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.

The eighteen young men who graduated in 1854, were of higher promise than any previous class. Several of the performances at their graduation were very gratifying, particularly the valedictory addresses, pronounced by a young man of eighteen, which would not suffer in matter or manner, Dr. Perkins thought, by the side of similar addresses at any American college. Nearly all were hopefully pious, and were returning to homes widely distant from each other.

In some parts of the field there was much enthusiasm. In Geog Tapa, for example, about seventy adults had commenced learning to read. The mode pursued there and elsewhere, was to induce teachers, scholars in the village schools, and other readers to teach adults, by the promise of a Bible, Testament, or other book, if they were successful. At an examination, the forenoon was devoted to the girls' school, taught by two graduates of the female seminary, and the afternoon to the Sabbath-school. Such a crowd of Nestorians was present, that it was necessary in the afternoon, to meet in a grove. The first class examined in the Sabbath-school consisted of men from twenty to seventy years of age, headed by the chief man of the village. Then followed a class of women, fifty or sixty in number, from forty to fifty years of age. These classes, not being able to read, had been taught orally. Next came a class of men, about twenty in number, and a class of twenty-three women, who had recently learned to read. These had been taught individually by boys connected with the village schools, each of whom received a copy of the Old Testament as a reward. On the plain of Oroomiah seventy-three free schools were reported, with more than a thousand boys, and one hundred and fifty girls and women as pupils.

In Gawar, two schools embraced fourteen boarding and thirty-two day scholars. Fourteen of these were from Jeloo, Bass, and Tekhoma districts. Among them were four deacons, four from the family of the bishop of Jeloo, and nearly all were from prominent families. They were wild mountaineers, and in some thing's difficult to manage, but they acquired knowledge rapidly and with delight; and the constant study of the Bible wrought a perceptible change in them. In the Bootan districts, hitherto inaccessible to missionary influence, there was now a strong desire for schools, and for the labors of evangelical teachers.

The New Testament in the modern language was beginning to be circulated among the people; a much enlarged edition of the hymn book had been issued, and a volume, entitled "Scripture Facts," had a wide circulation. Mr. Perkins had completed a translation of Doddridge's "Rise and Progress," and was engaged in translating Barth's "Church History."

Mr. Crane died at Gawar on the 27th of August, 1854, at the commencement of a career of bright promise. So ardently was he beloved by the people there, that at the funeral service the whole assembly repeatedly broke forth into weeping. The afflicted widow was called, within a week of her husband's death, to mourn also the loss of a beloved son, and removed to Mount Seir, where she was a valued helper in the mission. She returned home in 1857. Mr. Rhea and Miss Harris were united in marriage in October, and spent the winter at Gawar.

The audacity of the papal missionaries, backed by the French embassy, was marvelous. The American mission having been importuned to open a school in the large village of Khosrova, in Salmas, where popery predominated, two young men, graduates of the seminary, were successively sent thither. The first was several times driven away, through the instigation of the Lazarists, and those who were friendly to the mission also became objects of persecution. The second was assailed by the mob, headed, by the French chief of the Lazarists, and by a bishop. These two men, with their own hands, threw him into a canal, and called on the people to drown or kill him. He was mercifully delivered, but narrowly escaped with his life. The matter being reported to Mr. Abbott, the English Consul at Tabriz, the chief of the Lazarists, with some fifteen of his satellites, went thither, and apprehending a cool reception from the Consul, whose protection the Lazarists enjoyed in common with the American missionaries, he applied for assistance to the Russian Consul, proposing to transfer his passports to his hands. Mr. Khanikoff refused, and severely rebuked them for their conduct. Mr. Abbott obtained an order from the Governor of Azerbijan to lay heavy fines on the Mussulman deputies of Khosrova for withholding protection, and on the principal papists for their acts of violence, with the requirement of bonds for future good behavior.

Messrs. Abbott and Stevens, English consuls at Tabriz and Teheran, kindly exerted their protecting influence, and Mr. Cochran subsequently spent a week at Khosrova, and had his house thronged every evening with from fifty to a hundred and fifty people, eager to listen to the preaching of the Word. The ecclesiastics raged, and stirred up the agent of the master of the village (who lives in Tabriz) to endeavor to drive our brother away; but the attempt failed. Sixty houses gave their names and seals, wishing to become Protestants. They were exceedingly desirous of having a missionary, and even threatened, good-naturedly, to take one by force to live among them.

