CHAPTER IX.

THE ARMENIANS.

1840-1844.

The young Sultan, soon after coming to the throne, pledged himself; in the presence of all the foreign ambassadors, to guard the liberty, property, and honor of his subjects equally, whatever their religious creed. No one was to be condemned without trial, and none were to suffer the penalty of death without the sanction of the Sultan himself. No person at all conversant with Turkey, would expect such a change in the administration of the government to be effected at once, nor indeed for a long course of years. Yet this was the beginning of changes, which were momentous in their influence on the Christian and Jewish population of Turkey.

There was now such a number of Armenian boys and young men around the mission thirsting for knowledge, both religious and secular, that a boarding-school for such could no longer be properly delayed. Mr. Hamlin accordingly opened such a school at Bebek, on the European side of the Bosphorus, six miles above Constantinople.

Mr. Jackson commenced a station at Erzroom in 1840. At first he was almost disheartened when he saw how confidently the people rested their hopes of heaven on saint-worship, and the rigor of their fasts; but he soon saw reason to expect a better state of things.

Messrs. Dwight and Hamlin made a visit, about this time, to Nicomedia. Their intercourse with the native brethren there was generally private because of persecutors, but it was in the highest degree satisfactory. The first meeting was on the Sabbath, in a retired garden, where they sat four successive hours, in the middle of a circle of hungry souls, expounding to them the Gospel. After partaking of some refreshment, they sat three hours more in an adjacent house. Later in the day, they spent three hours in the same manner, in another garden; making in all ten hours of preaching and conversation in the course of one Sabbath; besides an hour more in their own room, with transient visitors from abroad. Many of the questions asked were of a highly practical nature. During this visit, a stranger called upon them, whose curiosity had been excited by the Patriarch's letter of warning against the American missionaries. He, in common with many of his brethren, was anxious to know more about this new way. Considerable time was spent with him in needful explanations, and with these, and a copy of the New Testament in modern Armenian and several tracts, he departed highly delighted. It was thus that a knowledge of the Gospel was first carried to Adabazar where this man resided, twenty-seven miles east of Nicomedia.

The papists took advantage of the religious interest awakened in the Armenian Church; and there was reason to apprehend, that dark, dissatisfied minds, if not made acquainted with the Gospel, were in danger of falling into the iron embrace of the Romish Church. The papal missions had been roused to activity in all the Levant, and their numerous adherents enabled them to come extensively into contact with the native mind. Nor were they scrupulous as to their manner of exciting the jealousies of the people against Protestant missionaries. There is evidence also, that, after the Greek revolution, they took advantage of the fact that nearly all the dragomen of foreign ministers at the Turkish court were Roman Catholics.

The obstacles in the way of preaching the Gospel at Broosa, became so great as to make it a question whether the preachers ought not to go elsewhere. Just then there began to be indications of the presence of the Holy Spirit. Individuals came to Mr. Schneider, almost every Sabbath, deeply affected by the truth, and there were several hopeful conversions. Not only there, but elsewhere and especially at Constantinople, during the year commencing May, 1840, there was a manifest reaction, caused by the persecutions of 1839, which became more and more decided during the year. Minds were awakened, which, but for the banishments, anathemas, burning of books, and shutting up of schools, might have been aroused only by the angel of death. Some of these became hopeful converts, and one a preacher of the faith he had endeavored to destroy. The spirit of freedom and Christian boldness was increased. Priest Kevork and Priest Vertanes were more active than ever. Attempts to break up the mission seminary failed, because neither scholars nor parents would obey the mandate of the vakeel to withdraw from connection with the missionaries.

The Rev. Henry J. Van Lennep and wife joined the mission in April, 1840, and were stationed at Smyrna. Mrs. Van Lennep lived only till the following September. The Rev. Josiah Peabody and wife became the associates of Mr. and Mrs. Jackson, at Erzroom, in the following year; and in that year Mr. Ladd was transferred from Cyprus to Broosa. Mr. Hallock, the missionary printer at Smyrna, returned to the United States, but continued to manufacture Arabic and Syriac types for the printing establishments in the Syrian and Nestorian missions. The printing at Smyrna, during this year, was equivalent to 10,843,704 pages duodecimo; and the pages printed at that establishment from the beginning, had been 51,910,260. Two printing-presses and seven fonts of native type were in use. An "Armenian Magazine" was edited by Mr. Adger; and a Greek "Monthly Magazine" by Mr. Temple, with the efficient aid of Mr. Petrokokino. In November, Mr. Goodell completed the translation of the Old Testament into Armeno-Turkish, and immediately commenced revising the New Testament, which he finished in a few months. The Old Testament had now been translated into Armeno-Turkish from the Hebrew, and the New Testament from the Greek. The Armenians had, also, Zohrab's popular translation of the New Testament in their modern tongue, revised by Mr. Adger, and published under his superintendence, at the expense of the British and Foreign Bible Society. The ancient Armenian translation, which is said to be a good one, and to be much valued by the people, was made about fourteen hundred years ago.

Mr. Dwight began a course of lectures on systematic theology, commencing with a class of three Armenians, one of them a priest. The Armenian college at Scutari was closed by the bankers in October, after having been in operation three years, at great expense to the community. But the seminary at Bebek was so full of promise, that grants were made to place it on a broader and firmer basis.

