineyard."

The Papists were, to say the least, not the main cause of Mar Shimon's alienation from his American friends. In 1840, after Dr. Grant had passed through the mountains the second time, on his return to America, the Patriarch was visited by Mr. Ainsworth, travelling at the expense of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge and the Royal Geographical Society. The statements of this gentleman and of his companion, Mr. Rassam, to Mar Shimon, so resembled those made by the Papists, that the Patriarch suspected them of being Jesuits in disguise, and they actually left the mountains without removing that suspicion. Nor was it creditable to them, that they passed through Oroomiah without even calling on the American missionaries there.1

1 See Dr. Grant and the Mountain Nestorians, pp. 151-154. For Mr. Ainsworth's account of this visit, see Travels and Researches in Asia Minor, etc., vol. i. p. 1, and vol. ii. pp. 243-255. It is not necessary here to correct the erroneous statements in the passage referred to.

Had the interference gone no further, not much harm might have ensued. But Mr. Ainsworth's report induced the Christian Knowledge and Gospel Propagation Societies, in 1842, to send the Rev. George Percy Badger as a missionary to the Mountain Nestorians, or rather to the Patriarch and his clergy in the mountains. This was nine years after the commencement of the mission to the Nestorians at Oroomiah, eight years after the republication in England of the Researches of Messrs. Smith and Dwight among the Nestorians, and a year after the publication there of Dr. Grant's work, entitled "The Nestorians, or the Lost Tribes." Nor was there ever a time when the attention of the English nation was more directed to Western Asia.

How much the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London actually knew of the American mission, before officially and strongly commending Mr. Badger to the confidence of the Nestorian Patriarch, is not known. They make no reference whatever to that mission, and write as if they looked upon the field as entirely unoccupied, and open to a mission from the Church of England.

Mr. Badger spent the winter of 1842-43 in Mosul; and, early in the spring, before the mountain roads were open, and while Dr. Grant and Mr. Laurie were preparing at Mosul to visit Asheta, he hastened to the Patriarch, with letters and presents from the dignitaries of the Church of England. The civil relations of the Patriarch to the Koords, the Persians, and the Turks were such at that time, as to make him extremely anxious for the intervention of some foreign power; and he had been frankly told, by the American missionaries, that they could assure him of no such intervention. Coming with letters commendatory from the Primate of all England, the Lord Bishop of London, and the Anglican Bishop of Jerusalem, and with offers of schools, his power for good or evil must have been great. It cannot be that the patrons of Mr. Badger anticipated the attitude he would assume with regard to the American mission. The speedy close of his mission, may be assumed as proof that they did not. But while this is cheerfully admitted, the disastrous consequences of this interference should be distinctly stated. Mr. Badger gives the following account of his proceedings, in his report to the Committee of the Gospel Propagation Society, dated March 30, 1843. After stating the pains he took to explain the character, teaching, and discipline of his own Church, and how well his proposals to establish schools were received by Mar Shimon, he says, "The proceedings of the American Dissenters here necessarily formed a leading topic of our discourse. Through the influence of Nurullah Bey, they have been permitted to settle in the mountains, and two large establishments, one at Asheta and the other at Leezan, a village one day distant, are at present in course of being built. They have also a school in actual existence at Asheta, the expenses of which are defrayed by the Board, and, if I am rightly informed, another at Leezan. .... I did not fail to acquaint the Patriarch how far we are removed, in doctrine and discipline, from the American Independent missionaries. I showed him, moreover, that it would be injudicious, and would by no means satisfy us, to have schools among his people by the side of theirs, and pressed upon him to decide what plan he would pursue under existing circumstances. I think the Patriarch expressed his real sentiments on the peculiar doctrines of the Independents, when he said, 'I hold them as cheap as an onion;' but there are other considerations, which have more influence in inclining him to keep on friendly terms with the missionaries. In the first place, Dr. Grant has gained the apparent good will of Nurullah Bey, and the Patriarch may fear that, if he manifests any alteration in his conduct towards the American missionaries, the Emir might revenge it. Secondly, although I am fully convinced, that there is hardly a Nestorian in the mountains, who sympathizes with the doctrine or discipline of the Dissenters, whenever these differ from their own, yet I am persuaded, that, from the Patriarch to the poorest peasant, all value the important services of a good physician; and besides this, they highly prize the money which the missionaries have already expended, and are still expending among them with no niggardly hand, in presents, buildings, schools, etc."1

1 Nestorians and their Rituals, vol. i. pp. 248, 249.

The reader need not be told, that Congregationalists and Presbyterians are neither Dissenters nor Independents; and these two large bodies of Christians founded the mission.

The object of Mr. Badger was to alienate the Patriarch from the American mission; and he appears to have succeeded. Mar Shimon, in a letter addressed to the Archbishop and Bishops of the English Church, in August, 1843, speaks thus of the missionaries, with whom he was on confidential and somewhat intimate terms before the visit of Mr. Badger.

"Such was our condition, remaining in our own country in perfect peace and security, when, about three years since, persons came to us from the new world called America, and represented themselves as true Catholic Christians; but when we became acquainted with their way, we found that they held several errors, since they deny the order of the Priesthood committed to us by our Lord, nor do they receive the oecumenical councils of the Church, nor the true traditions of the holy Fathers, nor the efficacy of the sacraments of salvation, which Christ hath bequeathed to his Church, namely, Baptism, and the holy Eucharist; on which account we must beware of their working among us. But when your messenger, the pious presbyter George, came to us, and delivered into our hands your letters, we were filled with joy when we read their contents, and learned therefrom your spiritual and temporal prosperity. And we have now given up all others, that we may be united with you, in brotherhood and true Christian love."1

1 Nestorians and their Rituals, vol. i. p. 273.

Five months before the date of this letter, and after the return of Mr. Badger to Mosul, Dr. Grant received a letter from Mar Shimon, filled with Oriental protestations of undiminished attachment, and with urgent invitations to revisit the mountains. He went, accompanied by Mr. Laurie. They were kindly received as before, and spent several weeks with him, but found the Nestorians in constant dread of attacks from the Koords.

Meanwhile the reports, which had been put in circulation with regard to Dr. Grant's operations at Asheta, in the way of building, were communicated by the Pasha of Mosul to the Pasha of Erzroom, and by him to Constantinople. It is not probable that the reports were believed anywhere; but as the government was then intent upon subjugating that portion of the empire, they were unwilling to have the mountaineers enlightened and elevated. Accordingly they refused firmans to Dr. Azariah Smith and Rev. Edwin E. Bliss, in case they were going as missionaries to the Nestorians, for these would pledge to them the protection of the government; though they would grant them passports to go where they pleased. The Turkish minister even declared to Mr. Brown, our Charge d'affaires at the Porte, that they did not wish schools to be opened in the mountains.

