pfWlliilp«§»wi#--' ' ■ ' ,,;:, isi, { V^H ' { •■ , CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY FROM "Ts.j.C.Ch-ise Cornell University Library arV15837 Sketches of the missions of the American 3 1924 031 389 202 olin.anx The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31 924031 389202 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIOJfS AMERICAN BOARD. BY S. C. BARTLETT, D. D., ess PROFESSOK IN CHICAGO THEOLOGICAL SEIIINAEY. BOSTON: I'TJBLISHEID BY THE BO-A.RD, 33 Pembertox Square, 1872. INTEODUCTORY NOTE. The great favor with which these Sketches of the Missions of the American Board were received by the Christian public, on their first appearance in the " Mis- sionary Papers," edited by Eev. S. J. Humphrey, District Secretary of the Board at Chicago, has led to their republication in the present form. The most in- teresting points in the history of the different missions are presented in the peculiarly fresh and graphic style of one whose head and heart are alike enlisted in the work. N. G. C. MissioNAKT House, Boston, April 19, 1872. PREFACE. This volume contains " Sketches," not histories, of missions. They were written to accompany certain missionary papers, issued at intervals in the North- western Agency of the American Board. Their purpose was to awaken intelligent interest in the Foreign Mission enterprise in a region where that cause seemed to be undervalued, and to revive a knowledge of its earlier struggles and victories. The endeavor of the writer has been to sketch the course of events in such aspects, and within such compass, as to secure a hearing, and at the same time give an intelligent apprehension of the case. In traversing so wide a range, involving so many collateral topics, in the use of fragmentary and some- times divergent accounts, there must be errors both of fact and oj)inion. The work here attempted could undoubtedly be done much better upon the same plan ;- but the writer's engagements would not suffer him to do more. lii IV PEEFACE. Articles written, as these have heen, at intervals, and, as it were, by snatches, necessarily labor under some disadvantages, when collected, both of style and method. Narratives written for a newspaper also invite a freedom of expression which might not be expected elsewhere. To obviate all defects grow- ing out of these circumstances, would require a degi-ee of reconstruction which it was quite imprac- ticable to attempt. In some instances even the sta- tistical statements — continually changing — are so related to the narrative, that it was thought best to leave them, with a mention of the date, and to refer the reader to a full tabular record at the end of the volume, which should always be consulted for the latest statistics. For the opinions and views herein expressed the writer only must be held responsible. He is pain- fully sensible of his failure suitably to do honor to the scores and hundreds of apostolic men and de- voted women, the fniit of whose labors is here recorded. He regrets the necessary omission of all specific allusion to the great majority of them. Many of those whose names even are not cited, deserve mention as truly and as fully as any that ai-e speci- fied. In narratives so brief, the mention of a name is only incidental to the main facts presented. And it is very likely, too, that in some instances the ac- count of facts here given is as imperfect as is, fre- PREFACE. V quently, the narrative of a battle. Pity that warriors could not be writers. Would that we had more missionary biographies, and more narratives by the missionaries. Imperfect as they are, these Sketches are now col- lected in obedience to the judgment and desire of others, rather than the writer's own wishes. It is thought that they may help the cause, and to the cause they are offered. Not a few Foreign Missionaries have been the writer's pupils. Others were his fellow-students. Should this volume fall under the eye of these, or of any others of the noble band, he entreats them to look upon it as at least a token of the deep and unflagging interest with which he has followed them and their great enterprise, through all his mature years, and of the strong bond of active sympathy and cooperation Hh at binds, and he trusts will bind, this Theological Institution to the Foreign Mission- ary work till the Gospel shall have been "preached to all nations." Chicago Theologioai. Seminary, March, 1872. CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE I. The Origin of the American Board. . . 1 II. Missions in India 15 III. Missions in the Sandwich Islands, Micronesia, AND Marquesas. ...... 37 IV. Missions in Turkey 71 V'. The. Mission in Syria 99 VI. Missions in China 115 VII. The Mission to Persia 137 VIII. Missions in Africa . 161 IX. Missions among the North American Indians. 175 X. Missions among the North American Indians, Continued. — The Dakotas. . . . 197 APPENDIX. Statistics of the Missions of the A. B. C. P. M. . 218 Statistics of Missions recently transferred to the* Presbyterian Board of Missions. . . . 220 Statistics of the Sandwich Islands Churches. . 222 Missionaries of the Board 223 Foreign Missionary Statistics of the Protestant Churches throughout the World. . . . 232 vi SKETCHES OP THE MISSIONS OF THE AMERICAN BOARD. CHAPTER I. THE ORIGIN OF THE AMERICAN BOARD. In the year of our Lord 1811, the Protestant churches of America had Dot one missionary laborer, male or fe- male, among the millions of heathen in foreign lands : to- day they have, besides native helpers, nearly a thousand. And yet the missionary spirit of the past fifty years is not a new thing in these churches. The same zeal once burned bright in the hearts of our fathers, the old Puri- tan colonists ; and we have but experienced g, revival. The heart of the fathers has been turned to the children, and of the children to the fathers. " The first settlers of New England were the first Englishmen who devised and executed a mission to the heathen." Honored be their memory ! We come of a missionary stock. No man can rightly apprehend the new dispensation of mis- sions without some knowledge of the old ; for the holy zeal of Mills and of Jadson stands interlocked with the labors of Brainerd and of Eliot. Have you ever seen the old State Seal of MassacKu- 1 2 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. setts ? It Still bears the figure of an ladian and of a star. In early times it bore also for its motto, the Macedonian cry, " Come over and help us ; " and the star on which the Indian gazes there, is the star of Bethlehem. That quaint device was both a history and a prophecy. It records a desire and a purpose for the salvation of the Indian tribes, which not only accompanied, but preceded the coming of the first band of believers to the shores of New England. Governor Bradford tells us how the men of Plymouth discussed this very subject, while in Hol- land ; and among- the " weighty and solid reasons " for the voyage, he afiirms there was " lastly — and which was not the least — a great hope and inward zeal they had of laying some good foundation, or at least to make some way thereunto, for the propagating and advancing the Gospel of the Kingdom of Christ in those remote parts of the world ; yea, though they should he hut as stepping- stones unto others for the performing of so great a work." Prophetic words were these. Just so it was with the second or Massachusetts Bay Colony. John Cradock, the Governor of the Company in England, in 1628, writes to John Endicott, the Governor of Salem, " not to be un- mindful of the main end of our plantation, by endeavor- ing to bring the Indians to the knowledge of the gospel ; " and the Company's first general letter of instructions af- firms, "that the propagating of the gospel is the thing we do profess, above all, to be our aim in settling this plantation." The royal charter declares the same "prin- cipal end of the plantation " — " to win and incite the natives of that country to the only true God and Sa- viour of mankind." These facts ought uever to be for- gotten. Their practice was true to their profession. A series ORIGIN OF THE AMERICAN BOARD. 3 of historic pictures would well set forth the history of missions from that time to this. The first scene should be in September, 1622. A little exploring ship lies off the coast of Chatham, on Cape Cod. In it there is a dying Indian, and he is asking a white man by his side to pray for him, " that he might go to the Englishman's God in heaven." The little ship is the Swan ; the dying Indian is the faithful Squanto ; the praying white man is William Bradford, the Governor of Plymouth. And around the scene might well be writ- teti the memorable worlds that came from John Robin- son, in Holland, a few months later, when he learned of the first collision between Standish and the savages — " O that you had converted some before you killed any ! " The next painting should bring us" down to the year 1646. In the town of Newton, the minister of Roxbury is preaching, in the barbarous tongue of the natives, to a solemn assembly ; and at the close, an aged Indian rises, and asks with tears, whether it is not too late for such an old man as he to repent and seek after God. The Indians are thanking the preacher for his visit, and for the wonderful things they have heard. And again, I see this same John Eliot — for he it is — organizing a little church at Natick, and at several other places, and travel- ing about among the Indians^ from Cape Cod to Worces- ter County. He fears no threats from the opposing sachems, but tells them, "God is with me, so" that I neither fear you nor all the sachems of the country." With a robust body and a dauntless heart, he cheerfully encounters all manner of hardships. " I have not been dry, night or day, from the third day of the week unto the sixth, but so traveled ; but at night pull off my boots and wring my stockings, then on with them again, and 4 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. SO continue. But God steps in and helps.'' Once, even*, he preached the gospel to Philip of Mount Hope, though the fierce savage rejected it with scorn. And that In- dian Bible, printed two hundred and nine years ago, long in advance of all other Bibles on this continent, — though there is uo living eye nor ear that takes in its meaning, — once found a call for two editions of fifteen hundred and two thousand copies. Thomas Mayhew is already at work on Martha's Vineyard, followed in the labor by his descendants to the fifth generation. Not far from this time, on Herring Kiver, too, Thomas Tupper fs founding his Indian church, to be supplied with a succes- sion of pastors that bear his name ; and Richard Bourne, at Marshpee, is beginning the labors in which his son, his grandson, and his great-grandson, all are to bear their part. Thomas Fitch meanwhile preaches the gospel to the Mohegan tribe around Norwich, and Abraham Pierson to the natives on Long Island and in various parts of Connecticut. The names of Cotton, Rawson, Gookin, Thatcher, also, are identified with these early missions. And thus, in 1675, when King Philip's war broke in with its wretched havoc of all these good works, there might be seen, on a Sabbath day, some twenty-four regular con- gregations of " praying Indians," and about the same number of Indian preachers. Twenty years afterwards there were thirty Indian churches in Massachusetts, be- sides some fourteen hundred praying Indians in Plymouth Colony.