The change in the Armenian community, in the course of five or six years, had been very encouraging. At the beginning of that time, some were truly interested in the things of religion, and the missionaries had religious conversation with many. But by far the greater part then came for the purpose of general inquiry, or to see the philosophical apparatus, or hear a lecture on the sciences; and it was matter of joy, if mere human knowledge could be made the entering wedge to their minds for the knowledge which is divine. How marked the change! They now came in large numbers, drawn by the power of the truth of God alone, not to inquire about electricity, or galvanism, as before, but about the eternal destiny of the soul, and the way by which it might be saved. There had been, also, a favorable change in the general style of preaching at the capital; and among the people there was a growing disposition to compare every doctrine and practice with the Scriptures. This the vartabeds, or preachers, could not disregard. It was not an uncommon thing to hear of sermons on Repentance, the Sabbath, the Judgment-day, etc.; and sometimes the preachers were largely indebted for their materials to the publications of the mission. Indeed, one of the most respectable vartabeds in Constantinople made repeated applications to the missionaries to furnish mutter for his sermons. Instances of pungent convictions of sin became more common. Some who had been drunkards, gamblers, adulterers, and downright infidels, were thoroughly converted, and exhibited that humility, purity, spirituality, and Christian zeal, which are the fruits of the Spirit alone. The older converts, also, appeared to grow in the knowledge of Christ, and one striking characteristic was an active zeal for the salvation of others.

Vertanes was full of hope and activity. It is mentioned by Mr. Dwight, in his excellent "History of Christianity in Turkey," that a report reached Constantinople, in the spring of 1841, that a considerable number of Armenians in Nicomedia, members of the old Church, had become disaffected, and were about going over to the Jesuits; and that the Patriarch commissioned this same Vertanes to go thither with all speed, and endeavor to bring them back to their Mother Church. He was successful in the object of his visit; and while he heartily and faithfully obeyed the Patriarch, and endeavored to persuade men not to suffer themselves to fall into the snares of Rome, he also labored zealously to bring them to a sense of their sins against God, and to a hearty reception of Christ alone as the Saviour of their souls. His visit was very comforting and useful to the brethren in Nicomedia.

The intelligence received from Adabazar early in this year, was most cheering. An attempt had been made to raise a storm of persecution, and one of the brethren was thrown into prison, but he was soon liberated by a powerful friend, and afterwards the truth spread more rapidly. Meetings for prayer and reading the Scriptures were held every Sabbath, at which from twenty-five to fifty were present, and one of the priests seemed to have become obedient to the faith. No missionary had yet been among these brethren, and the issues from the press were almost the only instrumentality employed among them by the Holy Spirit. One year previously, it is believed, not a single soul could have been found among the four thousand inhabitants of Adabazar, who was not groping in the deepest spiritual darkness. Now, some forty or more were convinced of the errors of their Church, and ready to take the Bible as their only religious guide, of whom several appeared to be truly converted men, and even willing to lay down their lives for Christ. It was not until the autumn of 1841, that a missionary was able to visit them. Mr. Schneider, of Broosa, was then hailed with joy by all the evangelical brethren, and returned with the most delightful and cheering impressions. A spirit of inquiry had extended into many of the neighboring villages.

The Rev. George W. Wood1 was transferred to this mission from Singapore in 1842, and was associated with Mr. Hamlin in the Seminary. The Rev. Simeon H. Calhoun, for some time resident at Smyrna as agent of the American Bible Society, received now an appointment as a missionary of the Board; the Rev. Edwin E. Bliss, designated to the mountain Nestorians, having been refused a firman to go thither by the Turkish government, was associated with Mr. Johnston at Trebizond; and Mr. Schauffler devoted himself to the Jews. Mr. Homes had the special charge of the book distribution at Constantinople.

1 Afterwards one of the Corresponding Secretaries of the Board.

There being so little to impart peace to a really awakened conscience in either the Roman or the Oriental Churches, individuals were often found wandering to and fro, as in pagan India, vainly seeking for rest. One of the most noted cases of this kind was that of an Armenian. To pacify the clamors of conscience, he became an inmate of a monastery far in the interior, where he undertook to perform the most menial services for the monks. Failing to find peace in this, he penetrated into the depths of a wilderness, clothed himself in sackcloth, and lived on the coarsest fare, away from the abodes of man. Here also he was disappointed. Returning to Constantinople, he united himself to the papal Armenians, hoping in their communion to find the relief he sought. He became chief singer in one of the churches near the capital, and endeavored to derive comfort, but found nothing to impart peace in the strictest forms of papal worship. A friend now advised him to visit the American missionaries. He had heard of them only as heretics and enemies of the Christian faith, but was at length persuaded to accompany some friends to Mr. Hamlin's house. Taking a seat as near the door as possible, he listened in silence; then proposed some objections; but gradually became interested, and drew his chair nearer and nearer to his newly found teacher; until at length he seated himself on the floor, literally at the very feet of Mr. Hamlin, and there drank in, with mute astonishment, those divine truths which he had never heard before, but which revealed to him the only sure foundation for peace of mind. There was an instantaneous change in his whole character; and we hear of him twelve years afterwards, as a living witness of the truth, and a faithful laborer in the kingdom of Jesus Christ.1

1 Dwight's Christianity Revived in the East, p.118.

In October of this year, it was deemed advisable to suspend the preaching service at Constantinople for a few Sabbaths, in consequence of violent opposition on the part of some Armenians, formerly reckoned as brethren. This unexpected and painful change was owing to their forming an acquaintance with individuals who had imbibed the errors, which threaten the unity of the Episcopal Churches of England and America. Just before the outbreaking of this opposition, Mr. Dwight thus gives utterance to his feelings: "How wonderful are the ways of Providence in regard to the Armenians! In one way or another, men are continually brought from distant places to the capital, and here they become acquainted for the first time with the Gospel; and returning to their homes, they spread abroad that which they have seen and heard. There is something quite wonderful in the state of the Armenian mind at the present time." The persecuting spirit above noted was directed more especially towards Hohannes, and this induced him to go to the United States to prepare himself for preaching the Gospel.

