Volume I Part 6 (1/2)
It is worthy of special note, that up to this time, the banker was wholly unknown to the missionaries, and to the evangelical brethren generally. He was evidently raised up by divine Providence for the occasion. Not only did the Has Keuy school greatly exceed the mission school at Pera in the number of its pupils, but it was formally adopted as the school of the nation, and Hohannes was appointed its princ.i.p.al by the Armenian Synod. Having liberty of action, he devoted an hour each day to giving special religious instruction to a select cla.s.s of sixty of the more advanced pupils, besides his more general teaching, and the daily good influence exerted by Der Kevork and himself. The course of study was liberal, the philosophical apparatus of the mission was purchased by the directors, lectures were given on the natural sciences, and the school obtained a temporary popularity.
Yet there were secret opposing influences too powerful to allow this state of things long to continue. In the middle of the year 1838, the distinguished patron understood, not only that there was a growing dissatisfaction among the leading Armenians with the school, and especially with its princ.i.p.al, but that his munificence was attracting the attention of the Turks; and he deemed it prudent to withdraw his patronage. Before the close of the year, the teachers were dismissed, and the school was reduced to its former footing.
The leading men of Has Keuy sent a delegation to the Patriarch deprecating the disaster, but obtained only fair promises. Hohannes now renewed his connection with the mission, and was placed in charge of the book distribution. Der Kevork spent much time in going from house to house, reading the Scriptures to the people, and exhorting them to obey the Gospel.
At Broosa, the number of visitors at the house of the missionaries was increasing, and among them were two young teachers in the Armenian public school, who were specially interested in the subject of personal religion. They were among the first to make the acquaintance of Mr. Powers, on his coming to take up his residence in their quarter of the city. One of these young men, named Serope, had the sole charge of about fifty of the most advanced scholars, whom he instructed daily in the Word of G.o.d. The princ.i.p.al men in the Armenian community at Broosa soon decided to place a select cla.s.s of boys under his instruction, to be trained for the priest's office, and eight were thus set apart. Before the end of the year both of these teachers gave hopeful evidence of piety.
Very interesting cases of conversion occurred at Nicodemia, at the head of the gulf bearing that name. Mr. Goodell, when pa.s.sing through this place in 1832, gave several tracts to some Armenian boys. One of these, a translation of the ”Dairyman's Daughter,” came into the hands of a priest, whom Mr. Goodell did not see. This led him to study the Word of G.o.d. A brother priest, on intimate terms with him, was induced to join in the study, and the result was the hopeful conversion of both. Their united efforts were now directed to the conversion of their flock, and a spirit of inquiry was awakened. In the spring of 1838, Mr. Dwight found sixteen at Nicomedia, who appeared to be truly converted men. He was surprised at the seriousness and intelligence with which they conversed on the great truths of the Gospel. The Holy Spirit had evidently been their teacher, and the doctrine of justification by grace through faith alone, was the foundation of their hopes. The joy with which they greeted the missionary of the cross for the first time, was most gratifying to him, as was the earnest attention they gave to his instructions. Compared with their countrymen in the same place, they might be called intelligent men, and some of them were in very easy circ.u.mstances. The two converted priests, Der Vertanes and Der Haritn, became afterwards well known in the mission. Of their own accord they removed to Constantinople, and were placed together in charge of a village church on the Bosphorus; and the Patriarch Stepan, being an old acquaintance, spent several weeks with them, and generally a.s.sented to the views advanced by them in their free conversations.
We now enter the year 1839, which was a year of severe persecution.
Of this persecution, in which the Porte itself became a party, I am now to give a brief account.
The missionary force at Constantinople had become unusually small.
Mr. Dwight was absent until September, on a visit to the United States. Mr. Schauffler left in May for Vienna, to superintend the printing of the Hebrew Spanish Old Testament. He went by way of Odessa, and both there, and among the German churches in that part of Russia, he did much to sustain a religious revival that had been long in progress. Mr. Homes left in the spring to join Dr. Grant in exploring Kurdistan. Mr. Hamlin arrived early in the year, but was occupied in the study of the language. Mr. Goodell was, therefore, almost alone in this trying season.
