Volume II Part 15 (1/2)
Perkins, Mr. and Mrs. Stoddard, and some others, and reached Oroomiah in June. After laboring there with unprecedented success as the Princ.i.p.al of the Seminary for fourteen years, the state of her health constrained her return to the United States in 1858.
Up to her arrival at Oroomiah, the school had only day scholars, and the pupils were of course in habitual contact with the vice and degradation of their homes. She sought to make it a boarding-school; and after two years the prejudices of the people had been overcome, and the day scholars were all dropped. Her grand object was the salvation of her pupils, and of their relatives who visited the inst.i.tution. After the first revival, in 1846, the school became the centre of holy influence for the women. She, and her worthy a.s.sociate Miss Rice, found enough to do, day and night. When they went to a village, the women expected to be called together for prayer; and when these women returned the visit, they asked to be prayed with alone. There was a revival almost every year of her stay at Oroomiah; and probably few servants of Christ have had more occasion for grat.i.tude, in being the means of bringing others to him, than Miss Fiske. When leaving Oroomiah on her return home, the many women and girls who gathered around to bid her farewell, asked ”Can we not have one more prayer-meeting before you go, and in that Bethel?”--meaning, her own room. There they prayed, that their teacher ”might come back to mingle her dust with her children's dust, hear the trumpet with them, and with them go up to meet the Lord.” They were accustomed to style her ”mother,” and themselves her ”children.”
Her usefulness after her return to the United States, was probably as great as it ever had been. This was not owing to the predominance of any one quality in her character, but to a combination of qualities of mind and heart surpa.s.sing anything I have ever seen in any other person. Her emotional nature was wonderfully sanctified, and each of her powers being well developed, and all nicely adjusted one to another, the whole worked with regularity and ease. Hence that singular accuracy of judgment, and that never-failing sense of propriety, for which she was distinguished. Hence the apparent absence of fatigue in her protracted conversations and conversational addresses. Hence the habitual control of her sanctified affections over her intellectual powers, so that she seemed ever ready, at the moment, for the call of duty, and especially to meet the claims of peris.h.i.+ng souls. She seemed to me the nearest approach I ever saw, in man or woman, in the structure and working of her whole nature, to my ideal of the blessed Saviour, as he appeared in his walks on earth.
The amount of her usefulness was as extraordinary as her character, and probably the tidings of no death have awakened so many voices of lamentation over the plain of Oroomiah, and in the glens of Koordistan.[1]
[1] See _Woman and her Saviour in Persia_, by Dr. Thomas Laurie, and _The Cross and the Crown, or Faith working by Love, as exemplified in the Life of Fidelia Fiske_, by Dr. D. T. Fiske.
Another death occurred this year, which was also sensibly felt by the mission. It was that of Deacon Joseph, of Degala. Dr. Perkins lamented the loss of his services in connection with the press, a kind of labor for which his qualifications were unequaled among the people. His well-balanced mind, his fine scholars.h.i.+p, the solidity of his Christian character, his eminent services in this department, especially the very important a.s.sistance he rendered in translating the Old Testament from the original Hebrew, would have secured him an honorable position in more enlightened lands.
In 1863 and 1864 Mr. Shedd made extended tours in his mountain field. In the first, he crossed to Mosul, and from Oroomiah to Amadia he travelled mostly on foot, in native snowshoes and moccasins, with much fatigue and exposure. At Mosul, he enjoyed the hospitality of Mr. Ra.s.sam, and had conferences with Mr. Williams of Mardin. The second tour was in the autumn, and extended as far as Tiary.[1] The mountaineers may be viewed, he says, in two very different lights; first, as feeble, unreasonable, and lawless; poverty stricken, and lacking in self-respect, and self-reliance; connecting their interest in spiritual things too often with the hope of temporal benefits. Then there are constant feuds between villages, clans, and chiefs. The hopeful side is in the great preparatory work that has been accomplished, the general friendliness of the people, and the growing influence of the mission helpers. The following tabular view will give some idea of the mountain work in its incipient state, for, in some important respects, it was in that state as late as the year 1863:--
Occupied Districts.
Gawar Tekhoma Amadia Rakan Nerwa Jeloo Berwer Total No. of Christian Villages. -6 6 3 4 - - - Estimated Christian Population. - 4000 - 250 300 - - - When first occupied by Helpers. 1852 1856 1857 1861 1862 1862 1863 - No. of Helpers the Past Year. 4 4 2 1 1 4 2 18 No. of Villages visited by Preachers the Past Year. 20 6 5 3 3 9 10 56 No. of Villages with stated Congregations. 5 3 3 1 1 2 1 16 No. of Persons in Congregations. 88 55 55 15 10 90 35 348 No. of Sabbath Schools. 3 2 1 1 1 2 1 11 No. in Sabbath Schools. 42 25 25 8 7 75 25 207 No. of Regular Day Schools. 2 - 1 - - 1 - 4 No. of Scholars. 21 10 8 5 5 28 3 80 No. reached by Family Visitation. 550 250 100 50 50 560 100 1660 No. of Communicants. 20 7 4 1 1 9 - 42 No. of Candidates. 2 1 9 - 1 2 - 15
[1] _Missionary Herald_, 1863, pp. 358-363; 1864, p. 231.
Mr. Shedd visited the young Patriarch, in his second tour. The leaders whom he met there from different mountain districts, were surprised by the friends.h.i.+p shown to the missionaries by Mar s.h.i.+mon, and that they heard not a word against them in the Patriarchal mansion. There were frequent interchanges of visits, and Mr. Shedd was a.s.sured that the young Patriarch was well disposed towards the mission and its labors. But there was no evidence that he had any real conviction of the truth.
