Volume II Part 4 (1/2)
A native a.s.sistant died at Baghchejuk, near Nicomedia, early in the year, who had from the beginning been intimately connected with the work in that place, and was called the ”prince of colporters,” on account of his success in distributing the Scriptures. Being by nature an earnest man, when converted he became zealous in disseminating the truth. As he was respected through all the region, there was great anxiety among the Armenians to regain him, and an ex-Patriarch visited Baghchejuk, in the hope of bringing him back.
Promises and threats were equally vain, and the storm of persecution finally burst upon him. His vineyards and mulberry orchards were cut down, and much of his property was wrested from him. He was beaten and stoned, and his name cast out as vile. When they were building the church he brought a basket full of stones and brick-bats, which had been thrown through his windows, to be incorporated in the foundation wall. He described the effect of persecution in his own case, thus: ”The truth in my heart was like a stake slightly driven into soft ground, easily swayed, and in danger of falling before the wind; but by the sledge-hammer of persecution G.o.d drove it in till it became immovable.” ”His working power,” says Mr. Parsons, the resident missionary, ”like everything else in his possession, was consecrated to Christ. With great self-denial on his part, two hundred piasters a month (about eight dollars) enabled him to give all his time to street preaching, and the sale of the Scriptures. As a bookseller he was eminently faithful and successful. Not contented with sitting in the book-stall waiting for purchasers, he used to shoulder a basket of books, and go through the streets and lanes of town and city, offering for sale the 'Holy Book;' the 'Book that would not lie;' the 'Infallible Guide;' and proclaiming, in a loud voice, its divine origin, man's need of it, and its light-and-life-giving power. This he did as time and strength permitted, from Broosa to Angora, and from Bilijik to the Black Sea.
He everywhere either carried with him, or had near at hand, a supply of Bibles in the Turkish, Armenian, Greek, and Jewish languages.
Probably not less than one hundred thousand persons have heard from him the proffer of the word of life.”
”The word of G.o.d,” continues Mr. Parsons, ”was his constant companion. He was so familiar with it, that he could turn with facility to any pa.s.sage desired. He walked with G.o.d. He was a man of prayer. His happiest moments were seasons of devotion--private, social, and public. I should say, rather, that next to the work of bringing others to Christ, his delight was in prayer and praise. He has rested from his labors, but his works do follow him. Before he died, he could rejoice in a rich harvest from his own sowing, but a greater harvest is yet to be reaped from the seed so widely scattered by his hand. He has gone, a sheaf of the first-fruits of the work in Baghchejuk. He 'came to his grave as a shock of corn cometh in in his season.'”
Mr. E. E. Bliss pa.s.sed through Marsovan on his way to Harpoot, and found that the rampant hostility of eight years before had died out.[1] Instead of the hootings and stonings, which then greeted his arrival, he was met, a long way out, by a goodly company to escort him to his lodgings. On the Sabbath, in place of the little company a.s.sembled in a lower room of his own house, he now preached to a good audience, in a large and commodious chapel.
[1] See chapter xxiv.
”I spent,” he says, ”a few days at Sivas, where I was eight years ago, and found the small room, where ten or fifteen then met for G.o.d's wors.h.i.+p, exchanged for a large upper room, filled with an audience of more than a hundred. And as we went onward to places we had never before visited, it was a continual feast to see the extent to which the work of G.o.d had spread in the whole country. In almost every place where we stopped for the night, however obscure the village, some would gather around us as brethren in the Lord. They were often coa.r.s.ely dressed and rude of speech, undistinguishable in appearance from the ma.s.s around them; but a few words of conversation would show that their souls had been illuminated by the truth.”
The annual meeting of the Northern Armenian Mission for 1860, was held at Harpoot, east of the Euphrates, seven hundred and fifty miles from Constantinople. And it was a significant fact, that the delegates from the metropolis were able to communicate with their families over the telegraph wires, destined to connect London with Calcutta.