In the early part of this year, the Armenian brethren met in a retired part of the hills adjacent to the capital, and there, after united prayer, agreed to send one of their own number, at their own expense, on a missionary tour among their countrymen in the interior of Asia Minor. Of their own accord they also agreed to set apart the first Tuesday in each month, for special prayer to God in behalf of their nation, and for his blessing on the means used for their spiritual illumination. Not unfrequently they remained after Mr. Dwight's preaching, to have a prayer meeting by themselves for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit; and if there was any one present at the meeting who was particularly anxious about his soul, they kept him with them, and talked and prayed with him. It is recorded also, that at one time as many as thirty Armenian men were present at the monthly concert for prayer, which was necessarily held in the middle of the day, and that some of them prayed as if they felt true longings of heart for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

About forty different works, and more than forty-four thousand volumes and tracts, were issued from the Smyrna depôt during the year 1842. Eight or ten booksellers at the capital were kept constantly supplied, and the products of the press were sent into almost every part of the interior.

It is worthy of note that Mr. Dwight's first formal sermon to Armenian women, was in May, 1843. It was in Pera, and four of them had walked not less than three miles to attend the service. One was forty-five or fifty years old, and her sentiments were decidedly evangelical. The religion of the Gospel shone beautifully in some of the Armenian families. Mr. Hamlin had an interesting experience at Bebek. On the 13th of August, on returning from Constantinople, he found nine women and one man waiting his return to preach to them the Gospel. On the 21st, sixteen listened with breathless attention to a sermon on the unsearchable riches of Christ, and nine of these were women. On the 25th, another company of men and women called. Mr. Hamlin was at work upon some philosophical apparatus, when one of the men put his head through the door, and said, "Good-morning, reverend sir, come here, and preach to us the Gospel." September 22d, a company of Armenian men and women, four of them from Nicomedia, came and asked him "to teach them out of the Gospel." On the 24th eight, besides the students, were present at the services, forenoon and afternoon; two from Galata, one from Constantinople, three from Nicomedia, and two from Adabazar. On the day following, thirteen were present, most of whom had heard the maledictions of the Armenian Patriarch pronounced, the day before, on all who should visit the missionaries. On a day in December devoted to family visitations, Mr. Dwight preached the Gospel to more than thirty women.

It was not the missionaries alone, who labored in word and doctrine. Several priests were "obedient to the faith," and preached it more or less formally; and intelligent lay brethren,—scattered abroad, some by persecution, some in the prosecution of their worldly business,—like the primitive disciples, preached the Word; that is, they took such opportunities as they could get, to make known the truth to those of their countrymen who were disposed to hear it. Vertanes, who had suffered imprisonment and banishment for the sake of Christ, made an extensive missionary tour through Armenia.

In the summer of 1843, a body of Turkish police was seen conducting a young man, under twenty years of age, in the European dress, through the streets of Constantinople. His face was pale, and his arms were pinioned behind him. Arriving at a place of public concourse, they suddenly halted, the prisoner kneeled, and a blow of the yatagan severed his head from the body. His crime was apostasy from the Mohammedan faith. He was an obscure Armenian, and while under the influence of alcohol had abjured the faith of his fathers, and declared himself a Mohammedan. He had not submitted, however, to the rite of circumcision before he repented of his rashness. The penalty of apostasy being death, he fled to Greece. In about a year, impatient to see his widowed mother, he returned in a Frank dress, but was soon recognized, imprisoned, tortured to induce him to reabandon his original belief, and even paraded through the streets with his hands tied behind his back, as if for execution; but upon his proclaiming aloud his firm belief in Christianity, he was sentenced to decapitation. The British ambassador, Sir Stratford Canning, impelled by motives of humanity, made an earnest effort to procure his release, and the Grand Vizier promised that the young man should not be beheaded. On learning that he had been, the ambassador declared it to be an insult to the Established Religion of England, as well as to all Europe, and insisted that no similar act of fanaticism should ever again occur. In this he was said to be warmly seconded both by the French and Prussian ministers. The Grand Vizier, as before, was ready to give a verbal pledge; but soon a second act of treachery was discovered. A Greek, in the interior of Asia Minor, had declared himself it Mohammedan, and afterwards refused to perform the rites of that religion, and the Turkish minister was preparing the death-warrant for him, at the very time when he was making these promises to the ambassador. Sir Stratford now very peremptorily demanded, that a written pledge be given by the Sultan himself (as his ministers could no longer be trusted), that no person embracing the Moslem religion and afterwards returning to Christianity, should on that account be put to death; and the Earl of Aberdeen, on the part of the home government, instructed him in a noble letter not to recede from the demand. The Prussian and French governments were equally decided; and after some hesitancy, even Russia threw the weight of her influence into the scale. After a struggle of some weeks the required pledge was given, signed by the Sultan himself, that henceforth NO PERSON SHOULD BE PERSECUTED FOR HIS RELIGIOUS OPINIONS IN TURKEY. The British ambassador distinctly acknowledged the finger of God in this transaction, which he said seemed little less than a miracle.

It will hereafter appear, that the pledge had a wider range, than was thought of at the time by the governments of Europe, by their representatives, or even by the Turks. God was setting up a spiritual kingdom, and his people must have freedom to worship Him in his appointed way. The battle for religious freedom in Turkey was fought over the mutilated remains of the Armenian renegade, and the Sultan's pledge secured to the Protestant native Christians the full enjoyment of their civil rites, while openly practicing their own religion.1

1 This brief statement is compiled from the Correspondence relating to Executions in Turkey for Apostasy from Islamism, published by the British Parliament in 1844, occupying forty folio pages. The correspondence is highly honorable to the great men who were then controlling the political affairs of Europe, and to a large extent also of Western Asia.

