The death of Mrs. Schneider on the 29th of September was a great loss to the mission. This excellent woman had an earnest desire for the salvation of every one she met, and old and young listened with pleasure to her instructions. It became known, soon after her decease, that three or four small companies of native sisters had begun of their own accord to hold meetings in various quarters. The progress among the women of Aintab had been great. When the first missionary arrived, only one woman was known who was able to read. It was now ascertained that nearly three hundred could read the New Testament.

The boarding-school pupils at Constantinople received a pupil this year from each of the following places—Trebizond, Diarbekir, Rodosto, Haskeuy, Scutari, and Baghchejuk. The chief difficulty in teaching was the want of suitable text-books in the modern language. In addition to the usual studies, the pupils were allowed an opportunity to acquaint themselves with domestic duties, and they did it in most cases with hearty good-will. Dr. Goodell exercised a fatherly care over the institution.

During most of the year Mr. Clark had charge of the Seminary at Bebek. The prescribed course of study embraced four years in the scholastic department and three in the theological, and was designed to secure to the pupils a systematic training. The qualifications required for entering, raised the character of the common schools connected with the mission. During vacations the students were required to support themselves. The average number was forty-five, and it was necessary to reject no less than sixty applicants, mainly from inability to support them. Among them were Bulgarians, Albanians, Wallachians, and Servians. Seven students were in the theological department, and three others went through a part of the course, one of whom was a Turk, and another a Greek. Dr. Hamlin gave instruction in this department after his return, assisted by Dr. Schauffler in Turkish. Nine of the students in the seminary were church-members, and others gave evidence of piety.

The growth of the Armenian Mission, along with its great extent, of territory, required a division for the more convenient administration of its affairs. Hence a Southern Armenian Mission was organized in November, 1856, having the Taurus for its boundary on the north, and embracing the stations of Aintab, Marash, Antioch, Aleppo, and Oorfa. Its printing was to be done at Constantinople. The members of this mission were Messrs. Schneider, Pratt, Beebee, Perkins, Morgan, Nutting, Cotting, and White. The field of the Northern Mission extended from the Balkans in European Turkey to the eastern waters of the Euphrates.

The "Turkish Missions Aid Society" was formed in England in 1854; "not to originate a new mission, but to aid the existing evangelical missions in the Turkish empire, especially American." The funds contributed to the American missions were given expressly for a Native Agency; and important aid has thus been rendered down to the present time. The funds of the Society having suffered diminution in 1857, Dr. Dwight was invited to visit England. He arrived in March of the following year, and visited the principal cities, in company with the Secretary. "I was everywhere received," says Dr. Dwight, "with the most overflowing kindness, and my simple story was listened to with the most intense interest. Clergymen and laymen of all evangelical denominations were usually present at the meetings, which were held on week days, and I saw nowhere anything like a sectarian spirit, but uniformly the very reverse. Ministers of the Church of England, as well as others, publicly advocated the plan of aiding the American Mission in Turkey, rather than sending forth a mission of their own." Valuable as the cooeperation of this Society has been in the bestowment of funds, its moral influence in Turkey, as a visible illustration of fraternal feeling among Protestant Christians of various names and countries has been of far greater value.[1]

[1] The aid afforded by the Turkish Missions Aid Society to the missions of the Board in Western Asia, has averaged about ten thousand dollars a year.

An account was given, in a former chapter, of the conversion, in 1842, of a "Papal Armenian.[1] His name was Bedros Kamaghielyan, and his death occurred in 1857, fifteen years afterward. His conversion was remarkable, and so was his subsequent life. He was for some years an efficient helper at Salonica among the Jews, and ever after that, he was a successful assistant of Dr. Dwight in Constantinople. Eminently wise to win souls to Christ, it is believed that many, among the different races in Turkey, will rise up and call him blessed. The first Turkish convert who became a preacher, received his first impressions from Bedros at Salonica. Years later, the missionaries learned that the origin of an interesting work of grace among the Greeks of Cassandra, in that region, was traceable to him. Though suffering from bodily infirmity in the later years of his life, his labors were unceasing for the salvation of souls, and for the edification of the church. He was noted for his humility and self-denial, and his piety was a steady glow of light. His views of the gospel method of salvation were clear, and his manner of presenting it exceedingly happy. He was eminently a peacemaker in the church, and his good sense was in constant demand in the settlement of difficulties. As a deacon in the Yeni Kapoo church he was constantly looking after the sick and infirm, visiting families in the Protestant community, and instructing their women in the doctrines and duties of Christianity. When attacked by his last sickness, Bedros very soon received the impression that it would be fatal. Once, in great bodily suffering, he exclaimed, "O, what a Saviour is my Saviour! He scatters all my darkness, and gives me peace." At another time, he wished the missionaries might all be called to his bedside, that he might declare to them his great joy, and what things the Lord was doing for his soul. A Mohammedan of some distinction, who had often had religious conversations with Bedros, called upon him without knowing of his sickness. The sick man, though in extreme bodily weakness, spoke very faithfully to his visitor, and told him of his joy in view of death, and his hope of going to be forever with the Lord Jesus Christ, and added: "This is the only way of peace and salvation, and Christ is the only Saviour of sinners for you, and for me, and for all the world." The eyes of the Turk filled with tears. He had never seen a Christian die before; and to hear a man talk with so much gladness of his departure from the world overcame him, and he hurried from the room. An aged Moslem called, who had known Bedros, and gave some evidence of being a Christian. Going to his bedside, his eyes streaming with tears, he embraced and kissed him in the most affectionate manner. Dr. Dwight closes his statement with the following testimony: "Thus has passed away one of the choicest spirits this world ever saw. I feel that I have many lessons to learn from his quiet, humble, and most useful life; and I trust that his death may be greatly blessed to all the missionaries, and to all the people."

[1] Chapter ix. p. 130. See, also, Missionary Herald, 1857, pp. 387-390.

The second Mrs. Hamlin died suddenly, on the 6th of November, 1857. Though not permitted to give her dying testimony, the record of her life was that of a meek, lowly, and quiet spirit; diligent, faithful, and affectionate in every duty.[1]

[1] See Memoir, The Missionary Sisters, written by Mrs. Benjamin.

The region, of which Arabkir is the centre, was now rising in importance. The territory dependent on this station for instruction extended from northeast and southwest, along the western bank of the Euphrates, one hundred and seventy-five miles, with a population of one hundred thousand; about equally divided between Armenians and Mussulmans, with few Greeks, no Roman Catholics, and no Jews. A large number of the Mussulmans were known as Kuzzelbashes. The field was first occupied in 1853, and churches had been organized in three cities and two villages, all of which enjoyed the stated preaching of the Word.

Sivas, west of Arabkir, and Tocat on the northwest, were missionary centres of populous fields, extensively accessible; the former containing a population of more than a hundred thousand, and the latter of nearly half a million,—Armenians, Turks, Kuzzelbashes, Koords, and Greeks.

Harpoot lies cast of Arabkir, on the other side of the Euphrates. Mr. Dunmore commenced this station in 1855, and was alone in this city of twenty-five thousand inhabitants; the failure of his wife's health having obliged her to return to the United States. He had been usefully employed here nearly three years,—the last with Messrs. Wheeler and Allen,—when, having a taste for exploration and pioneer labors, he was transferred, in 1858, to Erzroom, with special reference to the region south of that city; and Messrs. Wheeler and Allen were joined at Harpoot, in 1859, by Mr. H. N. Barnum. The city is the centre of a population of about one hundred thousand, and stands on a lofty hill, looking to the distant range of the Taurus on the south, and scores of villages on the intervening plain. Northward, across the eastern branch of the Euphrates, is the still loftier range of the Anti-Taurus; while the distant horizon to the east and west is shut in by mountains. Arabkir was occupied for several years by Messrs. Clark, Pollard, and Richardson, but in 1865 was included in the Harpoot field.[1]

[1] Mr. Wheeler's Ten Years on the Euphrates.

Geghi is about ninety miles from Harpoot, in the direction of Erzroom. It was visited by Mr. Peabody and Mr. Bliss in 1848 and 1851. Mr. Peabody found the Vartabed of the place and ten of the people deeply interested in reading the Scriptures. Mr. Wheeler visited Geghi in the summer of 1858 and found the truth much opposed, but taking a firm hold among the sixteen hundred Armenians of the place. He was touched by their earnest entreaties to remain with them a few mouths; or if that might not be, that he would leave his native helper till some one else could come among them. As with the Apostle Paul at Troas, the eagerness of the people to hear led him to protract his labors on one occasion, till an hour and a half past midnight, and on another till the breaking day.

The year 1859 was signalized by a revival in the Bebek Seminary. At its commencement, nearly half the students were regarded as hopefully pious, and these all seemed at once to have new views of spiritual things. The Holy Spirit not only revived the graces of such, but put forth a converting power. Within a few weeks nearly all the students gave credible evidence of piety. There were several cases, also, of hopeful conversion in the girls' boarding school; and similar awakenings were reported at Marsovan, Yozgat, Baghchejuk, Broosa, and Marash. At the last place thirty-seven were added to the church at one time, making eighty-six by profession since the beginning of 1858.

Mr. Parsons had received frequent complaints from the brethren of Nicomedia, that their girls had not been properly cared for by the teacher, and from the teacher that the brethren were intermeddling. He answered by withdrawing all aid until they could agree among themselves. The effect was immediate. They began to pay a tuition fee, and made special efforts to render the school attractive. The number of pupils was increased to seventy-eight, and the school ceased any longer to need aid.