The reader may remember what Dr. Lobdell said of the course of this mission in respect to the forming of distinct churches.[1] Dr. Perkins, writing in May, 1855, gives the following account of the progress of the reformation towards that result: "Our communion occurred about two weeks ago, and nearly one hundred communicants sat down to the table of the Lord, including our mission. It was a solemn and delightful season. Among the native brethren present were Mar Yohannan and Mar Elias; and most of the others, of both sexes, were educated and quite intelligent; but, what is of far greater importance, they were, as we trust, true Christians. It would be easy at once to triple the number from those who, in the judgment of charity, are the children of God; but we think it better to introduce them somewhat gradually and cautiously to the ordinance; while, at the same time, we would not too long allow any of the sheep and lambs of Christ's flock to suffer for want of this important means of grace. It is exerting a powerful influence on those who participate in it, and on many others; and it cannot fail ultimately to produce the effect either of redeeming the ordinance from abuses, as administered in Nestorian churches, or drawing off the pious part of the people to a separate observance of it. We are quite willing that the scriptural administration of the ordinance to the pious Nestorians should work out either of these results, in the legitimate time and way, or both of them, as the Lord shall direct."

[1] Chapter xxvii.

Some months later, notice was given that, in the future, instead of personal invitations, the door would be thrown open for all who should consider themselves worthy candidates. Uniting with the missionaries would thus seem more like a voluntary and public profession of religion. None were to be received, however, to the communion without a private examination. On one sacramental occasion about one hundred united with the missionaries, and more than thirty of them for the first time. A large number were also present as spectators, many of them deeply interested.

Deacon Guwergis of Tergawer, the well known "Mountain Evangelist," died on the 12th of March, called suddenly from earnest and most useful labors to his reward.

The course of the Persian government towards the mission and its friends, at this time, was very unsatisfactory. Asker Khan, a general in the Persian army, was appointed to investigate the truth of certain charges brought by the papists against the American missionaries, and early evinced a most unfriendly feeling towards them, and a partiality for their accusers. Indeed, he took no pains to conceal his hostility, and did all he could to stop the schools and other evangelizing agencies. But the missionaries had the aid, as far as aid could be rendered, of the Hon. C. A. Murray, the English Ambassador, and of Mr. Abbott at Tabriz, and Mr. Stevens at Teheran, and also of Mr. Khanikoff, the Russian Consul General at Tabriz. The disturbed state of political relations, and especially the want of harmony between the English and Persian governments, made it impossible for these friends to accomplish what they desired to do in their behalf. After withdrawing from Teheran, Mr. Murray visited Oroomiah, and the correspondence which then passed between him and the missionaries, showed his desire to aid both the suffering Nestorians and the missionary work. In his absence, the Russian Consul General became their protector,—"at first," as he said, "unofficially, but with very good heart; and officially, whenever he should have the right so to do." It is remarkable, and reveals a protecting Providence, that no department of labor, with the exception of village schools, very materially suffered at this time.

In February, 1856, there began to be indications of the special influences of the Holy Spirit in some of the villages occupied by native helpers; and very soon there were marked indications of another work of grace in the two seminaries. The feeling in both the schools became very general. The voice of prayer was heard on every side; and a large proportion of those who were not pious, appeared to be seeking in earnest the way of life. On the 30th of March, Mr. Cochran reported that, with the exception of those most recently admitted, nearly all were hoping that they had passed from death unto life. In the villages, also, there were cases of peculiar interest.

Mr. and Mrs. Rhea were alone in Gawar. In the autumn it was deemed advisable, in view of the insurrectionary state of Koordistan, that they should withdraw for a time. They at first felt it their duty to remain; but the progress of events soon made it plain that Gawar was an unsuitable place for a lone lady, especially when winter should render it impossible for her to remove. Mr. Rhea, while at Oroomiah, continued, as far as possible, to superintend the labors of the native helpers in Memikan, and he returned the next summer, with Mrs. Rhea, to their mountain home. The Koordish chieftains, who had proudly boasted, that they would put their heels upon the necks of the poor Christians, were soon fleeing in dismay before the advancing Ottomans.