In June, Dr. Grant, by special invitation, visited Bader Khan Bey, the most powerful chief in Koordistan. The journey occupied him five days, by way of Zakhu and Jezireh. The castle of the chief lay sixteen or eighteen miles northeast of Jezireh, in a pass among the mountains. He found there his old friend, of Koordish sincerity, Nurullah Bey, who had come to engage the Buhtan chief in the subjugation of the Nestorians. The fearless missionary spent ten days with these "deceitful and bloody" men. They made no concealment of their designs upon the Nestorians, but promised safety and protection to the mission-house and property at Asheta.

The successful attack soon after made on the hitherto independent Nestorians, appears to have had its origin in the Turkish government. Only unity of action could now save the Nestorians, and that unity was wanting. The Buhtan Koords came upon them from the northwest, and the Hakary tribes from the northeast and east. On the south was a Turkish army from the Pasha of Mosul, while the Ravandooz Koords are said to have been ready for an onset from the southeast. Diss, the district in which the Patriarch resided, and Tiary were soon laid waste by the combined force of the Buhtan and Hakary Koords. Many were slain, and among them the Patriarch's mother, a brother, and a fine youth who was regarded as the probable successor to the Patriarch. The valuable patriarchal library of manuscripts was destroyed. When the work of destruction began, Dr. Grant was in the southeast part of Tiary. From thence, without returning to Asheta, where the Patriarch then was, he hastened, by way of Lezan and Amadia, to Mosul, where great fears had been entertained for his safety. He reached Mosul on the morning of July 14, 1843, much fatigued with his journey, but in tolerably good health.

In the first invasion, Asheta and three other large villages in Tiary were spared the general destruction. Previous to November, however, the Nestorians of these villages rose upon the Koordish governor, and wounded him; and this occasioned the destruction of these villages, and the massacre of their inhabitants. Nothing was spared except the house Dr. Grant had erected, and that was converted into a fortress. Of the seventy-four priests in Tiary, twenty-four were killed, whose names were known. The districts east of Diss and Tiary were not destroyed. The tribes of Tehoma, Bass, and Jelu suffered comparatively little in either of the invasions, except in the loss of their property and their independence. After the disasters of Tiary and Diss, each of the remaining tribes sent in its submission. The Patriarch fled to Mosul. Several of his brothers fled to Oroomiah, and there threw themselves on the hospitality of the mission, which in their destitute circumstances could not be refused. Many were sold into slavery. Of the fifty thousand mountain Nestorians, the estimated number before the war, one fifth part were numbered with the slain.

Mrs. Laurie was called on the 16th of December, to rest from her labors. "In her last hours," writes Dr. Grant, "she was mercifully delivered alike from bodily pain and from mental anxieties. A noble testimony of Christian devotedness had been given in her consecration to one of the most difficult and trying fields in modern missions; and death to her was but the Saviour's welcome to mansions of undisturbed repose."

It has been stated that the Turkish government had refused a firman to Dr. Azariah Smith, in case he were a missionary to the Nestorians of Koordistan. He accordingly remained in the Armenian mission, where he found useful occupation till the arrival of the Foreign Secretary; when it was arranged that he should proceed to Mosul by way of Beirut and Aleppo, and either remain permanently connected with the mission, or return to the Armenians as a missionary physician. A firman was now given him, and he reached Mosul in safety on the 29th of March. Little did any one think that his first duty would be to smooth Dr. Grant's descent to the grave, yet an all-wise Providence had so ordained. A typhoid fever, which had carried off many of the refugee Nestorians in Mosul, seized their beloved physician on the 5th of April. He was delirious from the moment it assumed a threatening character, and died on the 24th of April, 1844.

While the author was at Constantinople, he received a letter from Dr. Grant, stating how much his presence was needed, for a time, by his children at home. The case being urgent, he was encouraged to return and was preparing for this, when his gracious Lord called him into his presence above. The tidings of his dangerous sickness awakened much interest in Mosul. People of every rank, men of all sects and religions, watched the progress of his disease with the most earnest anxiety. The French Consul visited him almost daily. The Turkish authorities sent to inquire for him, and some came in person. One, who arrived immediately after his decease, could not refrain from tears when he heard of it. A leading Jacobite remarked, that all Mosul was weeping. The poor Patriarch, roused to a sense of his loss, exclaimed, "My country and my people are gone! Nothing remains to me but God!"

Those who have attentively read the preceding history will need nothing more to set forth the character of this eminent servant of Christ. His courage, his calmness and yet firmness of purpose, his skill in the healing art, his devotion to the cause of his Saviour, his tact in winning the confidence even of those who never before trusted their own friends, his fearlessness in the presence of unscrupulous and cruel men and his ascendency over them, his lively faith under appalling discouragements, and his unyielding perseverance, form an array of excellence rarely combined in one man. Like the holy Apostle, he was "in journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren, in weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness." Yet was he not cast down by these things. He regarded them as incidental to his calling of God in Christ Jesus; and in the pursuit of this heavenly calling, he was more happy in the savage wilds of Koordistan, than he would have been in the most favored portions of his native land.

Mr. Laurie and Dr. Smith, the surviving brethren at Mosul, entered the mountains in the summer of 1844, explored the district of Tiary, and visited Nurullah Bey at Birchullah above Julamerk. Wherever they went among the Nestorians, they found a painful scene of desolation. On their return to Mosul, they forwarded their journal and a summary view of the facts, and asked the Committee to decide whether to continue the effort to approach the Nestorians from the west, and the Committee now forwarded definite instructions to discontinue this branch of the mission.1 They proceeded to Beirut in Syria, accompanied by Mrs. Hinsdale, who had been bereaved of her only child. Mr. Laurie became a member of the Syrian mission, and Dr. Smith of the Armenian; and Mrs. Hinsdale was for some time employed in the instruction of missionary children at Constantinople.

1 Missionary Herald, 1845, pp. 116-125.



CHAPTER XIV.

SYRIA.

1830-1838.

Syria was not in a condition for a return of the missionaries until after two years. Messrs. Bird and Whiting left Malta for Beirut on the 1st of May, 1830. Mr. Abbott, the English Consul, had already returned, and gave them a cordial welcome. The members of the Greek Church greeted them in a friendly manner, and were ready to read the Scriptures with them; but the Maronite priests, faithful to the Church of Rome, forbad their people all intercourse with the "Bible men," whom they described as "followers of the devil." Among those who received them gladly were a few young men, over whom the missionaries had rejoiced in former years, and who had remained steadfast in the faith, and had honored the Gospel by their lives.