A fire destroyed the mission premises at Tocat in 1859. The flames were so rapid as not only to consume the buildings, but the clothing and bedding of the pupils, the books and apparatus of the school, a portion of the furniture of Messrs. Pettibone and Winchester, who had been recently placed at the head of the school, and all the effects of Mr. Van Lennep, including a large and valuable library, and a manuscript Armenian translation of a commentary on the Bible, made, and to have been printed, at the expense of the Prince of Schoenberg. In view of this calamity, it was deemed expedient to close the training-school. A similar one was opened in the fall of the same year, at Harpoot. Mr. Clark returning to the United States, Dr. Hamlin renewed his connection with the Bebek Seminary.

Mr. Dunmore, after describing a tour he had made of twelve hundred miles from Erzroom to Oroomiah in Persia, and from thence, on his return, through Russian Armenia, gives the following summary of his missionary travels: "I have travelled on horseback over six thousand miles in Turkey, and one thousand in Persia and Russia, between two and three hundred on goat skins upon the Tigris, and over fifteen hundred by steamer, without sickness by the way, without accident, or the loss of an article of value. And I have never taken a guard when travelling alone, for protection from robbers. Surely we may safely trust Him who says: 'Believe in God, believe also in me.'"[1]

[1] Missionary Herald for 1859, pp. 306-313.

The missionaries at Cesarea were much encouraged by the progress of the work there. Mr. Leonard thus writes: "The church, though constantly dismissing members to other churches, still maintains its numbers by fresh accessions from without, and is at the same time evidently advancing in consistent, intelligent Christian character. Here are some noble exemplars of faith and piety, who search the Scriptures daily, and adorn their doctrines by a godly life. I have often wished I might introduce some of our American friends into our teachers' meetings on a Sabbath afternoon, or to the Sabbath-school at the intermission of public worship, where nearly the whole congregation remains, exhibiting a zeal and aptness in the discussion of religious truths scarcely surpassed in the most favored churches in New England. The weekly woman's prayer-meeting is sometimes left entirely in the hands of the native sisters, and any one of half a dozen is always ready without embarrassment to take the lead, discoursing very appropriately from her Turkish Testament. This, I am told, is a rare thing in Turkey, where woman has been so long held in ignorance and degradation."

The reader will remember the Patriarch Matteos, and his degradation in 1849. After ten years passed in retirement, he was elected Catholikos of all the Armenians, and removed to Echmiadzin. His election to such a post at this time was significant, but the probability of his being able then to hinder the reformation did not create serious apprehension.

Mrs. Beebee died peacefully at Marash, on the 28th of October, 1858, after protracted sufferings, and her husband returned some months after to the United States with broken health, and was released from his connection with the Board.



CHAPTER XXVI.

THE ARMENIANS.

1860-1861.

The fleets and armies of Europe had retired, and the Turk felt in a measure freed from a troublesome guardianship; which had, however, greatly promoted both religion and reform in Turkey. The fact that the war had materially weakened Russian influence at the Porte, may have been among the reasons that induced England now to relax its hold on the government of the Sultan. As a consequence, French diplomacy was decidedly in the ascendant, and lent its influence to promote Papal schemes. "The Armenians," writes a well informed missionary, "accept a declaration of the Bible as ultimate, and as the Protestant missionaries made the Bible the basis of all their work, and accustomed the people to refer to it for authority in all spiritual matters, the Papists have been shut up to the use of political measures to gain adherents. This they have done by espousing the cause of any party in litigation on condition that he should register himself a Roman Catholic. This influence was very powerful throughout the country, as it was supported by the intervention of the French embassy, and led to violence and persecution in various parts of the empire, especially at Mardin, where the papal power was comparatively strong."

Anticipating the history, it may be said, that the Franco-German war changed all this. The Turkish government then no longer feared the French, and hence no longer lent itself to Papal intrigues. The dogma of the Papal Infallibility has been also a severe blow to the Oriental Papacy.

No one was more competent than Dr. Dwight to testify concerning the state of religious opinions among the Armenians of the metropolis. Writing in February, 1860, he said it would be hard to find an intelligent Armenian in Constantinople, unless among the ecclesiastics, who did not acknowledge that there were many errors in the Armenian Church, and that the evangelical system was the best.

About the game time, he found a great change for the better at Rodosto, on the northern shore of the Sea of Marmora. The evangelical brethren had suffered many indignities from the Armenians, but now even the magnates were disposed to cultivate friendly relations with them. This he attributed, in great measure, to the wise and yet firm demeanor of Apraham, the native preacher, who afterwards became pastor of the Rodosto church. He was a native of the place, and was once a deacon in the old Armenian Church, and a candidate for the offices of vartabed and bishop. His first knowledge of the truth was gained while in the Armenian monastery at Jerusalem. From thence he came to Bebek, where he studied theology. He was an exception to the rule, that a prophet has no honor in his own country, for without compromising the truth, he had gained the respect of all. He showed his missionary friend a list of eighty families, upon which he called in regular order. Though most of them belonged to the old Armenian Church, they received him kindly. The missionary called with him upon two of these families prominent in the Armenian community, in one of which they spent an entire evening. A copy of the Bible, in the modern language, was in the house, and was brought forward, read, and commented upon, just as if this had been a Protestant family.

Dr. Dwight attended the examination of the Protestant school at Rodosto. More than half of the pupils were from non-Protestant families; and an audience of two hundred and fifty expressed very general satisfaction with the attainments of the pupils. On the Sabbath he administered the Lord's Supper. A large number not connected with the church, were present, and gave close attention to the preaching. Many must have come from mere curiosity, but the missionary never preached with greater certainty that he had the sympathies of his audience.

In the following July, events showed that the new influences had in some way reached all classes of Armenians in the metropolis. An aged Protestant died and his body was borne by his friends to an Armenian cemetery, which hitherto had been open to all bearing the Christian name. Now, however, a mob, composed of the very lowest class of Armenians, seized the coffin, and forcibly carried it out of the burying-ground, where it remained four days. The mob increased to thousands, and kept possession of the ground day and night. The American and English Ambassadors were at length roused, and remonstrated with the Porte and the Patriarch. The burial was assented to, and the Seraskier, or Minister of War, came with several hundred troops. A place was selected for the grave within the cemetery, but the mob, at the first blow of the pickaxe, rushed forward with a savage yell. The troops were ordered to resist, but not to fire. After twenty or thirty had been wounded, the mob fell back. The Patriarch and other dignitaries of the Armenian Church now came upon the ground, and gave their sanction to the spot selected for the burial, and the grave was dug. Just then the Seraskier, for some unexplained reason, ordered the grave to be filled, and another to be dug outside of the cemetery, in the middle of the public highway. The Protestants declined taking part in the burial in such a spot, though entreated to do so by the Seraskier, but remained and looked on in silence, while Mussulmans dug the grave, put the coffin into it, and filled it up. As soon as this was done, the mob rushed forward and trampled spitefully upon it, in the presence of the Pasha and Patriarch. The representatives of the Protestant powers now united in a strong remonstrance to the government; and Stepan Effendi, the civil head of the Protestants, was speedily notified, that ground would be given them for cemeteries wherever Protestants were found.

A native assistant died at Baghchejuk, near Nicomedia, early in the year, who had from the beginning been intimately connected with the work in that place, and was called the "prince of colporters," on account of his success in distributing the Scriptures. Being by nature an earnest man, when converted he became zealous in disseminating the truth. As he was respected through all the region, there was great anxiety among the Armenians to regain him, and an ex-Patriarch visited Baghchejuk, in the hope of bringing him back. Promises and threats were equally vain, and the storm of persecution finally burst upon him. His vineyards and mulberry orchards were cut down, and much of his property was wrested from him. He was beaten and stoned, and his name cast out as vile. When they were building the church he brought a basket full of stones and brick-bats, which had been thrown through his windows, to be incorporated in the foundation wall. He described the effect of persecution in his own case, thus: "The truth in my heart was like a stake slightly driven into soft ground, easily swayed, and in danger of falling before the wind; but by the sledge-hammer of persecution God drove it in till it became immovable." "His working power," says Mr. Parsons, the resident missionary, "like everything else in his possession, was consecrated to Christ. With great self-denial on his part, two hundred piasters a month (about eight dollars) enabled him to give all his time to street preaching, and the sale of the Scriptures. As a bookseller he was eminently faithful and successful. Not contented with sitting in the book-stall waiting for purchasers, he used to shoulder a basket of books, and go through the streets and lanes of town and city, offering for sale the 'Holy Book;' the 'Book that would not lie;' the 'Infallible Guide;' and proclaiming, in a loud voice, its divine origin, man's need of it, and its light-and-life-giving power. This he did as time and strength permitted, from Broosa to Angora, and from Bilijik to the Black Sea. He everywhere either carried with him, or had near at hand, a supply of Bibles in the Turkish, Armenian, Greek, and Jewish languages. Probably not less than one hundred thousand persons have heard from him the proffer of the word of life."

"The word of God," continues Mr. Parsons, "was his constant companion. He was so familiar with it, that he could turn with facility to any passage desired. He walked with God. He was a man of prayer. His happiest moments were seasons of devotion—private, social, and public. I should say, rather, that next to the work of bringing others to Christ, his delight was in prayer and praise. He has rested from his labors, but his works do follow him. Before he died, he could rejoice in a rich harvest from his own sowing, but a greater harvest is yet to be reaped from the seed so widely scattered by his hand. He has gone, a sheaf of the first-fruits of the work in Baghchejuk. He 'came to his grave as a shock of corn cometh in in his season.'"

Mr. E. E. Bliss passed through Marsovan on his way to Harpoot, and found that the rampant hostility of eight years before had died out.[1] Instead of the hootings and stonings, which then greeted his arrival, he was met, a long way out, by a goodly company to escort him to his lodgings. On the Sabbath, in place of the little company assembled in a lower room of his own house, he now preached to a good audience, in a large and commodious chapel.