Mr. Stoddard wrote, in September, 1856, that for six months, in consequence of the withdrawal from Persia of the English Ambassador, the missionaries had been without any political protection, and at the mercy of a hostile government, yet there was perhaps never a time when their work presented a more cheering aspect on the whole. The seminaries, being on the mission premises, suffered less annoyance than did the village schools, which were scattered widely over the plain. The teachers in these schools had many of them been educated in the seminaries, and were altogether superior as a class to what they were a few years before; and thus the standard of instruction was raised, and more religious influence was exerted over the pupils. Nor was there ever a time when more people were brought within the sound of the gospel, or when there were more stated attendants on preaching. And much use was made of the Monthly Concert on the first Monday of the month. The whole day was devoted to the natives. "Early Monday morning," writes Mr. Stoddard, "some of our friends arrive from the nearer villages, and others are continually dropping in during the forenoon. At about the dinner hour, nearly all are assembled. We occupy considerable time with them in private, or in little companies, each one attending to the helpers under his care, in hearing the monthly reports of their labors and trials, their hopes and fears, and intermingling the reports with religious conversation and prayer. At three in the afternoon we assemble, and spend an hour or two in public religious exercises. In the evening a similar meeting is held, when the natives not only speak freely, but often occupy nearly the whole time, leaving the brother who has charge of the meeting little to do. It very often happens, also, that after the meeting has been together two hours, there are several who feel that they want to be heard, if but for a few moments." These monthly occasions Mr. Stoddard enjoyed exceedingly, and came to look upon the "First Monday" as the great day of the month.

In October, Messrs. Stoddard and Cochran and Miss Fiske made a tour of three weeks in the mountains of Koordistan. At Gawar they were joined by Mr. and Mrs. Rhea, and visited the districts of Ishtazin and Bass. From that point Messrs. Cochran and Rhea extended their journey to Amadiah, and returned to their party at Tekhoma, a week later. Thence they passed through the districts of Tâl, and up the Zab to Gawar. The fact that American ladies traversed in safety the gorges and precipices of central Koordistan, was an encouragement to native helpers and their families to reside in those difficult regions; but such tours were too fatiguing, probably, to be often repeated.

The object of the visit to Amadiah was to make further explorations with reference to the formation of a station on the western side of the mountains. The mass of the people were on that side, and could not be advantageously reached from Oroomiah. The eastern district was fast becoming supplied with pious helpers, and it seemed very desirable for that section of the country to share in this initiatory work, before anything occurred to hinder it. The convictions of the brethren as to the desirableness of commencing a station there were much strengthened, and Mr. Cochran offered his own services for that purpose.

November was ushered in by an event deeply interesting to the mission families; a public profession of religion by the three eldest children of the mission; and hope was entertained as to the piety of some of the younger.

Asker Khan, agent of the Persian government at Oroomiah, now became more troublesome than ever, resorting to every form of annoyance in his power. At the instance of Mr. Khanikoff, Dr. Wright and Mr. Stoddard visited him at Tabriz, to see what could be done to induce the government to check the doings of its agent. But in this they failed, though the Consul did all he could to assist them. Even the Turkish Consul volunteered his aid, but almost in vain. Through Mr. Khanikoff, they learned that the orders from Teheran to the Kaim Makam required him to forbid the labors of the missionaries in the province of Salmas; to see that no school was established save in the two places where missionaries resided; and that the number of the schools should not exceed thirty, nor the number of pupils one hundred and fifty. He was to require that no girl receive instruction, at all events, in the same school with boys. The missionaries were not to induce any person to change his religion, and were to enter into a written engagement not to send forth preachers. Books conflicting with existing religions in Persia were not to be printed, and native teachers and preachers were to be approved by Mar Yoosuf and Mar Gabriel, two unprincipled and bitter opposers of evangelical religion. Such were the orders issued, it is believed at the instigation of the French, by the Prime Minister of Persia, and Messrs. Stoddard and Wright, unable to secure even delay in carrying them out, returned to Oroomiah. The mission now, at the suggestion of the Consul, made a formal application for protection to the Russian Ambassador at Teheran.