Gregory Wortabet, one of the two Armenian ecclesiastics who early became connected with the mission, is already somewhat known to the reader. He belonged to the monastic priesthood in the Armenian Church, and there is an interesting autobiography of him in the "Missionary Herald" for 1828. His career up to that time, as described by himself, shows him to have been an uncommon character; and his personal sufferings, both for good and evil doing, prepared him to receive benefit from his converse with the missionaries at Beirut, which began in 1826, when he was twenty-six years of age. He was then ignorant of the Gospel, with his mind in great darkness and confusion. His first ray of light was from the good example of his missionary friends. Comparing their lives with their preaching, he admired the consistency of the two. He then compared both with the Scriptures, reading through the entire New Testament. At length day dawned upon his darkness. He became fully satisfied, that the Scriptures were from God, and committed himself to their divine teaching. Renouncing his self-righteousness, and all dependence on the absolutions of the Church, he trusted for salvation only in the blood of the Lord Jesus. Having adopted the opinion, that his monastic vows were unscriptural and therefore void, he married a discreet woman, who not long after gave good evidence of piety.

Wortabet accompanied the missionaries to Malta, as did also Dionysius, the other ecclesiastic. This change in their circumstances was at their own earnest request, but it was a great change. The author saw them at Malta, and did not wonder at some dissatisfaction on the part of the younger of the two, which helped to bring a cloud, for a time, over his Christian character. But his morals were irreproachable in the view of the world, and on his return to Syria in 1830, which was mainly in consequence of the failure of his eyes, the sun shone forth again, and continued to do so till his death. He went back to Beirut with the intention of supporting himself by manual labor, but the return of ophthalmia interrupted his plans, and reduced him to poverty. Mr. Bird visited him in May, 1831, at his residence near Sidon, and found him and his wife destitute indeed of the good things of this life, but contented and cheerful, and Wortabet warning all around him, night and day. Much of his conversation was spiritual, and he was listened to with deference. He was respected by the principal inhabitants of the place, and his wife was regarded as a model of humility and piety. Two or three were thought to have received saving impressions from his conversation. He obtained his support, such as it was, by means of a small shop, and was rigidly conscientious in his dealings. Respectable men of all classes came frequently to converse with him on religious subjects, and so gave him an opportunity to circulate the Bible, and to recommend its religion to Druses, Armenians, Papists, and Jews. Even Moslems sometimes listened with attention.

Having been drawn into a written controversy by a zealous Maronite, Wortabet called in the aid of Taunus el Haddad, not being himself at home in the Arabic, and with important aid from the written discussions of Messrs. King, Bird, Goodell, and the lamented Asaad, he came out with a full exposition of the points at issue between Protestants and the Church of Rome, which attracted much attention. An answer was repeatedly promised, but none ever appeared, and it was thought the Maronite was himself half convinced of his error. Wortabet's weight of character, and his perfect knowledge of the people, made his influence at Sidon exceedingly valuable, and it was increasing and extending. But on the 10th of September, 1832, a short illness, supposed to be the cholera, terminated his earthly labors. From the first attack, he regarded the disease as fatal, and met death with a calm reliance on the Saviour.

The operations of the mission in 1832, were disturbed by plague, cholera, and war. The ravages of the plague were not great, but cholera occasioned intense alarm. It swept over Armenia and along the western borders of Persia, cut off one third of the pilgrims from Beirut to Mecca, was exceedingly fatal at Cairo and Alexandria, and made approaches to the seat of the mission as near as Aleppo, Damascus, Tiberias, and Acre; but from this terrible judgment the inhabitants of Beirut were providentially shielded. They suffered much, however, from the rapacity of the Pasha of Acre, until his power was broken by the invading army of the Viceroy of Egypt, under Ibrahim Pasha. With the aid of ten or fifteen thousand men from Mount Lebanon, under the Emir Beshir, Ibrahim Pasha took Acre; then pushing his conquests to Damascus, established the dominion of Egypt over Palestine and all Syria.

The papal bishop of Beirut having published an answer to Mr. King's "Farewell Letter," Mr. Bird made a reply in thirteen letters, containing many extracts from the Fathers and Roman Catholic doctors against the bishop's opinions and expositions of Scripture. Preparatory to this, the mission library was furnished with the more important works of the ancient Fathers; and what was wanting to complete the polemic department of the library, was munificently supplied by Mr. Parnell, of the Bagdad mission; who also presented the mission with a lithographic press for printing in the Arabic and Syriac languages. About this time, Mr. Temple was instructed to send the Arabic portion of the Malta establishment to Beirut, where Mr. Smith, who returned from the United States in 1834, was to have the charge of it.

Mr. Smith had been instructed by the Prudential Committee, to explore the country eastward of the Jordan, and also that bordering on the eastern range of Lebanon. Accordingly, soon after his arrival, he and Dr. Dodge visited Damascus, and then went into the Hauran, which was never before explored by Protestant missionaries, and until the publication of Burckhard's travels, twelve years before, was almost unknown in modern times. The Bozrah of the Scriptures was the limit of their travels southeastward, and marks the limit of habitation towards the great desert. Thence they traversed the region of Bashan to the southwest, as far as the river Jabbok, now called Zerka, beyond which the country is surrendered to the wild Bedawin. Turning to the north, they crossed the Jordan not far from the lake of Tiberias, ascended the western shore, visited the numerous Greek Christians on the west of Mount Hermon, and returned to Damascus. The health of the mission now called Dr. Dodge back to Beirut, and Mr. Smith completed the survey of Anti-Libanus alone; visited a village of Jacobite Syrians in the desert towards Palmyra; passed through Homs, and as far north as Hamah, or "Hamath the great;" then, bending his course homeward, he crossed Lebanon in the region of the Ansaireea, through Tripoli to Beirut. Of this whole deeply interesting tour Mr. Smith, as was his custom, kept an accurate journal, which he intended to elaborate for publication as soon as he should have opportunity. The learned world heard with deep regret, in the year 1836, of the loss of this valuable manuscript in the shipwreck of Mr. and Mrs. Smith on their voyage to Smyrna. The Arabic press arrived in 1834, and passed without objection through the customhouse. Indeed, there were at that time no less than six presses in Syria and the Holy Land, belonging to Jews and Papists, and no one of them was subjected to hindrance, censorship, or taxation.

It could not truly be said, that any material change had taken place in the character and condition of the people at large, as a consequence of Protestant missions. But this at least was true, that the impression given by the Jesuits, that Protestants had no religion, no priesthood, and no churches, had been extensively removed. The missionaries unite in their testimony, that the circulation of the Scriptures is not alone sufficient to regenerate a people. A very considerable number of copies had been put in circulation from Aleppo to Hebron and Gaza, and many of them had been in the hands of the people for more than ten years. It is not known indeed how much they had been used; but where there had been no personal intercourse with missionaries, not a single radical conversion of the soul unto God had come to the knowledge of the missionaries.