- Their singing, says Cotton Mather, " is most ravishing.'' The narratives of these labors and conversions, pub- lished from time to time, awakened intense interest in the mother country, and called out collections from the churches of England. About this time Edward Wins- OKIGIN OF THE AMERICAN BOARD. 5 low visits England, and, largely through his influence, the same Puritan Parliament that had just brought Charles the First to the block, incorporates the " Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England." It was the mother of the organized missionary societies. Even the celebrated Moravian missions were not begun till 1732. Pass down a hundred years from the beginning of Eliot's labors, and look again. It is the year 1743. In Khode Island, under the labors of this society's agent, you may see the tokens of a powerful awakening among the Indians. They are abandoning their dances and drunken revels, and crowding the places of worship. At Westerly and Charlestown ninety of them join the church in a twelvemonth, and the whole community are nominal- ly Christians, while, a few years later, converts are reck- oned among all the tribes of that region — Narragansetts, Pequots, Neanticks, Mohegans, Montauks, and Stoning- tons. You may see Mr. Horton, on Long Island, in the course of three years, baptizing thirty-five of the natives, and their children with them ; and John Sergeant prose- cuting his mission at Stockbridge, Mass., and preparing the place where President Edwards will soon preach the gospel to the Indians, and write his Treatise on the Will. Near Sharon, Connecticut, the Indians may be seen com- ing from a region twenty-five miles around, to hear Chris- tian Henry Bauch tell them of " God who became man and loved the Indians so much that he gave his life to save them.'' This very year, 1743, Eleazer Wheelock receives Samson Occum into his family in Lebanon, Con- necticut — the germ of the Indian Charity School, and afterwards of Dartmouth College ; and David Brainerd begins his work at New Lebanon, New York, soon to be followed by that glorious series of spiritual triumphs b SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. among the Indians of New Jersey. And his own ac- count of his blessed labors, and Edwards's narrative of his short but glorious life, passed over into England, to rouse the Christian feeling of the mother country, and to help mold the character of Carey, and his coadjutors, for their missionary enterprise. War again breaks the elec- tric chain. The American Revolution, with its long train of excitements and distractions, extending both before and after,, interrupts and almost suspends these labors of Chris- tian love. But the good seed had taken root beyond the ocean. Before Brainerd's death, a body of Scotch minis- ters had called for a concert of prayer for the world's con- version ; and Brainerd's dying charge to his Indian church enjoined upon them to observe that concert of prayer. Our Revolution was followed by the Godless French devolution — or convulsion ; and in the midst of the alarm it occasioned, there was kept up united supplica- tion of Christians on both sides of the Atlantic, for the outpouring of God's Spirit, the overthrow of his enemies, and the extension of his Church to the ends of the earth. Towards the close of the century, several British societies had begun their labors in Africa, the East Indies, and the Islands of the Pacific. In this country, God was about interposing to re-unite the chain, and greatly to enlarge its circuit. To heal the desolations of war, and cover the ravages of politics, towards the beginning of the present century, extensive and powerful revivals were preparing the way for the revival, too, of missions to the heathen. Indeed, in the very year when the American Constitution was adopted (1787), the legislature of Massachusetts had incorporated a Society for Propagating the Gospel among the Indians and others in North America f and a little later, the OKIGIN OF THE AMERICAN BOAED. 7 Presbyterian Assembly orders collections for a mission- ary fund. But as revivals begin, the indications grow stronger and wider. In 1797 is formed the Northern Mis- sionary Society of New York ; in 1798, the Connecticut Missionary Society; iu 1799, the Massachusetts Mis- sionary Society, looking primarily, though not exclusive- ly, to the Indians. The magnetic influence spreads. Next year it stirs itself in the Connecticut Evangelical Magazine, and three years later, in the Massachusetts Missionary Magazine, and the Baptist Magazine, fol- lowed, in two years more, by the Panoplist — all plead- ing the cause of missions. John Norris, of Salern, in 1808, gives ten thousand dollars for a Theological Semi- nary, " because we must raise up ministers if we would have missionaries." Narratives of eastern missions come over from England. Intelligence and tnterest are dif- fused ; sermons are preached, and prayers are offered ; but as yet there are no missionaries in foreign lands. Yet God is providing for the missionaries as soon as ever the church should be wakened up to send them. He had arranged it before any of these periodicals were started, or sermons preached, or societies formed. Let us go back and look in upon the little town of Tor- ringford, Connecticut, in the year 1783. Here is a Chris- tian mother naming her son " Samuel." From his early childhood she talks to him of Eliot and Brainerd. Once he hears her say to another person, " I have consecrated this child to the service of God as a missionary.'' He never forgot those words. The first clear indicatioti of his piety, to his father's mind, was his remark that " he could conceive no course of life so pleasant as to go and give the gospel to the heathen." He longs to go to Africa. At length he broaches the subject to his parents, 8 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. but it is now too much for his mother's fortitude. " I can not bear to part with you, my son." He tells her ■what he heard her say of him years ago ; and she weeps, but never again objects. And now Samuel J. Mills enters Williams College. As he studies the geography of Asia, he broods over its moral darkness, and meditates a mission to that benighted continent. Similar thoughts of missionary labors are already stirring in the minds of James Richards and Gordon Hall, and — far away from them all — of Asahel Nettleton. Look upon another scene. There is a hay-stack in a meadow not far from "Williams College, and by the side of it a little group of students. An impending thunder- storm has driven them from their stated place of prayer in the neighboring grove to this place of shelter. And here, says one vA\o was present, " Mills proposed to send the gospel to that dark and heathen land [of Asia], add said we could do it if we -would." The subject was dis- cussed. The storm was passing off. And now said MillS) " Let us make it a subject of prayer under this hay-stack, while the dark clouds are going and the clear sky is coming." And so they prayed. Thenceforth they deliberated — it was in the north-west lower room of the east college — till on the 8th of September, 1808, they formed that strangest of secret associations, the " Society of Brethren," the object of which " shall be to effect, in the person of its members, a mission to the heathen." The constitution may still be seen, signed by the names of Mills, Richards, Fisk, Seward, Rice — all written in cipher. It was the first strictly foreign missionary so- ciety upon this continent, and was formed in the very year when Rev. Sydney Smith, of England, throiigh the cplumns of the Edinburgh Review, was pouring in his ORIGIN OP THE AMERICAN BOARD. \> broadsides upon the " consecrated. cobblers," as he called the British missionaries in India. The next year, two of these young men might be found at Andover Seminary — then just opened — where Hall, Judson, Mills, and Nott agree to establish a mission in some foreign land. In the spring of that year, Dr. Worcester publicly pre- dicts, that, " ere Iftng, God will give the word, and great will be the company of the publishers." Within a twelve- month of that prediction, there are now known to have been some twenty young men pondering this great ques- tion of duty. The time for action draws near. On the 25th of June, 1810, let us go with Eev. John Keep to the parlor of Professor Stuart, in Andover. Here is a little company, of eight or nine brethren assembled to confer with these young men. There are Drs. Spring, Worcester, Snell, Griffin, Revs. Sanborn, Reynolds, Keep, Professor Stuart, and Jeremiah Evarts. Samuel Newell states the case. A world lies in ruin, and Christ has said. Go preach the gospel to every creature. That command has come home powerfully to their hearts, and lain there for years. The sense of duty is so solemn and so strong, that one of them has already said to the call of a most inviting church, " No, I must not settle in any parish of Christendom. God calls me to the heathen. Woe to me if I preach not the gospel to the heathen." Can they have that privilege ? One by one the ministers gave their opinions. To one of the brethren the project savored of " infatua- tion." But better counsels prevailed, and the conclusion is to go forward, trusting in God. The next day Dr. Spring and Dr. Worcester ride together in a chaise to the General Association at Bradford ; and between them , on the way, there groWs up the whole conception of the 10 SKETCfiES OP THE MISSIONS. American Board, with its form, its name, and the num- ber of its members. That General