Asker Khan was assassinated six days after the return of the brethren from Tabriz, by a Koordish chief at Mergawer. But his coadjutor, Asker Aly Khan, governor of the Nestorians, pursued the same persecuting course, urged on by the Kaim Makam at Tabriz. The career of the Kaim Makam, however, was now short, for in January, 1857, the populace of that city, exasperated by his oppression, rose in a body, broke into his palace, plundered it, and compelled him to flee for his life. He was subsequently summoned to Teheran, and on his approach to that city, was stripped of his honors, mounted on a pack saddle, and thus led to prison, while a fine was imposed on him of a hundred thousand tomans.

CHAPTER XXIX.

THE NESTORIANS.

1857-1863.

The sojourn of three weeks at Tabriz had been a source of constant anxiety to Messrs. Stoddard and Wright, and the former had premonitory symptoms of fever on his way home. But he was not apprehensive on that account, and finding Mr. Cochran and two of the native teachers disabled by sickness, he devoted much time and labor to the Seminary, and to the correspondence which had accumulated in his absence. Yet fever was threatening, and on the 22d of December, ten days after his return, he became decidedly ill. On the 25th he was confined to his bed, where he lay for two and thirty days, while the fever ran its fatal course. He died in great peace January 26, 1857, in the thirty-ninth year of his age. The public funeral services were in Syriac, and his remains were borne to their last resting-place by graduates of the seminary, whose conversion dated back to the first revival.

The mind of Mr. Stoddard was cast in a fine mould. The older members of the Board remember him at the Annual Meeting in Pittsfield in 1849. My own thought at the time was, that were an angel present in human form, his appearance and deportment would be much like those of Mr. Stoddard. A calm, seraphic joy shone in his face, and all that he said and did was just what all delighted to hear and see. His presence did much to give a character to that meeting. Mr. Stoddard had a frail body, and an almost feminine grace of person, like the popular impression of that disciple who leaned on the bosom of his Lord; but, like that disciple, he had strength of principle and inflexibility of purpose. His consecration to the missionary work was no sudden impulse. It was the result of repeated, and sometimes unexpected, meetings and conferences with Dr. Perkins, whose sagacious eye had marked him for a missionary. But the question once settled, it was settled for life. He went whole-souled into the work, and never doubted that his call to it was of God. His talents, which were of a high order, and his learning, which excited the admiration of Persian nobles and princes, were unreservedly consecrated. "He goes among the churches," said the lamented Professor B. B. Edwards, of the Andover Seminary, "burning like a seraph. So heavenly a spirit has hardly ever been seen in this country."

Mr. Stoddard's daughter Harriet followed him to the grave within two months, at the age of thirteen, a victim to the same disease. She was sustained by the same calm trust in Christ, which lighted up the last hours of her excellent father.

Dr. Perkins wrote in 1857, that when the mission was commenced, twenty-four years before, hardly a score of Nestorian men were able to read intelligently, and but a single woman, the sister of the Patriarch. The people had no printed books, and but few copies even of portions of the Bible in manuscript, and these were all in the ancient Syriac, and almost unintelligible. Their spoken language, the modern Syriac, had not been reduced to writing. Their moral degradation was extreme. Still there was a remarkable simplicity in their conception of religious doctrines, and a remarkable absence of bigotry in their feelings, as compared with other oriental sects, and they were very accessible to the missionaries. The change had been great. Of the fifty-six in the male seminary when he wrote, thirty were hopefully pious; and so were ninety-one of the one hundred and fifty who had been connected with it. These were the fruits of seven revivals. Of the one hundred and three who had been connected with the female seminary, sixty, or more than one-half, gave good evidence of conversion; and the same might be said of three fourths who were then in the school. A large portion of the young men who had left the seminary, were either preachers of the gospel, or very competent teachers in the village school; and the greater part of the religious graduates of the other seminary were married to those missionary helpers. This seminary had been blessed with eight revivals. The instruction in both institutions had been almost wholly in the native tongue.

The entire Bible had been translated into the spoken language, which the mission had reduced to a written form; and two thousand intelligent readers, the result of the schools, had been supplied with the sacred volume. Indeed, the Scriptures had been printed and given to the people in the ancient Peschito version, as well as in the spoken tongue. To these were added valuable works on experimental and practical religion, for the use of the schools, and to meet the wants of a community in the early stages of a Christian civilization.