Commodore Patterson visited Beirut during the summer with the U. S. ship Delaware and schooner Shark; principally, as he said, to do honor to the mission, and to convince the people that it had powerful friends.

Ten interesting young men placed themselves under the tuition of Dr. Dodge to learn English, and Mr. Smith gave them lessons in geography and astronomy, of which they knew almost as little as of English. A school taught by Taunus el Haddad was converted into a girls' school. A female school was also opened by the ladies of the mission, assisted by the widow of Wortabet, for which a house was erected by the subscriptions of foreign residents. The school contained twenty-nine pupils, of whom three were Moslem children, and one a Druse, and no opposition was made to it. Religious instruction was given, of course, and the scholars made good progress in reading, sewing, knitting, and behavior. The whole number in the schools exceeded a hundred. Mr. Abbott, the early and valued friend of the mission, died during this year.

In 1835, Mr. Bird was compelled, by the declining health of his wife, to visit Smyrna. After remaining there nearly a year, and not receiving the benefit they expected, they came to the United States, and were never able to return to Syria. Their removal was for a time an irreparable loss to the mission, and was a severe disappointment to themselves. In subsequent years, they gladly gave two of their children to the missionary work in Western Asia. Miss Rebecca W. Williams arrived this year as a teacher; and in the next year the Rev. Messrs. Story Hebard and John F. Lanneau, and Miss Betsey Tilden. In 1835, Mr. William M. Thomson was married to Mrs. Abbott, the widow of the late English Consul, who, from an early period in the mission, had given decisive evidence of attachment to the kingdom of Christ.

The high school, commenced in 1835, took a more substantial form in the following year. It was wisely decided, that the pupils should lodge, eat, and dress in the style of the country; and the annual expenses of each scholar for boarding, clothing, etc., was only from thirty-five to forty dollars. The course of study embraced the Arabic language for the whole period, the English language, geography and astronomy, civil and ecclesiastical history, with chronology, mathematics, rhetoric,—in the Arab sense, a popular study,—natural and moral philosophy, composition and translation, natural theology, and sacred music. The Bible was studied constantly. In all these departments there was a great deficiency of books; in some it was entire.

Mr. Hebard and Miss Williams were united in marriage in October, 1836. Mr. Hebard had then the care of the seminary, and the girls' school was taught by Mrs. Hebard and Mrs. Dodge. The latter was subsequently married to the Rev. J. D. Paxton, a clergyman from the United States, then on a visit to Syria.

The mission, as early as 1836, became sensible of a serious deficiency in their Arabic type. As it did not conform to the most approved standard of Arabic caligraphy, it did not meet the popular taste. Mr. Smith therefore took pains to collect models of the characters in the best manuscripts. These were lost in his shipwreck, but he afterwards replaced them at Constantinople, to the number of two hundred; so varied, that the punches formed for them would make not far from a thousand matrices. These he placed in the hands of Mr. Hallock, the missionary printer at Smyrna, who possessed great mechanical ingenuity, and was entirely successful in cutting the punches. The type was cast at Leipzig by Tauchnitz. Thus a really great and important work, without which the press could not have been domesticated among the many millions to whom the Arabic is vernacular, was brought to a successful issue.

The disastrous shipwreck of Mr. and Mrs. Smith on their way from Beirut to Smyrna, has been already mentioned. The voyage was undertaken chiefly for the benefit of Mrs. Smith's health; but the exposures consequent on the shipwreck, extending through twenty-eight days until their arrival at Smyrna, aggravated her consumptive tendencies, and hastened her passage to the grave. She died on the thirtieth of September, 1836, at the age of thirty-four. The closing scene is described by her husband. "Involuntary groans were occasionally muttered in her convulsions. These, as we were listening to them with painful sympathy, once, to our surprise, melted away into musical notes; and for a moment, our ears were charmed with the full, clear tones of the sweetest melody. No words were articulated, and she was evidentally unconscious of everything about her. It seemed as if her soul was already joining in the songs of heaven, while it was yet so connected with the body as to command its unconscious sympathy. Not long after, she again opened her eyes in a state of consciousness. A smile of perfect happiness lighted up her emaciated features. She looked deliberately around upon different objects in the room, and then fixed upon me a look of the tenderest affection. .... Her frequent prayers that the Saviour would meet her in the dark valley, have already been mentioned. By her smile, she undoubtedly intended to assure us that she had found him. Words she could not utter to express what she felt. Life continued to struggle with its last enemy until twenty minutes before eight o'clock; when her affectionate heart gradually ceased to beat, and her soul took its final departure to be forever with the Lord."1

1 A Memoir of Mrs. Sarah Lanman Smith was given to the public by her brother, Edward W. Hooker, D. D., in 1837, pp. 407.

In the winter and spring of 1838, an opportunity was afforded Mr. Smith to perform a very useful service as the associate of Dr. Edward Robinson, in his celebrated "Biblical Researches in Palestine and the Adjacent Regions."1 The aid was essential to the full success of the enterprise, from Mr. Smith's acquaintance with the Arabs and their language, and it was cheerfully rendered by the missionary, and assented to by the mission and by the officers of the Board at home. Mr. Smith had been hopeful of being able to visit the Hauran, and to recover the more important facts lost in the shipwreck, but the troubled state of the country prevented. Joining Dr. Robinson in Egypt, he travelled with him from Cairo to Suez; thence to Sinai and Jerusalem, by way of Akabah; then to Bethel, the Dead Sea, and the valley of the Jordan. At Jerusalem, they attended the annual meeting of the Syria mission.

1 Mr. Smith rendered a similar service, during a part of Dr. Robinson's second tour in 1852, in a portion of the same regions.

The Rev. Messrs. Elias R. Beadle and Charles S. Sherman, and their wives, joined the mission this year.



CHAPTER XV.

SYRIA.

THE DRUZES, AND THE WARS OF LEBANON.

1835-1842.

We now enter upon a period of some special difficulty in the prosecution of the missionary work. Turkey, Egypt, and several great European powers, conflicting for secular objects, brought the Druzes into very singular and as it proved unfortunate, relations to the mission.

The Druzes are found chiefly on the mountains of Lebanon, and in the country called the Hauran, south of Damascus, and number sixty or seventy thousand souls. The sect originated with Hakem, a Caliph of Egypt, but derived its name from El Drusi, a zealous disciple of the Caliph. They believe Hakem to be the tenth, last, and most important incarnation of God, and render him divine honors. They have ever taken great pains to conceal their tenets, which seem to be compounded from Mohammedanism and Paganism, and it is only a portion of themselves that know what the tenets are. Those are called the Akkal, or initiated; the others are the Jebal, or uninitiated. Four centuries and a half after the death of the founder of the sect, it became powerful under a single chief. Inhabiting the rugged mountains of Lebanon, they maintained for many ages a free and independent spirit in the midst of despotism, and were a semi-independent people within the Turkish dominions down to the summer of 1835, when they were subdued by Ibrahim Pasha.

