Volume I Part 17 (2/2)

Only one of the two could be found. He was brought thither, and laid upon the pavement with his feet tied to a pole, and a large bunch of rods by his side; and the missionaries were requested to come and see that due punishment was inflicted. But they, greatly to the satisfaction of the crowd of Nestorians who had a.s.sembled to witness the punishment, complied with the earnest entreaties of the culprit to excuse the crime he had committed, and he was at once released.

The repeated mention of Suleiman Bey's friendly attentions to Dr.

Grant, must have interested the reader in his behalf. But we are now obliged to place him among the persecutors of the Lord's people.

Tamo was teacher in the male seminary for about ten years, and became hopefully pious in the revival of 1846. He accompanied Dr.

Wright and Mr. Breath in their visit to Bader Khan. His family resided in the mountain district of Gawar, within the limits of Turkey. Being fleet, athletic, and capable of great endurance, he was well fitted for a mountain evangelist. After an extended preaching tour in the summer of 1848, he spent some time at his mountain home. The Bishop of Gawar had received a charge from Mar s.h.i.+mon to ruin him, and made complaint against him to Suleiman Bey.

He was seized by that chief, heavily fined, and his life threatened.

But Suleiman Bey was taken, meanwhile, a prisoner by the Turks.

Afterwards, Tamo, while on his return to Oroomiah with two of his brothers and a nephew, all members of the seminary, was attacked in the night by a party of ruffian Koords, also incited by the Patriarch, who beat all the company with clubs, and called to each other to ”kill them.” Friendly Koords came to their rescue, but not until they had been stripped of nearly all their clothing and suffered cruelly from the hands of the barbarians.

In the year 1848, Bader Khan Bey, failing in one of his favorite night attacks on the Turkish army, was taken prisoner in his own castle of Dergooleh, and placed, as such, on one of the islands of the Grecian Archipelago.

Nrllah Bey, also, some time in 1849, was driven from his stronghold at Julamerk, and fled from castle to castle, till he also was taken captive by the Turks, whom he had aided to destroy the Nestorians, and went into captivity, far from the scenes of his former power. Suleiman Bey, as already stated, was taken captive while cruelly persecuting deacon Tamo, and died at Erzroom, while on his way to Constantinople.1

1 _Missionary Herald_, 1850, p. 96.

CHAPTER XX.

THE NESTORIANS.

1848-1852.

The health of Mr. Stoddard became so prostrated, early in the summer of 1848, as to leave no hope of his recovery without a change of climate. At Trebizond, on his way home, he and his family were subjected to a quarantine of eight days. His wife and children were then in good health, and they had no reason to apprehend cholera there, as it pa.s.sed beyond that place westward. But it returned, and Mrs. Stoddard was one of its victims. The death of this excellent woman was a grievous loss, not only to her husband and infant children, but to the mission. The nurse also sickened of the same disease, while on the voyage to Constantinople, and died soon after her arrival; and it was a remarkable Providence that spared the enfeebled and overtasked husband and father. But he lived to serve Christ in his native land, and afterwards again among the Nestorians. The Rev. George W. Coan and wife joined the mission in the autumn of 1849.

Mr. Cochran succeeded Mr. Stoddard in charge of the male seminary.

Twelve had gone from the inst.i.tution, and most of them were exerting a good Christian influence. The new scholars, as a consequence of these village schools, were older and more advanced than their predecessors had been. The thirty-two schools contained five hundred and ninety-eight pupils, of whom one hundred and twenty-five were girls. Twelve of the teachers were priests, and about half of them would have been welcomed into New England churches. The female seminary, a most valuable inst.i.tution, was under the care of Misses Fiske and Rice.

Mar s.h.i.+mon returned to the mountains early in 1849, though not without apprehension of being sent into exile, as the Koordish chieftains had been.

Hearing that the good seed sown by Dr. Grant and his a.s.sociates at Mosul was giving promise of a harvest, the mission deemed it expedient for Dr. Perkins and Mr. Stocking to visit that city, preaching the Gospel as they went. Mar Yohannan and deacons Isaac and Tamo went with them.1 They were hospitably entertained by Mr.