Association was but a little body — eighteen, all told. A paper was presented to them, bearing the names of Judson, Mills, Nott, and Newell. Richards and Rice did not venture to add their names, lest the Association should be alarme'd at their number, and the greatness of the burden. Hall's name, also, was not there, although, in his zeal, he was " ready to work his passage to India, and then throw himself on his own resources, to preach the gospel to the heathen." In that General Association was born the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions'. Not altogether in boldness and confidence, but in questionings and solici- tudes, and yet prevailing faith. " The attitude of the meeting," says one who was there, " Was about this : no direct opposition, a weak faith, a genial hope, rather leaning to a waiting posture.'' " Never was the value of an intelligent, leading influence more clearly seen," that influence being found ia the clear heads and brave hearts of such men as Worcester and Spring. And yet it was the moving of God's Spirit, back of all men and means. Yea, no man was the ultimate leader. But just as God moved simultaneously on the hearts of Peter and Cornelius, at Joppa and at Cesarea, — and as he often prepares for some great enterprise of his by many diverse and distant agencies at once, — so had he now been work- ing silently and separately on the minds of those young missionaries, their wives, the Professors at Andover, the leading ministers, the business men, and, in some degree, the churches at large, till all was ripe, or ripening, for the formation of the American Board. Such is the method of God. OEIGIN OF THE AMEKICAN BOAKD. 11 The first meeting of the body that now fills the largest halls with its annual assemblies, occupies two or three churches with the attending communicants, counts its twenty-four thousand living converts from heathenism, and a much larger number now in heaven, was held the same year in the parlor of Dr. Porter, and consisted of five persons. But the work looked formidable. A fund of sixty thousand dollars seemed indispensable. The .effort failed — fortunately, no doubt ; although once, at Salem, the noble Mrs. Norris called out Mr. Bartlet from the committee-room to say, "I will give thirty thousand dollars, if you will," — and with her dying hand, a few months later, she gave thirty thousand dollars each to Andover Seminary and the American Board, Judson, meanwhile, was sent to England, to negotiate for help. Nothing was effected there. The question was forced back. Will the Board send these young men? "When that question first went round, only one member of the Committee ventured to say, Yes. But again God's JSpirit led the way, and they finally determined to send them — yet without wives, so far as practicable, and with the reserved alternative of throwing a part of them, if need be, upon the London Missionary Society for support. Oae other transaction remains to complete the sketch. It is the 6th of February, 1812, and the old Tabernacle Church of Salem is crowded to its utmost capacity to witness the solemn consecration of five young men to the missionary work. The funds in the treasury are not one quarter enough to pay the first year's expenses ; even the great and good Dr. Dwight tells young Nott it is a rash undertaking ; but the vessels already lie at the wharves, which are to carry a grander destiny and a surer freight than Caesar and his fortunes. In the Tabernacle Church 12 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. are gathered ministers and Christians from many miles ai'ound. Students from Andover Seminary and Phillips Academy have walked sixteen miles on that February day, to enjoy the occasion. Ann Hasseltine Judson, and Harriet Atwood Newell — the bride of a day, and the bride elect — are there, bearing up under many a censure of their " romantic " enterprise. Five of the chief minis- ters of New England — Woods, and Spring, and Griffin, and Morse, and Worcester — conduct the impressive ser- vices, deepening in pathos to the close. Dr. Woods pre- sents the glorious inducements to labor for the world's con- version, and bids the " dear young men " a tender fare- well. Dr. Morse follows with the consecrating prayer, and the five chief ministers of their generation lay their hands upon the five pioneers of all American missions in foreign lands. And as Dr. Spring proceeds with the touching charge, in which he bids them " go, with the tender companions of your bosoms, and lay your bodies by the side of Ziegenbald and Schwarz, that you may meet them, and Eliot, and Brainerd, and all other faith- ful missionaries, in the realms of light, and so be ever with the Lord ; " and as Worcester follows with that tenderest of " fellowships," beginning " God is love," and assuring them of the " unspeakable joy" with which the brethren here will read of their labors on " the banks of the Indus, the Ganges, or the Ava," the sound of irre- pressible sighing, and even of loud weeping, is heard in that great congregation ; and Nettleton weeps, far away in New Haven, that he cannot join that blessed band. Yea, and what a memorable day was that in the annals of our churches ! How it stirred up New England with a great heart-throb of missionary feeling, and vibrated ORIGIN OF THE AMERICAN BOARD. 13 across the waters. Before the vessels left the coast, money came flowing in from all quarters, and all the im- mediate necessities of the Board were met in advance. How many a parent consecrated his young child to the same good work ! and howmany a youth "then felt our Lord's command pressing on his conscience and thrilling through his heart ! The monthly concert of prayer for the world's conversion became an established institution. We read even of children who went away by themselves to pray for the missions, and named each other " Bom- bay," and " Ceylon." What a freight of holy influence for the world those vessels, the Caravan and Harmony, bore across the ocean ! What incalculable springs of mis- sionary labor for the whole church of Christ lay wrapped up in the heroic characters of Hall and Judson ! what exhaustless fountains of Christian sympathy and holy for- titude in the deep devotion of Harriet Atwood Newell, and the queenly soul of Ann Hasseltine Judson ! O that another such tide of missionary zeal might flow through the land, and especially through the young, growing churches of the great North-west, to enlist their fervent prayers, to draw out their liberal contributions, and to summon their sons and their daughters to the rescue of the dying heathen ! MISSIONS IN INDIA. 15 CHAPTER II. MISSIONS IN INDIA. Henry Marttn knew the Hindoos well ; and he once said, " If ever I see a Hindoo a real believer in Jesus, I shall see something more nearly approaching the resur- rection of a dead body than anything I have yet seen." But God knows how to raise the dead. And it was on this rriost hopeless race, under the most discouraging concurrence of circumstances, that he chose to let the first missionaries of the American Board try their fresh zeal. The movements of commerce and the history of pre- vious missionary eifort naturally pointed to the swarming continent of Asia. It was over this benighted region that Mills brooded at his studies. The British Baptist mission near Calcutta readily suggested the particular field of India, and the impression was deepened by the ardent imagination of young Judson. Plis mind had, in 1809, been so "set on fire " by a moderate sermon of Buchanan's, the " Star of the East," that for some days he was unable to attend to the studies of the class ; and at a later period a now forgotten book. Colonel Symes's " Embassy to Ava," full of glowing and overwrought descriptions, stirred him with a fascination for Burmah which he never lost. "The Prudential Committee of the Board also looked to the Burman Empire because it was 16 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. beyond the control of British authority, and therefore be- yond " the proper province of the British Missionary Society." Judson did indeed find his way to Burmah, but in a mode how different from what he expected ! cut adrift from his "associates, and fleeing from British authority. The Board established this mission, but in a place and with a history how diverse from their intentions ! Man proposes, but God disposes. Bombay became the first missionary station. And that choice band of young disciples — God had roused their several hearts, brought them together from their distant homes, and united their burning zeal to scatter them in the opening of their labor. There was Mills, given to God by his mother, now strengthening her faltering resolution ; there was Hall, ready to work his passage, and throw himself on God's providence, in order to preach the gospel to the heathen ; there was Judson, ardent, bold, and strong, and Newell, humble, tender, and Sevoted ; there was Nott, with the deep " sense of a duty to be done," and Rice, whose earnest desire to join the mission the Committee " did not dare to reject ; " and there was the noble Ann Hasseltine, with a heart all alive with missionary zeal before the Lord brought Judson to her father's house in Bradford, and the young Harriet Atwood, gentle, and winning, and firm, mourning at the age of seventeen over the condition of the heathen, and at eighteen joining heart and hand with Newell, to carry them the gospel. Of all this precious band, two only, Hall and Newell, did God permit to bear a permanent part in that projected mission. Mills was to die on mid-ocean, in the service 'of Africa ; Harriet Newell was to pass away before she found a resting- MISSIONS IN INDIA. 