But before this comprehensive meaning of the pledge could be understood, and the benefit of it actually enjoyed by the people of God, they were subjected to more grievous sufferings for their faith than any yet endured. From 1843 to 1846, there was no long respite from persecution; yet in all this time the spirit of inquiry wonderfully spread, and believers were the more added to the Lord.

In 1843, Priest Vertanes was rudely deposed from office, and thrown into prison. Finding he could not be induced to sign a paper of recantation, drawn up for him by the Patriarch, he was hurried by the Patriarch's beadles, with great violence, into an open sail-boat, without opportunity to obtain even an outer garment from his house, although it was midwinter, and sent across the sea of Marmora to the monastery of Ahmah, near Nicomedia.

The Foreign Secretary of the Board spent eleven weeks in this mission, in the winter of 1843-44, accompanied by Dr. Joel Hawes, of Hartford. At that time it was arranged by the mission, in full accordance with the views of their visiting brethren, to discontinue the Greek department, to give distinct names as missions to the Jewish department and to the work among the Armenians, to open a female high school at Constantinople, and to associate Mr. Wood with Mr. Hamlin in the seminary at Bebek. It was also decided, that Messrs. Riggs and Ladd, turning from the Greeks to the Armenians, should acquire the use of the languages spoken by the latter people; that Mr. Calhoun should be authorized to visit Syria, with a view to an opening for him in connection with the projected seminary on Mount Lebanon; that Mr. Temple, then too old to learn either the Armenian or Turkish languages, ought to be authorized, in view of the discontinuance of the Greek department, to return to the churches whose faithful messenger he had been so long; and that the native Armenian agency should be put upon a footing on which it would be more likely to be sustained ultimately by the people.

There was reason afterwards to believe, that it would have been better for Mr. Temple to remain in Turkey, in the exercise of his eminently apostolic influence upon his brother missionaries and the native Protestant community, Greek and Armenian. Yet his own opinion was in favor of the course he pursued. "I am too old," he said, "to think for a moment of learning a new language, and no opening invites me here in any language I can command." After a farewell visit to his brethren in Constantinople, he set his face homeward, and arrived in Boston in the summer of 1844. He was usefully employed as an agent of the Board, or in the pastoral relation, until his health broke down. In January, 1851, through the kindness of a friend, he made a voyage to Chagres, and another to Liverpool. But he returned from the last of these voyages enfeebled by the roughness of the passage; and his strength gradually declined, until the 9th of August, 1851, seven years after his return to America, when he died at Reading, Massachusetts, his native place, in the sixty-second year of his age. It may be truly said, that few men have borne more distinctively than he, the impress of the Saviour's image.1

1 See Life and Letters of Rev. Daniel Temple, for twenty-three years a Missionary in Western Asia. By his son, Rev. Daniel H. Temple, Boston, 1855.

A daughter of Dr. Hawes accompanied him on his voyage to Smyrna as the wife of Mr. Van Lennep, but was permitted only to enter upon the work to which she had devoted herself in Asia. She died at Constantinople of fever, within less than a year from the time of her embarkation. The health of Mrs. Benjamin was such as to oblige her and her husband to return home. A similar cause occasioned also the return of Mr. and Mrs. Jackson.

CHAPTER X.

GREECE AND THE GREEKS.

1824-1844.

When the missions to the Oriental Churches were commenced, Greece was suffering under the oppression of the Turks, and the people were glad of sympathy from any quarter. In the department of education, they seemed even to welcome Protestant missionaries. They compared favorably with the Roman Catholics, in their reception of the Scriptures, and in the matter of religious toleration. But an unfavorable change came over them after they had achieved their national independence.

Mr. Gridley was the first missionary to labor among the Greeks of Turkey, though he was not sent with special reference to them. He arrived at Smyrna in December, 1826. After acquiring the modern Greek, he visited Cesarea, four hundred miles to the eastward, hoping for better advantages in acquiring the Greco-Turkish language, and also to learn the condition of the Greeks in the interior. He was accompanied by Abraham, his teacher, a well-informed native of Cappadocia, and for two months applied himself to his studies, until admonished of danger by the frequent recurrence of headaches. Finding that these yielded to exercise, he deemed it prudent to execute a purpose he had long cherished of ascending Mount Argeus, from the top of which, according to Strabo, the Black and Mediterranean Seas might both be discerned in a clear day. Outstripping his attendants, Mr. Gridley mounted with great agility till he reached an elevation within three or four hundred feet of the highest summit, when he was prevented from advancing farther by the steepness of the ascent. There, in the region of perpetual snow, he remained a quarter of an hour, but could not discover the objects he had specially in view. The height of the mountain he estimated at thirteen thousand feet. Descending rapidly, he was overpowered with fatigue when he reached his companions, and they were soon after exposed to a violent storm of hail and rain. The headache soon returned with increasing violence, and was followed by fever, so insidious in its progress as at no time to suggest to him his danger. His death occurred on the 27th of September, fifteen days after the ascent, and a year after leaving his native land.

Thus he fell at the age of thirty-one, and at the very commencement of his career. The predominant characteristics of Mr. Gridley were resolution, promptness, and generosity. In all the duties of a Christian missionary, he was indefatigable in no ordinary degree, and his early removal was very trying.