The distance from the capital, and of the stations from each other was so great, as to render it difficult to a.s.semble in the annual meetings, that were indispensable for an effective administration.
At this meeting, what had been known as the Northern Mission, was divided into Western and Eastern, and Erzroom, Harpoot, and Arabkir composed the Eastern Mission. The Southern Mission then took the name of the Central; and the stations of the a.s.syria Mission were united to the Eastern. It will be convenient to use the names Western, Central, and Eastern in designating territory, but we shall, as far as possible, treat the three divisions as const.i.tuting one great mission.
The church at Harpoot received its first native pastor at this annual meeting. He was one of several young men, who left Diarbekir for Constantinople, eight years before, for the purpose of obtaining a Protestant education at Bebek. They were subjected to many revilings on their way, and few showed them any kindness. Some who were in sympathy with them deprecated their removal from Diarbekir, as the withdrawal from that place of the little light which had begun to s.h.i.+ne. Now, having completed the course of study at the Seminary, Tomas, one of that company, was preaching the Gospel every Sabbath in Diarbekir, and was to become pastor there; and Marderos, another, combining great excellence of character, was made pastor of the flouris.h.i.+ng church at Harpoot.
Mr. Dunmore, when he commenced the Harpoot station, five years before, found not a single Protestant in that city. It was now only three years since the arrival of Messrs. Wheeler, Allen, and Barnum, and there were thirty-nine church-members, and Harpoot was fast becoming an important centre of influence. There were schools in ten of the thirteen out-stations, eleven of which were supplied with preaching on the Sabbath by the missionaries and students of the Seminary, and in all the surrounding regions there was an increase of attendance on preaching. Women learned to read, and groups were found studying the Bible. In the numerous villages of the Harpoot plain and outlying districts were many faithful disciples of the Lord Jesus. The spirit of freedom had gone forth, as was seen in the growing activity of laymen, and the consequent decline of superst.i.tion and ecclesiastical despotism. Instruction was communicated to large numbers of both men and women, and it was beginning to be regarded as disgraceful for adults of either s.e.x not to be able to read.
The theological school contained twenty-four pupils, of whom eleven were from the vicinity and ten were married men. The students devoted their winter vacation of four months to preaching and teaching, and in term time they preached at out-stations.
Mrs. Dwight, after twenty-one years of eminently useful service, died at Constantinople in November, 1860. Dr. Dwight's family being thus broken up, he commenced, with the approval of his brethren, a tour through Syria and Asiatic Turkey, intending to go over much of the ground he had traversed with Dr. Eli Smith in their explorations thirty years before.
How great the changes in the intervening period! Then, for fourteen and a half months, he was unable to receive tidings from his wife, whom he had left in Malta. Now, from beyond the Euphrates, he could have communicated daily with Constantinople by telegraph. Then, no fellow-laborers were to be found between Smyrna and the little bands of German and Scotch brethren soon after to be driven away from Russian Armenia and Georgia, and nowhere did they meet among the people any religious sympathies in unison with their own. Now, the survivor found missionaries scattered over the land, and he scarcely entered a place where some one, at least, did not greet him with a joyful welcome. Then, the object was to explore an unbroken scene of spiritual death. Now, it was to confirm living churches, and help forward a growing spiritual work.
The tour was extended as far as the Nestorian mission, and occupied about eight months. Reviewing this journey of almost unprecedented interest, Dr. Dwight could not refrain from using the language of Christian triumph: ”I have visited,” he says, ”every station of the Board in Turkey and Persia excepting those among the Bulgarians. It has been my privilege to see all the missionaries and their families,--a rare body of men and women, of whom our churches and our country may well be proud,--and also to become personally acquainted with hundreds and thousands of the dear Protestant brethren and sisters of this land--G.o.d's lights in the midst of surrounding darkness; G.o.d's witnesses even where Satan dwelleth.”