As early as 1831, a hope was awakened in the mission, that the Gospel might be successfully introduced among that people. A Druze woman was in the habit of coming daily to listen to the reading of the Scriptures and to religious conversation, and would often say, "That's the truth," with her face bathed in tears. Her visits were continued until she fell a victim to the plague. An old man, also, who was one of the "initiated," came, and, after much disputation, professed to receive the Gospel. In proof of his sincerity, he brought one of the secret books of his religion, and gave it to the missionaries. Mr. Smith, moreover, when on the mountains, was invited to attend one of their stated meetings, and, at its close, was requested to read and expound a portion of the word of God.

The prospects became more favorable in 1835. Mr. Bird and others spent the hot months of summer at Aaleih, a Druze village on Lebanon. Mrs. Dodge gathered a school of girls there, and Mr. Bird had ten or fifteen Druzes present at his Arabic preaching every Sabbath, and among them the young sheiks of the village, with their servants. Many of the people listened with attention, and received and read the New Testament and other religious books, with apparent eagerness. They readily acknowledged that neither repentance, alms-giving, prayers, nor any works of their own, were sufficient to insure the pardon of sin; and when pointed to the great atonement of the Lord Jesus, it seemed to commend itself to their understanding and conscience. Though nominally the disciples of the Koran, they did not cry out "blasphemy," as did the Moslems, when told that Jesus is the Son of God, thus partaking of the divine nature; but they seemed to feel that this character was necessary for one who should undertake to be a Saviour for a world of sinners.

Mr. Bird coming down from the mountains to accompany his sick wife to Smyrna, Mr. Smith took his place, and visited eight or nine villages, with every opportunity afforded him for preaching the Gospel; and he was everywhere listened to with respectful attention. Though aware of the deceitfulness of the people, he could not but see how open they then were to this species of missionary labor. Yet he could not find among them any real spirit of inquiry, and his only hope was in the influences of the Holy Spirit, giving efficacy to the truth. The Druzes, though wrapped up in hypocrisy, and apparently without one spiritual thought, were of the same race with all other men, and the preaching of the word might be expected, in the end, to have the same effect upon them.

There was reason to believe, that this movement among the Druzes grew mainly out of their recent subjugation by the Egyptians, and their apprehension of a military conscription. They had always professed Mohammedanism hypocritically, to escape the oppressions which Christians suffered under Moslem rule; but now the Christians fared better than the Moslems, in that they were not liable to be drafted into the army, to which as Moslems the Druzes were exposed. They had very painful apprehensions of such a levy, and the reason having ceased that had led them to profess Mohammedanism, they were disposed to renounce that religion; and some among the uninitiated seemed ready to renounce the Druze religion also. Their great object was to enjoy equal rights with the Christians, and especially to escape the military conscription.

A levy had been demanded of the Druzes before this visit of the brethren to the mountains, and had been refused, with an urgent request to Mohammed Ali that he would not impose upon them so odious a burden. Nothing was heard in reply until the fourth day after Mr. Smith's return to Beirut, when Ibrahim Pasha presented himself at Deir el-Kamr, at the head of eighteen thousand men. Taken by surprise, no opposition was made. Both Druzes and Christians were at once disarmed, and officers were left to collect recruits.

With the dreaded evil thus strongly upon them, there was a more general disposition to throw off the Druze religion. Applications came from individuals and from families in different and distant villages. Among them were some of the higher ranks. One whole family connection of eighty individuals declared their readiness to pledge their property as security that they would never apostatize from the Christian faith; and had it been in the power of the mission to secure to them the political standing of Christian sects, and had the brethren been disposed to favor a national conversion, after the example of the early and middle ages, it is probable that the whole body of the Jebal Druzes, at least, would have become nominal Protestants. Of course the missionaries explained to them how inconsistent with the spirituality of our religion would be such a mere profession of Christianity. For a few Sabbaths, the Arab congregation was composed chiefly of Druzes; and Mr. Smith threw open his doors to them at the time of family prayers, and had the opportunity of reading and explaining the Gospel to from ten to fifteen for two months; but without finding evidence, with perhaps a single exception, of a sincere desire to know the truth.

That exception was in the case of a Druze named Kasim. Mr. Smith saw him first in October, 1835. Residing in the mountains, Kasim had two of his sons already baptized by the Maronites, and had openly professed himself to be no longer a Druze, but a Christian. He had not himself received baptism, for fear of his relatives, who had once gone in a body and beaten him. He now removed into the immediate neighborhood of the missionary, where he hoped for protection, and he and his family became regular attendants upon Christian worship. He professed a strong attachment to the Saviour, as did also his wife, and they both made evident progress in religious knowledge. Both openly declared themselves Protestants, and were anxious for baptism. The officer of the Emir Beshir, finding in his hands a testimonial from Mr. Smith, that he was a Christian, respected him in this character, while he was seizing all his Druze neighbors for soldiers; but he had not then been admitted to the church, for want of sufficient evidence of true conversion.

Kasim was at length apprehended by the governor of Beirut, beaten to make him confess that he was a Moslem, and cast into prison. Mr. Smith visited him, and urged him to make the profession he intended to abide by, that the mission might know what to do. In the presence of a dozen Moslems, he professed himself a Christian, and declared that he would die a Christian, if they burned him at the stake. The governor, on hearing this, ordered him to be thrust into the inner prison, and loaded with chains. Here his persecutors renewed their promises and threats, but his firmness remained unshaken, and they left him in prison. Such a confession had never been made in Beirut before, and it attracted much attention. The poor man in his dungeon, aware of the danger of his situation, spent much of his time in prayer, and was often heard by his fellow-prisoners, in the watches of the night, calling upon Jesus Christ to help him. He even sent directions to a friend respecting the disposal of a few effects, in case he should be martyred, thereby showing his expectation of persevering unto death.

As the best thing that could be done, the American Consul at Beirut, who took a deep interest in the case, addressed a letter to Soleiman Pasha, next in power to Ibrahim, who was then at Sidon on his way to Beirut. This was favorably received, and the Pasha expressed his wish that the family would send a petition to him, that he might be ready to judge the case when he should arrive at Beirut. This was accordingly done, and the requisite evidence was made ready. The poor man received his food daily from his missionary friend, with messages of cheer, and he never wavered.

On the arrival of the Pasha, the prisoner's wife immediately sought access to him, and this she did day after day; but the governor of Beirut threw every obstacle in her way. The Pasha wished to set him free, without seeming to yield to Frank dictation, or stirring up Moslem fanaticism. At length the governor, threatened by the agent of the European consuls with deposition, presented himself in person at the door of the prison, and told Kasim to go free.

