Volume II Part 15 (2/2)

”At length the weary, weary road was pa.s.sed. We reached the village, and stopped at a house where they said we could find a room. Daniel and I ran in to see it first, opened the windows, and spread down the shawl and pillows where he could rest; then went back to the gate, and I charged the men not to let him exert himself at all, but to take him down like a little child, and carry him carefully in. I ran forward then, opened my satchel, and got out the wine and camphor, and spreading a pillow on my lap, received him in my arms.

”Just as they deposited him in my arms he drew one long, deep sigh.

I wet his lips, bathed his face, spoke to him, called his name, raised him up, kissed him, and entreated him to speak. I chafed his soft, warm hands, felt his heart, his pulse, his temples, his neck, seeking everywhere for signs of life. In vain. He was dead!”

Help came at length from the mission, and the mortal remains of Mr.

Rhea, found their resting place at Seir, by the side of loved ones who had gone before him.

Mr. Rhea died at the age of thirty-eight, in the very height of his usefulness. His mental abilities were very superior, and so were his acquirements, especially in Oriental languages. During his first winter's residence in Gawar, in addition to a systematic course of reading in Church History, and his study of Syriac, he went thoroughly through his Hebrew Bible. The Modern Syriac he spoke with great accuracy and fluency, and he preached with acceptance in the Tartar Turkish. He had also made progress in the Koordish language.

”As a preacher,” writes Mr. Coan, ”he was earnest, faithful, and pungent; the glowing words leaped from his lips, while the Word of G.o.d seemed a fire shut up within him. He poured out his whole soul in the messages he delivered. I have seldom been edified by the discourses of any one as I have been by those of this dear brother.

These discourses, whether in the pulpit, the social prayer-meeting, or at family devotions, seemed drawn from his own experience of the inexhaustible treasures in Christ. They were eminently fitted to make men better.” Dr. Perkins said of him, ”He is one of the finest preachers I ever heard, whether in English or in the Nestorian language. The Nestorians denominate him Chrysostom, from his remarkable powers as a preacher.” He was excelled by few men in the beauty and eloquence of his address on public occasions, of which there was a fine ill.u.s.tration on the Fourth of July, 1865, the last before his death. Though a native of Tennessee, his heart was poured out in thanksgiving that the war was really over, and that the right had gained the day.

The reader will not be surprised to hear that the young Patriarch, influenced by his nearest relatives, was following in the footsteps of his predecessor. In Gawar, he tried persuasion, blandishment, and compulsion; but the authorities gave him to understand that there could not be persecution. The independent tribes of the mountains were, civilly, under his power, and he was determined to keep his mountain diocese in its ancient ignorance. He diffused a vindictive spirit. No ecclesiastic ever had stronger motives to enter upon a path of reform, or fewer obstructions. But, refusing all fellows.h.i.+p with the gospel, he showed that the Nestorian Patriarch could no more adjust himself to the coming age of light and liberty of conscience than the Pope of Rome.

Mr. Alison, English Amba.s.sador at the Persian Court, seasonably interposed when there were powerful combinations to effect the ruin of the mission, headed by the bigoted Minister of Foreign Affairs.

The Papal party had seized upon the Nestorian church at Ardeshai, and rebuilt it; and the Shah, upon the representation of Mr. Alison, granted a site for a new church, and subscribed 100 towards its erection.

This royal donation was in December, 1865. In the April following, the mission had a friendly visit from his Royal Highness, Prince Ahmed Meerza, the governor of Oroomiah, and uncle of the King. He had come to the province strongly prejudiced against the mission, but had been becoming better informed. He was on the mission premises two hours and a half, and saw everything that could be shown him, in the way of schools, printing, type founding, sewing-machines, and medical dispensary. The last seemed to impress him most as to the benevolent character of the mission, and he left with strong expressions of good will.

The examination of the female seminary, at the close of its term, was highly satisfactory, especially in the Bible and in theology. In the other seminary, superintended by Mr. Shedd in the absence of Mr.

Cochran, there had been much religious interest. Many of the pupils being from the mountains, Mr. Shedd's labors in the seminary had a direct bearing on his particular portion of the field. Geog Tapa had a very fine school, entirely supported by the people themselves, which almost vied with the seminaries.

The mission suffered another severe loss in the death of Priest Eshoo, already known to the reader, on the 19th of April, 1866.