The seminary pupils were now working on a higher level. To a large extent, the pupils were daughters of Nestorian helpers and other pious parents, who had given them a Christian training. The contrast was striking between their general appearance and that of the earlier cla.s.ses in that favored school. A considerable part of the expense was now met by the parents of the pupils.
The Rev. Austin H. Wright, M. D., was the immediate medical successor of Dr. Grant, at Oroomiah,[1] where he arrived July 25, 1840. To be thoroughly furnished for his work, he determined to master the Turkish, Syriac, and Persian languages; and it was doubtless his perfect acquaintance with these, coupled with his knowledge of medicine, and the gentle courtesy of his manners, that gave him so much influence among all cla.s.ses of the people. ”The influence of Dr. Wright in Oroomiah,” said an intelligent Nestorian, ”is that of a Prince.” He is said to have spoken each of the languages above named with a precision, fluency, and grace, rarely equaled by a foreigner. In consequence of this proficiency, the intercourse with the higher cla.s.ses was to a great extent in his hands. Persian gentlemen, polite and courteous in the extreme, appreciated the dignified yet simple ease and grace with which he met them. Having gone out alone, he was united in marriage June 13, 1844, to Miss Catherine E. Myers, who joined the mission in 1843, and was then engaged in teaching. After twenty years his health and the interests of his family demanded a visit to his native land.
Here he remained four years, devoting the latter half of that time to a revision of the Syriac New Testament, preparatory to its being electrotyped and printed in pocket form by the American Bible Society. To this the Psalms were afterward added. Mrs. Wright and four of the children remained in this country; but taking with him his eldest daughter Lucy, he returned to Oroomiah in September, 1864. His return was joyful to him, and to the mission, and no less so to the Nestorians; but in three short months the summons came, calling him to a higher service.
[1] For a biographical account of Dr. Wright, see _Missionary Herald_ for 1865, pp. 129-134.
It had been arranged that he and Mr. Rhea, should translate the Scriptures into Tartar-Turkish for the benefit of the Mussulman population of Azerbijan and the regions beyond; but Dr. Wright's work was finished. His disease was typhoid fever, and during much of his sickness he was unconscious.
In the twenty-five years of his service, he performed a great variety of labors,--as a preacher, a physician, a co-laborer in the department of the press, and, not least, as a s.h.i.+eld to the poor oppressed Nestorians; for he was greatly respected by their Mohammedan rulers. And these duties he performed with marked ability, scrupulous fidelity, and an almost unerring judgment.
In this year, also, died the Rev. Thomas L. Ambrose, on the 19th of August. The three years he spent in the mountains were to him years of suffering, the result of an ardent mental and moral temperament, as well as of the labors he performed. He returned home in 1861, hoping to resume his missionary work; but feeling that his country had claims upon him, and receiving an unsolicited appointment as chaplain of a New Hamps.h.i.+re regiment, he entered the service, was wounded while pa.s.sing from entrenchments to a hospital, and after a few weeks died in the General Hospital at Fortress Monroe. In his relations to the mission and the Nestorian people, he beautifully exemplified the spirit of his Lord, in not desiring ”to be ministered unto, but to minister.”
The harvests of 1865 were abundant, but there had been a famine in several of the previous years; and this had given a stimulus to the vagrancy, so frequent and annoying among the Nestorians. ”Of the four thousand vagabonds,” writes Dr. Perkins, ”from the less than forty thousand Nestorians of Oroomiah, who made want their pretext for scattering themselves over Russia and other parts of Europe, as common beggars, hardly less greedy for lucre and for vice, than are locusts for every green thing, only a moiety return; many dying in those distant regions, from diseases induced by strange climates, or oftener by criminal indulgence; and many who survive, lying in prison for crimes, or preferring their vagabond life to the decent restraints of home. Many who do return are worse than lost to their people; coming only to spread a moral pestilence, being thoroughly demoralized; recklessly squandering their ill-gotten treasures till hunger drives them off again to beg. Happily they are now shut out of Russia by the government, and they have little hope from England.
But Germany is still a golden land to them.”
Mr. Rhea, another very able member of the mission, was suddenly removed from earth on the 2d of September, 1865. He was on his return from Tabriz, with his wife and children. The whole scene, as described by Mrs. Rhea in the Memoir of her husband, is one of the most touching in missionary history.[1] He was ill when they left Tabriz, and not until they had gone too far to return did his wife awake to the alarming fact, that his disease was cholera.
[1] See _The Tennesseean in Persia and Koordistan, being the Scenes and Incidents in the Life of Samuel Audley Rhea_, by Rev. Dwight W.
Marsh, for Ten Years Missionary in Mosul, pp. 338-349.
She then hoped to reach Ali Shah, a village four hours from Oroomiah. It was necessary to put the bedding on one of the loaded horses, and then to place Mr. Rhea upon it, and for two men to hold him on; which was done by the faithful Nestorians, Daniel and Guwergis. The motion of the horse extorted frequent, though gentle, groans of pain. He was very thirsty, and both the children were crying for water. There was none. At a brackish brook he had tried to drink, but spit out the bitter draught in disgust.
”At length the moon rose, and the children became quiet. Daniel pa.s.sed a rope around Mr. Rhea's back, and over his shoulders, to keep him from shaking about on the horse; and, taking off his hat, protected his head with a flannel. He grew quiet, and I said, 'He sleeps.' So we rode on and on in the still night; no sounds except from the horses' feet, or an occasional word about the precious load. 'Will the village never appear?' They said it was very near.
O, how long the way seemed!
”My mind was very active, picturing that comfortable room where we should rest, the refres.h.i.+ng water, the quiet rest, the soft bed for the dear invalid, the quick cup of tea, his sweet words, our subsequent journey home in the takhterawan, our safe arrival there.
All this time my eyes were on him, and my ears strained to catch a sound. 'How long he sleeps! How still he is!'