[1] See chapter xxiv.

"I spent," he says, "a few days at Sivas, where I was eight years ago, and found the small room, where ten or fifteen then met for God's worship, exchanged for a large upper room, filled with an audience of more than a hundred. And as we went onward to places we had never before visited, it was a continual feast to see the extent to which the work of God had spread in the whole country. In almost every place where we stopped for the night, however obscure the village, some would gather around us as brethren in the Lord. They were often coarsely dressed and rude of speech, undistinguishable in appearance from the mass around them; but a few words of conversation would show that their souls had been illuminated by the truth."

The annual meeting of the Northern Armenian Mission for 1860, was held at Harpoot, east of the Euphrates, seven hundred and fifty miles from Constantinople. And it was a significant fact, that the delegates from the metropolis were able to communicate with their families over the telegraph wires, destined to connect London with Calcutta.

The distance from the capital, and of the stations from each other was so great, as to render it difficult to assemble in the annual meetings, that were indispensable for an effective administration. At this meeting, what had been known as the Northern Mission, was divided into Western and Eastern, and Erzroom, Harpoot, and Arabkir composed the Eastern Mission. The Southern Mission then took the name of the Central; and the stations of the Assyria Mission were united to the Eastern. It will be convenient to use the names Western, Central, and Eastern in designating territory, but we shall, as far as possible, treat the three divisions as constituting one great mission.

The church at Harpoot received its first native pastor at this annual meeting. He was one of several young men, who left Diarbekir for Constantinople, eight years before, for the purpose of obtaining a Protestant education at Bebek. They were subjected to many revilings on their way, and few showed them any kindness. Some who were in sympathy with them deprecated their removal from Diarbekir, as the withdrawal from that place of the little light which had begun to shine. Now, having completed the course of study at the Seminary, Tomas, one of that company, was preaching the Gospel every Sabbath in Diarbekir, and was to become pastor there; and Marderos, another, combining great excellence of character, was made pastor of the flourishing church at Harpoot.

Mr. Dunmore, when he commenced the Harpoot station, five years before, found not a single Protestant in that city. It was now only three years since the arrival of Messrs. Wheeler, Allen, and Barnum, and there were thirty-nine church-members, and Harpoot was fast becoming an important centre of influence. There were schools in ten of the thirteen out-stations, eleven of which were supplied with preaching on the Sabbath by the missionaries and students of the Seminary, and in all the surrounding regions there was an increase of attendance on preaching. Women learned to read, and groups were found studying the Bible. In the numerous villages of the Harpoot plain and outlying districts were many faithful disciples of the Lord Jesus. The spirit of freedom had gone forth, as was seen in the growing activity of laymen, and the consequent decline of superstition and ecclesiastical despotism. Instruction was communicated to large numbers of both men and women, and it was beginning to be regarded as disgraceful for adults of either sex not to be able to read.

The theological school contained twenty-four pupils, of whom eleven were from the vicinity and ten were married men. The students devoted their winter vacation of four months to preaching and teaching, and in term time they preached at out-stations.

Mrs. Dwight, after twenty-one years of eminently useful service, died at Constantinople in November, 1860. Dr. Dwight's family being thus broken up, he commenced, with the approval of his brethren, a tour through Syria and Asiatic Turkey, intending to go over much of the ground he had traversed with Dr. Eli Smith in their explorations thirty years before.

How great the changes in the intervening period! Then, for fourteen and a half months, he was unable to receive tidings from his wife, whom he had left in Malta. Now, from beyond the Euphrates, he could have communicated daily with Constantinople by telegraph. Then, no fellow-laborers were to be found between Smyrna and the little bands of German and Scotch brethren soon after to be driven away from Russian Armenia and Georgia, and nowhere did they meet among the people any religious sympathies in unison with their own. Now, the survivor found missionaries scattered over the land, and he scarcely entered a place where some one, at least, did not greet him with a joyful welcome. Then, the object was to explore an unbroken scene of spiritual death. Now, it was to confirm living churches, and help forward a growing spiritual work.

The tour was extended as far as the Nestorian mission, and occupied about eight months. Reviewing this journey of almost unprecedented interest, Dr. Dwight could not refrain from using the language of Christian triumph: "I have visited," he says, "every station of the Board in Turkey and Persia excepting those among the Bulgarians. It has been my privilege to see all the missionaries and their families,—a rare body of men and women, of whom our churches and our country may well be proud,—and also to become personally acquainted with hundreds and thousands of the dear Protestant brethren and sisters of this land—God's lights in the midst of surrounding darkness; God's witnesses even where Satan dwelleth."

Dr. Dwight was at Marash in April, and this is his own vivid description of what he saw there: "This place is indeed a missionary wonder! Twelve years ago there was not a Protestant here, and the people were proverbially ignorant, barbarous, and fanatical. Six years ago the evangelical Armenian church was organized with sixteen members, the congregation at that time consisting of one hundred and twenty. On the last Sabbath I preached in the morning to a congregation of over a thousand, and in the afternoon addressed nearly or quite fifteen hundred people, when forty were received into the church, making the whole number two hundred and twenty-seven. Nearly one hundred of these have been added since Mr. White came here, two years ago. One old woman of seventy-five years was admitted who was converted only four months ago. She was previously a bigoted opposer, but now she seems full of the love of Christ. Her emotions almost overpowered her on approaching the table of the Lord.

"The church-members here impressed me from the first as men who thought more of the spiritual than the temporal. The Holy Spirit has been evidently at work here during the whole of the year, and especially through the past winter, and conversions are constantly taking place. The burden of conversation among the brethren is in regard to praying and laboring for the salvation of souls.

"On the Sabbath the half of the body of the church was filled with women packed closely together on the floor. The other half, and the broad galleries around three sides of the house, were completely crowded with men. A new church is needed immediately in the other end of the town. I bless God that He brought me here, and I feel almost like saying, 'Now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace.'"

It should be said that this visit to Marash was in the midst of a revival. The resident missionary, Mr. White, describes the work as being chiefly among the Armenians and Roman Catholics. "Every night they met in the houses of the Protestants and spent hours, sometimes even till near morning, examining the Scriptures and comparing them with the corrupt teachings of their own churches. Our young men were very active, laboring both day and night, so much so, that the Catholic bishop said he could not understand it; that if the young men were paid for thus laboring, the missionaries had not money enough; and if they were not paid, they had a love which he could not understand. Many of his people, however, seemed to comprehend it better than he did, and are now regular attendants at our church."

The veteran missionary pays a noble tribute to the wives of the missionaries at the several stations of the central mission: "I felt myself rebuked when I saw the earnest, self-devoted spirit of my missionary sisters, who are laboring in Aintab, in Marash, in Antioch, in Aleppo, and in Oorfa, for the salvation of their degraded sex; thinking little of the sacrifices they have made in leaving America, to live in such a country as Turkey. It would be difficult to find in Christendom a more happy class than these, our helpers in Christ Jesus. The holy object which fills their hearts lifts them above the distracting and embittering influences of external circumstances."

The change at Diarbekir, during the score of years since Dr. Grant and Mr. Homes barely escaped with their lives, had been truly wonderful. Drs. Dwight and Schneider and Mr. Nutting, on their approach from Oorfa, were met, eighteen miles out, by a deputation of Protestant brethren on horseback; and, a few miles further on, by another detachment, headed by Mr. Walker and the native pastor; and when near the city, by a third on foot, thus giving them a sort of triumphal entry. Nor, during their whole stay, was there anything to awaken a feeling of insecurity, but convincing evidence, that Protestantism had a strong hold on many minds.

Dr. Dwight noticed a decline of the Turkish population in the region of the Euphrates. Several entire quarters in Diarbekir, formerly Turkish, had passed into Christian hands, and the process was going on. Armenians, Jacobites, and Protestants were buying Turkish houses, but seldom did a Turk buy one of theirs; and around the outskirts of the city there were extensive Turkish quarters all in ruins.

Mrs. Dunmore had come to the United States in 1856, in consequence of the failure of her health, and was never able to return. Her husband continued his self-denying labors four years longer, until, seeing no prospect of her recovery, he believed his duty required him to follow her. It was then a time of civil war in his native land, and his public spirit led him to accept an invitation from a regiment of cavalry to be their chaplain. A detachment, with which he was connected, was surprised early in the morning of August 3, 1861, and he fell, shot in the head before he was fairly out of his tent.[1]

[1] See Missionary Herald, 1862, p. 321.

In courage, enterprise, tact, and efficacy, Mr. Dunmore stood in the front rank of missionaries. "He did not write much of what he did," says Mr. Walker, his successor at Diarbekir. "He cared not to be known. But he cared for the souls of this poor people, and for Christ's kingdom. I think that few missionaries are so well fitted for the work, and very few labor with the same zeal and self-denial. To few is it given to accomplish so much. There is comparatively little accomplished in Diarbekir, Arabkir, Harpoot, and Moosh, which is not, under God, due to this brother. His influence will long be felt in these parts. Paul was his model, and there are few who come so near to that exemplar. He had wonderful power in attaching the natives to him. He could sympathize deeply with them, and aid them as few can. His heart was in the work here, and it was a very great trial for him to return to America. His fearless journeys among the Koords in this land, led us often to feel apprehensive for his life. The Lord forgive the Texan, whose bullet cut short a life so valuable."