The cause of education naturally became prominent at the outset of a mission among the Greeks. Scio was the seat of their most favored college, and when the people of that ill-fated island fled from the murderous sword of the Turks, some of the families sought refuge in Malta. There were bright youths among them, and six of these, and two from other Greek islands, so interested Messrs. Fisk and Temple, that they obtained permission to send them home, to be educated chiefly at the expense of the Board. This was before the results of the Foreign Mission School at Cornwall had become manifest. Three others arrived in 1826, and one in 1828; and nearly all received a liberal education, either at Amherst or Yale. Evangelinos Sophocles, from Thessaly, who came last, has long held the honorable position of a Professor in Harvard University. Four others,—Anastatius Karavelles, Nicholas Petrokokino, Alexander G. Paspati, and Gregory Perdicaris, were useful to the mission at different times after their return to the East. Several young men from the Armenian nation were likewise educated in the United States, and one of these, Hohannes, was until his death, a useful minister of the gospel among his countrymen. But the conclusion on the whole, to which the Board came, both in respect to Greeks and Armenians, was that a native agency must be trained in the country where it is to be employed.

The return of Mr. King to Greece, in 1829, has been mentioned. During the visit of Mr. Smith and myself to the island of Poros, in July of that year, he was united in marriage to a young Smyrniote lady, whose acquaintance he had formed some years before, while detained there on his return from Syria. Though Tenos was one of the more bigoted of the Greek islands, nearly every person of standing in the place called upon the newly married couple. A Greek priest sent a pair of doves, and soon followed with his blessing. It was this marriage which, in the providence of God, kept Mr. King in Greece until the close of his long and useful life.

Mr. King opened a school for girls in Poros, and the chief men sent their daughters to it. The town was noted for a modern church, called the Evangelistria, which, though built during the revolution, was the most showy edifice in Greece. It was the annual resort of hundreds of pilgrims, chiefly the lame, sick, and lunatic, who were brought there to be cured. It was the centre of modern Grecian superstition; as Delos, in full view of the church, had been in ancient times.

After some months, the trustees of the church became alarmed for their craft, and made vigorous efforts to destroy the school. Some of the scholars were withdrawn, one of the teachers was compelled to leave, and the school-books were denounced as heretical. Through the whole commotion Mr. King held on his way with characteristic calmness, teaching and praying in the school as aforetime, and freely expounding the Scriptures, every Lord's day, to more than fifty of his pupils and a number of their friends. Two of the most prominent inhabitants espoused his cause; and, just in the crisis of the difficulty, he received a box of ancient Greek books from the government, as a present to the school. Soon after, there appeared in the government gazette a commendation of the school and of its course of instruction. From that time, opposition from members of the Greek Church seems to have ceased. A handsome donation of school-books, slates, and pencils was made by the Greek School Committee in New York, and forwarded to the President of Greece, through the American Board. It was gratefully acknowledged by the government.

In the autumn of 1830, Mr. King, anticipating the evacuation of Athens by the Turks, made a visit to that city, then a ruin, and arranged for his future residence. In April of the next year, having resumed his connection with the American Board, he made a second visit, and opened a Lancasterian school for both sexes; placing a Greek, named Nikotoplos, at the head of it, who was author of an epitome of the Gospels. The school was soon filled. He purchased from a Turk, with private funds and at a nominal cost, the ruins of a stone edifice with a garden, and there built himself a home, to which he removed his family. He also purchased for a few hundred dollars, while the city was still in Turkish hands, about an acre of land delightfully situated, on which he subsequently erected a building for a young ladies' school of a high order.

Capodistrias, the President, was assassinated about this time by two men belonging to one of the first families in Greece. The protecting powers required that his successor be a king, and a Bavarian prince named Otho was put upon the throne of the new kingdom in 1833. The Acropolis of Athens was soon after delivered up to its rightful owners, and that event consummated the emancipation of Greece from Turkish rule. A cabinet was formed, of which Tricoupis, a Greek gentleman of patriotic and enlightened views, was the president. Athens became the seat of government in 1834.

The Rev. Elias Riggs arrived as a missionary, with his wife, in January, 1833, and was cordially welcomed not only by his associate, but also by the brethren of the American Episcopal mission. Mr. Riggs had paid much attention to the modern Greek, and was pleased with Dr. King's manner of preaching on the Sabbath, and with his familiar exposition of the Scriptures in his flourishing Hellenic school.1 There were now two schools, called the "Elementary School" and the "Gymnasium;" the latter having a well-arranged course of study for four years, corresponding, as far as circumstances would permit, with the studies of a New England college. The subsequent removal of the government gymnasium from Ægina to Athens, necessarily interfered with this, but until that removal it was a popular institution, with sixty scholars. An examination was held in 1834 for three days in Ancient Greek, Geography, History, Geometry, Algebra, the Philosophy of Language, and the Holy Scriptures; the King and the bishop of the city being among the persons present.

1 Nassau College, in Princeton, N. J., had conferred the degree of D. D. on Mr. King.

Mr. Riggs, after visiting the more important places in the Peloponnesus, decided upon commencing a station at Argos, which he did in 1834. The great body of the Greek people at that time, were kindly disposed toward the missionaries and their efforts; but it was becoming evident, that the jealousy of the clergy was on the increase, and that the hierarchy had great facilities for exerting an adverse influence. The Church in Greece, no longer subject to the Greek Patriarch at Constantinople, was under the government of the "Holy Council of the kingdom of Greece;" which was required to guard the clergy and schools against heresy, and report to the government any attempt at proselyting. No school could be established without permission from the government, nor without such permission could any teacher instruct, even in private families. No books could be sold or given away in any place, without obtaining a license for that place, and strong guards were thrown around the press. But whatever the restrictions on schools and the press, the way was open for circulating the Scriptures, and for enforcing repentance towards God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. In the three years from 1834 to 1836, Dr. King sold and gratuitously distributed nearly nine thousand New Testaments in modern Greek, and eighty-seven thousand school-books and religious tracts.