The extent and violence of the persecution were convincing proof of the progress of the reformation. A corrupt priesthood dreaded its tendency to deprive them of their sinful gains. Certain persons no longer enjoyed a monopoly of Armenian printing. Education ceased to be exclusively in the hands of a few bankers. And the popularity of Hohannes and Boghos Fizika was thought to operate against the great Armenian college at Scutari. Nor were the members of the Romish Church idle.
The patriarchs were elected by the primates, who were chiefly bankers, and were in an important sense their creatures. The bankers were divested of much of their power in 1839, by the rise of three men of the artisan cla.s.s, who suddenly stood before the nation as its guides and dictators, and more especially as extirpators of heresy. These were the two chief architects of the Sultan, and the superintendent of the government powder works. The two first, being employed in erecting the most splendid of all the imperial palaces, were often in contact with the Sultan. The expulsion of Protestantism lay near their hearts, and they resolved to make use of the strong arm of Mahmood to effect it. What were the representations made to him is not known; but it is known that the three favorites were authorized to call on the civil power to aid them in extirpating the dangerous heresy.
The first thing was to get the tolerant Patriarch out of the way.
For some reason they did not at once remove him from office, but procured from the interior a man named Hagopos, notorious for his bigotry and sternness, whom they appointed a.s.sistant Patriarch. A month later, Stepan was deposed, and permitted to retire to his convent near Nicomedia, and Hagopos was installed in his place.
Before this, Hohannes had been thrown into the patriarchal prison, without even the form of an accusation; but every one knew that his crime consisted in following the Bible, rather than the Church.
Boghos Fizika was arrested, and cast into the same prison; and four days after, they were both banished by an imperial firman. Their place of exile was a convent near Cesarea, four hundred miles distant. Stepan took leave of them with tears, well knowing the deep injustice of the act. This was in the month of February, and the Turkish police-officer sent back word from Scutari, that Boghos, being an invalid, was too feeble to bear the fatigues and exposures of such a journey in that inclement season; but positive orders were returned to carry him to Cesarea, either dead or alive. Nicomedia lay on their route; and the brethren of that place hastened in a body to the post-house, and had a season of prayer with the exiles, which greatly comforted them. This intercourse was kept up during a delay of several days authorized by the Nicomedia primate. When the Armenians of Cesarea were told, on their arrival at that place, that their banishment was for receiving the Bible as the only infallible guide in religious matters, they said the Patriarch might as well banish them all, for they were all of that opinion.
It was reported in Constantinople, that the Patriarch had a list of five hundred persons suspected of heresy, and that among them were bishops, priests, and bankers, some of whom were to be banished immediately. Few dared to visit the missionaries, and those only under cover of the night. A proclamation was issued by Hagopos, forbidding the reading of books printed or circulated by the missionaries, and all who had such books were required to deliver them up without delay. On the 14th of March, Der Kevork was arrested and thrown into prison; and when respectable Armenians of Has Keuy made application for his release, they were rudely told to mind their own business. After lying in prison for more than a month, he and several others were banished into the interior. A rich banker, who had long been on friendly terms with the missionaries, was arrested and imprisoned in a hospital as an insane person,--a method of persecution not unfrequently resorted to in Turkey. He was released after a week's confinement, on paying a large sum for the college at Scutari.
Nor were the Greek ecclesiastics behind the Armenian in hostility to the reformation. The Greek Synod and Patriarch issued a decree, excommunicating all who should buy, sell, or read the books of the ”Luthero-Calvinists;” and condemning in like manner the writings of Korai, the ill.u.s.trious restorer of learning among the Greeks, and of the learned Bambas, the friend of Fisk and Parsons. An imperial firman was also published, authorizing, and even requiring, the several Patriarchs to look well to their several communions, and to guard them from infidelity and foreign influence; thus connecting the Porte itself with the persecution.