In the years 1860 and 1861, the ill health of either husband or wife deprived the mission of the labors of Messrs. Clark, Hutchison, Parsons, and Plumer, and their families. Mr. and Mrs. Peabody returned to their native land, after a faithful service of nineteen years. Dr. Schauffler also terminated his official connection of twenty-nine years with his missionary associates, and entered the service of the American, and the British and Foreign Bible Societies in the work of Bible translation for the Turkish Mohammedans. Miss Tenney was married to Dr. Hamlin, who had been released from his connection with the Board to take charge of a Protestant college in Constantinople, though without any change in the great object of his labors.

Mr. Williams reoccupied Mardin in the year 1861. This was then, as now, the capital of the Syrian Church, and the natural centre of operations among the Arabic-speaking people in Eastern Turkey. It embraced Mosul, and multitudes of towns and villages scattered over a wide region, and required more than one missionary; though that one was a man of first-rate abilities and eminent devotion to his work. It was put in connection with the Armenian Mission, partly because its missionary policy was the same, and partly because it seemed necessary to work that whole field from one central station, and by a small number of missionaries, and because it would require the moral support of the larger mission in its neighborhood.

A training-school was commenced at Mardin in the following year, on the plan of the one at Harpoot, with a class of eight hopefully pious young men. The congregation had doubled since Mr. Williams' return and Protestantism had a more favorable position; but as yet the intellect accepted the truth more readily than did the heart.

Trebizond had only a native pastor, and the day-school was reported as one of the best in Turkey. Khanoos, southeast of Erzroom, had been faithfully cultivated for some time by the native pastor, Simon, who was now removed to Moosh, where he would have a better field. Erzroom was again without a missionary in consequence of the necessary removal of Mr. Trowbridge to the capital.

In addition to notices of versions of the Scriptures in the preceding chapter, it should now be stated, that Dr. Goodell had completed the great work of his life,—the translation of the Bible into the Turkish language, as written in the Armenian character and spoken by the Armenians. The version was from the Hebrew and Greek; the New Testament had received three distinct revisions, and the Old Testament one. His principal helper, for thirty years, was Panayotes Constantinides, who died March 11, 1861. "He had greatly desired," writes Dr. Goodell, "to live to see the end of the revision, and we pressed on together, returning thanks at the end of every chapter, that we had got so far on our journey. But his strength failed him on the way, and when there was but little further to go, he laid himself down, and the angels carried him to his home in heaven." Dr. Schauffler had nearly completed a translation of the New Testament in Turkish, with the Arabic or sacred character, and after much difficulty had obtained the consent of the government to its publication. Dr. Riggs had reached the books of Kings, in addition to the Psalms, in his version of the Scriptures in Bulgarian, and had also given time to preparing and editing Bulgarian tracts.

The amount of publication in the year 1860, in the Armenian, Armeno-Turkish, Bulgarian, and Modern Greek, was 164,500 copies, and 13,296,000 pages. The total expenditure was $15,789, from the following sources:—

American Bible Society $3,473 British and Foreign Bible Society 1,243 American Tract Society, New York 2,646 American Tract Society, Boston 674 London Tract Society 1,175 American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions 5,462 Other sources 1,116 ———— $15,789

Among the books published were a Reply to Archbishop Matteos in Armenian, a Commentary on Matthew, Hymn-Book, Theological Class-Book, and Geography,—the last at the expense of Haritun Minasiyan, an Armenian printer. The Word of God was more in demand than any other book. The Armenian Bible, with marginal references, electrotyped and printed in New York by the American Bible Society, was highly prized. The American Tract Society had also electrotyped and printed several works for the mission, which were admired for their beauty, and were furnished more cheaply than they could have been prepared in Constantinople.



CHAPTER XXVII.

THE ASSYRIA MISSION.

1849-1860.

Mosul is related to the Syria Mission in language, the written Arabic being essentially the same in both fields; but there is considerable difference in the language of preaching and social intercourse, "Near Mosul, and especially on the east of the Tigris," writes Dr. Leonard Bacon, after his visit to Mosul, "the language is Syriac, or as they there call it, Fellahi, the peasant language. In other districts, Turkish and Koordish are spoken by many nominal Christians. The people in Mesopotamia are very different from those in Syria. They are of other sects. Instead of the Greek Church, the Greek Catholic, and the Maronite, we find, as we travel east of the Euphrates, and especially as we approach the Tigris, the Jacobite, the Syrian Catholic or Romanized Jacobite, the Nestorian (almost exterminated), and the Chaldean or Romanized Nestorian. And the condition of these sects, as it respects the feeling of strength and pride, is very unlike that of the sects in Syria. The Maronite Church, and the Greek Catholic, are strong and proud in their relation to Rome, and in the feeling that they are protected by the great papal powers in Europe. The Greek Church may be likened to a Russian colony in the Turkish empire. But the more eastern sects, remnants of what were once the great Oriental Church, are in far different relations, ecclesiastical and political. The Jacobites, like the Nestorians, feel themselves weakened and depressed. The Syrian Catholic and the Chaldean are not very firmly united to Rome, and are little affected by European influences. Nor is this all. The nominal Christians of Mesopotamia are of a very different race and blood from those of Syria. The Greek element, which characterizes the Arabic-speaking Christians west of the Euphrates,—an element of subtlety of disputation, and of intellectual pride,—is not so prominent in these more Oriental communities. For these and other reasons, I cannot but think that this field should be occupied by the brethren of the Mosul station, and be regarded as entirely distinct from that of the Syria Mission. Mosul, as a centre of missionary labor, is much more nearly related to Oroomiah, than to Beirut, or Aleppo."[1]

[1] Report of the Board for 1851, p. 82.

The visit of Messrs. Perkins and Stocking to Mosul, in May, 1849, has been already mentioned.[1] That visit did much to prepare the way for Mr. Ford, of the Aleppo station, who went there at the close of 1849. He was kindly received by Mr. Rassam, the English Consul, and had a joyful greeting from the little band of "gospel men," who welcomed the return of their long lost privileges of Christian instruction. Of the fifty who soon called upon him, about twenty appeared to be decidedly evangelical, and ready to stand by the Gospel at all hazards, though few of them gave evidence of a work of grace in their hearts. Twenty more were enlightened and favorably disposed; and the remaining ten might be regarded as indifferent or hostile. This little band was the remainder of those who had been brought under the influence of the Gospel, when our brethren of the Mountain Nestorian Mission were detained in the mysterious providence of God, to labor and suffer there. Yet the Lord had not forsaken them, for Meekha, the ingenious mechanic, who had learned the truth from Mr. Laurie, had given them the benefit of his steadfast piety and diligent instruction.

[1] Chapter xx.

The reader knows, already, what led to the temporary occupation of Mosul by the Board, in 1841. Its relinquishment in 1844, was chiefly in view of the fact, that the Episcopal Church of the United States had a mission then in Turkey, with the avowed object of laboring among the Jacobites of Mesopotamia.[1] That mission having been withdrawn from the Turkish empire, the operations of the Board were naturally extended again to Mosul, to look after the fruits of former labors, as well as to meet the exigencies of the mission in western Koordistan.

[1] This was first known through Dr. Grant, who forwarded a copy of a letter from seven of the American Episcopal Bishops to the Syrian Patriarch at Mardin, as evidence of the fact. After stating the object in sending the Rev. Horatio Southgate to reside for a time at Mardin, with the hope of associating two others with him, to which no exception could be taken, the Patriarch was informed by the letter, that Mr. Southgate "will make it clearly understood, that the American Church has no ecclesiastical connection with the followers of Luther and Calvin, and takes no part in their plans or operations to diffuse the principles of these sects."

The Rev. Dwight W. Marsh arrived at Mosul on the 20th of March, 1850, going by way of Beirut, Aleppo, Aintab, Oorfa, and Diarbekir; from this last place he floated down the Tigris on a raft supported by inflated goat-skins, in less than four days to his new home. He describes the river as breaking through between bold precipices, and scenery delightfully and unexpectedly romantic. Mr. Schneider was his travelling companion from Aintab to Diarbekir, and Mr. Ford was at Mosul to greet him on his arrival. The Rev. William Frederic Williams removed from the Syria Mission to Mosul in the spring of 1851, going in company with Dr. Bacon and his son Mr. Leonard W. Bacon, then travelling in the East. Salome Carabet, the eldest of the girls in Mr. Whiting's family at Abeih, went with Mr. Williams, to take charge of a school of thirty girls.

Dr. Bacon's visit to Mosul was in compliance with a request of the Prudential Committee, that he would make his tour of relaxation and improvement the occasion of visiting the several stations of the Board in Western Asia. The attempt to proceed from Mosul to Oroomiah through the mountains by the most direct route, was unsuccessful. The two travellers, in company with Mr. Marsh, soon after crossing the Zab, were set upon by Koordish robbers, who had been requested by an Agha, near Akra, to kill them. So imminent was the peril, that they united together in prayer to God, led by Dr. Bacon. Some Moolahs seeing this, interceded for their lives, and though they could not hinder their being plundered, they succeeded in sending them safely to another Moolah, three hours distant, who was revered for his sanctity; and it was through his resolute protection, under God, that they effected a safe return to Mosul. Mr. Rassam gave information of the outrage to the English Ambassador, and the Pasha, in the following year, having received orders from Constantinople, sent three hundred men, with three cannon, against the robber, who was compelled to pay the full value of the losses, and much more besides to the government.[1]

[1] Missionary Herald, for 1851, p. 295, and 1852, p. 388.