Though separate churches had not been organized, none but pious Nestorians, for the last two or three years, had been admitted to communion with the mission church. The number who had thus communed was about two hundred, and it was thought that from one hundred and fifty to two hundred more were worthy of a place at the Lord's table.

The French Jesuits and their emissaries had been a sore trial, but their success had not been great; and they had probably been useful, by stimulating the mission and the pious Nestorians in their Master's service.

Mrs. Rhea had been two years a member of the mission as Miss Harris, and three as Mrs. Rhea. Her active and useful life closed on the 7th of December, 1857, at the age of twenty-nine years and five months. "Her sick room," says Dr. Wright, "was a hallowed place, where the Sun of Righteousness shone with wonderful brightness."

Another revival of religion occurred in both the seminaries, at the opening of the year 1858, which was extended to Geog Tapa and other villages. Miss Fiske, in charge of the female seminary, relates a fact of much significance. She writes: "Some of the girls' pious friends came to pray with them yesterday, and I was led to inquire how many of them have a pious father or mother (or both), or older brother or sister; and I was surprised to find, as I think you will be to know, that about two thirds of them have such praying friends. I contrast this with the facts respecting their friends in 1846, and feel that we ought to be thankful and humble before our God, for what he has done for them."

Mr. Rhea spent the winter of 1857 and 1858 on the western side of the Koordish mountains, and everywhere found an open door for preaching to the rude dwellers among the rocks. In Shermin, Usgan, and Argin, Nestorian villages southwest of Amadiah, he was cordially welcomed to their houses and churches, and had large congregations that gave earnest attention to his preaching. Snow fell eleven out of fifteen days, and when ready to return to Amadiah, he found the way entirely blocked up. Mr. Marsh having joined him from Mosul, they spent a number of days among large papal villages in that region, where they found ample opportunity for preaching the Gospel; and several individuals seemed earnest inquirers after the way of salvation from the power of sin. With reference to Mosul and vicinity, Mr. Rhea writes: "I am deeply impressed with the evidence, that the labors of the mission here have not been in vain, and that their results are not to be measured by the number of names on the church roll. The Jacobite Church here is now shaken to its foundations; and it cannot be doubted, that whatever of feeling after something better exists among many of its members is owing to the steady light of the Protestant church streaming in upon its darkness." He was absent six months, and for one third of this time was in Mosul. He regarded the proper field of the mountain branch of the Nestorian Mission as extending from Amadiah on the north to Mosul on the south, and from Akra on the east to Bootan on the west; including the mountain districts between Gawar and Amadiah. The Christian population was one in respect to nationality and language, and was a remnant of the once great Syrian Church. The language was the same substantially as that spoken in the eastern districts.

As the result of these explorations, Mr. Rhea made an eloquent appeal for more effective labor in Western Koordistan, which was published in the "Missionary Herald," but cannot be sufficiently condensed for these pages.[1] His health had suffered in his mountain tours, which resembled those performed by his eminent predecessor, Dr. Grant. This rendered it necessary for him to spend a year for recovery in his native land, where his missionary addresses were well received. Two other members of the mission, second to none in the field,—the venerable Dr. Perkins, and Miss Fidelia Fiske,—were obliged to visit the United States in 1858; the former to care for the health of Mrs. Perkins, who, after burying six of her children, had accompanied Mrs. Crane to America, taking her only surviving child; and the latter, in consequence of a disease, which proved fatal after a few years. Dr. Perkins was also accompanied by Mrs. Stoddard, and three children of the mission.

[1] See Missionary Herald, 1858, pp. 317, 318.

Mr. Rhea's appeal had not been without effect. The Rev. Thomas L. Ambrose joined the mission near the close of 1858, the Rev. John H. Shedd and wife in 1859, and the Rev. Henry N. Cobb and wife in 1860, with direct reference to the mountain field; and the Rev. Amherst L. Thompson and Rev. Benjamin Labaree, with their wives, and Frank N. H. Young, M. D., in 1860, to strengthen the force on the plains, together with Misses Aura Jeannette Beach and Harriet N. Crawford. Mr. Thompson had given much promise of usefulness, but died at Seir, August 25, 1860, only fifty-four days after his arrival. Miss Beach was to be associated with Miss Rice, who had rendered efficient service in the girls' Seminary as the associate of Miss Fiske, but was then alone and overburdened.