A strong effort was made to procure the expulsion of the missionaries. Mult.i.tudes were active, from diverse motives, to secure this end. One of the most conspicuous of these was a renegade Jew, once baptized by an English missionary, but now an infidel who seemed to have satanic aid in the invention of slanders against Protestants and Protestantism. Another was a disappointed infidel teacher, whose malice and bitterness made him a fit ally for the Jew. The enemy seemed to be having everything in his own way, and strong was his confidence of success.
At this crisis, Divine Providence interposed. The army of the Egyptians was on the march towards Constantinople, and the Sultan deemed it necessary to call upon all the Patriarchs and the chief Rabbi of the Jews, each to furnish several thousand men for his army. It was an unprecedented demand, and occasioned great consternation, but must be obeyed. The army was raised, and was estimated at eighty thousand. It encountered an Egyptian army of about the same number on the plains of Nezib near Aleppo, on the 24th of June, and the Turkish troops were scattered in all directions. The tidings of this disaster never reached Mahmood, as he died in his palace on the first day of July. A few days after, the Capudan Pasha surrendered the Turkish fleet to Mohammed Ali; and on the 11th of July, Abdl Medjid, a boy of seventeen, was placed upon the throne. The news of the entire loss of his army and navy arrived in a few days, and the empire seemed on the verge of dissolution. It was saved by the intervention of the great powers of Europe. The apostate Jew, to avoid punishment for various crimes, professed himself a Mohammedan; and for crimes subsequently committed, he was strangled by the Turks, and thrown into the Bosphorus. On the 12th of August, between three and four thousand houses in Pera were consumed by fire, with the loss of several lives and an immense amount of property.
The persecution had extended to Broosa and Trebizond; and at Erzroom, in ancient Armenia, where Mr. Jackson had commenced a new station, a letter was read from the patriarchate, warning the people against the Americans, and their schools and books.
The Egyptian war and its consequences broke the power of the persecution. The Armenian Synod voted to recall all the exiles, except Hohannes, whom they adjudged to perpetual banishment as the ringleader of the ”Evangelicals.” At length an English physician, of humane feelings, being informed as to the facts in the case, stated them to one of the sisters of the late Sultan. The result was that, on the fourteenth of November, an imperial _request_ for Hohannes's release was sent to the Patriarch. He resorted to various devices, first to procure the reversal, and then to delay the execution of the order, which was addressed by the Turkish minister of foreign affairs to the governor of Cesarea, and had on it the Sultan's sign-manual, and the seals of several high offices of state. Not daring to delay longer, on the tenth of February, 1840, he placed the imperial requisition in the hands of the father of Hohannes, by whom it was immediately forwarded to Cesarea, and Hohannes arrived at Constantinople on the twenty-fourth of May.
The persecutors, one after another, were brought low. A change was made, about this time, in the mode of collecting the revenue of the empire, rendering the board of Armenian government bankers useless, and they were directed to settle up their accounts and close their offices. This reduced some of them to poverty, and stripped them all of a great part of their power. The Greek Patriarch was deposed, on complaint by the British Amba.s.sador of his interference with matters in the Ionian Islands; and the Armenian Patriarch found himself in trouble with his own people. He was too overbearing, and was obliged, in November, 1840, to resign his office, to avoid a forcible deposition; and it was a significant sign of the times, that Stepan, who had been ejected from office on account of his forbearance towards the Protestants, was now re-elected; first, by the vote of the princ.i.p.al bankers, and afterwards by acclamation in an immense popular a.s.sembly convened for the purpose. He was immediately recognized by the Turkish government.
CHAPTER IX.
THE ARMENIANS.
1840-1844.
The young Sultan, soon after coming to the throne, pledged himself; in the presence of all the foreign amba.s.sadors, 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-wors.h.i.+p, and the rigor of their fasts; but he soon saw reason to expect a better state of things.