The Assyria Mission was so named for geographical reasons. Its most northern station at this time, was Diarbekir. Dr. Grant passed through this city with Mr. Homes, in 1839, Messrs. Hinsdale and Mitchell passed through it in 1841, and Mr. Laurie in 1842. The city was visited by Mr. Peabody in 1849, when he found several persons awakened by reading the Scriptures and other books, brought there by colporters. It was visited again by Mr. Schneider in the following year, who reported that nearly fifty Armenians were accustomed to meet on the Sabbath for reading the Scriptures. These were then subjected to a severe persecution, and they sent to Constantinople for a vizierial letter, which was granted, but brought little relief. Dr. Azariah Smith organized a small church at Diarbekir in the spring of 1851. It included both Armenians and Jacobites; but only those were to be received who gave satisfactory evidence of piety. As soon as this restriction was announced, the most influential Syrians in the congregation resolutely set themselves to secure admission to the church for all Protestants of good moral character. For a time their efforts to unite the congregation in opposition prevented attention to their ordinary business; and but for the conservative spirit of the Armenian portion, perhaps the audience, as a whole, would have gone back to their churches. In the end all were persuaded to listen to a discourse on the subject, by Dr. Smith, and the character of the young ruler, in Luke xviii. 18-30, was unfolded in connection with Acts ii. 43-47. The exhibition of a church, as an association of men devoted, body and soul, time and wealth, to the extension of Christ's kingdom, was new to them. That repentance involved the ceasing to live for selfish and worldly ends, and that faith in Christ included the consecration of our energies to his service, was no part of their old creed. And though these truths had been previously preached by the missionaries, the practical connection in which they now came up made them more impressive.

Mr. and Mrs. Dunmore, after spending some months at Aintab, arrived at Diarbekir in November, 1851. They were accompanied by Stepan, a graduate of the seminary at Bebek. This man, not long after his arrival, was rudely arrested by a Turkish officer as a Protestant, and cast into a prison, where he spent the night with vagabonds and thieves. The Pasha refused Mr. Dunmore a hearing, but at once ordered Stepan's release.

Mr. Dunmore had not yet a free use of the Turkish, which was the language spoken by the Armenians; but an average of more than seventy persons came on the Sabbath to hear Stepan, and new faces were seen at every meeting.

Soon after the arrival of Mr. Dunmore, a young man of talents, named Tomas, who had long been vacillating, boldly declared himself a Protestant, and though his bishop offered him the monthly reward of two hundred piastres for two years, paid in advance, if he would leave the Protestants, his reply was: "Go tell the bishop that I did not become a Protestant for money, and that I will not leave them for money, even should he give me my house full of gold." Tomas was then nineteen years of age, and had an orphan brother and two sisters dependent on him. He had been a prosperous silk manufacturer, but after he became a Protestant, both nominal Christians and Moslems refused to trade with him, and he was impoverished. It was decided to send him to the Bebek Seminary, with his younger brother; and to send his older sister to the Female Seminary at the same place; while Mr. and Mrs. Dunmore took the youngest, a bright little girl of six years. In this young man we have the future native pastor of the church in that city.

The persecutions inflicted on the Protestants at Diarbekir were similar to those described elsewhere. But not only were the native converts, in this remote city, oppressed in every possible way, but the missionary reports himself as being grossly insulted, and even stoned in the streets whenever he went abroad.

About this time Mr. Marsh performed a missionary tour to Mardin, through Jebel Tour, a branch of the great Kurdish range of mountains which crosses the Tigris above Jezirah, and goes westward toward the Euphrates. These rugged, though not lofty mountains, cover fourteen hundred square miles, and form the stronghold of the Jacobites. Their ecclesiastical capital is Mardin. "High up the mountain's side," writes Mr. Marsh, "with a steep descent of six or seven hundred feet to the plains, the city wall mounts up still higher, three hundred feet or more; and a large castle on the mountain top crowns the view." Here he found several persons favorably inclined, and recommended the place for a missionary station.

The Rev. Henry Lobdell, M. D., and wife, reached Mosul in May 1852. They came through Aintab, Oorfa, and Diarbekir. Such was the desire of the people of Aintab for a missionary physician to take the place of Dr. Smith, that four hundred and twenty of them signed a petition in a single evening, requesting him to remain; but he felt constrained to give them a negative. He speaks with pleasure of his brief sojourn at Oorfa, which he describes as beautifully situated on the west side of a fertile plain, and retaining many marks of its ancient greatness.

In the ten days which Dr. Lobdell spent with Mr. Dunmore at Diarbekir, he was impressed by the hold the reformation was taking in that place. At the same time, he and his missionary brother had a startling illustration of its hostility to the Gospel. They were looking at the great mosque of the city, formerly a Christian church, and in the words of Mr. Dunmore, "As we were standing in front of it, in the public highway, examining its architecture, several lads came up and began to insult us and to order us away. We did not notice them, but went further from the mosque, and stopped to examine some old marble pillars. Soon, however, we found a rabble about us, who began to jerk our garments. I then turned and spoke to them, and they instantly rushed upon us like tigers. They seized Dr. Lobdell's hat, threw it into the air, and began to beat him. One ruffian seized me by the throat. By main strength I loosed his grasp, and was moving off, when two men tried to wrest my cane from me, but did not succeed. We retreated as last as possible, but when we got out of the reach of their hands, they resorted to throwing stones, some of them weighing two or three pounds. One hit Dr. Lobdell in the side, and we saw no alternative but to run for our lives. We went immediately to the Pasha, taking one of the largest stones with us, and made a statement of the facts in the presence of the council. He refused to do anything more than to send a man to inquire who was in fault, the ruffians, or we! He said he knew nothing about us."

In a tent supported by a raft of one hundred and twenty inflated goat-skins, Dr. and Mrs. Lobdell floated down the Tigris to Mosul. "The Arabs, who swam out upon their goat-skins, and the Kurds armed to the teeth upon the shore, were alike unable to touch us, as the river was unusually high and swift. I do not remember having enjoyed four successive days so much. The scenery is grand, equaling that of the far-famed Hudson. It might not wear as well, but it is unique and wonderful." Mr. and Mrs. Williams were there to welcome them.

Mr. Marsh was absent on a visit to his native land, from whence he returned with his wife in May, 1853. He was accompanied as far as Aintab by Rev. Augustus Walker and wife, and from thence to Diarbekir, by Messrs. Schneider and Walker. Mr. Dunmore's congregation had then risen to nearly two hundred hearers.

Mr. Marsh was especially struck, on returning to Mosul, with the greatly improved singing of the congregation, which he thought was now better there than at Diarbekir, Aintab, Constantinople, or Beirut. This was due to the unwearied pains taken by Mr. Williams, though the people seemed to have a better ear for music than elsewhere in Western Asia.

Dr. Lobdell found his medical profession a great assistance to him as a preacher of the Gospel. Jacobites, Papists, and Moslems came in considerable numbers, and he preached the Gospel alike to all. He was overworked, and it was perhaps a favor to him that the judge was stirred up by Popish priests, as the Moslems affirmed, to forbid the Mohammedans coming to his preaching. The judge was willing that they should call upon him for medical aid, if he would not preach the Gospel to them; but the doctor declined administering to the body, unless he could, at the same time, explain to them "the words of Jesus" (which all Moslems professed to receive) for the benefit of their souls.

Salome Carabet returned to Syria, very much in the manner of Rebecca of old, to become the wife of the young pastor at Hasbeiya; and the female school was thus deprived of its teacher.

A visit by Dr. Lobdell to the Yezidees in October, 1852, developed interesting and valuable information. Their doctrines he regarded as a strange fusion of Mohammedanism and Christianity with the philosophy of the older Persians.[1]

[1] See Memoir of Dr. Lobdell, pp. 213-227; also Missionary Herald for 1853, pp. 109-111.

In June, 1853, Dr. Lobdell travelled through Koordistan to Oroomiah. One of his objects was the improvement of his health; but he greatly desired, also, to confer with the brethren of the Nestorian Mission, and to preach the Gospel in the regions between. He took with him a native, who not only spoke the Syriac and Arabic, but the Turkish and Koordish.[1] "He came to us," wrote Dr. Perkins, "for the benefit of his impaired health. Yet was he buoyant as a lark, being overjoyed to find himself in our happy circle, after his perilous journey across the mountains." Two days after his arrival he was seized with a fever which proved severe and obstinate. But he recovered, and was able to give much thought to the somewhat peculiar method of proceeding in that mission; in which no separate Protestant community had been formed, and no church organized; though the missionaries had the communion by themselves, to which they invited only those whom they believed to be truly regenerated. His preconceived opinions had been somewhat adverse to the plan, and he and his brethren at Mosul had adopted other methods. But he wrote to the Secretaries of the Board his approval of the main policy of his brethren in Persia, as justified by their peculiar circumstances, and ratified by the blessing of Heaven. He specified some things in which he thought more decided measures might be taken; but advised that the mission be left to follow the leadings of Providence, until a crisis should come in the Nestorian Church, and then to act as they should deem wise at the time.

[1] Missionary Herald, 1854, pp. 18-22.

Before returning, Dr. Lobdell made an excursion of three weeks in the province of Azerbijan, going as far as Tabriz. It was while he was at Gawar, on his way home, that Deacon Tamo was liberated from his long imprisonment. Messrs. Rhea and Coan accompanied him to Mosul. Dr. Lobdell represents the two highest peaks of the Jelu Mountains as distinctly visible from Mosul. Every step through Koordistan reminded him of the devotion, courage, and energy of Dr. Grant.

Some difficulties existed in the Protestant community at Diarbekir, growing out of the old leaven of baptismal regeneration, from which the church itself had not been thoroughly purged. The church then contained eleven members,—eight men and three women. Six of the men were Syrian Jacobites, and four of these were formerly deacons in their church. The difficulties encountered by Dr. Smith in 1851, when he declared his intention of admitting to the church none but such as were truly pious, and baptizing only them and their children, were now revived.

