Volume II Part 1 (2/2)

In 1854, his lords.h.i.+p obtained the concession from the Turkish government, that Christian evidence, in matters of criminal jurisdiction, should stand on the same footing everywhere in Turkey as the testimony of Mohammedans; thus removing a great wrong, under which the rayahs of the empire had labored for centuries.

While gratefully acknowledging our obligations to the representatives of other nations, I should also record, that our brethren, both in the Armenian and Syria missions, were under continued obligation to Mr. Carr, our Minister at the Porte, for personal protection as American citizens. He acted with decision whenever their rights were invaded. In the repeated efforts made to remove them from the country, his reply to the formal demands of the Porte was, that he had power to protect the missionaries as American citizens, but not to remove them; and furthermore, that while papal missionaries from France and Italy were permitted to reside in Turkey, Protestant missionaries from America must also have the same privilege.

Here we may properly pause, and consider what G.o.d had wrought, not alone through the agency of the churches, but with the cooperation of the great powers of the earth. Twenty years before, Messrs. Smith and Dwight did not find a single clear case of conversion in their extended travels through the Turkish empire. How many and great the subsequent changes! First came the national charter of rights, given by the Sultan in 1840; which, among its other results, destroyed the persecuting power of the Armenian aristocracy. Next came the abolition of the death penalty, in 1843, and the Sultan's pledge, that men should no more be persecuted for their religious opinions.

Then, after three years, came the unthought of application of this pledge to the Armenian Protestants, when persecuted by their own hierarchy. In the next year followed the recognition of the Protestants as an independent community. Finally, in 1850, came the charter, signed by the Grand Sultan himself, placing the Protestants on the same national basis with the other Christian communities of the empire.

How wonderful this progression of events! So far as the central government was concerned, missionaries might print, gather schools, form churches, ordain pastors, and send forth other laborers, wherever they pleased. Attention had been awakened, and there was a disposition to inquire, renounce errors, and embrace gospel truths.

There was a progressive change in fundamental ideas; a gradual reconstruction of the social system; a spiritual reformation. At least fifty places were known, scattered over Asiatic Turkey, in all of which souls had been converted through the truth, and where churches might be gathered. Ten churches had been formed already, and in part supplied with pastors. Aintab, scarcely known by name five years before, numbered more Protestants than even the metropolis, and was becoming one of the most interesting missionary stations in the world.

In this remarkable series of results we recognize the hand of G.o.d, who makes all earthly agencies subservient to the great work of redemption; so that secular agencies come as legitimately into the history of the republication of the Gospel in Bible lands, as do the labors of the missionaries. They were among the ordained means; and the leading agents cannot fail to command our grateful admiration.

The danger at this time was, that the reformation so auspiciously begun, would pa.s.s its grand crisis before the central lights had grown bright enough, and a knowledge of the Gospel been sufficiently diffused in the empire. There was everywhere a curiosity to know what Protestantism was, and to hear what the missionaries had to say; but this curiosity, regarded as a national feeling, was in danger of dying out. In the year 1851, the President of the National Council of the Armenians said to Mr. Dwight: ”Now is the time for you to work for the Armenian people. Such an opportunity as you now enjoy may soon pa.s.s away, and never more return. You should greatly enlarge your operations. Where you have one missionary, you should have ten; and where you have one book, you should put ten in circulation.” Constantinople, Smyrna, Broosa, Trebizond, Erzroom, and Aintab, were already occupied as stations. It was proposed at once to occupy Sivas, Arabkir, Diarbekir, and Aleppo. Mr. Adger, after a laborious and most useful service in the literary department of the mission, was constrained, by his health, in 1847, to retire from the field.

The statement of Lord Stratford, that three years were allowed to pa.s.s before the Sultan's firman was transmitted to the provinces, will account in part for the fact that persecution did not cease. In general, whenever evangelical views entered for the first time into a place, a battle was to be fought, and the first recipients of these views were sure to suffer more or less from the hands of their former co-religionists. But relief was almost sure to come on an appeal to the capital; and thus there was a gradual progress towards the full protection of the Protestants as a distinct community.