The unexpected but providential withdrawal of so many older laborers, at this juncture, was not favorable to a more enlarged occupation of the field; and the plan of forming a station on the western side of the mountains, was not carried out. The height of Amadiah above the plain of Mesopotamia, and its salubrity in summer were found to have been overestimated; and further researches made it evident, that the demands of so trying a mountain field were more than the average health of missionaries would be able to endure at any season of the year. Indeed, impaired health obliged Mr. and Mrs. Cobb, who had been specially designated to the mountain district, to return home within two years; and, to their own great regret and that of their associates, they have never been able to rejoin the mission.

The Nestorian helpers, as a class, were pronounced able and faithful men, remarkably so for Orientals. But they could not fully take the place of missionaries. "They do nobly," wrote Mr. Coan, "if properly directed and watched over, better perhaps, in some circumstances, than we can; but it is not the work of a day, nor a year, thoroughly to eradicate the habits of life of those who are brought up in gross superstition."

Early in the year 1859, the seminary for young men was blessed with its tenth revival, in which a third of its pupils were hopefully converted. There had then been eleven such spiritual refreshings in the seminary for girls. In most of these outpourings of the Spirit, as now, the villages were more or less favored. The effects of these revivals were by no means limited to the souls converted. An enlightening, softening, elevating influence affected the masses. The young men from the seminary were generally of good abilities, having been selected from a large number of candidates, and many of them were distinguished for piety; and quite as much might be said of the other seminary.

More than fourteen millions of printed pages had been distributed among the Nestorians. The Old Testament with references formed a part of this literary treasure; and the New Testament was about being issued in that form.

Among the novelties to be recorded was the marriage of Mar Yohanan, in violation of the canons of the Nestorian Church. The bishop had been connected with the labors of the mission from the beginning. He pleaded the example of Luther and the Apostles. The step was one of his own choosing, and taken in the face of many threats, as well as the imputation of unworthy motives; but the "evangelicals" almost universally approved his course. The excitement was much less than had been apprehended; and another of the bishops, after some time, followed his example.

In 1860 the observance of the Lord's Supper, instead of being confined to the missionary stations; was held, once in four months, in the various villages where the converts resided, and about a score of virtually reformed churches were thus planted and watered in as many different places. The native pastor was held responsible for the persons whose names were presented to the missionary, as suitable to be admitted to the Lord's table. Mr. Coan speaks of those little churches, as being such in fact, "scattered in the different villages, as so many moral light-houses in the surrounding darkness."

Mar Shimon, the Nestorian Patriarch, died near the close of 1860, at the age of fifty-nine, and after having been thirty-five years in office. His successor was a nephew, eighteen years old, and a youth of amiable disposition. The patriarch had stood variously affected towards the mission, but was, for the most part, unfriendly. The effect of the Gospel in diminishing the superstitious reverence of the people for him, was one of the causes of his hostility.

About this time, a spirit of unlooked-for liberality was manifested among the Nestorians. It should be borne in mind that the people are poor, that the man worth five hundred dollars is counted rich, and that probably no Nestorian is worth two thousand dollars. The indications in our own country were at that time very unpromising; and when the prospective embarrassments of the Board were stated at the monthly concert in Geog Tapa, John, the pastor, urged the people to support their own missionary in the mountains, and one of the audience rose and pledged nearly a month's support. Others contributed unwonted amounts, and soon the whole congregation was in a blaze of enthusiasm. Those who could command money gave money, others contributed wheat, or other produce, and even women took off their ornaments and gave them. At the monthly concert the next day in the city, the people were more aglow than at Geog Tapa, and gave on a larger scale, though frequently reminded that they were poor, and urged not to give more than their cooler judgments would approve. The amount contributed was five hundred dollars. They seized upon the figure of "a bride"— more forcible in Persia than in America,—which Mr. Coan had used in his address; and one and another contributed for her "shoes," "dress," and other things, until the "church," the "Lamb's wife," had a very comfortable outfit.