17 place for the sole of her foot ; Nott was to break down with the first year's experience of the cliftiate ; Mr. and Mrs. Judson, and Mr. Rice, were to found another great missionary enterprise. On the 19th of February, 1812, the Caravan sailed from Salem, with Judson, and Newell, and their wives on board ; a,nd on the 20th, the Harmony, from Philadel- phia, with Nott, and Hall, and Rice ; the one vessel go- ing forth from the heart of Congregationalism, the other from the centre of Presbyterianism, carrying the sym- pathies of both denominations. They sailed through the midst of the embargo and non-intercourse ; and the note of war with England followed their track upon the waters. Their instructions pointed them to the Burman Em- pire, but gave them discretionary power to go elsewhere: The Burman Empire could be reached only through the British possessions, and botk vessels were accordingly bound for Calcutta. But the British authorities in India at that time were resolutely opposed to Christian missions. The East India Company professed to believe that the preaching of the gospel would excite the Hindoos to re- bellion, and was meanwhile drawing a large revenue from the protection of idolatry. The Baptist mission- aries at Serampore had felt the power of this hostility, but, being British subjects, and having long held the ground, could not be dispossessed. But the spirit of hostility had of late been kindled up anew. In the very year when Mills and Rice were founding their secret missionary society at Williams College, Rev. Sydney Smith was stirring up the British public, through the enginery of the Edinburgh Review, against the British mission in India. He opened by 18 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. insinuating that the mutiny at Vellore was connected with a recent increase of the missionary force ; he con- tinued with ridicule of " Brother Carey's " and " Brother Thomas' " Journals, and closed with an elaborate argu- ment to show the folly of founding missions in India. He argues, fipst, from the danger of insurrection ; secondly, from " want of success," the effort being attended with difficulties which he seems to think " insuperable ; " thirdly, from " the exposure of the converts to great present misery ; " and fourthly, he declares conversion to be " no duty at all if it merely destroys the old religion, without really and effectually teaching the new one." In regard to the last point, he argues that making a Chris- tian is only destroying a Hindoo, and remarks that " after all that has been said of the vices, of the Hindoos, we be- lieve that a Hindoo is more mild and sober than most Europeans, and as honest and chaste." Such was the tone of feeling he represented, and he returned next year to the task of " routing out " " a nest of consecrated cob- blers." The Baptist missionaries are " ferocious Meth- odists " and " impious coxcombs," and when they com- plain of intolerance, " a weasel might as well complain of intolerance when it is throttled for sucking eggs." He declares that the danger of losing the East India possess sions " makes the argument against them conclusive, and shuts up the case ; " and he adds, that " our opinion of the missionaries and of their employers is such that we most firmly believe, in less than twenty years, for the conversion of a few degraded wretches, who would be neither Methodists nor Hindoos, they would infallibly produce the massacre of every European in India." To this hostile feeling towards missionaries in general was MISSIONS IN INDIA. 19 soon added the weight of open warfare between England and America. The Caravan reached her destination on the 17th of June. Scarcely had the first warm greetings of Christiau friends been uttered, when the long series of almost apos- tolic trials began. Ten days brought an order from government, commanding the return of the missionaries in the Caravan. ' They asked leave to reside in some other part of India, but were forbidden to settle in any part of the Company's territory, or its dependencies. May they not go to the Isle of France ? It was granted. And Mr. and Mrs. Newell took passage in the first ves- sel, leaving their comrades, for whom there was no room on board. Four days later arrived the Harmony ; and Hall, Nott, and Rice also were summoned before the police, and ordered to return in the same vessel. They also applied for permission to go to the Isle of France j and while waiting for the opportunity, another most " try- ing event " befell them. Mr. and Mrs. Judson, after many weeks of hidden but conscientious investigation, changed their views, and joined the Baptists. Four weeks later and another shock ; Mr. Rice had followed Judson. " What the Lord means," wrote Hall and Nott, " by thus dividing us in sentiment and separating us from each other, we cannot tell." But we can now tell, that the Lord meant another great missionary enterprise with more than a hundred churches and many thousand con- verts in the Burman Empire. While the brethren still waited, they gained favorable intelligence of Bombay, and especially of its new govern- or. They received a general passport to leave in the ship Commerce, paid their passage, and got their trunks aboard, when there came a peremptory order to proceed 20 SKETCHES OP THE MISSIONS. in one of the Company's ships to England, and their names were published in the list of passengers. They, however, used their passports, and embarked for Bom- bay, while the police made a show of searching the city for them, but did not come near the vessel. In a twelve- month from the time of their ordination, they reached Bombay, to be met there by a government order to send them to England. While the Commerce was carrying Hall and Nott to Bombay, another sad blow was preparing. Harriet Newell was dying of quick consumption at the Isle of France. Peacefully, and even joyfully, she passed away, sending, messages of the tenderest love to her distant relatives, comforting her heart-broken husband, and ex- hibiting a faith serene and unclouded. " Tell them [my dear brothers and sisters], and also my dear mother, that I have never regretted leaving my native land for the cause of Christ." " I wish to do something for God be- fore I die. But ... I long to be perfectly free from- sin. God has called me away before we have entered on the work of the mission, but the case of David affords me comfort. I have had it in my heart to do what I can for the heathen, and I hope God will accept me." She is told she can not live through the day. " O, joyful news ! I long to depart." And so she departed, calling, with faltering speech, " My dear Mr. Newell, my hus- band," and ending her utterance on earth with, " How long, O Lord, how long?" And yet God turned this seeming calamity into an unspeakable blessing. Mr. Nott, half a century later, well recounts it as one of the " providential and gracious aids to the establishment of the first foreign mission," and remembers " its influence on our minds in strengthening our missionary purposes." MISSIONS IN INDIA. 21 And not only so, but the tale of her youthful consecration, and her faith and purpose, unfaltering in death, thrilled through the land. How many eyes have wept over the touching narrative, and how many hearts have throbbed with kindred resolutions ! " No long-protracted life could have so blessed the church as her early death." Look at one instance. The little town of Smyrna lies on the Chenango River in central New York. It had neither church, minister, nor Sabbath school ; and never had witnessed a revival of religion. The Memoir of Harriet Newell, dropped into one woman's hands in that town, began a revival of religion in her heart, through her house, through that town, and through that region. Two evangelical churches grew out of that revival. Men and women who were born again at that time, have carried far and wide the power of the cross and the in- stitutions of the gospel. On (he Isle of France there still is seen a stranger's grave, while another 'solitary tomb may be seen on the distant Island of St. Helena. The one formerly contained the world's great Captain, the other holds the ashes of a missionary girl. But how in- finitely nobler that woman's life and influence ! From February till December, Hall and Nott, at Bom- bay, were kept in suspense, and even in expectation of defeat. The Governor of that Presidency was personal- ly friendly, but overborne by his official instructions. Twice were they directed to return in the next vessel, their names being once entered on the list of passengers, and at another time their baggage being made ready for the ship, and the Coolies waiting to take it. Again and again were they told there was no alternative, till all hope had passed. Hall bad made his final appeal, in a letter of almost Pauline boldness and courtesy, in which he bade 22 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. the Governor " Adieu, till we meet you face to face at God's tribunal." The very next day they were informed that they might remain till further instructions were re- ceived ; and in due time they gained full permission to labor in any part of the Presidency. The/Company had yielded to the powerful influence brought to bear, not only from without, but from within their own body at home. "When, at the last moment, the Court of Directors were on the point of enibrcing their policy, a powerful argu- ment from Sir Charles Grant, founded on the documents of the missionaries, turned the scale. India was open. Hall and Nott vi'ere soon joined by Newell, who, bereft as he was, and for a time supposing that his comrades had all been sent back, had yet resolved to labor alone in Ceylon, Bombay thus became the Plymouth of the American mission in India ; less prominent and influential than other stations, but noted as the door of entrance. Here began the struggle with Hindooism — intrenched as it was for ages in the terrible ramparts of caste, " inter- woven throughout with false science, false philosophy, false history, false chronology, false geography," entwined with every habit, feeling, and action of daily life, among a people prolific in every form of vice, and demoralized by long inheritance, till the sense of moral rectitude seemed extinct. The Hindoos, in some instances, charged the missionaries with having written the first of Romans on purpose to describe their case. Hindooism was aided, too, in its recoil, by the dealings of the English nation, who, says Sydney Smith, " have exemplified in our public conduct every crime of which human nature is capable." In itself, Bombay proved one of the most discouraging of all the stations of the Board. Sickness and death kept MISSIONS IN INDIA. 