The accession of missionaries during the time now under review, was as follows: Joel S. Everett, in 1845; Isaac G. Bliss, in 1847; Oliver Crane, in 1849; Joseph W. Sutphen, in 1852--who died before the close of the year; Wilson A. Farnsworth, William Clark, Andrew T. Pratt, M. D.; George B. Nutting, Fayette Jewett, M. D., and Jasper N. Ball, in 1853; Albert G. Beebe, George A. Perkins, Sanford Richardson, Edwin Goodell, and Benjamin Parsons, in 1854; and Alexander R. Plumer, and Ira T. Pettibone, in 1855. All these were married men, except Mr. Pettibone. Mary and Isabella, daughters of Dr. Goodell, returned to the mission within the last two years.

In June, 1848, Pera was again ravaged by fire, and Messrs. Dwight, Homes, and Schauffler lost their houses, and most of their effects.

In October of the same year, seven persons were added to the church at Aintab, five of whom were women. In this month, Dr. Azariah Smith returned to that station with his wife, and made it his permanent abode.

The church at Aintab had a commendable zeal for the spread of the Gospel in the surrounding villages; but their colporters were never suffered to remain long in a place, the Armenian magnates persuading the Turkish authorities to send them away as vagabonds. They now resorted to an ingenious expedient for protecting themselves with the authority of law. Five men, who had trades, went forth to different towns, with their tools in one hand and the Bible in the other. Wherever they went they worked at their trades, and at the same time preached Christ to the people. The experiment succeeded wonderfully. They could no longer be treated as vagabonds, and the spirit of religious inquiry spread in all directions. The congregation in Aintab became so large that two houses were opened for wors.h.i.+p at the same time, and urgent appeals came from Killis, Marash, Oorfa, Diarbekir, Malatia, Harpoot, Arabkir, and other places near and remote.

Mr. Crane succeeded Mr. Schneider at Broosa. Mr. Benjamin made a missionary tour from Smyrna to the interior of Asia Minor; Mr.

Schneider made one to Aintab, on a temporary mission; Messrs.

Goodell and Everett to Nicomedia and Adabazar; Mr. Peabody into the province of Geghi; Mr. Homes to Nicomedia; and Mr. Johnston to Tocat. The building occupied by the Seminary at Bebek became now the property of the Board. The printing at Smyrna, in Armenian, Armeno-Turkish, Hebrew-Spanish, and Modern Greek, amounted to twenty-one thousand copies, and five million five hundred and eighty-two thousand pages. There was printing done at Constantinople, but the amount was not reported. Among the works in process of publication was D'Aubigne's ”History of the Reformation.”

The persecuting Matteos had now finished his career as Patriarch.

Before the close of 1848, he was convicted of frauds upon the public treasury, and of forgery, and was degraded, and pa.s.sed into retirement on the sh.o.r.es of the Bosphorus.[1]

[1] _Missionary Herald_, 1849, p. 42; _Report_, 1849, p. 115.

Three additional pastors were ordained during the year which closed with May, 1849; Baron Mugurdich, at Trebizond, Baron Hohannes Sahakian, at Adabazar, and Baron Avedis, as co-pastor at Constantinople. The reader is aware that Hohannes received the greater part of his education in the United States. He possessed a delightful spirit, and developed far more talent than he was commonly credited with in America, where he could communicate his thoughts only through the medium of a strange language.

The mission suffered a painful bereavement on the 14th of November, 1850, in the death of Mrs. Hamlin, at Rhodes, whither she had gone with her husband in the hope of relief.[1]

[1] See an account of her last sickness in _Missionary Herald_, for 1851, p. 82; also in her Memoir, _Light in the Dark River_, by Mrs.

Lawrence.

Another bereavement occurred at Aintab in the death on the 3d of June, 1851, of the Rev. Azariah Smith, M. D. Such was his peculiar adaptation to different fields, that he had labored in many places, but had a special attachment for Aintab. The uncommonly rapid development of the active Christian graces at that station was largely owing, under G.o.d, to his skillful efforts, and he wished there to spend the remainder of his days. In this he was gratified.

He returned from laboring at Diarbekir greatly in need of quiet. But finding so much to be done in the absence of Mr. Schneider at the annual meeting in Constantinople, he allowed himself no relaxation.

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