Thirty-one years before, the Koords plundered his native village on the plain of Gawar, and he removed to Degala, near Oroomiah. He was then about thirty years of age, a sedate, dignified, upright man and very righteous in his own eyes. Gentle and una.s.suming, he yet commanded the respect of all, and his reputation as a scholar soon secured for him the place of a teacher in the incipient male seminary. For many years he was its first teacher, and down to the close of his life sustained a relation to one or the other of these inst.i.tutions. He and his lovely daughter Sarah were among the first converts in the revival of 1846. While remarkable for humility, he was firm in defense of the truth. His judgment was cool and discriminating, and he was known as a safe counselor. He was a good preacher, and several volumes of his sermons, neatly written by his own hand, showed that they were carefully studied.[1]

[1] See vol. i. pp. 326-329.

Dr. Van Norden and wife entered the mission in October, 1866, taking the place of Dr. Young, who had left three years before.

Mr. Labaree communicates the result of careful inquiries by Mr.

Thompson, of the British Legation, who had been spending some time at Oroomiah. Mr. Thompson estimated the Nestorians in Oroomiah, Tergawer, Sooldooz, and Salmas, at twenty thousand; the Armenians in Oroomiah alone at about two thousand eight hundred; the Papal Chaldeans in Oroomiah, Tergawer, and Sooldooz at six hundred and twenty-five; but the Chaldean and Armenian population of Salmas he did not learn. He thought that the population of Persia could not be more than from five to seven millions, and his opinion was deemed of great weight, as he had made himself familiar with the civil and political affairs of Persia during a long residence, and had travelled extensively through the country, with a very observant eye.

Among the new lights breaking forth in Western and Central Asia, was a community of evangelical Armenians in the Russian province of Sherwan, near the Caspian Sea. A Nestorian brother had been sent to inquire into their condition early in 1862, and there had been occasional intercourse ever since; but cautiously, lest their cause should be jeoparded. They had suffered sore persecution, and had met in glens and deep recesses of the mountains, for the wors.h.i.+p of G.o.d and the study of his Word. Their leader, Varpet Sarkis, had been exiled, their children left unbaptized, their young people unmarried, their dead denied the right of burial, and they the privilege of commemorating the death of their Lord. In August, 1866, an Imperial Ukase was brought them by a Lutheran clergyman from Moscow, granting them full liberty to wors.h.i.+p G.o.d publicly as their consciences should dictate, and restoring to them all their privileges. Pious Nestorians, who had gone there from Oroomiah, reported that the Lutheran clergyman remained there a week, organized a church, received a hundred and six persons to Christian fellows.h.i.+p, and performed the necessary baptisms and marriages; and that they were expecting the return of their beloved guide and teacher from exile. Nearly two thousand copies of the Scriptures were sold among this people within three and a half years, besides many other good books and tracts.

Mar s.h.i.+mon, acting under the evil advice of his father and uncle, issued an order for the expulsion of all the helpers of the mission from Tehoma, and threatened not to leave one in all the mountains.

Events providentially occasioned delay, and meanwhile Mr. Ra.s.sam, the British Vice Consul at Mosul, hearing of Mar s.h.i.+mon's proceedings, addressed him a very strong letter of remonstrance, a.s.suring him that the American missionaries were the truest and most efficient friends of the Nestorians, and urging him to invite their preachers back with the same publicity with which he had ordered their expulsion. The letter, coming from one to whom the Nestorians were greatly indebted, had the desired effect, and they were quite abashed by receiving such an emphatic rebuke from such a quarter. In addition to this rebuff, another was received, soon after, quite as mortifying. The Patriarch had written to Mr. Taylor, British Consul at Erzroom, offering to make over his people to the English Church, if the English government would extend to them its protection from Turks and Koords. The reply of the Consul was a decided rejection of the proposal, couched in language not at all flattering to the Patriarch. Thus baffled and censured, he privately signified his willingness that our preachers should remain at their places without molestation.

The mission commenced the year 1868 with the encouraging fact, that one hundred Nestorians had been received to the communion during the previous year, which was a larger number than had been admitted in any one year before. This number embraced the fruits of revivals in several villages on the plain of Oroomiah, and in the two seminaries, with individuals scattered through the Koordish mountains. Mar Yooseph, the helper in Bootan, on the Tigris, reported, that he had held his first reformed communion in that distant region, and that seven came to the table of the Lord. There had been no opposition. The native preaching force in the mission was then sixty-two, of whom eighteen were in Koordistan, under the care of Mr. Shedd; and there were seventy-eight regular preaching places. Connected with nearly all these congregations were Sabbath-schools and Bible-cla.s.ses, and in not a few instances the entire congregation was connected with them. The habit of giving was very generally established, affording evidence that the people might be expected eventually to support their pastors.

CHAPTER x.x.xVII.

THE NESTORIANS.

1867-1870.

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