In view of these things, a meeting of the Assyria Mission was held at Mosul for ten days, in March, 1854. It was then decided that Messrs. Marsh and Lobdell should return with Messrs. Dunmore and Walker, and assist in reorganizing the church at Diarbekir. Out of twenty candidates whom they examined, eleven were accepted; and, in the presence of three hundred persons, were organized into a new church, with a creed and covenant.[1] Dr. Lobdell had a hundred Christian patients daily while there; but the Pasha still continued to refuse protection, and the missionaries were still hooted and stoned in the streets. They believed, however, that the Gospel had taken such hold in the city as to insure its ultimate triumph.

[1] I find, in the archives of the Board, an extended analysis of the baptismal question by these brethren, in its bearing on the Oriental Churches.

The church was subjected to a severe trial, immediately after its reorganization. The Mosul brethren had to return to their own work; it was necessary for Mr. Dunmore to join his sick wife at Arabkir; and as it was unsafe for Mr. and Mrs. Walker to be left alone at Diarbekir, they went to Aintab for the summer. The Koords robbed them on their way, but they returned in the autumn, accompanied by David H. Nutting, M. D., and wife. Mr. Dunmore remained at Arabkir till the spring of 1855, when he commenced the important station of Harpoot. The missionaries at Diarbekir now enjoyed the very welcome protection of W. R. Holmes, Esq., the newly appointed English Consul. Dr. Nutting's professional services to the Pasha, in a dangerous illness, soon after his arrival, gave him an introduction to almost all the officers of the government and influential Moslems in the city, and obtained for him a public expression of the Pasha's gratitude. Instead of stonings in the streets, without redress, as under the preceding Pasha, the missionaries received respectful treatment, and had free access to all classes. Mr. Walker found the state of things better than he anticipated. Certain disaffected members of the Protestant community had repented of their errors. Persecution had not shaken the faith of any in the church. During the winter the congregation increased to two hundred. In April, 1855, six were admitted to the church, and not less than four hundred and fifty persons were present. The accessions were not only from the Armenian and Jacobite Churches, but also from the Catholic Church, though fierce persecution and imprisonment were the consequence. A large portion of the Jacobite Church were convinced of the truth, and of the emptiness of their own rites and ceremonies. Some openly avowed that they retained their connection with their old church merely to fight against it, hoping to turn the whole community to Protestantism. The people demanded that the Bible should be read in the church in Turkish or Arabic, instead of the ancient Armenian and Syriac, which were, to most of them, dead languages; and the Jacobite bishop was forced to yield. Finding, at length, that this must rapidly undermine the priestly influence, he secretly removed the Scriptures from the church. But the word of the Lord was not bound, for the deacons or readers carried their own Bibles.

At the out-station of Haine, Stepan, the native preacher who had come to Diarbekir with Mr. Walker, was enabled by divine grace to maintain his position. The Pasha at one time ordered him to leave, but he thought it right to disobey. At a subsequent period, being stoned and beaten in the streets, he was obliged to flee, and the Protestants suffered much oppression. Through the energetic efforts of the Consul at Diarbekir, the persecuting governor was deposed, and another appointed.

Across the river from Diarbekir is Cutterbul, a large Christian village, where were twenty Protestants, with several church-members; and the missionary, in his occasional visits, gathered almost as large a congregation as the one at Mosul. The preaching would have been acceptable in Turkish, or Koordish, though the people preferred the Arabic. Cutterbul was but a sample of what the villages on all sides of Diarbekir might have been, were the station fully manned.

The Protestants at Mosul obtained no relief from their oppressive taxes until January, 1854; when, through the efforts of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, a firman was addressed to the Pasha for their protection. The Pasha then ordered an equitable rate to be made for them, which encouraged the Protestants, and disheartened their enemies. The year was one of progress. Five were added to the Protestants, and two to the church, while there was a decided improvement in the attention given to preaching. The boys' school prospered, with forty pupils. Women were to some extent instructed in reading the Bible by the scholars, who went from house to house for the purpose. Thirty adults were taught at their houses, and thirty others attended the male school regularly. The church-members gained a reputation for strict honesty, temperance, and general excellence. The mere existence of a church upon an apostolical basis, worshipping God in simplicity, told with force against the corrupt hierarchies.

The excitements at Mosul during the Crimean war, were often intense. At one period there was great danger of an outburst of Mohammedan fanaticism, so that the Christians were in terror for their lives. Stringent orders from Constantinople aroused the local authorities to do their duty, and the insolence of those ready for deeds of blood was checked. Early in May, 1854, a volunteer reinforcement of two thousand Koords for the Turkish army, was quartered in the city, and certain outrages indicated an approaching massacre of Christians and Jews. The evil was averted by the bold decision of the English Consul, who went to the Pasha, and demanded that the Koords be sent at once out of the city. They were soon on their way to the seat of war.

Mosul was regarded as free from miasma; but the heat of the summer days was exhausting to the foreigner, and the natives also suffered. For a hundred days in 1853, the mercury stood, at two o'clock in the afternoon, as high as 98; and for eighty days it ranged from 100 to 114. The highest point in the shade was 117. It was much the same in the following year.

As the summer advanced, the health of Mrs. Williams declined, and it became obvious that she could no longer endure the excessive heat. She was desirous of removing to a cooler climate, and Dr. Lobdell went with her and her family to the mountains. When they were near the Zab river, they met Dr. Wright from Persia, who had come with the hope of conducting them to Oroomiah. The rest is told in the words of Dr. Lobdell. "We could go no farther, and on the 29th of June, at sunset, were on our way towards Mosul; our sick friend being anxious to go there to die, but most of the time unconscious of the incidents and fatigues. On the last day of June we reached Akra; a litter was made, twelve Christians bore it, and the next morning at six o'clock, while moving on the road, that litter became a bier! An hour farther, and a rough box way made ready for her we had loved. The children knew not what had happened. At evening, the box was bound upon a mule, and we rode silently for fourteen hours, and crossed to the ruins of Nineveh shortly after sunrise. The flag of the English Consul was thrown over the body as we crossed the Tigris. A narrow house had already been prepared for it outside the walls (not even the dead body of a Moslem could have been carried within the gates); Mr. Marsh had a short service; and there we laid the wife, the mother, down to her last sleep."[1]

[1] Memoir of Dr. Lobdell, p. 330.

The Crimean war inflamed Mohammedan fanaticism all over Western Asia. Such was its influence in Persia, that the missionaries requested Dr. Lobdell, in view of his recent visit, to go to Bagdad, and represent their critical situation with reference to the Persian government to Mr. Murray, English Ambassador to Persia; who was to be there in January, 1855, on his way to his post. He accordingly commenced his voyage down the river on the 10th of January, upon the customary raft of skins, and on the fourth day reached Bagdad. The ambassador arriving on the 8th of the following month, Dr. Lobdell had a satisfactory interview with him, which probably led to the subsequent visit of Mr. Murray to Oroomiah. His return was by post-horses in fifty-eight hours. The road made a long curve to the east to avoid the Arabs of the desert. The nearest route would have been on the west side of the Tigris.

Ten days after this, Mr. Marsh and Mr. Williams went to Diarbekir to attend the second annual meeting of the mission. The next day Dr. Lobdell prepared a sermon, talked with a crowd of papists, preached to eighty-five patients, delivered his sermon to the church in the evening, and went to bed with a chill and fever. On the day following, he wrote his last letter, and made his last entry in his journal. He gradually grew worse, and was at times delirious. A message was sent for the absent brethren, but, owing to the disturbed state of the country, it was the twentieth day of his sickness, and only five days before his death, when Mr. Marsh reached Mosul. As he entered the room, the Doctor threw his arms about his neck and wept. The church-members prayed earnestly for his recovery, and were eager to serve as watchers. He passed easily away, as the Sabbath was closing, on the 25th of March, 1855, to his eternal rest. His age was twenty-eight.

Dr. Lobdell's life was short to fill four hundred pages in Professor Tyler's excellent Memoir, but the volume is none too large. His life, measured by activities and results, was long. His character was many sided, and every side glowed with consecrated ardor. He made the most of himself as a man, a scholar, a Christian, and a Christian missionary. Like the Apostle Paul, "forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before," he pressed "toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus."

He had a strong desire to go as a missionary to China, but the author, in his official correspondence, though seldom venturing to oppose such predilections, was so impressed with the difficulties to be overcome at Mosul, and with Dr. Lobdell's adaptation to that field, that he called his attention to it, and soon received the reply that he would go, as soon as he could get ready; and from that time the new field grew in his affections. That he could or would have done more for the kingdom of Christ, in any other sphere of labor, no one who attentively considers his remarkable life will venture to affirm.

Dr. Henri B. Haskell succeeded Dr. Lobdell at Mosul, and reached Diarbekir, with the Rev. George C. Knapp and wife, appointed to that station, in April, 1856. The Christian worship at Diarbekir had now assumed a regular form. There were four services on the Sabbath. At the first, an hour after sunrise, fifty persons assembled for prayer and praise, and the meeting was conducted by two native teachers; one reading his own translation of Doddridge's "Rise and Progress" in Turkish; the other, after having read through Dr. Goodell's "Notes on Matthew," and a volume of his sermons in Turkish, had commenced reading discourses of his own. The second was at the time of "noon cry" from the minarets, when Mr. Walker or Baron Tomas, now returned for a time from Bebek, preached to about two hundred persons, who listened more attentively than most American congregations. At the ninth hour (three o'clock in the afternoon) Baron Tomas met a Bible-class of sixty or eighty of the more intelligent Protestants. The last preaching service, at the tenth hour, was usually attended by a hundred or a hundred and fifty persons. From forty to seventy persons were present at the Friday evening meeting. The monthly concert was well attended, and with increasing contributions. Mrs. Walker had a Wednesday afternoon meeting for the women, at which from twenty to forty were present.

