Volume II Part 4 (2/2)

In courage, enterprise, tact, and efficacy, Mr. Dunmore stood in the front rank of missionaries. ”He did not write much of what he did,”

says Mr. Walker, his successor at Diarbekir. ”He cared not to be known. But he cared for the souls of this poor people, and for Christ's kingdom. I think that few missionaries are so well fitted for the work, and very few labor with the same zeal and self-denial.

To few is it given to accomplish so much. There is comparatively little accomplished in Diarbekir, Arabkir, Harpoot, and Moosh, which is not, under G.o.d, due to this brother. His influence will long be felt in these parts. Paul was his model, and there are few who come so near to that exemplar. He had wonderful power in attaching the natives to him. He could sympathize deeply with them, and aid them as few can. His heart was in the work here, and it was a very great trial for him to return to America. His fearless journeys among the Koords in this land, led us often to feel apprehensive for his life.

The Lord forgive the Texan, whose bullet cut short a life so valuable.”

In the years 1860 and 1861, the ill health of either husband or wife deprived the mission of the labors of Messrs. Clark, Hutchison, Parsons, and Plumer, and their families. Mr. and Mrs. Peabody returned to their native land, after a faithful service of nineteen years. Dr. Schauffler also terminated his official connection of twenty-nine years with his missionary a.s.sociates, and entered the service of the American, and the British and Foreign Bible Societies in the work of Bible translation for the Turkish Mohammedans. Miss Tenney was married to Dr. Hamlin, who had been released from his connection with the Board to take charge of a Protestant college in Constantinople, though without any change in the great object of his labors.

Mr. Williams reoccupied Mardin in the year 1861. This was then, as now, the capital of the Syrian Church, and the natural centre of operations among the Arabic-speaking people in Eastern Turkey. It embraced Mosul, and mult.i.tudes of towns and villages scattered over a wide region, and required more than one missionary; though that one was a man of first-rate abilities and eminent devotion to his work. It was put in connection with the Armenian Mission, partly because its missionary policy was the same, and partly because it seemed necessary to work that whole field from one central station, and by a small number of missionaries, and because it would require the moral support of the larger mission in its neighborhood.

A training-school was commenced at Mardin in the following year, on the plan of the one at Harpoot, with a cla.s.s of eight hopefully pious young men. The congregation had doubled since Mr. Williams'

return and Protestantism had a more favorable position; but as yet the intellect accepted the truth more readily than did the heart.

Trebizond had only a native pastor, and the day-school was reported as one of the best in Turkey. Khanoos, southeast of Erzroom, had been faithfully cultivated for some time by the native pastor, Simon, who was now removed to Moosh, where he would have a better field. Erzroom was again without a missionary in consequence of the necessary removal of Mr. Trowbridge to the capital.

In addition to notices of versions of the Scriptures in the preceding chapter, it should now be stated, that Dr. Goodell had completed the great work of his life,--the translation of the Bible into the Turkish language, as written in the Armenian character and spoken by the Armenians. The version was from the Hebrew and Greek; the New Testament had received three distinct revisions, and the Old Testament one. His princ.i.p.al helper, for thirty years, was Panayotes Constantinides, who died March 11, 1861. ”He had greatly desired,”

writes Dr. Goodell, ”to live to see the end of the revision, and we pressed on together, returning thanks at the end of every chapter, that we had got so far on our journey. But his strength failed him on the way, and when there was but little further to go, he laid himself down, and the angels carried him to his home in heaven.” Dr.

Schauffler had nearly completed a translation of the New Testament in Turkish, with the Arabic or sacred character, and after much difficulty had obtained the consent of the government to its publication. Dr. Riggs had reached the books of Kings, in addition to the Psalms, in his version of the Scriptures in Bulgarian, and had also given time to preparing and editing Bulgarian tracts.

The amount of publication in the year 1860, in the Armenian, Armeno-Turkish, Bulgarian, and Modern Greek, was 164,500 copies, and 13,296,000 pages. The total expenditure was $15,789, from the following sources:--

American Bible Society $3,473 British and Foreign Bible Society 1,243 American Tract Society, New York 2,646 American Tract Society, Boston 674 London Tract Society 1,175 American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions 5,462 Other sources 1,116 -------- $15,789

Among the books published were a Reply to Archbishop Matteos in Armenian, a Commentary on Matthew, Hymn-Book, Theological Cla.s.s-Book, and Geography,--the last at the expense of Haritn Minasiyan, an Armenian printer. The Word of G.o.d was more in demand than any other book. The Armenian Bible, with marginal references, electrotyped and printed in New York by the American Bible Society, was highly prized. The American Tract Society had also electrotyped and printed several works for the mission, which were admired for their beauty, and were furnished more cheaply than they could have been prepared in Constantinople.