Ra.s.sam, the English Consul at Mosul, during the eleven days of their visit. Many of the Mosulians were thought to have come under evangelical influences. Some of them were much enlightened, and a few were regarded as truly pious. All would gladly have welcomed a Protestant missionary to reside among them. These were chiefly Jacobites, but a few were Papists. The mountain districts were found to be accessible to the Gospel; though everywhere they heard of messengers and letters from the Patriarch, warning the people against them as deceivers, and particularly against deacon Isaac, his brother, who, he said, had become ”English.” Nevertheless they were treated in all places with kindness, and found attentive listeners to their preaching.

1 For a full account of this tour by Dr. Perkins, see _Missionary Herald_ for 1850, pp. 53-61, and 83-97.

The first revival of religion, already described, was in 1846; the second was in 1849; and there was a third in 1850. The severe trials of the years 1847 and 1848 seem to have produced in the mission a subdued feeling, and unusual earnestness in prayer. This resulted in the revival of 1849.

In the seminary for boys, the converts of the previous revival were, for two or three days after this began, the subjects of intense heart-searchings, and of piercing compunctions for their backslidings. This was not less true of the more devoted Christians, than of others. The irreligious members of the seminary were also deeply moved; and there was a similar experience in the girls'

seminary. Geog Tapa again shared largely in the spiritual blessings of a revived religious feeling. In the village of Seir, hardly a person was unaffected. In Degala, Charbush, Ardeshai, and other places, there were large and attentive congregations, and many gave delightful evidence of having pa.s.sed from death unto life. A vacation occurred in the male seminary, and pious students labored with great zeal and success in the houses of the people. Deacon Isaac had been known for many years as an evangelical man and a friend of the mission, but now he gave good evidence of conversion, and the pious natives beheld the change in him with wonder and thanksgiving. Mar Yohannan had never before given satisfactory evidence of a thorough change of heart. He now made full confession of his sins as a man, and of his unfaithfulness as a bishop. The revival was marked by a deep sense of the lost condition of men by nature, by a vivid sense of the evil of sin, by an intelligent and cordial embrace of salvation as the gift of sovereign grace, by a hearty self-consecration to the service of Christ, by earnest desires for the salvation of others, and by a remarkable quickening of the moral and intellectual powers.

One of the most noted among the native evangelists at this time, was deacon Guwergis of Tergawar. Before conversion in 1846, he was as wild and wicked as a Koord. In the autumn of 1845, he brought his eldest daughter, then twelve years of age, to Oroomiah, and begged Miss Fiske to receive her into the seminary. She consented reluctantly, being painfully impressed by the gross avarice and selfishness of the father, who even asked permission to take away with him the clothes she had on. He came again in February, with his belt of ammunition, his dagger at his side, and his gun thrown over his shoulder. Many of the pupils were then weeping over their sins, among them his own daughter, and the teacher felt that the wolf had come into the fold. Guwergis ridiculed the anxiety of the girls for their souls till his daughter, distressed by his conduct, asked him to go alone with her to pray. He went and repeated his form in ancient Syriac, while she, in her native tongue, poured forth her soul in earnest prayer, first for herself, and then for her father.

When he heard her say, ”Save, O save my father, going down to destruction,” as he afterwards confessed, he raised his hand to strike her. Sabbath morning found him toiling to prevent others from coming to Christ. At noon, Miss Fiske went to his room, and was received with sullen rudeness, but he broke down under her affectionate and faithful appeals, and retired to pray. He soon entered the place of wors.h.i.+p. His gun and his dagger had been laid aside, and he sank into the nearest seat, and laid his head upon the desk. That night Mr. Stocking took him to his study, and the recent blasphemer cried out in agony, ”My sins, my sins, they are higher than the mountains of Jeloo!” Next morning, Mr. Stoddard found him subdued and humbled. All Guwergis could say was, ”My great sins, my great Saviour.” Before noon, he left for his mountain home, saying, as he left, ”I must tell my friends and neighbors of sin and of Jesus.”

Nothing was heard from him for two weeks, when priest Eshoo was sent to his village to look after him, and found him in his own house, surrounded by his friends, and discoursing to them on these very topics,--of sin and of Jesus. The deacon accompanied priest Eshoo to Oroomiah, and his relations of Christian fellows.h.i.+p with the members of the mission were at once firmly and forever established.1 His conversion and his self-consecration to the service of the Lord Jesus were entire. He became known as the ”mountain evangelist,” and was faithful unto death. He rested from his labors on the 12th of March, 1856.

1 _Woman and her Saviour in Persia_, pp. 87-93.

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