Thus terminated, after an imprisonment of seventeen days, the first case of a converted Druze called to confess Jesus Christ before a Moslem tribunal. This was in the early part of the year 1836.

Kasim was kept by the mission two years on probation, but on the first Sabbath in 1838 he and his wife were admitted to the church, and were baptized, with their six children, receiving Christian names at their own request. Mr. Thomson took occasion to preach on the subject of baptism, explaining the true meaning and intention of the ordinance. The congregation was larger than usual, and there was more solemn attention than had ever been witnessed in the chapel. Much anxiety was felt for Kasim, but he was not molested. His brother and his brother's wife also made a very importunate request for baptism, and the mission not long after complied with it.

As these converts were not molested after their baptism, the Druzes resorted more and more to the mission for instruction. Mr. Thomson was invited to visit their villages, and open among them schools and places of worship. They applied for the admission of their sons to the seminary, and a young sheik was received, his friends paying the expense. Some of them corresponded with Mr. Thomson by letter, and some came to reside at Beirut. The Papists assailed them with promises, flatteries, and threats of vengeance from the Emir Beshir; but the Druzes declared they would never join the Church of Rome. While the mission was aware that in all this the Druzes were greatly influenced by political changes, past and expected, they could not avoid the hope that an increasing number were really desirous of knowing and obeying the truth. Indeed it was impossible to avoid this conclusion with the facts before them, some of which Mr. Thomson embodied thus in his journal:—

"August 13, 1838. This morning Kasim brought a leading Druze to see me. He is from Shweifat, and desires to become an English Christian. His conversation was very satisfactory, so far as sensible and even pious remarks are concerned. He makes the most solemn appeals to the Searcher of Hearts to bear witness to his sincerity; asks neither for protection, employment, or money; but says, that his only object is to secure the salvation of his soul. He asks for nothing but Christian instruction, which I of course was most happy to afford to the extent of my abilities. Alas! that long experience with people here, and especially with the Druzes, compels me to receive with hesitation their most solemn protestations.

"Sept. 5. M., the ruling sheik of A., came down from the mountains to request Christian instruction and baptism for himself and family. He is very earnest and rational, for a Druze, and thinks that nearly all his villages will unite with him. In a conversation, protracted to more than half a day, I endeavored to place before him, with all possible plainness, our views of what true religion is. He is not so ignorant on this subject as most Druzes, having been acquainted with us for many years, and frequently present at our Arabic worship.

"Sept. 6. Sheik S., from the heart of Lebanon, came to-day with the same request for Christian instruction, not only for himself, but for his father and four brothers, leading sheiks of the mountains. He asks not for protection, money, or temporal advantage in any way, but solely for religious instruction; and declares, with apparent sincerity, that his only desire is to secure the salvation of his soul. He says concerning their own superstition, that he knows it is utterly false and pernicious; and that, having for three years read the Bible, and compared the various sects with it, he is persuaded that they have forsaken the word of God, and imposed upon men many human inventions, designed not for the good of the people, but to augment the power and wealth of the priesthood. He mentioned with special abhorrence auricular confession, and forgiveness of sin by the priest; also, their long fasts, their prayers to saints, and their worship of images and pictures; showing that he was well acquainted with the leading differences between us and them; and proving, by his pertinent quotations from the Bible, that he had read it with attention and understanding.

"Sheik S. intends to remain several days for the purpose of receiving more instruction. He appears to have no fears of persecution, but to be resolved to persevere whatever may happen.

"Sept. 12. Went to B.'T., and spent the day in conversing with the large family of sheiks there. These sheiks govern, under the Emir, all this part of Lebanon. The greater part of them appear resolved to become Christians at all hazards. Alas! how little do they know of that religion, which they profess to be so anxious to embrace. The mother of the sheiks in A. is married to the most powerful sheik in B.'T., and she sent word to her children, encouraging them to become Christians, and approving also of their plan to place the youngest boys in our seminary.

"I had no time to converse with the common people in B.'T., but one of our Christian Druzes who accompanied me, spent the day with them, and tells me, that a great many of the villagers wished to join us. Here also the Papists are busy as bees, both with arguments and terrors. What the end will be, is known only to God."

Two days later, several sheiks camp down from the mountains, with an apparent determination to take houses, and receive religious instruction; declaring their wish not to return to the mountains until they had been both instructed and baptized. The same day, two Druzes came as agents from a large clan of their people residing in Anti-Lebanon, three days from Beirut, professing to treat in behalf of their whole community. In the evening, several leading Druzes came from Andara, the highest habitable part of Lebanon, professing to act in the name of their whole village, and earnestly requesting the mission to open schools, build a church, and baptize them all forthwith. The missionary preached to them till a late hour, and they promised to come again after a few days. They kept their promise, and stated that they had made arrangements with the people of several villages to unite together, and all declare themselves Christians at the same time; hoping that the Emir, when he saw so many of them of one mind, would not venture to execute the plans of cruel persecution, with which they were threatened. Mr. Thomson now found it necessary to call in the aid of Mr. Hebard and Mr. Lanneau.

The Emir Beshir, urged on by the Papal priests, now sent for the young Druze sheiks, and threatened them with the full measure of his wrath. This occasioned a division among them, some through fear siding with the Emir. The father of several young sheiks,—a venerable old man, with rank and talents to give him extensive influence,—being at Beirut, declared in oriental style his attachment to the Gospel, and his intended adherence to it.

The excitement among the Druzes continued, and visitors from all parts of Lebanon thronged the house of the missionary, till winter rendered communication with the mountains difficult.

Near the close of November, a number of Druzes, who had become Greek Papists, were seized by order of the Pasha, and cast into prison, whence five of them were drafted into the army. The rest were allowed to return to their homes. It was understood that the Pasha would not disturb the Protestant converts; but he had shown that he was not disposed to tolerate the conversion of the Druzes to Christianity. Kasim and his associates appeared resolved to go not only to prison, but to death, rather than deny Christ.

At the close of the year, the severity of the Emir, in connection with the snows of winter, greatly diminished the attendance of Druzes at the meetings. The knowledge, also, that they could not be baptized till they had given evidence of being truly converted, helped to repress the movement. Still, some of the more hopeful persons continued to show their interest in the Gospel.

Syria was now within the jurisdiction of Egypt, and hence the mission was not affected by the persecutions, for which the year 1839 was so distinguished in Turkey. But the missionary force was much reduced, Messrs. Bird, Smith, and Whiting being in the United States. The Rev. Elias R. Beadle and Charles S. Sherman arrived as missionaries, with their wives, in the autumn of that year; and Messrs. Samuel Wolcott, Nathaniel A. Keyes, and Leander Thompson, with their wives, and Dr. C. V. A. Van Dyck, in April 1840. They had the language to learn, and the press lay idle during the year, for want of a printer and funds. Mrs. Hebard died in February.