The "Holy Council" now took decided ground against the version of the Old Testament from the Hebrew, declaring that the Septuagint alone was to be regarded as the canonical translation, to be read in the churches and used for religious instruction. This did not forbid nor prevent the free circulation of the Old Testament in modern Greek among individuals for their private use.

Dark intrigues were employed to arouse the popular feeling. A letter against "the Americans," as all missionaries were called, purporting to have been written from Syra, was printed in pamphlet form at Paris and sent to Greece, where it attracted much attention. This was followed by repeated attacks from a newspaper edited by one Germanos. Pretended revelations and miracles at Naxos inflamed the zeal of the ignorant and superstitious. Professed eye-witnesses circulated absurd stories, of girls in the school at Syra being made "Americans" by sealing them on the arm; that one of them refused to be sealed, and two horns grew out of her head; and of a boy taken into a dark room to catechize him, where he saw the devil, and was frightened out of his senses. It was said, moreover, that the object of the missionaries was to change the religion of the country, while they hypocritically professed the contrary; though neither word nor deed of any missionary of the Board was made the pretext for any of these accusations. By such means mobs were raised, and the schools of Syra were, for a time, broken up. Yet the local authorities were generally prompt in putting down riots, and Germanos was arrested, and sent to a distant monastery. Dr. King's congregation on the Sabbath, gradually increased, and there was never a time when he disposed of more New Testaments, school-books, and tracts.

In 1835, a station was commenced by the Rev. Samuel R. Houston on the island of Scio. He found the people friendly, and the island slowly recovering from its ruins. Professor Bambas subsequently expressed the opinion to Dr. King, that Samos was a more desirable place, since the better class of Sciotes would never return to Scio to live under Turkish rule. The station was not continued. In 1837, Mr. Houston, with the Rev. George W. Leyburn, who had been sent out to join him, made a tour of observation in Máne, the ancient Sparta, to see if a station ought not to be formed there, in compliance with repeated solicitations from Petron Bey, the hereditary chief in that region. Indeed, in view of causes beyond the control of missionary societies, the Prudential Committee began to feel themselves compelled to pass by the Grecian Islands in great measure, and concentrate their efforts on the main lands.

The station at Argos was strengthened in 1836, by the arrival of Rev. Nathan Benjamin and wife. The two girls' schools in that place contained from seventy to one hundred pupils. In the following year, as Argos was declining in population and intelligence in consequence of the removal of the seat of government from Napoli, it was decided that Mr. Benjamin should remove to Athens, and Mr. Riggs to Smyrna.

The district, which the brethren from Scio had specially in view, was exceedingly uninviting to an observer from the sea; where it seemed to be only a mass of rocky cliffs and mountains, gradually rising from the sea to St. Elias, the highest peak of Taygetus. Yet among these rocks were upwards of a hundred villages, containing from thirty to forty thousand souls. Many of these were probably of true Spartan descent, and they had always maintained a degree of independence. The old Bey of Máne had prepared the way for the two brethren by letters from Athens, where he then resided, and they were gladly received, and soon decided on removing their families to Ariopolis; situated on the western slope of the mountain ridge, and the chief town of the province of Laconia. The two families arrived in May, 1837, and were soon joined by Dr. Gallatti, who had been a faithful friend and helper at Scio. A large house was immediately erected for a Lancasterian school; but no teacher for such a school could be found, since no one was allowed to teach in Greece, except in Ancient Greek, without a diploma from the government; and all was under the superintendent of public schools, who would allow no one to serve the mission. Yet there were hundreds of boys playing about in the streets, who at a moment's notice would have rushed in for instruction, and whose parents would have rejoiced to see them there. A teacher was not obtained until October, 1839, and then only with the aid of Mr. Perdicaris, the American consul; but before the end of the year, the pupils numbered one hundred and seventy, filling the house. Among them was a youth named Kalopothakes, a native of the place, who afterwards became the bold friend and efficient helper of Dr. King. A school for teaching ancient Greek with thirty scholars, had been in operation a year or more. King Otho visited the place early in 1838, and commended the school. The descendants of the ancient Spartans boasted that he was the first monarch they had ever permitted to tread their soil.

Mrs. Houston being threatened with consumption, her husband took her to Alexandria, and afterwards to Cairo, where she died peacefully, on the 24th of November, 1839. After depositing her remains in the Protestant burying-ground at Alexandria, the bereaved husband and father returned, with his child, to his station in Greece, and in the following year visited his native land.

The Greek mission was always affected more or less by the changes of political parties. The missionaries carefully refrained from intermeddling with politics, but every political party had more or less of a religious basis, having something to do with the question, whether a religious reform should be permitted. Early in 1840 the government discovered the existence of a secret association, called the "Philorthodox," one object of which was to preserve unchanged all the formality and superstition which had crept into the Greek Church. It had both a civil and a military head, and was believed to be hostile to the existing government, and on the eve of attempting a religious revolution, by which all reform should be excluded. Several of the leaders were arrested; and the Russian Ambassador and Russian Secretary of Legation were both recalled, because of their connection with it. The leaders were brought to trial, but the society had influence enough to procure their acquittal. Its civil head was banished, and its military head was sent to Ægina for a military trial. The king then changed most of the members of the Synod, and more liberal ideas seemed to be gaining the ascendency.1

1 Tracy's History, p. 414.

This reform was only partial and temporary. An order was issued by the government in the next year, requiring the Catechism of the Greek Church to be taught in all the Hellenic schools, and Mr. Leyburn was informed that this order applied to his school. The catechism inculcates the worship of pictures and similar practices, and the missionary decided, that he could not teach it himself, nor allow others to teach it in his school. A long negotiation followed, principally conducted by Dr. King. It was proposed that the government employ catechists to teach the catechism to the pupils in the church. The government assented on condition, that no religious instruction should be given in the school, meaning thereby to exclude even the reading of the New Testament; but the missionaries would neither consent to teach what they did not believe, nor to maintain a school from which religious instruction must be excluded. The school was therefore closed, and the station abandoned. It should be noted, that the school was not supported by the government, but by the friends of Greece in the United States, and that no impropriety was alleged on the part of the resident missionary.

