Volume II Part 14 (2/2)

At the close of the year Mr. Wheeler and others made a visit to Choonkoosh, two days' journey from Harpoot. Many of the people came several miles to welcome them, and crowds escorted them into the city. ”Nine years ago,” says Mr. Wheeler, ”I made my first visit here in company with brother Dunmore, and we were hooted at, stoned, and at last driven from our room, in the pouring rain and splas.h.i.+ng mud of a dark night.” Now, every house seemed open to receive them.

”Their new place for Protestant wors.h.i.+p testified to the remarkable change. The men had brought all the timber, by hand, a distance of from three to five miles, and it sometimes required thirty men to bring one piece. Women and children brought water, earth, and stones; and women were still busy in plastering the walls, so that a meeting might be held there before we left!”[1]

[1] _Missionary Herald_, 1867, p. 108.

The foreign missionary spirit was being developed. The Harpoot Evangelical Union resolved at Diarbekir, in 1866, to send a mission into the wild region eastward of that city, where the Armenians, living among the Koords, had lost all knowledge of both the Armenian and Turkish languages, and were in the grossest darkness. A dozen small churches, with a members.h.i.+p of hardly more than five hundred, undertook to educate seven young men to go as their missionaries, and the movement excited much enthusiasm. At the same time, the home missionary spirit received strength. The brethren at Harpoot were endeavoring to occupy fifty or more stations, within their home field, at most of which there were a few persons somewhat enlightened and more or less desirous of instruction.

A blessing followed. The week of prayer, in the opening of 1867, was signalized by a revival at Harpoot.[1] There were indications of deep feeling in the church; and on one of the last days of the week, three of the most prominent men in the community openly identified themselves with the Protestants. One of these, named Sarkis Agha, became a very active and useful Christian. Feeling that he had been a stumbling-block to others, he lost no time in going to the market, and inviting twelve or fifteen of his most intimate friends, all men of influence, to his place of business, and telling them of his change of feeling. He expected only ridicule, but the majority were affected to tears, and requested him to read the Bible and pray with and for them.

[1] An interesting account of this revival, by Miss Maria A. West, may be found in the _Missionary Herald_ for 1867, pp. 139-142.

It was winter, and the travelling was very bad, so that they could not reach the more distant out-stations; but the members of the church visited the princ.i.p.al ones on the plain. Among these was Hooeli, about ten miles distant, where Mr. Barnum spent two days.

The whole congregation appeared to be interested, prayer-meetings, morning and evening, were attended by from a hundred and twenty to two hundred persons; and through the entire day, till nearly midnight, the room of the missionary was thronged with inquirers. A large number of those with whom he conversed, appeared to be truly regenerated. Mr. Wheeler, on the following Sabbath, found the interest more widespread. Four hundred persons crowded into the chapel, and listened with fixed attention.

Three years before, there was not a Protestant in the place. One year before, at the dedication of the chapel, when three hundred and fifty persons were present, the audience was so rude that there was the greatest difficulty in preserving quiet.[1] Both men and women were now quiet and serious listeners. A still larger attendance was reported on the following Sabbath, when more than a hundred failed of getting into the house of wors.h.i.+p. There was also a revival of considerable power at Perchenj, another out-station, seven miles from Harpoot.

[1] Mr. Barnum thus describes Miss Fritcher's meeting with seventy or eighty females in this place, two years before: ”The chapel was nearly full of women, all sitting on the floor, and each one crowding up to get as near her as possible. They were very much like a hive of bees. The slightest thing would set them all in commotion, and they resembled a town meeting more than a religious gathering.

When a child cried it would enlist the energies of half a dozen women, with voice and gesture to quiet it. When some striking thought of the speaker flashed upon the mind of some woman, she would begin to explain it in no moderate tones to those about her, and this would set the whole off into a bedlam of talk, which it would require two or three minutes to quell.”

Human nature is everywhere essentially the same. The people of Hooeli being thus strengthened, they, with a little aid from abroad, erected a larger and finer house of wors.h.i.+p, and then began to desire a new minister. Their humble and earnest but not eloquent preacher, whose labors G.o.d had so blessed among them, would do, they said, to gather the lambs, but not to feed the sheep. Contrary to the advice of the missionaries, they called two popular men of the graduating cla.s.s, one after the other, but both declined, choosing harder fields.

”Meanwhile their preacher was called to another place, and the people came to the city, with their donkeys, to take him and his family home. These were quietly sleeping at his house, expecting to start on the morrow, when, at midnight, nine of the princ.i.p.al men of Hooeli roused him from sleep, and began to beg pardon for their rejection of him, saying, 'Come, get your goods in readiness, and go with us.' It seems that they took their failure to secure the others as a rebuke from G.o.d for their pride; and having met to pray, sent these nine men to ask pardon of Garabed in person, while others wrote letters asking his forgiveness, and begging him to come back.

Both parties then appealed to the missionaries, who declined to interfere, advising them to pray and decide the matter among themselves. They agreed to accept the preacher's decision as G.o.d's will, and he after prayer and reflection, decided to return to his old people. In the mean time, twenty of the women of Hooeli, impatient at the delay, met also for prayer, and with difficulty were prevented from going in a body to take their old pastor home.

But the brethren kept them back, and when at length he reached the village, no other preacher ever had such an ovation in all that region, within the memory of man.”[1]

[1] _Ten Years on the Euphrates_, pp. 278-280.

CHAPTER x.x.xVI.

THE NESTORIANS.

1864-1868.

Deacon Isaac, brother of the Patriarch, died in the early autumn of 1864, universally lamented. In character, as well as position, he was a prince among his people. I abridge the account of him by Mr.

Rhea, who loved him as a friend.[1] Seen in his plain dress and Simple manners, no one would have thought of him as once the mountain chieftain, ready to break a lance with Koordish robbers.

Growing up amid some of the grandest scenery in the world, it had its effect on his character; and that character the grace of G.o.d moulded into symmetry and beauty. His intellect was strong, his insight into human nature remarkable. The wily Persian official, baffled by him and mortified, exclaimed: ”We cannot manage _him_.”

While he was accessible to little children, and poor distressed women, there was a dignity which prevented undue familiarity. The Patriarchal family were proud of him. He grew up in a land where it was no shame for n.o.blemen to lie, yet always spoke the truth. He lived where bribery was practiced unblus.h.i.+ngly, and his house was a court-room for the settlement of numberless cases of litigation, yet he took no reward for his services, much less to pervert justice.

”He grew up where little deference was paid to woman; yet took pride in showing his respect for his wife Marta,--mentioning her name, quoting her opinions, and treating her with the utmost kindness.

Their relation was a beautiful example of conjugal attachment, of untold worth in such a land and among such a people. He was naturally of a proud spirit, that could not brook an insult. Once, when insulted by a French Lazarist, he sprung to his feet, and put his hand to the hilt of his sword; but from that day he never wore the sword again.”

[1] _Missionary Herald_, 1865, p. 45.

Miss Fidelia Fiske died at Shelburne, Ma.s.sachusetts, the place of her birth, July 26th, 1864, at the age of forty-eight. She both studied and taught at the Mount Holyoke Seminary, and partook largely of the spirit of its founder, the well-known Mary Lyon. She embarked at Boston in March, 1843, in company with Dr. and Mrs.

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