Volume II Part 6 (1/2)
Subsequently a papal priest, to whom, in former years, he had given a Bible, joined himself to the missionary, and patiently endured severe persecution. But the most encouraging case was that of an influential merchant named Meekha. He was originally an Armenian, and, thirty years before had become a Papist, and carried over one hundred houses with him. He was the champion of the papal party. His conversion was on this wise. The priest just mentioned had sown much Gospel truth among his disciples, and among them was a son-in-law of Meekha. At length the old man, provoked by an instance of dishonesty and falsehood in his bishop, and unable to read himself, sent for his son-in-law to read to him the Gospel. The young man was kept reading for three days, until the Gospels and Epistles were all finished. Amazed to find his religion opposed by the whole spirit and teachings of the divine oracles, Meekha sent for the priests and they came. ”Prove me your doctrines from the Bible,” said he.
Convinced, from their manner of reply, that they had nothing to say, he ceased from the wors.h.i.+p of the Virgin, and declared himself a Protestant; and his wife was as sincere and earnest as he. Though father, mother, and three unmarried daughters were excommunicated, and subjected to continued insults, their souls were overflowing with joy and thankfulness that the Gospel had come to them.
Speaking of this family, Mr. Williams says: ”I have never witnessed such amazed eagerness as that with which, for the first time, they comprehended that salvation is without money and without price--absolutely free and gratuitous. It was to them _news_--good news; and when I call to mind Meekha's impetuous temperament, and see him listen with such docility to Christ's teaching, I cannot but hope that, though imperfectly sanctified, the 'good work' is begun in him, which G.o.d's grace will complete. He accepts no new truth without a challenge, and nothing short of a 'Thus saith the Lord,'
will give it currency with him. At one of my evening lectures I alluded to Isaiah's statement, 'All our righteousnesses are as filthy rags,' when two or three spoke up: 'What 's that?' On repeating it they were incredulous, and demanded chapter and verse.
I gave it to them next day, and it has taken hold of them like iron.
I have seen Meekha since throw that verse into a crowd of opposers with such force as to start them from their seats with an emphatic 'G.o.d forbid,' and the most positive denial that such a verse could be in the Bible. When I turned to the pa.s.sage, and put the book into their hands that they might read it for themselves, they could not believe their own eyes, but continued poring over it, reading carefully from the head of the chapter; and this very day some of them came in to ask what it meant, and so changed in their manner I could hardly believe my eyes. Before, obstinate, dogged, unreasonable; now, meek, docile, and asking what the will of the Lord is. One said, 'That went like a dagger to my heart, and I slept none all that night.' And when to-day, I turned to Rom. iii. 26, Eph. ii. 8-9, and Rom. iv. 1-4, they listened as children. Truly the word of the Lord _is_ a sharp sword, piercing to the heart.”
Mr. Knapp's health forbidding a longer residence at Diarbekir, he commenced, in May, 1858, a new station at Bitlis, a healthy place several thousand feet above the level of the sea. Dr. and Mrs.
Haskell were with them during the latter half of the summer, and spent the summer of 1859 at Mardin; but Mr. and Mrs. Marsh and Mrs.
Lobdell decided to remain at Mosul. In May, Mr. and Mrs. Marsh were called to part with their second and only surviving child. A fortnight later, Mrs. Marsh herself had a severe attack of fever, but soon recovered. The fatal attack was three months later, and her death occurred unexpectedly. The thermometer in the early part of the night before, stood at 113. During the day it was 120; and on the night of her death it was 100 on the roof, where they slept.
She had had a slight illness for a few days, and it now became a burning fever, with delirium, and all remedies proved vain. She died on the 12th of August, at the age of thirty-two, after a residence of six years at Mosul, as an earnest and faithful laborer. Her mother and her only sister had died before reaching the age of thirty, and it is possible Mrs. Marsh might not have lived as long in her native land, as she did at Mosul. ”Yet it is probable,” as her husband wrote at the time, ”that the heat, so unusually extreme, cutting the leaves from the tree in our court by thousands, and causing many natives of the country to fall dead by the roadside, was the immediate occasion of her death.”