As Mr. Leyburn must now leave Greece, and had not health to learn one of the languages of Western Asia, he returned home, with the consent of the Prudential Committee. His former associate, Mr. Houston, was then preparing to join the mission to the Nestorians in Persia, but the sudden failure of his wife's health prevented, and the two brethren afterwards became successful ministers of the Gospel in the Southern States, from which they had gone forth.

A station was commenced among the Greeks on the island of Cyprus in 1834, a year earlier than that on Scio. The Greek population of the island was reckoned at sixty thousand, and the pioneer missionary was the Rev. Lorenzo W. Pease, who arrived, with his wife, in the last month of the year. As it was proposed to make this a branch of the Syrian mission, Mr. Thomson came over from Beirût, and with Mr. Pease explored the island. They found no serious obstacles in the way of distributing the Scriptures and diffusing a knowledge of the Gospel, except in the unhealthiness of the climate. The most healthful location seemed to be Lapithos, a large village on the northwestern shore, two days' journey from Larnica. The village had a charming location, rising from the base of the mountain, and ascending the steep declivity a thousand feet. From thence perpendicular precipices arose, which sheltered it from the hot south winds. The coast of Caramania was in full view on the north, and refreshing breezes crossed the narrow channel which separated Cyprus from the main land. A magnificent fountain burst from the precipices above, the stream from which foamed through the village, and found its way across the narrow but fertile plain to the sea. This stream turned a number of mills in its descent, and a portion of it was distributed through the gardens, and there, tumbling from terrace to terrace, formed numerous beautiful and refreshing cascades.1

1 For the extended journal of Messrs. Thomson and Pease, see Missionary Herald for 1835, pp. 398-408, 446-452.

The Archbishop of Cyprus being independent of the Patriarch of Constantinople, the encyclical letter against Protestant missions known to have been received from the metropolis, produced no decided hostility. The mission was reinforced in 1836 by the arrival of Rev. Daniel Ladd and wife, and Rev. James L. Thompson. A Lancasterian school had been opened at Larnica with seventy pupils, and a school for educating teachers with fourteen. There was very great need of schools, it being ascertained that, in thirty-six villages between Larnica and Limasol, containing more than a thousand families and a population of more than five thousand, only sixty-seven, besides the priests, could read at all, and the priests not fluently. Among the reasons assigned for this were the burdensome taxes imposed upon the people, and especially on boys at the early age of twelve years, and the general poverty of the parents, constraining them to employ their sons on their farms, or in their oil-mills or wine-presses. Considering that not a place had yet been found, which was salubrious all the year round, and that the people were scattered in eight or nine villages, the missionaries began to despair of a vigorous concentration of their labors, and came to the conclusion, in the year 1837, that it was expedient to go to some more manageable field. The opposition from Constantinople made it expedient to disconnect the schools from the mission. There was, however, from the beginning, a friendly intercourse between the people, including the ecclesiastics, and the missionaries and books and tracts were received without hesitation. This with other considerations induced the missionaries to delay their departure. The funeral of a child of Mr. Pease was attended in one of the Greek churches, and the Greek priests led the way in the procession, chanting the funeral dirge, in which there was nothing exceptionable; leaving at home, out of deference to the father, the cross, the cherubim, and the incense.

In August, 1839, in consequence of remaining too long at Larnica, Mr. Pease was suddenly prostrated by fever, and soon closed his earthly career, at the early age of twenty-nine. He had made great proficiency in the modern Greek language, and looked forward with delight to its use in proclaiming the Gospel to the Greek people. Every month had raised him in the estimation of his brethren, and given new promise of his usefulness. Mrs. Pease returned to the United States, with her two children, in the spring of 1841. Mr. Thompson also returned at the close of the same year. Mr. and Mrs. Ladd were transferred to Broosa, in Turkey, where a large number of people spoke the Greek language.

Dr. King and Mr. Benjamin were the only remaining members of the mission in Greece in 1842, and they were residing at Athens. Though for some time without schools, the missionaries were usefully employed. The former preached regularly to a congregation of from thirty to one hundred attentive hearers, with a ready command of the Greek language, and in the manner of the most effective preaching in this country. He preached, also, by the wayside, at the same time distributing books and tracts. Writing in 1843, after stating that fifteen hundred young men, from all parts of Greece and Turkey, were in the schools and university of Athens, Dr. King adds: "And yet God, in his wonderful providence, has permitted me to stand here, and preach in the plainest manner, even to the present hour, without let or hindrance, and that, too, in the midst of a dreadful strife of tongues. I have heard it remarked by Greeks, how truly wonderful it is that my preaching should never have been attacked. I see many students and others, and converse with the greatest plainness, and I think some are persuaded of the truth." Mr. Benjamin was also doing much good in the department of Christian literature. The books prepared by himself and Dr. King were printed at Athens, and were more acceptable and influential for that reason, than if printed elsewhere and by mission presses. The number of copies printed previous to 1843, was 118,465, and of pages, 6,525,500.