CHAPTER XXVII.

THE a.s.sYRIA MISSION.

1849-1860.

Mosul is related to the Syria Mission in language, the written Arabic being essentially the same in both fields; but there is considerable difference in the language of preaching and social intercourse, ”Near Mosul, and especially on the east of the Tigris,”

writes Dr. Leonard Bacon, after his visit to Mosul, ”the language is Syriac, or as they there call it, _Fellahi_, the peasant language.

In other districts, Turkish and Koordish are spoken by many nominal Christians. The people in Mesopotamia are very different from those in Syria. They are of other sects. Instead of the Greek Church, the Greek Catholic, and the Maronite, we find, as we travel east of the Euphrates, and especially as we approach the Tigris, the Jacobite, the Syrian Catholic or Romanized Jacobite, the Nestorian (almost exterminated), and the Chaldean or Romanized Nestorian. And the condition of these sects, as it respects the feeling of strength and pride, is very unlike that of the sects in Syria. The Maronite Church, and the Greek Catholic, are strong and proud in their relation to Rome, and in the feeling that they are protected by the great papal powers in Europe. The Greek Church may be likened to a Russian colony in the Turkish empire. But the more eastern sects, remnants of what were once the great Oriental Church, are in far different relations, ecclesiastical and political. The Jacobites, like the Nestorians, feel themselves weakened and depressed. The Syrian Catholic and the Chaldean are not very firmly united to Rome, and are little affected by European influences. Nor is this all. The nominal Christians of Mesopotamia are of a very different race and blood from those of Syria. The Greek element, which characterizes the Arabic-speaking Christians west of the Euphrates,--an element of subtlety of disputation, and of intellectual pride,--is not so prominent in these more Oriental communities. For these and other reasons, I cannot but think that this field should be occupied by the brethren of the Mosul station, and be regarded as entirely distinct from that of the Syria Mission. Mosul, as a centre of missionary labor, is much more nearly related to Oroomiah, than to Beirt, or Aleppo.”[1]

[1] _Report of the Board for_ 1851, p. 82.

The visit of Messrs. Perkins and Stocking to Mosul, in May, 1849, has been already mentioned.[1] That visit did much to prepare the way for Mr. Ford, of the Aleppo station, who went there at the close of 1849. He was kindly received by Mr. Ra.s.sam, the English Consul, and had a joyful greeting from the little band of ”gospel men,” who welcomed the return of their long lost privileges of Christian instruction. Of the fifty who soon called upon him, about twenty appeared to be decidedly evangelical, and ready to stand by the Gospel at all hazards, though few of them gave evidence of a work of grace in their hearts. Twenty more were enlightened and favorably disposed; and the remaining ten might be regarded as indifferent or hostile. This little band was the remainder of those who had been brought under the influence of the Gospel, when our brethren of the Mountain Nestorian Mission were detained in the mysterious providence of G.o.d, to labor and suffer there. Yet the Lord had not forsaken them, for Meekha, the ingenious mechanic, who had learned the truth from Mr. Laurie, had given them the benefit of his steadfast piety and diligent instruction.

[1] Chapter xx.

The reader knows, already, what led to the temporary occupation of Mosul by the Board, in 1841. Its relinquishment in 1844, was chiefly in view of the fact, that the Episcopal Church of the United States had a mission then in Turkey, with the avowed object of laboring among the Jacobites of Mesopotamia.[1] That mission having been withdrawn from the Turkish empire, the operations of the Board were naturally extended again to Mosul, to look after the fruits of former labors, as well as to meet the exigencies of the mission in western Koordistan.

[1] This was first known through Dr. Grant, who forwarded a copy of a letter from seven of the American Episcopal Bishops to the Syrian Patriarch at Mardin, as evidence of the fact. After stating the object in sending the Rev. Horatio Southgate to reside for a time at Mardin, with the hope of a.s.sociating two others with him, to which no exception could be taken, the Patriarch was informed by the letter, that Mr. Southgate ”will make it clearly understood, that the American Church has no ecclesiastical connection with the followers of Luther and Calvin, and takes no part in their plans or operations to diffuse the principles of these sects.”

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