23 sweeping away its laborers, and it was years before the first conversion of a Hindoo. But one missionary now resides at Bombay, and that city is now only one of the seven stations of the Mahratta mission — numbering some forty out-stations and thirty-one churches, with a inembership scattered through a hundred and forty vil- lages. The tremendous strength of Hindooism is well exhibited in the fact that up to the year 1856, the total number of conversions in the mission was but two hundred and eighty-five ; and the sure triumph and accelerating power of the gospel were equally well expressed in the fact that for the next six years the conversions were near- ly twice as many as in the previous forty, and that never has there been such depth of interest, and so numerous accessions from the higher castes, as during the last few years. The seed-time has been long and wearisome. The full harvest-time is not yet come. But Hindooism is felt to be undermined ; and another generation may witness, if the church- is faithful, such revolutions in India as there is not now faith to believe. The details of this long strug- gle, could they, be here recounted, would present a record of faithful unfaltering toil, rather than of striking inci- dents. When once the missionaries were admitted, the strong hand of British power became their protection. There were many excitements, and there were sore trials on the part of those who often were called literally to abandon father and mother for Christ. But it was a rare thing when, in 1832, the missionaries were hooted and pelted with dirt in the streets of Ahmednuggur, and their preaching assemblies broken up. , The field is intrinsically difficult, and this mission was the first experiment of the Board. Experience has led, within the last few years, to some modifications in 24 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. method, from which, ia connection with the large pre- paratory work already accomplished, greater results may reasonably be looked for. Less relative importance is attached to local printing and teaching, and far more to itinerant preaching and personal intercourse. Failure to reach the women was found to be not only a great ob- stacle to rapid progress, but the cause of many a relapse. The attempt to give an English education indiscriminate- ly in the schools proved to be more than unprofitable, in a missionary point of view, since the knowledge of Eng- lish often became an inducement to abandon the mis- sionary. Perhaps too little dependence also had been placed on native piety to maintain its own institutions, and organize aggressive movements. These things have begun to receive the most earnest attention. A native pastorate, missionary tours, self-support of the churches, heavier benevolent contributions, and greatly increased labors by women among the women, are omens of a time at hand when the gospel in India shall rest upon home forces and win its own way. The establishment of the Mahratta mission at Bombay was followed in 1816 by the mission to Ceylon, among a Tamil-speakiug people, and in 1834 by the Madura mission, among the kindred Tamil people on the Con- tinent. A glance at these three regions of India at the present time would show at the Mahratta mission, cen- tring at Ahmednugger, some forty-seven stations and out- stations, including thirty-one churches with six hundred and twenty-nine communicants. The little band of ten Missionaries, with their wives, is re-enforced by eleven na- tive pastors, three preachers, nine catechists, twenty-seven teachers, fourteen Bible women, and twenty-four other helpers. While the church members themselves are scat- MISSIONS IN INDIA, 25 tered through a hundred and forty villages, an organized system of itinerant preaching carried the gospel message, in 1870, to many hundred villages and sixty thousand or seventy thousand hearers. A theological class of six is coming forward, the church members are beginning to rally in earnest to the support of their ministry, Bible women are working their way into the families ; and it was a day to be remembered when a native Christian Alliance, with a hundred and fifty representative men, was lately held at Bombay, to impress upon each other the duty of independent labor to propagate the gospel in India. Their discussions were earnest and practical, and filled with " €tf7idences of deeper feeling than was ever seen before in Bombay." But the struggle of the gospel in this region must still be a mighty conflict. The laborers are few, too few for anything like an aggressive movement. The Mahratta country, of which Bombay is the capital, extends three hundred miles on the coast and four hundred and fifty miles inland, with a population of eleven millions. What are ten missionaries to such a population? They are contending with ignorance so dense that but five persons in a hundred can read at all, and few of them intelligent- ly. And as to the general level of intelligence, Mr. Bis- sell has well said, " The Hindoo knows nothing that is worth knowing, and what he thinks he knows is a de- lusion ; '' " false geography, false astronomy, false his- tory," held with all the tenacity of false religion. They contend with a caste-system so divisive, that not only the touch, but the very shadow, of a Mahar is pollution to a Brahmin ; so terribly rigid, that when Vishnupunt, now pastor at Ahmednuggur, became a Christian, his parents performed funeral rites for him. Their son was " dead." 26 SKETCHES OP THE MISSIONS. They contend with an idolatry dreadfully benumbing to the mind and the heart ; that burnt widows and swung on hooks as .long as it was suffered ; that still worships the cobra di capello and the crow ; that reckons it as great a charity to preserve the life of an animal as of a man, that actually built its poorhouses in Bombay for super- annuated cows, cats, and dogs, but never a poorhouse in all India for human beings ; that seplies to the preacher, " A full stomach is my heaven," and, " You may as well play on a lute to a buffalo ; " and that, even when con- vinced of its lost condition, could come, as did Yesoba, and pour its bag of rupees on the floor, with the words, " Sahib, take this money and give me salij&tion." They contend, too, with the adverse influence of a corrupt European civilization, and the counter-agency of open European infidelity, which has its organs even in Bom- bay, and which often fills with Deism the void in the mind of the educated Hindoo. But with all this they have fought and begun to con- quer. Yesoba, with his bag of rupees, found the Saviour, and lived and died in the faith. The Brahmin and the Mahar drink of one cup in the Christian church. Mr. Bruce records with wonder the change he found in the villages of Punchegav in 1870. Twelve years before, the patU, or head man, ordered the missionary out of the place with language of awful foulness. The second visit was resisted by the people themselves en masse. On a third visit three missionaries could not find a soul to listen. And when at length Harkaba, an honored teacher, became converted, "Beat him," "Kill him," "Bury him," were the fierce utterances of the enraged villagers. They could not fulfil their threats ; but they often made old Harkaba flee into the jungle to weep and pray. But now MISSIONS IN INDIA. 27 the same paiil gave the missionary a cordial welcome, and offered to give the little church a piece of land for a chapel ; an evening lecture filled the " rest-house " full of people, and a hundred stood outside. This is certain- ly an unusual change. But there is, no doubt, a steadily increasing number of intelligent natives, who feel as did one, — a wealthy and influential man, — whom Mr. Bis- sel encountered in a little village on a missionary tour. " Sahib," said he, "your religion is true, and it will pre- vail in this lahd. If we do not embrace it, our children will ; or if they do not, their children will, for it is true end must prevail." A little group of eleven churches, with five hundred and thirty members, occupy the northern province of Ceylon, an island of two million inhabitants, once swept over by Francis Xavier with forty thousand so-called " converts." Here is the region where Richards, and Meigs, and Poor, and Scudder began their missionary work, and where Spaulding has faithfully toiled for more than half a century. The churches lie scattered among the rural districts and the cultivators of the soil, where one hundred and eighty thousand inhabitants of the Jaffna province are provided with five hundred and fifty heathen temples, holding their annual festivals, more impressive with pomp, and more insnaring with vice, to that sensual people, than can well be conceived. The festivals are Satan's grand gala-days, and the temples around which they gather are Satan's stronghold. It has been mostly a sappers' and miners' work, and not assault and storm. The mission began at Batticotta and Tillipally, in the ruins of two Portuguese churches older than the settle- ment of America, and at Oodooville, in the residence of an ancient Franciscan friar. In about three years from 28 SKETCHES OP THE MISSIONS. their first occupancy began (in 1819) the series of re- vivals, which, in the early history of this mission, carried it steadily onward. They were frequent in the schools. It was a delightful time in 1824, when the Spirit of the Lord came down almost simultaneously on the schools at Til- lipally, 0(5dooville, Batticotta, Manepy, and Pandeteripo. There was weeping for sins. There was praying by night in companies and alone, " the voice of supplication heard in every quarter," out in the garden at Pandeteripo, each company or individual " praying as though all were alone," and coming in with the weeping inquiry, " What shall we do to be saved?" Sixty-nine were thought to have* found- the Lord at that precious time. More than once did the schools at Batticotta, Oodooville, and Tillipally experience these simultaneous revivals, extending also to the adult population of the towns. Every year wit- nessed admissions to the church, rising in one year (1831) to sixty-one. The British government, though admitting the first few missionaries, had steadily refused, till the year 1833, to permit any increase of their number. And yet the little band had made steady progress. In a dozen years from their landing, they were preaching regularly to two thou- sand hearers on the Sabbath, they were hopefully itinerat- ing in the villages, and they had forty-five hundred pupils in their ninety-three free schools, their boarding schools, and their seminary at Batticotta. They had gained the hearty co-operation of the associate justice, and other distinguished gentlemen of Ceylon, and raised their semi- nary to so high a repute that where once it was difficult to procure a pupil, now they selected their entering class of twenty-nine from two hundred applicants. In 1833, the government restriction having been removed, a re- MISSIONS IN INDIA. 