This outburst of benevolent effort was too sudden and excessive to last in the same measure. The advantage gained by the elevation thus reached, was the practicability of keeping the converts up to giving according to their ability, which is the Gospel standard. Dr. Perkins, writing two years later, thought there was a real gain by this effort, though it had reacted somewhat. Most of the pledges were redeemed after the next harvest and vintage.

Dr. Dwight was eighteen days at Oroomiah during his Eastern tour in 1860 and 1861. Mr. Wheeler had accompanied him from Harpoot. Some important changes in the practical working of the mission, made at the Annual Meeting, threw a greater responsibility on the native pastors. They were to have the responsibility, not only of administering baptism, but of the Lord's Supper; and the children of none except communicants were to be baptized. The relation of pastor and people was thus made more prominent and distinct. Dr. Dwight declares himself satisfied by what he saw at Oroomiah, that nothing more than this was needed to complete the organization of the reformed church. He had had the impression, for years, that sooner or later the converts among the Nestorians, like the same class of persons among the Armenians, would be organized into separate churches, wholly distinct from the Nestorian Church. The excommunications and persecutions that had led to that result among the Armenians, he seemed to think would not occur among the Nestorians; and it was evident to him that the old ceremonies of the Church were silently vanishing away, and that reformed services were taking their place, as the result of a fundamental change in the minds of the people. A distinct theological class was to be formed in the seminary of promising young converts, and no more men were to be educated in that school than could afterwards be profitably employed. The conclusion was also reached, in view of past experience, that the mountain regions should not be occupied by American families; reserving them as the peculiar field of the reformed church of the plain; as a training-school for their missionary spirit, and a necessary outlet for their pious zeal.

The native preachers and helpers held a two days' meeting at Oroomiah while Dr. Dwight was there, in which several important subjects were discussed. He liked their appearance, admired the spirit of many of them, and was greatly moved by the extraordinary fire of their eloquence, though he understood them only through an interpreter. He was specially impressed by the childlike piety of the venerable Mar Elias.

Mr. Breath, the ingenious and efficient missionary printer, died of cholera on the 10th of November, 1861. He had so far succeeded in training native printers and book-binders, that there was no further call for such workmen from the United States. Mrs. Breath returned home, with her three children, in the following year.

Some uneasiness was created about this time by rumors, that priests of the Russian Church were coming to Oroomiah to proselyte Nestorians. They did not come; but emissaries were sent by them secretly, who made large promises, that deceived many; yet the evangelical party, with two or three exceptions, kept aloof from the affair. The proposal was that the Nestorians should renounce their religion, and receive the seven sacraments of the Greek Church; the inducements held out being such as the payment of their taxes for some years, and salaries to all ecclesiastics and head men of the villages. The Persian government at length became somewhat alarmed by these proceedings, and the English Consul, Mr. Abbott, having demanded the official interference of the authorities at Tabriz, measures were adopted promising some degree of relief to the oppressed and therefore discontented Nestorians.

I have passed in silence, for the most part, the long series of efforts by the Persian government to embarrass the mission, since they appear to have been generally prompted by bribes from emissaries of the Papal Church, and proved strangely inoperative.

Another interesting revival of religion occurred in the two seminaries in February, 1862. It seems to have been marked rather by an increase of grace in the church-members, than by the number of converts. The first months of 1863 and 1864 were also distinguished by special religious interest, extending to many of the villages on the plain.

On Sabbath morning, December 6, 1863, the good old Mar Elias died, more than four score years of age. Until within a week of his death, he was accustomed to walk to town to attend the monthly concert, a distance of five miles, and for many years he had visited the villages of his diocese on foot. He was sick only three days, and his mind was clear. When asked by the young men about him for his dying charge, it was, "See that ye hold fast to God's Word." An immense concourse gathered from the surrounding country to do honor to his memory; and Dr. Perkins preached from the text: "My father, my father! The chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof."