Mrs. Lobdell found reason, in the necessities of her children, for returning to America, and in April, 1860, she bade adieu to the little band of women, who, for eight years, had sat at her feet to learn of Jesus. She reached her native land in August, in company with Mr. Marsh.
Mosul remained unoccupied during the summer, the heat at that season being found too great for endurance; though the climate is agreeable for nearly three fourths of the year. The summer retreat prepared by Dr. Lobdell at Deira, near Amadiah, was distant seventy miles, or four days' travel, and it required at least nine days to reach Mardin.
There were but two or three places in Turkey where missionaries, up to this time, had had such marked success as in Diarbekir. The church, at the close of 1859, numbered sixty-one, and after the April communion, seventy-three. Rarely did a communion pa.s.s without some additions. Protestants were a recognized power among the people, and their influence was extending. Books were eagerly sought after and paid for. Illegal taxes had nearly ceased in the city itself. After a weary struggle of nine years, the a.s.sessment of the tax-roll for the Protestants was made upon a satisfactory plan, which bid fair to be permanent. The commercial standing of the Protestants was above that of any other sect, though there were no wealthy men among them. But the increase of the congregation had been r.e.t.a.r.ded by the want of sufficient accommodations for public wors.h.i.+p. The lamented removal of Mr. Holmes, the English Consul, to a more desirable consulate in European Turkey, while it was a great loss to the mission, threw his house upon the market, and it was purchased for a place of wors.h.i.+p at less than half its cost. It required only slight alterations, and could be indefinitely enlarged. The members of the church subscribed a thousand dollars towards its purchase, and a certain amount was granted by the Board.
The school for boys, and the one for girls, were both eminently a success. At Cutterbul, half the village was Protestant and the rest more than half so, and the place of prayer would not hold the congregation.
In 1860, the stations of the a.s.syria Mission were brought within the field of the Eastern Turkey Mission, and the a.s.syria Mission ceased to have a separate existence.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE NESTORIANS.
1851-1857.
The return of Mr. Stoddard, accompanied by his wife and Mr. and Mrs.
Rhea, was mentioned in the first volume. He thus describes the manner of his reception: ”While crossing the plain of Oroomiah, we arrived at a village twelve miles from the city, where a company of our brethren and sisters, with their little ones and many of the Nestorians, greeted us with tender emotions. A tent had been pitched, and a breakfast prepared; and we all sat down on the gra.s.s, under the grateful shade, to partake of the repast. Our hearts were full. During the three hours which we spent at this village, Nestorians of all cla.s.ses, many of them our brethren in Christ, were continually arriving; and when, soon after noon, we set out for the city, our progress resembled more a triumphal procession than a caravan of weary travellers. Every mile increased our numbers. Our way was often almost blocked up by the people who came to meet us, some on horseback, some on foot; bishops, priests, deacons, village teachers, members of the seminary, with whom I had many times wept and prayed, all pressing forward in eager haste to grasp our hands, and swell the notes of welcome. Three years ago, they followed us out of the city, holding our horses by the bridle, and begging us not to leave them, while their mournful looks bespoke the sorrow of their hearts. Now I was returning to them with restored health, to identify my interests with theirs. I brought with me the salutations of many thousand Christians in our native land, and was accompanied into the harvest-field by new reapers. As I turned from thoughts of the past, and looked on the animating scene around us, the contrast almost overcome me.”
This was in 1851. In October of the following year, Dr. and Mrs.
Perkins, going to meet Mr. and Mrs. Crane, and Sarah Stoddard, on their way from Trebizond, experienced a severe affliction in the death of their only surviving daughter, a very interesting girl. The journey was expected to be of advantage to the health of Mrs.