Dr. Dwight was at Marash in April, and this is his own vivid description of what he saw there: ”This place is indeed a missionary wonder! Twelve years ago there was not a Protestant here, and the people were proverbially ignorant, barbarous, and fanatical. Six years ago the evangelical Armenian church was organized with sixteen members, the congregation at that time consisting of one hundred and twenty. On the last Sabbath I preached in the morning to a congregation of over a thousand, and in the afternoon addressed nearly or quite fifteen hundred people, when forty were received into the church, making the whole number two hundred and twenty-seven. Nearly one hundred of these have been added since Mr.
White came here, two years ago. One old woman of seventy-five years was admitted who was converted only four months ago. She was previously a bigoted opposer, but now she seems full of the love of Christ. Her emotions almost overpowered her on approaching the table of the Lord.
”The church-members here impressed me from the first as men who thought more of the spiritual than the temporal. The Holy Spirit has been evidently at work here during the whole of the year, and especially through the past winter, and conversions are constantly taking place. The burden of conversation among the brethren is in regard to praying and laboring for the salvation of souls.
”On the Sabbath the half of the body of the church was filled with women packed closely together on the floor. The other half, and the broad galleries around three sides of the house, were completely crowded with men. A new church is needed immediately in the other end of the town. I bless G.o.d that He brought me here, and I feel almost like saying, 'Now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace.'”
It should be said that this visit to Marash was in the midst of a revival. The resident missionary, Mr. White, describes the work as being chiefly among the Armenians and Roman Catholics. ”Every night they met in the houses of the Protestants and spent hours, sometimes even till near morning, examining the Scriptures and comparing them with the corrupt teachings of their own churches. Our young men were very active, laboring both day and night, so much so, that the Catholic bishop said he could not understand it; that if the young men were paid for thus laboring, the missionaries had not money enough; and if they were not paid, they had a love which he could not understand. Many of his people, however, seemed to comprehend it better than he did, and are now regular attendants at our church.”
The veteran missionary pays a n.o.ble tribute to the wives of the missionaries at the several stations of the central mission: ”I felt myself rebuked when I saw the earnest, self-devoted spirit of my missionary sisters, who are laboring in Aintab, in Marash, in Antioch, in Aleppo, and in Oorfa, for the salvation of their degraded s.e.x; thinking little of the sacrifices they have made in leaving America, to live in such a country as Turkey. It would be difficult to find in Christendom a more happy cla.s.s than these, our helpers in Christ Jesus. The holy object which fills their hearts lifts them above the distracting and embittering influences of external circ.u.mstances.”
The change at Diarbekir, during the score of years since Dr. Grant and Mr. Homes barely escaped with their lives, had been truly wonderful. Drs. Dwight and Schneider and Mr. Nutting, on their approach from Oorfa, were met, eighteen miles out, by a deputation of Protestant brethren on horseback; and, a few miles further on, by another detachment, headed by Mr. Walker and the native pastor; and when near the city, by a third on foot, thus giving them a sort of triumphal entry. Nor, during their whole stay, was there anything to awaken a feeling of insecurity, but convincing evidence, that Protestantism had a strong hold on many minds.
Dr. Dwight noticed a decline of the Turkish population in the region of the Euphrates. Several entire quarters in Diarbekir, formerly Turkish, had pa.s.sed into Christian hands, and the process was going on. Armenians, Jacobites, and Protestants were buying Turkish houses, but seldom did a Turk buy one of theirs; and around the outskirts of the city there were extensive Turkish quarters all in ruins.
Mrs. Dunmore had come to the United States in 1856, in consequence of the failure of her health, and was never able to return. Her husband continued his self-denying labors four years longer, until, seeing no prospect of her recovery, he believed his duty required him to follow her. It was then a time of civil war in his native land, and his public spirit led him to accept an invitation from a regiment of cavalry to be their chaplain. A detachment, with which he was connected, was surprised early in the morning of August 3, 1861, and he fell, shot in the head before he was fairly out of his tent.[1]
[1] See _Missionary Herald_, 1862, p. 321.