The relinquishment of the station at Ariopolis was regarded by the Greeks as a public testimony against the errors of the Greek Church, and as an honest and consistent movement. Mr. Benjamin took the place of Dr. King in his absence, as a preacher, and found unexpected facility in so doing. It was a tribute to the Greek mind, that Mr. Benjamin commenced translating Butler's "Analogy" into the modern language.

In Turkey, Mr. Temple, Mr. Schneider, Mr. Riggs, and Mr. Ladd continued to labor mainly in the modern Greek language. Mr. Temple had charge of the press, with the efficient aid of Mr. Riggs in the Greek and Greco-Turkish. Mr. Van Lennep divided his time between the Greek and the Turkish. Mr. Temple edited the Greek "Monthly Magazine," aided by Mr. Petrokokino, one of the young men educated by the Board, to whose taste, talent, and zeal much of its popularity and usefulness were to be attributed. The periodical nearly paid for itself. The amount of printing in modern Greek will be fully stated at the close of these histories. In 1843, it was one million five hundred and fifty-six thousand pages. Several of the schools in Western Turkey were more or less open to Greek youth of both sexes. Mr. Schneider was able to preach with great facility and propriety in the modern language.

In the year 1844, the author made an official visit to Athens, accompanied by Dr. Joel Hawes, and a week was spent by them in free conference with Messrs. King and Benjamin. The conclusion was reached, that Mr. Benjamin should seek a wider sphere of usefulness among the Armenians of Turkey.

As the result of subsequent discussions with the missionaries residing at Smyrna, Broosa, and Constantinople, it was decided to cease in great measure from labor among the Greeks; but that Dr. King ought to remain at Athens, his position and relations being peculiar, as will appear in the subsequent history. From that time, Dr. King was the only missionary of the Board in Greece, until his lamented death in the year 1869.1 Messrs. Temple, Riggs, and Calhoun at Smyrna, and Messrs. Schneider and Ladd at Broosa, had made the Greek language their principal medium of intercourse with the people. Mr. Riggs having a rare aptitude for acquiring languages, had begun to edit works in the Bulgarian, Armenian, and Turkish languages.

1 During nearly the whole of Dr. King's life in Athens, Dr. Hill, an American Episcopal missionary, was resident there.

The American Baptist Missionary Union placed two missionaries at Patras, on the Gulf of Corinth, in 1838. That station was discontinued in 1845, when Mr. Buel removed to the Piræus, the port of Athens, where he labored, in the most friendly relations with Dr. King, until 1855 or 1856, when the unsatisfactory results of the mission led to its discontinuance.

A like result had been practically reached by both the London and Church Missionary Societies of England. A deplorable change had come over the Greeks, both in Greece and Turkey, since the freedom of Greece from Turkish rule; and money, time, and labor could be more profitably expended on other equally needy populations in that part of the world. The old ambition for the recovery of Constantinople and the restoration of the Eastern Empire, had been quickened into life; and the unity of the Greek Church as a means to this end, was craftily kept before the minds of the people by Russian agency, and had a wonderful influence, especially among the higher classes. The national pride of the Greeks had also created an aversion to foreigners, and made it difficult for such to gain their confidence, or awaken their gratitude by acts of benevolence. Then there were the arrogant assumptions of the Greek Church, more exclusive than the Roman, claiming for her clergy the only apostolical succession, and that her trine immersion, performed by her clergy, was the only baptism, while all not thus baptized were beyond the hope of salvation. Of course all Protestant preachers, whether episcopal or non-episcopal, were regarded by the Greeks as unbaptized heretics. The Greek Church held the worst errors of Popery, such as transubstantiation, worshipping the Virgin Mary, praying to saints, baptismal regeneration, and the inherent efficacy of ordinances to save the soul. The power of excommunication in the hands of the priests, was regarded by the people with extreme dread, as sealing the soul over to perdition; and believing, as they did, that salvation is certain in the Church, and nowhere else, they regarded every attempt at innovation as an attack upon their dearest interests, and resisted it with persecution, or turned away with disgust and scorn. There were persons both among the ecclesiastics and laymen, to whom this would not apply; but the inflexible opposition of the hierarchy, as a body, to all efforts for propagating the evangelical religion, was matter for profound lamentation.

Yet labors in Greece had not been expended in vain. There had been very few hopeful conversions; but as many as two hundred thousand copies of the New Testament and parts of the Old had been put in circulation in the modern Greek language; a million copies of books and tracts had been scattered, by different missionary societies, broad-cast over the Greek community; perhaps a score of Greek young men had been liberally educated by benevolent societies and individuals in America and England; and more than ten thousand Greek youths had received instruction in Greece and Turkey, at the schools of various missions. Of the good seed thus sown, though not often on good ground, there may yet be a harvest to gladden future generations. The labor had not been fruitless. The Greek government was not what it would have been, and the same may be said of the social state. Nor were the same old ideas prevalent among the people as to the authority of councils and of the ancient fathers, and the authority of God's Word stood higher than before. The same low estimate was no longer put upon knowledge and education, nor upon religious tolerance, nor were there the same impressions concerning Protestantism, and Protestant nations, and the Christian world at large. In all these respects, there had been progress. Infidelity had received a check, and so had its influence on surrounding peoples. The Word of God, printed in the spoken language, was in very many habitations of the people; and the elements of their intellectual, moral, and social being were not, and can never again be, as if missionaries had not been among them.

The efforts made by Dr. King in Greece, for nearly a quarter of a century after this time, to secure freedom in the worship of God and in the preaching of the Gospel, will form the subject of future chapters. And in the histories of the Syrian and Armenian missions, the reader will occasionally notice hopeful outbreaks of the spirit of religious inquiry among the people bearing the Grecian name.