Perkins and to their two children, Judith and Henry; and it was due to the new-comers that some one, acquainted with the language and country, should aid them through the long and tedious route from Erzroom. After a ride of thirty miles, they were unexpectedly exposed to a pestilential atmosphere at Khoy, where they spent the night. All went well with them until they had crossed the plain of Khoy, and the mountain beyond, and pa.s.sed their last resting-place, when the beloved daughter showed signs of cholera. They could not rest there under the burning sun, and there was no water near; so they were obliged to proceed three or four miles further, to the Moslem village of Zorava. The nature of the disease was now painfully certain. The Mohammedan villagers were terrified and inhospitable. They would not even allow a morsel of bread to be sold to the faithful Nestorians who accompanied the family, nor even barley for their tired, hungry horses. And when the limbs of the child were cold and stiffening under the power of the deadly disease, they would not sell one stick of wood to warm water for her; but again and again ordered the heart-stricken travellers to leave the village with their dying child. As a further aggravation, after the father had twice administered laudanum, the vial containing the medicine disappeared from their tent, and could no more be found. There were all the usual accompaniments of the cholera, and in that high region the night air was cold. Collecting dry weeds, they managed to kindle a fire, and heated a stone which they placed at her feet.
The spirit of the child was quiet, and beautifully resigned to the will of G.o.d. There had been no doubt as to her piety before her sickness, and the whole scene was all that could have been expected of an older person. At length the end came. ”Breathing shorter and shorter for fifteen or twenty minutes,” writes her father, ”she gently slept, as we believe, in Jesus, at three o'clock on the morning of September 4, 1852, aged twelve years and twenty-six days.”
The bereaved and afflicted family was now a hundred and forty miles from home; but home was the place for her burial. The mother washed the corpse with her own hands, and dressed it for the grave. As no coffin could be obtained, the loved one was sewed in a strong oriental felt of the size and form of a bed-quilt, and placed upon a bed, and two willow sticks, cut from the margin of the brook, were sewed upon the sides of the bed, and it was then bound to the back of a faithful horse; the panic-stricken villagers calling upon them all the while, ”Depart, depart.” With what different feelings were they received on their return, by their large circle of weeping friends! One of the Nestorians, who had accompanied the family, standing by the grave, artlessly described to the Nestorians the affecting scenes he had witnessed, and all were bathed in tears. ”In all the families of the village,” wrote Miss Fidelia Fiske, ”Judith had taken a deep interest, and several of the middle-aged women had been taught by her in the Sabbath-school. Indeed, she had greatly endeared herself to all the scores and hundreds of Nestorians who knew her, and was a universal favorite among the people. A Nestorian of a distant village said, on hearing of her death, ”There was none like her,--so beautiful, so wise, so pious. She would pray like an angel.”[1]
[1] See _The Persian Flower; A Memoir of Judith Grant Perkins of Oroomiah, Persia_.
The Gospel made its way among the Nestorians amid many discouragements. Yet there was progress, Even in the mountains of Koordistan, where the brethren could do little more than watch the leadings of Providence, there was much that was hopeful. It was an indication of promise, that the people of Memikan, the mountain station, notwithstanding their sufferings for the sake of the Gospel, did not falter in their adherence to it. Strangers, after listening to the reading and reciting of the school children, sometimes went away exclaiming, ”Glory to G.o.d! There is nothing bad in all this.” Religious wors.h.i.+p was well attended. Even in the busy season, when the laborers were in their fields before dawn, and worked till late, a goodly number attended the daily evening service. Nor was it here, only, that a listening ear was found. In a tour among some of the largest neighboring villages, the missionaries were kindly received. Some sat from morning till the setting of the sun, giving earnest heed to the preaching. Could the people have been a.s.sured that they had nothing to fear from the civil power, they would have braved their ecclesiastics. Even as it was, the missionary pursued his work without molestation, and was treated with uniform respect by the authorities.
On the plain of Oroomiah, there was more preaching than ever before, and the line of demarkation between an evangelical church and a dead Christianity, was becoming more and more distinct. Mar Yohannan boldly discarded many customs of his Church, and then seemed disposed to go as fast in the work of reformation as his people could be induced to follow; and there was the same spirit among the helpers of the mission.
The two seminaries were coming under a stricter discipline, and aimed at a higher standard of scholars.h.i.+p. About half of the forty students under Mr. Stoddard were hopefully pious, and some of them gave high promise of usefulness. One was appointed to succeed the bishop of the largest diocese in the province. Several were from different mountain districts, and one was from the valley of the Tigris.
The number in the female seminary had increased from forty to fifty, and it was delightful to witness the intelligent zeal of some teachers in the Sabbath-schools. The ten who graduated in March were all hopefully pious, well educated, and quite refined, and most of them were expected to become teachers in their own villages.