Yet there was progress. A large and convenient chapel had been obtained, where were held two stated Arabic services on the Sabbath; and on the evening of the Sabbath, the natives had a prayer meeting by themselves. In the free schools there were eighty scholars; the seminary for boys had twenty boarders; and the distribution of books and tracts continued. In this work a blind old man of the Greek Church named Aboo Yusoof was an efficient helper. Though stooping with age, he went about the country with a donkey loaded with books, and a little boy to lead him, doing what he could. In a district northeast of Tripoli, he was encouraged in his work by the approbation of the Greek bishop Zacharias.

The political and religious events then occurring were intimately connected. The conquest of Syria by Mohammed Ali, was the apparent cause of the religious movement among the Druzes already described. The defeat of the Sultan's army at Nisib, in 1839, and the feelings of jealousy towards France and Egypt, then intimately allied, led to the determination of England, Russia, Prussia, and Austria to restore Syria and the Turkish fleet to the Porte. The consequent armed intervention made Beirut the seat of war. An English fleet bombarded the city, and the English officers, by a singular miscalculation, treated the Papal Maronites as their friends, and the Druzes as their enemies. Missionary operations were suspended. Mr. Lanneau, whose eyes had failed him, left on a visit to the United States. Messrs. Beadle, Keyes, and Leander Thompson spent the summer and autumn at Jerusalem, and Dr. Van Dyck joined them there. Messrs. W. M. Thomson and Wolcott remained at Beirut until the bombardment, when Captain Latimer, of the United States corvette Cyane, who had come to Beirut to look after their welfare, kindly took them and their families to Cyprus.

In the presence of such mighty forces, the mission could only wait the course of events. The brethren, before leaving Beirut, had done all they could for the protection of their houses, furniture, the Arabic press, and the library and philosophical apparatus. They did this by hoisting over their houses the American flag and placing guards in them, and by an understanding with the admiral. The pupils in the boarding-school were sent to their friends. Mr. Wolcott visited Beirut during the contest, and found the Egyptian forces evacuating the town, and the British troops taking possession. He met the American consul there surveying the ruins of his house, which had been battered by the great guns and plundered by the pasha's soldiers; but the magazine beneath it, which contained most of the property of Messrs. Beadle and Keyes, had not been opened. Making his way through the ruins of the city to the mission houses, he saw the American flags still floating over them, and the guards on the ground. Soldiers had encamped in his garden, but had abstained from pillage. A few bombs had burst in the yard, and several cannon balls had penetrated the walls. The furniture, the library, the philosophical apparatus were uninjured. The native chapel in Mr. Thomson's house had been filled with goods, brought thither for safety by the natives, and these had not been molested. The field around Mr. Smith's house had been plowed by cannon balls, and he expected to find the new Arabic types converted into bullets, but not a type had been touched. Even the orange and lemon trees, within his inclosure, were bending with their load of fruit. All this was remarkable; and the goodness of Providence was gratefully acknowledged at the time, by the missionaries and by their patrons at home.

The persecuting Emir Beshir surrendered, and was sent to Malta, and a relative of the same name, but with small capacity for governing, was appointed Prince of the Mountains. The mission families returned from Cyprus before the end of the year, and the seminary was resumed; but those students who had been taught enough of English to make themselves intelligible as interpreters, had all been drawn away by the high wages which British officers paid for such services. The place of Tannus, Arabic teacher in the seminary, who was sick, was supplied by Butrus el-Bistany, from the Maronite College at Ain Warka. He had written a treatise against the corruptions of Popery and the supremacy of the Pope, and the enraged Patriarch had tried to get him into his power, but without success.

The brethren all reassembled at Beirut early in the year 1841, and Mr. Beadle, with a native assistant, commenced a station at Aleppo, but it was not long continued. The press resumed its operations with the new type, under the management of Mr. George Hurter, a printer just arrived from America. The declining health of Mr. Hebard compelled him to suspend missionary labors, and he died at Malta, June 30, on his way to the United States, greatly and deservedly lamented. About the same time, Mr. Smith arrived at Beirut, on his return to Syria, with his wife. Four months later, Mrs. Wolcott was called away, after a distressing illness of three days, but in sure and certain hope of a blessed immortality.

The allied powers had settled the affairs of the East in a manner not agreeable to France, and that government seems to have sought redress through the Jesuits. In the first month of 1841, three French Jesuits arrived at Beirut, with an ample supply of money; and, at the same time, the Maronite Patriarch received large sums from France and Austria, ostensibly for the relief of sufferers in the late war, but never expended for such a purpose. The Maronites had been the chief movers in favor of the Sultan and the English, and the English agent in negotiating with them was a Roman Catholic. On account of their services in that war, the Maronites stood high in favor with the English officers and with the Turkish government; and the Patriarch received important additions to his power, till he thought himself strong enough to expel the American missionaries and crush the Druzes. The local authorities having no power to drive the missionaries away, he petitioned the Sultan to do this. The Sultan laid the subject before Commodore Porter, then American Minister at the Porte, who said he was not authorized by his government to protect men thus employed. This fact coming in some way to the knowledge of the Patriarch, he made proclamation through the mountains, that the American missionaries were denounced by their own government as troublesome, mischief-making proselyters, and would not be protected.1

1 This mistaken opinion of the Minister was made the subject of correspondence with the United States Government, and the favorable response by Mr. Webster, Secretary of State, is quoted in chapter xviii.

Meanwhile, the English officers had obtained a more correct understanding of the relations of parties in Lebanon; and they saw at once that it was for the interest of England that the Druzes should be encouraged to become Protestants. They therefore held consultations with the Druze sheiks, and the results were communicated to the British government. As a natural consequence, the Druze sheiks expected support from England, and some at least of the British officers were in favor of such support, should the Druzes put themselves under the instruction of the American missionaries. It is certain, at any rate, that the Druze sheiks confidently expected this. With such expectations, they made a definite agreement with the mission, that a school for the sons of the ruling class should be established at Deir el-Kamr, and other schools as fast as practicable in their villages, and that the missionaries should be welcomed as religious teachers among all their people.

A school was at once opened at Deir el-Kamr by Messrs. Wolcott and Van Dyck, and Mr. Thomson removed to 'Ain Anab to superintend the schools for the common people, of which there were three opened in the vicinity. Mr. Smith, on arriving at Beirut, was so much interested that he did not stop to open his house, but went up at once to Deir el-Kamr.

In this same month, the Rev. Mr. Gobat, a German in the service of the Church Missionary Society, arrived from Malta. He had long been known as a missionary in Egypt and Abyssinia, and was a personal friend of the older members of the mission. His object was to see if he could make arrangements by which evangelical missionaries of the English Church could advantageously share in the labors for converting the Druzes.