The Gospels had been translated into Koordish by the native helper at Haine, and copies of Matthew had been received from the press in Stamboul. As soon as the good deacon Shemmas could get the box containing them from the custom-house, he retired to his room and poured out his soul in thanksgiving to God for his great mercy, and prayed that He would now greatly bless his Word in this new tongue.

The church at Diarbekir was doubled in 1856, and all belonging to the mission, both male and female, found full employment in imparting instruction. Baron Tomas returned to Bebek, to spend two years in the study of theology.

Excepting the death of the second Mrs. Williams, on the 25th of December, there was nothing in 1857, specially demanding attention.

Mr. Williams spent the summer of 1858 in Mardin, intending to occupy it as a new station, and returned in November to make it his permanent residence. He found the people, as he expected, exceedingly bigoted, yet hardy and intelligent. There was an important advantage in the pure mountain air of the place. The language was Arabic, as at Mosul. More than half of the twenty thousand inhabitants were nominal Christians; there were three Arabic-speaking villages within six miles, and the whole of Jebel Tour was accessible. He found the Romish Church stronger than he had expected, having a Papal-Syrian patriarchate just established within the city. He was received by the ecclesiastics with bitter denunciations. For a time, no one dared to acknowledge himself a Protestant, though many Mohammedans called upon him, and seemed to appreciate his very intelligent and gentlemanly conversation and manners.

Subsequently a papal priest, to whom, in former years, he had given a Bible, joined himself to the missionary, and patiently endured severe persecution. But the most encouraging case was that of an influential merchant named Meekha. He was originally an Armenian, and, thirty years before had become a Papist, and carried over one hundred houses with him. He was the champion of the papal party. His conversion was on this wise. The priest just mentioned had sown much Gospel truth among his disciples, and among them was a son-in-law of Meekha. At length the old man, provoked by an instance of dishonesty and falsehood in his bishop, and unable to read himself, sent for his son-in-law to read to him the Gospel. The young man was kept reading for three days, until the Gospels and Epistles were all finished. Amazed to find his religion opposed by the whole spirit and teachings of the divine oracles, Meekha sent for the priests and they came. "Prove me your doctrines from the Bible," said he. Convinced, from their manner of reply, that they had nothing to say, he ceased from the worship of the Virgin, and declared himself a Protestant; and his wife was as sincere and earnest as he. Though father, mother, and three unmarried daughters were excommunicated, and subjected to continued insults, their souls were overflowing with joy and thankfulness that the Gospel had come to them.

Speaking of this family, Mr. Williams says: "I have never witnessed such amazed eagerness as that with which, for the first time, they comprehended that salvation is without money and without price—absolutely free and gratuitous. It was to them news—good news; and when I call to mind Meekha's impetuous temperament, and see him listen with such docility to Christ's teaching, I cannot but hope that, though imperfectly sanctified, the 'good work' is begun in him, which God's grace will complete. He accepts no new truth without a challenge, and nothing short of a 'Thus saith the Lord,' will give it currency with him. At one of my evening lectures I alluded to Isaiah's statement, 'All our righteousnesses are as filthy rags,' when two or three spoke up: 'What 's that?' On repeating it they were incredulous, and demanded chapter and verse. I gave it to them next day, and it has taken hold of them like iron. I have seen Meekha since throw that verse into a crowd of opposers with such force as to start them from their seats with an emphatic 'God forbid,' and the most positive denial that such a verse could be in the Bible. When I turned to the passage, and put the book into their hands that they might read it for themselves, they could not believe their own eyes, but continued poring over it, reading carefully from the head of the chapter; and this very day some of them came in to ask what it meant, and so changed in their manner I could hardly believe my eyes. Before, obstinate, dogged, unreasonable; now, meek, docile, and asking what the will of the Lord is. One said, 'That went like a dagger to my heart, and I slept none all that night.' And when to-day, I turned to Rom. iii. 26, Eph. ii. 8-9, and Rom. iv. 1-4, they listened as children. Truly the word of the Lord is a sharp sword, piercing to the heart."

Mr. Knapp's health forbidding a longer residence at Diarbekir, he commenced, in May, 1858, a new station at Bitlis, a healthy place several thousand feet above the level of the sea. Dr. and Mrs. Haskell were with them during the latter half of the summer, and spent the summer of 1859 at Mardin; but Mr. and Mrs. Marsh and Mrs. Lobdell decided to remain at Mosul. In May, Mr. and Mrs. Marsh were called to part with their second and only surviving child. A fortnight later, Mrs. Marsh herself had a severe attack of fever, but soon recovered. The fatal attack was three months later, and her death occurred unexpectedly. The thermometer in the early part of the night before, stood at 113. During the day it was 120; and on the night of her death it was 100 on the roof, where they slept. She had had a slight illness for a few days, and it now became a burning fever, with delirium, and all remedies proved vain. She died on the 12th of August, at the age of thirty-two, after a residence of six years at Mosul, as an earnest and faithful laborer. Her mother and her only sister had died before reaching the age of thirty, and it is possible Mrs. Marsh might not have lived as long in her native land, as she did at Mosul. "Yet it is probable," as her husband wrote at the time, "that the heat, so unusually extreme, cutting the leaves from the tree in our court by thousands, and causing many natives of the country to fall dead by the roadside, was the immediate occasion of her death."

Mrs. Lobdell found reason, in the necessities of her children, for returning to America, and in April, 1860, she bade adieu to the little band of women, who, for eight years, had sat at her feet to learn of Jesus. She reached her native land in August, in company with Mr. Marsh.

Mosul remained unoccupied during the summer, the heat at that season being found too great for endurance; though the climate is agreeable for nearly three fourths of the year. The summer retreat prepared by Dr. Lobdell at Deira, near Amadiah, was distant seventy miles, or four days' travel, and it required at least nine days to reach Mardin.

There were but two or three places in Turkey where missionaries, up to this time, had had such marked success as in Diarbekir. The church, at the close of 1859, numbered sixty-one, and after the April communion, seventy-three. Rarely did a communion pass without some additions. Protestants were a recognized power among the people, and their influence was extending. Books were eagerly sought after and paid for. Illegal taxes had nearly ceased in the city itself. After a weary struggle of nine years, the assessment of the tax-roll for the Protestants was made upon a satisfactory plan, which bid fair to be permanent. The commercial standing of the Protestants was above that of any other sect, though there were no wealthy men among them. But the increase of the congregation had been retarded by the want of sufficient accommodations for public worship. The lamented removal of Mr. Holmes, the English Consul, to a more desirable consulate in European Turkey, while it was a great loss to the mission, threw his house upon the market, and it was purchased for a place of worship at less than half its cost. It required only slight alterations, and could be indefinitely enlarged. The members of the church subscribed a thousand dollars towards its purchase, and a certain amount was granted by the Board. The school for boys, and the one for girls, were both eminently a success. At Cutterbul, half the village was Protestant and the rest more than half so, and the place of prayer would not hold the congregation.

In 1860, the stations of the Assyria Mission were brought within the field of the Eastern Turkey Mission, and the Assyria Mission ceased to have a separate existence.



CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE NESTORIANS.

1851-1857.

The return of Mr. Stoddard, accompanied by his wife and Mr. and Mrs. Rhea, was mentioned in the first volume. He thus describes the manner of his reception: "While crossing the plain of Oroomiah, we arrived at a village twelve miles from the city, where a company of our brethren and sisters, with their little ones and many of the Nestorians, greeted us with tender emotions. A tent had been pitched, and a breakfast prepared; and we all sat down on the grass, under the grateful shade, to partake of the repast. Our hearts were full. During the three hours which we spent at this village, Nestorians of all classes, many of them our brethren in Christ, were continually arriving; and when, soon after noon, we set out for the city, our progress resembled more a triumphal procession than a caravan of weary travellers. Every mile increased our numbers. Our way was often almost blocked up by the people who came to meet us, some on horseback, some on foot; bishops, priests, deacons, village teachers, members of the seminary, with whom I had many times wept and prayed, all pressing forward in eager haste to grasp our hands, and swell the notes of welcome. Three years ago, they followed us out of the city, holding our horses by the bridle, and begging us not to leave them, while their mournful looks bespoke the sorrow of their hearts. Now I was returning to them with restored health, to identify my interests with theirs. I brought with me the salutations of many thousand Christians in our native land, and was accompanied into the harvest-field by new reapers. As I turned from thoughts of the past, and looked on the animating scene around us, the contrast almost overcome me."

This was in 1851. In October of the following year, Dr. and Mrs. Perkins, going to meet Mr. and Mrs. Crane, and Sarah Stoddard, on their way from Trebizond, experienced a severe affliction in the death of their only surviving daughter, a very interesting girl. The journey was expected to be of advantage to the health of Mrs. Perkins and to their two children, Judith and Henry; and it was due to the new-comers that some one, acquainted with the language and country, should aid them through the long and tedious route from Erzroom. After a ride of thirty miles, they were unexpectedly exposed to a pestilential atmosphere at Khoy, where they spent the night. All went well with them until they had crossed the plain of Khoy, and the mountain beyond, and passed their last resting-place, when the beloved daughter showed signs of cholera. They could not rest there under the burning sun, and there was no water near; so they were obliged to proceed three or four miles further, to the Moslem village of Zorava. The nature of the disease was now painfully certain. The Mohammedan villagers were terrified and inhospitable. They would not even allow a morsel of bread to be sold to the faithful Nestorians who accompanied the family, nor even barley for their tired, hungry horses. And when the limbs of the child were cold and stiffening under the power of the deadly disease, they would not sell one stick of wood to warm water for her; but again and again ordered the heart-stricken travellers to leave the village with their dying child. As a further aggravation, after the father had twice administered laudanum, the vial containing the medicine disappeared from their tent, and could no more be found. There were all the usual accompaniments of the cholera, and in that high region the night air was cold. Collecting dry weeds, they managed to kindle a fire, and heated a stone which they placed at her feet.