As a most cheering illustration of what Nestorians may yet become, through the grace of God in the Gospel, I quote largely from an account of the venerable man, by Mr. Rhea.[1] "While our good old bishop was not an educated man,—his knowledge in books extending little beyond the Word of God,—and had but ordinary intellectual ability, he was still one of the most interesting characters among the Nestorians. There is no name among them that will be more fragrant; none that deserves a more honored place in the annals of his Church. The singularity of his position here, thirty years ago,—devout, spiritual, God-fearing, and active, when a deep night hung over his whole people,—like a mountain beacon, whose summit had caught the first beams of the sun, which was soon to flood all below with its glory; his prophetic anticipation of the coming of missionaries; his joy in welcoming them; his peculiar attachment to them and their families; his true-hearted devotion to them as God's ministers, and to their work, through all kinds of vicissitudes; the charming guilelessness of his character, ingenuous as a child; his wonderful love for the Word of God, making it his meditation by day and by night,—not able to pass two or three hours consecutively, without drinking from this well-spring of life; the child-like gentleness of his character,—though, when stirred in God's behalf, he showed a lion-hearted courage, tearing down the pictures and images which Papal hands had stealthily hung on the walls of his church, and pitching them indignantly from the door; his love of sound doctrine, holding forth the word of life in his humble way, always and everywhere, his face never so full of spiritual light as when rehearsing a conversation he had just had with some Mussulman friend, to whom he had opened the Scriptures, and talked of the kingdom yet to fill the whole earth,—the brotherhood of all races,—the one flock and the one shepherd; his silent patience, in a land of cruel wrong, under heavy burdens, borne uncomplainingly for many years; his wonderful spirituality, all things earthly being but the types of the heavenly,—the one, by resemblance or contrast, constantly suggesting the other, so that he could not be reminded that he was late to tea without the quick reply, 'May I not be late at the marriage supper of the Lamb,' or 'Jesus will gather us all in, in season;' all these traits of Christ-like beauty combined to make a character which, in this weary land, was a constant rest to the toil-worn missionary,—an influence for good, continually streaming forth into the darkness of spiritual death around him. God, who accurately weighs all men, only knows how much his kingdom in Persia has been advanced by Mar Elias, than whom the Nestorian Church never had a more spiritual and evangelical bishop."

[1] See Missionary Herald, 1864, pp. 146, 147.

Almost five thousand Armenians inhabit the plain of Oroomiah, and the attention of the mission was gradually turned towards their spiritual enlightenment, with a prospect of ultimate success.

At a general meeting of native helpers, in March, 1863, a Church Manual, or Directory was adopted; "in the observance of which," Mr. Cochran writes, "we have all that is essential to a reformed church, with reformed pastors; and in the possession of the substance, we can afford to dispense with the shadow of new organizations…..The prospect, we believe, was never brighter than at present for the ultimate evangelization of the old Church."

During the thirty years from the arrival of Dr. Perkins, five of the twenty men and seven of the twenty-four women, who had joined the mission, had died; and five men and nine women had for various causes been obliged to retire from the field, leaving in the mission seven male and nine female laborers. In this time, the vast unknown of men and things where dwelt the primeval race, had become well known. A great work of exploration had been performed. So far as knowledge of the field was concerned, many a valley had been exalted, many a hill brought low. This was indeed preliminary work, but it was indispensable, and was no small share of what is involved in the conquest of the country for Christ. The seven missionaries then in the field had more than fifty Nestorian fellow-laborers in the gospel ministry, graduates of their seminary, and the nine female missionaries rejoiced in scores of pious young women from their seminary, abroad as wives, mothers, and teachers, doing a work perhaps not second in importance to that of the pious graduates of the other school. Nor should we overlook the reduction of the spoken language to writing, the translation of the Holy Scriptures into it, and the multiplication of books to the extent of seventy-nine thousand three hundred volumes, and more than sixteen millions of pages. Of the half a score and more of revivals in the seminaries, Dr. Perkins affirms that they would compare with the purest revivals he had ever witnessed in America.

The return of Miss Beach to the United States threw the whole care of the female seminary on Miss Rice. She was afterwards materially aided by Mrs. Rhea, and from time to time by other members of the mission.

The interest taken by the English government in the oppressed Nestorians, should be gratefully acknowledged. Mr. Taylor, English Consul at Diarbekir, was sent early in 1864 through the Nestorian districts of Koordistan, to ascertain their grievances, and report to the Ambassador at Constantinople; and Mr. Glen, a pious attaché to the British Embassy in Persia, spent several months on the plain of Oroomiah for a similar purpose.