In September, despatches arrived from Lord Palmerston, which were reported to contain an order for taking the Druzes under British protection; and with them came from England the Rev. Mr. Nicholayson,—originally a Baptist, and at this time an Episcopalian and zealous high-churchman—with instructions, it was said, to assist in carrying out that arrangement. He did not agree with Mr. Gobat in respect to the treatment due to the American missionaries; and when the Druzes inquired of him what support they might expect from England, the answers they received led them to the conclusion, that England would not protect them unless they renounced the American missionaries, and put themselves under the exclusive instruction of clergymen from the English Church. This they were not ready to do. Mr. Gobat retired, in a spirit of catholicity. Neither did Mr. Nicholayson prosecute his mission, being disheartened, it may be, by the civil war which shortly arose between the Maronites and Druzes. His intervention was unfortunate, and I find it referred to, thirty years afterwards, by a venerable member of the mission, as a warning against similar intrusions.

The Patriarch now deemed himself strong enough to enter upon his project of crushing the Druzes. His power in the mountains being in the ascendant, he ordered the Druze sheiks to assemble at Deir el-Kamr. They came armed, and, as they approached Deir el-Kamr, were required to send away their followers and lay aside their arms. They refused. A battle ensued, and the Maronites were defeated. The Patriarch then proclaimed a crusade against them, ordered his bishops to take arms, and marched his forces towards the Druze territory. But the Druzes seized the mountain passes, and defeated every attempt to enter. Though greatly inferior in numbers, they went desperately to work to exterminate or expel every Maronite from their part of the mountains. Not a convent, and scarce a village or hamlet belonging to the Maronites, was left standing. They then descended and dispersed the main army of the Maronites; and were ready to march northward into Kesrawan, and attack the Patriarch in his stronghold, but were persuaded by British officers to suspend their march. The Turkish army, which might have prevented the conflict, now took the field, and separated the combatants.1

1 Tracy's History, pp. 417, 440. Report for 1842, pp. 117-124. Missionary Herald, 1842, pp. 196, 229, 362.

This was very properly regarded as a providential deliverance for the mission, which had never been threatened with so formidable an opposition as at the beginning of the year. It now entered into a correspondence with nearly all the principal Druze sheiks, who felt that they had, by their swords, won the right to schools. The prospects were at that time very hopeful. The country never seemed more open to evangelical labors. For a year there had been no opposition to the schools, except two or three among the Druzes. The press was in operation without censorship, sending forth thousands of copies each year, and there was an increasing demand for books. The mission bookstore, in the centre of the town, was visited by all classes, including very many high officers of government, and even by the Seraskier himself, and there was no complaint against it. No one had been persecuted for a long time for professing the religion of the Bible, and Protestantism seemed to have gained a tacit toleration.

In reply to the objection, that the mission had been long established, and yet the conversions had been very few, Mr. Smith wrote thus: "I ask, what labor? Has it, after all, been so disproportioned to the results? The instrumentality highest on the scale of efficiency for the conversion of souls in every country, is oral instruction, especially formal preaching. Now how much of this has there been in Syria? Before Mr. Bird could engage in it, Mr. Fisk was called away by death. I had hardly been preaching in Arabic a year, when Mr. Bird left for America. Mr. Thomson had but just preached his first sermon when my family was broken up, and I became a wanderer. Since then, we have both been here together but a few months at a time, until the last year. And these are all the Arabic preachers we have had at our station. In the mean time we have all been away, once for nearly two years at Malta, and again for a while at Cyprus. And when here, so many other cares have we had, that a single sermon on the Sabbath has been, for most of the time, all the formal preaching that has been done. Add to this a weekly prayermeeting for six or seven months in the year."

Again he says: "The labor of years has been accomplished in gaining experience, forming favorable acquaintances, doing away with prejudice, disseminating evangelical truth, the successful commencement of printing operations, etc. All this labor is in the language of a vast nation of Mohammedans, the sacred language of the whole sect, the language of their prophet. And when their power falls, it will be so much done towards their conversion. Instead of being alarmed and discouraged by the revolutions that are occurring around me, I am interested in them as forerunners of that great event."

The political changes have generally been very sudden in Syria. In April, 1842, Omar Pasha imprisoned the leading Druze sheiks, and Albanian soldiers were arriving daily, as if to disarm the Druzes. And so it proved. The Turks decided to take the matter into their own hands. An army was marched into Lebanon, accompanied by Moslem sheiks and teachers, and the whole Druze nation was compelled to appear, outwardly at least, as Moslem.1 The motives of the government in this were chiefly political, but partly religious. They wished to be able to draw recruits from this brave people for the army, which could not be done should they become Protestant Christians; and also, to retain a strong party in Lebanon, to be used, as they afterwards were used, against the large nominally Christian majority of its inhabitants. They expected thus to control the mountains, and keep down the influence of foreign Christian powers.

1 These statements are made on the authority of a document received from the mission in the year 1869.

In this manner were the operations for educating and Christianizing the Druzes suddenly arrested. In working out their policy, the Turks necessarily resorted to measures intended to place the Druzes in bitter antagonism to all the native Christians. In the atrocious massacre of 1860, which, for the time, threw the Druzes far from all Christian sympathy, that unfortunate people were used as tools by the Turks to work out their own policy. Events such as these, are among the deep mysteries of Providence. Nor is this mystery yet solved; though, from facts that will appear in the sequel, we shall see enough to authorize the hope of a renewal at some time, of the former pleasing relations between the Druzes and Christian missionaries.



CHAPTER XVI.

SYRIA.

1842-1846.

The mission was strengthened, early in 1842, by the arrival of Dr. Henry A. DeForest and wife; and suffered a new bereavement in the death of the second Mrs. Smith, but little more than a year after her arrival. Some months later, Mr. and Mrs. Sherman retired from the field, in consequence of failing health. Messrs, Beadle, Wolcott, and Leander Thompson, and Miss Tilden, also returned home soon after. Mr. Lanneau rejoined the mission, with his wife, early in 1843.

The Foreign Secretary and Dr. Hawes, visited the mission in the early part of 1844, and assisted in a meeting of the missionaries, which continued several days. Facts and principles were freely discussed, and the results were embodied in written reports, drawn up by committees appointed for the purpose. There is space for only a concise statement of a few of these results.

It was recognized as a fact of fundamental importance, that the people within the bounds of the mission were Arabs, whether called Greeks, Greek Catholics, Druzes, or Maronites, and that the divers religious sects really constituted one race. There were believed to be advantages, in the fact, that these sects were intermingled in the several villages, since the population was less inclined to oppose, and more easily accessible, than where the villages were exclusively of one sect. The most hopeful parts of Lebanon were the southern districts, inhabited by a people social in their habits, owners of the soil, shrewd, inquisitive, industrious, and capable of devising and executing with tact and efficiency.