29 enforcement of seven missionaries, including a physician and a printer, arrived. Their coming was signalized by the establishment, next year, of a mission (the Madura mission) among the kindred Tamil people on the Con- tinent. Converts were added in Ceylon for the next three years, seventy-nine, fifty-two, forty-nine. And in 1837, with one hundred and eighty-seven free schools, containing seven thousand pupils, a hundred and fifty students in the seminary, and ninety-eight girls in the school at Oodooville, and a rising tide of respect and in- fluence all around, it seemed as though victory was or- ganized. But that year brought a stunning blow. The failure of the funds from America, in that time of pecuniary trouble, compelled the mission to disband a hundred and seventy schools, to dismiss more than five thousand chil- dren, including a part of the pupils in the two seminaries, to stop their building, curtail their printing, and cut down to the very quick. Their Sabbath congregations were nearly broken up, all their activities razeed, their spirits discouraged, and their hearts almost broken. It was a time of woe. The heathen exulted. Native converts were discouraged and led astray. Educated and half- educated youth were snatched away from under the gospel, and often worse than lost to the cause. And though in the following year the home churches were startled into furnishing the funds once more, and the mission kept thanksgiving over the restoration, it may be doubted whether it has ever recovered its lost head- way and its firm hold upon the country. The well-grown tree had been pulled up by the roots. May such havoc never be wrought again. The missionaries experienced another great shock in 80 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 1843, when they discovered the old Hindoo leaven break- ing out in the Batticotta seminary in snch falsehood and gross vices as necessitated the expulsion of sixty-one pupils, including the whole select class, and the dismis- sion of several native teachers. It was one of those fear- ful pieces of surgery which the constitutional rottenness of heathenism may sometimes require. Outwardly, the wound healed over in a year, and the school was more flourishing than befbre. No striking events have occurred within the last few years. Marked revivals, though not unknown, are less frequent than they once were. The novelty, and, per- haps, prestige of the gospel have long passed by, and it takes its place by the other religions, to contend for the land by a long-continued struggle. But the mission is organized for work, and its churches are in a transition state toward self-support. Some of them have reachdH that point. Some seven thousand persons belong to the regular Sabbath congregations. Five native pastors, three other native preachers, fourteen catechists, and seventy-eight teachers are re-enforcing the missionaries ; while the Batticotta " Training and Theological School," with its twenty students, and the female boarding schools at Oodooville and Oodoopitty, with seventy-si^ pupils, are raising a further supply, and twenty-six hundred children are gathered in the village schools, which are now aided and partly controlled by the British government. All the villages of the province are now accessible to the gospel, and in the year 1870, thirteen hundred of them were visited, and seventy thousand persons listened to the message. Weekly conferences, and mothers' meetings in the churches, a religious paper (The Morning Star), and the " Native Evangelical Society," a Board of Foreign MISSIONS IN INDIA. 31 Missions, with its " annual meetings and reports," and " special appeals " for an occasional debt, crowned with success, its chapel-buildings, where the remaining debt (as at Pungerative last year) is cleared off on dedication day, — all begin to remind one of the mother country on a small scale. These things, with the increasing depen- dence on the native agencies, and the movement for more effective influence upon the women by their own sex, are pointing forward to a time when these home agencies shall take care of themselves. The missionary force is at present inadequate to the best economy and activity, and formidable foes are to be encountered. A tide of educated infidelity also increases the semblance of a civil- ized land. Thus the first two natives who received the degi-ee of A. B. at Madras University, on the Continent, turned against Christianity. At the same time there ia apparently a wide-spread intellectual conviction of its- truth among those who refuse to submit to its claims. The posture of things is well indicated in the case of two persons with whom Mr. De Kiemer had a recent inter- view — a young Brahmin and an old Sivite priest whom he brought with him. The youUg Brahmin boldly as- serts the sin and folly of idolatry, and is greatly in- terested in the gospel, but cannot gain strength to cut the cord that his wife, family, and rank bind around him, and come out for Christ. The old Sivite priest (or gooroo), for sixty years an attendant on one of the largest temples, lamented not only his waning star, but the grow- ing neglect and disrespect of the people for their gooroos. And when asked if this were not an omen of the day when the gospel would supplant the whole religion, he raised both hands and exclaimed, " Undoubtedly ! Most D 32 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. certainly ! The time is very near at hand. Only a few days." Would it were true. But the end is not yet. The Madura mission embraces the " Madura CoUec- torate,'' an oblong district of about eighty-eight hundred square miles, containing a population of some two mil- lions, scattered through nearly four thousand villages, and speaking the Tamil language. ■ The city of Madura lies near the centre. In the midst of this population eleven ordained missionaries and a physician, with their wives and other ladies, occupied, in 1870, thirteen stations and a hundred and fifty out-stations. They had clustered round them twenty-eight churches, with fourteen hun- dred communicants, including eight native pastors, a hun- dred and twenty-two catechists, and a band of teachers. A newly-formed theological school at Pasumalai, with twenty-two students, is raising a further supply of young ministers, preaching as they study. A regularly organized system of itinerant preaching has in one year reached twelve or thirteen hundred villages and seventy thousand hearers. The church collections, for local and other purposes, have reached, by a steady increase, thirty- two hundred rupees a year. An Evangelical Alliance is aiding the churches toward self-support. Bible women are pleasantly received ; and the change in many homes is such that the hnissionary has ventured to remind his congregations, that once they had " donkeys in their houses, but now friends and companions." Opposition, and even downright persecution, are not wanting. In a village near Madnra, recently, a little band of Christians were, by artful accusations, brought eight times before the police, and twice lodged in jail. But " stolid in- difference " is the chief obstacle — utter animal life. The signs of promise, however, are not few. The churches MISSIONS IN INDIA. 33 are more effectually reaching the higher castes. Mr. Washburn reports twenty-five hundred Bibles, or por- tions of the Bible, sold in nine years around the station of Battalagundu. A Brahmin reported that the income of the temple at Tirupuvanam had fallen off forty per cent, in four years. The persecution near Madura oc- casioned a meeting of the friends and relatives to .con- sider the question of joining the persecuted. And in parts of the field occasional facts recall the scenes of early Jewish and of later Christian lauds. Mr. Chandler, in 1870, encountered a representative of Christ's own hearers in a man of wealth and high caste, who has read Christian books, and will build a school-house for a Chris- tian school, who says he " believes in the Christian re- ligion, and would embrace it but for certain family ties, from which he cannot now break away." And Mr. Tracy, later still, found in Madura just such persons as we find at home — young men, intelligent, educated, amiable, denouncing the follies of idolatry, cordially admitting Bible truths, acknowledging even their own sin, but strenuously refusing Christ and ati atonement, with the declaration that " repentance was the only atonement needful." In view of this state of things, it will not be surprisiug if, with God's blessing and a sufficient working force, the next ten years shall show great changes in this field, for which the church has great encouragement to pray, and look, and give. Two significant facts arrest the atten- tion : More than four fifths of these church members have been gathered during the last half of the time, and they represent twenty different castes. In this goodly ^ork have been found engaged some of the choicest spirits that the church has seen since apos- 34 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. tolic times. The names of Hall, and Newell, and Poor, and Scudder, and Meigs, and Hoisington, and Winslow, and Ballantine, and many others now with God, are names of blessed memory and holy fragrance. And where are the like-minded men to enter in and finish the work ? It was th'eirs to open the field to the Christian world : who will follow ? The task is well begun. " There will prob- ably be," said an intelligent observer, " a long prepara- tory work in India, and a rapid development." Hitherto the enterprise has been carried on amid dis- couragements, oppositions, private persecutions, and even poisonings of converts ; but it has steadily gone forward. And when we see the accelerated motion with which the gospel is now pushing its way, when we view men of the higher castes coming in and the whole fearful enginery of caste giving way, when we see the gathering of the Christian denominations toward India, and listen to the confessions of the Hindoo organs and leaders, we some- times think the harvest may not be far away. And to-day, over against the despairing cry of Martyn, and the dogged assertion of Sydney Smith, we will put the admission of the Indu Prakash, the native Bombay newspaper : " We daily see Hindoos, of every caste, becoming Christians and devoted ' missionaries of the cross.' " And so far as figures can show the power of a movement that runs deeper than all figures, ponder the following statistics, carefully compiled in 1862. In the three Presidencies of India there were representatives of thirty-one missionary societies at work, aided by ninety- eight ordained native preachers. They were regularly dispensing the gospel to one thousand one hundred and ninety congregations, besides hundr^s of thousands of other hearers ; they reckoned a hundred and thirty- MISSIONS IN INDIA. 