The spirit of the child was quiet, and beautifully resigned to the will of God. There had been no doubt as to her piety before her sickness, and the whole scene was all that could have been expected of an older person. At length the end came. "Breathing shorter and shorter for fifteen or twenty minutes," writes her father, "she gently slept, as we believe, in Jesus, at three o'clock on the morning of September 4, 1852, aged twelve years and twenty-six days."

The bereaved and afflicted family was now a hundred and forty miles from home; but home was the place for her burial. The mother washed the corpse with her own hands, and dressed it for the grave. As no coffin could be obtained, the loved one was sewed in a strong oriental felt of the size and form of a bed-quilt, and placed upon a bed, and two willow sticks, cut from the margin of the brook, were sewed upon the sides of the bed, and it was then bound to the back of a faithful horse; the panic-stricken villagers calling upon them all the while, "Depart, depart." With what different feelings were they received on their return, by their large circle of weeping friends! One of the Nestorians, who had accompanied the family, standing by the grave, artlessly described to the Nestorians the affecting scenes he had witnessed, and all were bathed in tears. "In all the families of the village," wrote Miss Fidelia Fiske, "Judith had taken a deep interest, and several of the middle-aged women had been taught by her in the Sabbath-school. Indeed, she had greatly endeared herself to all the scores and hundreds of Nestorians who knew her, and was a universal favorite among the people. A Nestorian of a distant village said, on hearing of her death, "There was none like her,—so beautiful, so wise, so pious. She would pray like an angel."[1]

[1] See The Persian Flower; A Memoir of Judith Grant Perkins of Oroomiah, Persia.

The Gospel made its way among the Nestorians amid many discouragements. Yet there was progress, Even in the mountains of Koordistan, where the brethren could do little more than watch the leadings of Providence, there was much that was hopeful. It was an indication of promise, that the people of Memikan, the mountain station, notwithstanding their sufferings for the sake of the Gospel, did not falter in their adherence to it. Strangers, after listening to the reading and reciting of the school children, sometimes went away exclaiming, "Glory to God! There is nothing bad in all this." Religious worship was well attended. Even in the busy season, when the laborers were in their fields before dawn, and worked till late, a goodly number attended the daily evening service. Nor was it here, only, that a listening ear was found. In a tour among some of the largest neighboring villages, the missionaries were kindly received. Some sat from morning till the setting of the sun, giving earnest heed to the preaching. Could the people have been assured that they had nothing to fear from the civil power, they would have braved their ecclesiastics. Even as it was, the missionary pursued his work without molestation, and was treated with uniform respect by the authorities.

On the plain of Oroomiah, there was more preaching than ever before, and the line of demarkation between an evangelical church and a dead Christianity, was becoming more and more distinct. Mar Yohannan boldly discarded many customs of his Church, and then seemed disposed to go as fast in the work of reformation as his people could be induced to follow; and there was the same spirit among the helpers of the mission.

The two seminaries were coming under a stricter discipline, and aimed at a higher standard of scholarship. About half of the forty students under Mr. Stoddard were hopefully pious, and some of them gave high promise of usefulness. One was appointed to succeed the bishop of the largest diocese in the province. Several were from different mountain districts, and one was from the valley of the Tigris.

The number in the female seminary had increased from forty to fifty, and it was delightful to witness the intelligent zeal of some teachers in the Sabbath-schools. The ten who graduated in March were all hopefully pious, well educated, and quite refined, and most of them were expected to become teachers in their own villages.

The description given by Mr. Stocking of a very aged priest, whom he saw among the hills north of Gawar, encourages the belief that the Holy Spirit sometimes makes the faintest rays of Gospel light effectual to salvation. The man was nearly deaf, and bending under the weight of a century or more, according to the statement of the people, but was able to converse intelligently about events which happened two or three generations before. "We were much surprised," writes Mr. Stocking, "at the correctness of his views in regard to some of the cardinal doctrines of the Scriptures, and particularly as to the necessity of an evangelical faith, in distinction from one that was dead, and of the work of the Holy Spirit in renewing and sanctifying believers. Though not remarkable for his learning, he appears to have been taught by the great Teacher himself; for he had never before seen a missionary. As I left him, to see him no more, he affectionately took my hand, and said he had one request to make, which was that we would remember him in our prayers at the mercy-seat. He also requested a New Testament in the ancient and modern Syriac, for his village, which we sent to him."

In August, 1851, Mr. Coan, accompanied by Priest Dunka and Deacons John and Khamis, visited the districts of Jeloo, Bass, Tekhoma, Tiary, and Diss, and discoursed to more than four thousand persons. A part of this ground had never been trod before by a missionary. The ecclesiastics were, as usual, the greatest opposers, but there were two pleasing exceptions. In Alsan, a village of five hundred souls, there was one priest who, at first, seemed reserved, but as his prejudices were removed, he became, with his people, an attentive listener. The missionaries tarried four or five hours, preaching the Word to the hungry multitude. The people, in little companies, conversed about what they had heard, and publicly upbraided their priest for letting them remain in such ignorance. He made humble confession, and expressed a desire to send his little boy, a bright looking lad, to Oroomiah for instruction. At another village, they found a decidedly evangelical priest. That his influence over his large village was good was apparent in the quiet and orderly behavior of the people, and their attention to the Gospel. Indeed, they were accustomed to the word of exhortation daily at their evening prayers. This priest had a small school every winter, to which several lads resorted from neighboring districts.

A very different scene was witnessed in the village of Mar Ziah, which was thronged with ecclesiastics who obtained their livelihood by begging. "They were dressed," Mr. Coan writes concerning them, "in scarlet and silk, and were exceedingly haughty in their bearing. We met the people in the churchyard, but, after a few words, there arose such a tumult as I hope never to see again. For an hour or more, the place was like a pandemonium. Some wished to hear what we had to say; but others, with savage fierceness, flew at them, yelling at the top of their voices, and looking as if ready to drink their blood. In the course of an hour or two their rage had spent itself, and after a few words of solemn admonition, we left them." At another village, scarcely three miles distant, where was no priest, a few persons assembled in a room where the missionaries stopped, and their solemn and tearful attention was very unlike the noisy scene they had just left. One young man begged, with tears, to receive a copy of the Gospel.

Nazee was one of three Tiary girls who came to Oroomiah after the massacre of the mountain Nestorians, and in the seminary became hopefully pious. She was now living at Chumba, and having heard of the coming of her missionary friends, was standing on the bank of the impetuous Zab, awaiting their arrival. There was no fording the torrent, but the travellers ventured across on two single string pieces, bending under them at every step. She greeted them joyfully, and hastened to prepare a place for their lodging. While she was gone, the Malek came and took them to his house. Nazee was disappointed, but followed, eager to hear every word. During the address to the villagers assembled on the roof, it was affecting to see the eagerness with which she listened. Though others left she could not leave, and not till near midnight did she bethink herself, and apologize for keeping Mr. Coan up so late after a fatiguing day's journey. She was a light in her village, by which the deeds of the wicked had been reproved, and she had consequently suffered much persecution. Some friends in America, interested in the account which had been given of her while in the seminary, had sent her articles of dress; but her neighbors assembled and maliciously tore them into fragments before her eyes. She bore it meekly, and only prayed for them. She expected fresh insults because of the kindness shown her in the present visit. Long before light, on the day they were to leave, she was with the visitors, anxious to improve the few moments left for Christian conversation; and she followed them, lonely and sad, to the river's side. There they kneeled by the roaring stream, and commended her to the Great and Good Shepherd.

Mr. Stoddard mentions the visit of Mr. Khanikoff, a Russian scientific gentleman, in the summer of 1852, to obtain information concerning the elevations and climates of these districts. Lake Oroomiah was ascertained to be about four thousand one hundred feet above the ocean, and the city four thousand five hundred feet, the plain sloping down gently towards the lake. Mount Seir rises two thousand eight hundred and thirty feet above the city, and seven thousand three hundred and thirty feet above the ocean; differing not greatly, in real height, from the White Mountains in New Hampshire. The mission residence, on the mountain side, is a thousand feet above the city. The mountains of Koordistan, some of which are capped with snow through all the year, often rise to the height of twelve thousand feet, and one peak is supposed to be fourteen thousand feet above the sea. Mr. Khanikoff afterwards became Russian Consul General at Tabriz, and proved himself a sincere and valuable friend to the mission.

Failure of health constrained Mr. Stocking to return, with his family, to the United States, and he was never able to resume his missionary labors. Since his lamented decease, a son has taken his place among the Nestorians.

It should be gratefully acknowledged, that violence towards missionaries has almost everywhere been the exception, and not the rule. It has been so even in Koordistan. But Mr. Cochran, while travelling with several Nestorians through Nochea, was assailed by five robbers in the employ of a Koordish chief, named Seyed Khan Bey. As Moslems the assailants were of course reckless of the life of Christians; and, for a time, the party were apprehensive of being murdered. But at last, while the freebooters were intent on their prey, the company fled up the steep mountain side, leaving their effects. Their horses were afterwards recovered.

The year 1854 opened with a revival in both the seminaries. At the commencement of it, scarcely half the students in either of the institutions gave evidence of piety, which was an unusually small proportion. The thought of this, and especially that several of the senior class were about going forth into the world without Christ, led to earnest prayer, and to efforts which were followed by an immediate blessing. The special religious interest continued several weeks, and extended to the large village of Geog Tapa, but the results appear not to have been distinctly reported.