35 eight thousand registered or nomiual Christians, of ■whom thirty-one thousand were communicants ; they had ninety thousand children and youth iu atfendance on their schools. These facts are to be viewed as only the foundation, long laid in silence below the surface, for vastly greater changes yet to appear. So deep is the hold of the work, not only on the native converts, but on the foreign resi- dents, that the churches themselves already (1867) con- tribute twenty.five thousand dollars a year ; while British officials in India give a quarter of a million dollars an- nually to the several missionary societies in that country. And could the witty writer of the Edinburgh now visit the scene, he might incline, in several particulars, to modify his judgment of 1808 — that the missionaries " would de- liberately, piously, and conscientiously expose our whole Eastern empire to destruction, for tlie sake of converting half a dozen Brahmins, who, after stuffing themselves with rum and rice, and borrowing money from the m.is- sionaries, would run away, and cover the gospel and its professors with every species of ridicule and abuse." He might be glad, also, to sum up his case a little differently than thus : " Shortly stated, then, our argument is this : We see not the slightest prospect of success ; we see much danger in the attempt, and we doubt if the conversion of the Hindoos would ever be more than nominal.'' It is a marvelous specimen of the folly of this world's wisdom, and a strong showing how God hath chosen the weak things of this world to confound the mighty. Never was an enterprise begun and prosecuted with a deeper sense of helplessness without God, and of whole- souled trust in his power and his promise. Judson has well expressed the spirit that animated all his comrades. 36 SKETCHES OF IHE MISSIONS. When he had been three years at his post, and had found neither a convert, an inquirer, nor an interested listener, he could write thus : " If any ask, What prospect of ulti- mate success is there? tell them. As much as that there is an almighty and faithful God. ... If a ship was lying in the river, ready to convey me to any part of the world I should choose, and that, too, -with the entire approba- tion of all my Christian friends, I would prefer dying to embarkingi" Two years more witnessed but one in- quirer — yet the same song of faith and hope : " I have no doubt that God is preparing the way for the conver- sion of Burmah to his Son. This thought fills me with joy. I know not that I shall live to see a single convert ; but, notwithstanding, I feel that I would not leave my present situation to be made a king." Such was the dauntless courage that led the first For- eign Mission of the American churches ; such the first handful of Christian soldiers that deliberately sat down to the siege of all India — to whom God gave the victory. How sublime that faith ! How glorious the reward ! " He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bring- ing his sheaves with him." Let Christians and churches ponder well the struggle of the gospel for a foothold in India, and never again entertain one doubt of the sacred promise, " Lo ! I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS, MICEONESIA, ETC. 37 CHAPTER III. fiUSSIONS IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS, MICEONE- SIA, AND MARQUESAS. In the year 1809, a dark-skinned boy was found weep- ing on the door-steps at Yale College. His name was Henry Obookiah (Opukahaia) ; and he came from the Sandwich Islands. In a civil war his father and mother had been slain before his eyes ; and when he fled with his infant brother on his back, the child was killed with a spear, and he was taken prisoner. Lonely and wretched, the poor boy, at the age of fourteen, was glad to come with Captain Brintnell to New Haven. He thirsted for instruction ; and he lingered round the college buildings, hoping in some way to gratify his burning desire. But when at length all hope died out, he sat down and wept. The Rev. Edwin "W. Dwight, a resident graduate, found him there, and kindly took him as a pupil. In the autumn of that year came another resident grad- uate to New Haven, for the purpose of awakening the spirit of missions. It was Samuel J. Mills. Obookiah told Mills his simple story — how the people of Hawaii " are very bad ; they pray to gods made of wood ; " and he longs " to learn to read this Bible, and go back there and tell them to pray to God up in heaven." Mills wrote to Gordon Hall, " What does this mean ? Brother Hall, do you understand it? Shall he be sent back unsup- 38 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. ported, to attempt to reclaim his countrymen? Shall we not rather consider these southern islands a proper place for the establishment of a mission ? " Mills took Obookiah to his own home in Torriagford, and thence to Andover for a two years' residence ; after which the young man found his way to the Grammar School- at Litchfield, and, when it was opened in 1817, to the Foreign Mission School at Cornwall, Conn. At Litch- field he became acquainted and intimate with Samuel Kuggles, who, about this time (1816), resolved to ac- company him to his native island with the gospel. In the same vessel which brought Obookiah to Amer- ica came two other Hawaiian lads, William Tenooe (Kanui) and Thomas Hopu. After roving lives of many years, in 1815 they were both converted — Tenooe at New Haven, and Hopu after he had removed from New Haven to Torringford. Said Hopu, after his conversion, "I want my poor countrymen to*know about ChristJ' These young men, too, had been the objects of much personal interest in New Haven ; and in the following June, during the sessions of the General Association in that city, a meeting was called by some gentlemen to discuss the project of a Foreign Mission School. An organization was' effected under the American Board that autumn, at the house of President Dwight, three months before his death. Next year the school opened. Its first principal was Mr. Edwin W. Dwight, — who found Oboo- kiah in tears at Yale College, — and among its first pupils were Obookiah, Tenooe, Hopu, and two other Hawaiian youths, with Samuel Buggies and Elisha Loomis. But Obookiah was never to carry the gospel in person to his countrymen. God had a wiser use for him. In nine months from the opening of the Mission School, he IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS, MICRONESIA, ETC. 39 closed a consistent Christian life with a peaceful Christian death. The lively interest which had been gathering round him was profoundly deepened by his end and the memoir of his life, and was rapidly crystallizing into a mission. Being dead, he yet spoke with an emphasis and an eloquence that never would have been given him in his life. The touching story drew legacies from the dying, and tears, prayers, donations, and consecrations from the living. " O, what a wonderful thing," he once had said, " that the hand of Divine Providence has brought me here from that heathenish darkness ! And here I have found the name of the Lord Jesus in the Holy Scrip- tures, and have read that his blood was shed for many. My poor countrymen, who are yet living in the region and shadow of death ! — I often feel for them in the night season, concerning the loss of their souls. May the Lord Jesus dwell in my heart, and prepare me to go and spend the remainder of my life with them. But not my will, but thine, O Lord, be done." The will of the Lord was done. The coming to Amer- ica was a more " wonderful thing " than he thought. His mantle fell on other shoulders, and in two years more a missionary band was ready for the Sandwich Islands. Hopu, Teuooe, and John Honoree, natives of the islands, were to be accompanied by Hiram Bingham and Asa Thurston, young graduates of Andover, Dr. Thomas Holman, a young physician, Daniel Chamberlain, a sub- stantial farmer, Samuel Whitney, mechanic and teacher, Samuel Ruggles, catechist and teacher, and Elisha Loomis, printer and teacher. All the Americans were accompanied by their wives, and Mr. Chamberlain by a family of five children. Mr. Ruggles seems to have been the first to determine upon joining the mission, and Mr. 40 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. Loomis had been a member of the Mission School, With this company went also George Tamoree (Kamaulii), who had been a wanderer in America for fourteen years, to return to his father, the subject king of Kauai. The ordination of Messrs. Eiugham and Thurston at Goshen, Conn., drew from the surrounding region a large assembly, among whom were a great number of clergy- men, and nearly all the members of the Mission School, now tliirty or more in number ; and " liberal offerings " for the mission came in " from all quarters." A fort- night later the missionary band was organized at Boston into a church of seventeen members ; public services were held Friday evening and Saturday forenoon in the presence of "crowded" houses, at the Park Street Church ; and on the Sabbath six hundred communicants sat with them at the table of the Lord. " The occasion," says the " Panoplist " of that date, " was one of the most interesting and solemn which can exist in this world." On Saturday, the 23d of October, 1819, a Christian assembly stood upon Long Wharf, and sang, " Blest be the tie that binds." There was a prayer by Dr. Worces- ter, a farewell speech by Hopu, a song by the mission- aries, " When shall we all meet again ; " and a fourteen- oared barge swiftly conveyed the little band from their weeping friends to the brig Thaddeus, which was to carry the destiny of the Hawaiian Islands. While the missionaries are on their way, let us take a look at the people whom they were going to reclaim. The ten islands of the Hawaiian group — an area some- what less than Massachusetts — were peopled by a well- formed, muscular race, with olive complexions and open countenances, in the lowest stages of barbarism, sensu- ality, and vice. The children went stark naked till IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS, MICKONESIA, ETC. 41 they were nine or ten years old ; and the men and women wore the scantiest apology for clothing, which neither sex hesitated to leave in the hut at home before they passed through the village to the surf. The king came more than once from the surf to the house of Mr. Ruggles with his five wives, all in a state of nudity ; and on being in- formed of the impropriety, he came the next time dressed — with a pair of silk stockings and a hat ! The natives had hardly more modesty or shame than so many animals. Husbands had many wives, and wives many husbands, and exchanged with each other at pleasure. The most revolting forms of vice, as Captain Cook had occasion to know, were practiced in open sight. When a foreign vessel came to the harbor, the women would swim to it in flocks for the vilest of purposes. Two thirds of all the children, probably, were destroyed in infancy — strangled or buried alive. The nation practiced human sacrifice ; and there is a cord now at the Missionary Rooms, Chicago, with which one high priest had strangled twenty-three human victims. They were a race of perpetual thieves ; even kings and chiefs kept servants for the special purpose of stealing. They were wholesale gamblers, and latterly drunkards. Thoroughly savage, they seemed almost destitute of fixed habits. When food was plenty, they would take six or seven meals a day, and even rise in the night to eat ; at other times they would eat but once a day, or perhaps go almost fasting for two or three days together. And for purposes of sleep the day and the night were much alike. Science they had none ; no written language, nor the least conception of any mode of communicating thought but by oral speech. A race that destroyed their own children had little 42 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. tendeio mercy. Sons often buried their aged parents alive, or left them to perish. The sick were abandoned to die of want and neglect. Maniacs were stoned to death. Captives were tortured and slain. The whole system of government and religion was to the last degree oppressive. The lands, their products, and occupants were the property of the chiefs and the king. The per- sons and power of the high chiefs were protected by a crushing system of restrictions, called tabus. It was tabu and death for a common man to let his shadow fall upon a chief, to go upon his house., enter his enclosure, or wear his Jcapa, to stand when the king's Icapa or his bathing water was carried by, or his name mentioned in song. In these and a multitude of other ways, " men's heads lay at the feet of the king and the chiefs." In like manner it was tabu for a woman to eat with her husband, or to eat fowl, pork, cocoa-nut, or banana, — things offered to the idols, — and death was the penalty. The priest, too, came in with his tabus and his exactions for his idols. There were six principal gods with names, and an in- definite number of spirits. Whatsoever the priest de- manded for the god — food, a house, land, human sacri- fice — must be forthcoming. If he pronounced a day tabu, the man who was found in a canoe, or even enjoy- ing the company of his family, died. If any one made a noise when prayers were saying, or if the priest pro- nounced him irreligious, he died. When a temple was built, and the people had finished the toil, some of them were oflfered in sacrifice. In all these modes, the oppres- sion of the nation was enormous. The race had once been singularly healthy. They told the first missionaries — an exaggeration, of course — that formerly they died only of old age. But foreign sailors IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS, MICRONESIA, ETC. 43 had introduced diseases, reputable, and especially dis- reputable ; and now, between the desolations of war, in- fanticide, and infamous diseases widely spread by general licentiousness, the nation was rapidly wasting away. Such was the forbidding race on whom the missionaries were to try the power of the cross. " Probably none of you will live to witness the downfall of idolatry," — so said the Eev. Mr. Kellogg to Mr. Rnggles, as they took breakfast together at East Windsor, the morning before he left home. And so thought, no doubt, the whole com- munity. But God's thoughts are not as our thoughts. Hopu called up his friend Ruggles at one o'clock on a moonlight night (March 31), to get the first glimpse of Hawaii ; and at daybreak the snow-capped peak of Mauna . Kea was in full view. A few hours more, and Hopu pointed out the valley where he was born. A boat is put off, with Hopu and others in it, which encounters some fishermen, arid returns. As the boat nears the ves- sel, Hopu is seen swinging his hat in the air ; and as soon as he arrives within hail, he shouts, " Oahu's idols are no more ! " On coming aboard, he brings the thrilling news that the old king Kamehameha is dead ; that Liholiho, his son, succeeds him; that the images of the gods are all burned; that the men are all " Inoahs," — they eat with the women ; that but one chief was killed in settling the government, and he for refusing to destroy his gods. Next day the message was confirmed. Kamehameha, a remarkable man, had passed away. On his death-bed he asked an American trader to tell him about the Amer- icans' God ; but, said the native informant, in his broken English, " He no tell him anything." All the remaining intelligence was also true. The missionaries wrote in their journal, " Sing, heavens, for the Lord hath done 44 SKETCHES OP THE MISSIONS. it." Tlie brig soon anchored in Kalui Bay, the king's residence ; and a fourteen days' consultation between the king and chiefs followed. Certain foreigners opposed their landing ; " they had come to conquer the islands." " Then," said the chiefs, " they would not have brought their women.'' The decision was favorable. Messrs. Bing- ham, Loomis, Chamberlain, and Honoree go to Oahu ; and Messrs. Ruggles and Whitney accompany the young Tamoree to his father, the subject king of Kauai. The meeting of father and son was deeply affecting. The old king, for his son's sake, adopted Mr. Ruggles also as his son, and gave him a tract of land, with the power of a chief. He prepared him a house, soon built a school-house and chapel, and followed him with acts of friendship which were of great benefit to the mission while the king lived, and after his death. He himself became a hopeful con- vert, and in 1824 died in the faith. When the missionaries were landed the brig sailed, leaving them, out of three years' supplies provided by the Board, one barrel of pork, one of beef, and one of, flour. But the kindness of the natives saved the missioa from wanti And now the missionaries settled down to their work. They had found a nation sunk in ignorance, sensuality, and vice, and nominally without a religion, though, really, still in the grasp of many of their old supersti- tions. The old religion had been discarded chiefly on account of its burdensomeness. We cannot here recount all the agencies, outer and inner, which brought about this remarkable convulsion. But no religious motives seem to have had any special power. Indeed, King Liholiho was intoxicated when he dealt to the system its finishing stroke by compelling his wives to eat pork. IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS, MICRONESIA, ETC. 45 And by a providence as remarkable as inscrutable, the high priest threw his whole weight into the scale. Into this opening, thus signally furnished by the hand of God, the missionaries entered with wonder and gratitude. The natives educated in America proved less serviceable than was expected. Tenooe was soon excommunicated ; although in later years he recovered, and lived and died a well-reputed Christian. Hopu and Honoree, while they continued faithful, had partly lost their native tongue, lacked the highest skill as interpreters, and uatarally failed in judgment. Hopu, at the opening of the first revival, was found busy in arranging the inquirers on his right hand and his left hand, respectively, as they answered yes or no to the single question, " Do you love your enemies ? " and was greatly disturbed at being inter- rupted. The king and the chiefs, with their families, were the first pupils. They insisted on the privilege. Within three months the king could read the English language, • and in six months several chiefs could both read and write. The missionaries devoted themselves vigorously to the work of reducing the native speech to writing ; and in less than two years the first sheet of a native spelling- book was printed — followed by the second, however, only after the lapse of six months. From time to time several accessions of laborers were received from America, and various changes of location took place. The first bap- tized native was Keopuolani, the mother of the king ; and others of the high chiefs were among the earlier converts. The leading personages, for the most part, showed much readiness to adopt the suggestions of the missionaries. In 1824 the principal chiefs formally agreed to recognize the Sabbath, and to adopt the ten commandments as the 46 EKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. basis of government. They also soon passed a law for- bidding females to visit the ships for immoral purposes. The gravest obstacles encountered came from vile cap- tains and crews of English and American vessels. They became ferocious towards the influences and the men that checked their lusts. The British whale-ships Daniel, and John Palmer, and the American armed schooner Dolphin, commanded by Lieutenant Percival, were prominent in open outrage. The house of missionary Richards was twice assailed by the ruffians of the ship Daniel, encour- aged by iheir captain. On one occasion they came and demanded his influence to r.epeal the law against prostitu- tion. On his refusal, they, in the presence of his feeble wife, threatened, with horrid oaths, to destroy his prop- erty, his house, his life, and the lives of all his family. Two days after, forty men returned, with a black flag, and armed vrith knives, repeating the demand. The chiefs at length called out a company of two hundred men, armed with muskets and speai's, and drove them off. The crew of the Dolphin, with knives and clubs, on the Sabbath assailed a small religious assembly of chiefs, gathered at the house of one of their number, who was sick. Mr. Bingham, who was also present, fell into their hands, on his way to protect his house, and barely escaped with his life from the blow of a club and the thrust of a knife, being rescued by the natives. A mob of English and American whalemen, in October, 1826, started for the house of Mr. Richards, at Lahaina, with the inten- tion of taking his life. Not finding him, they pillaged the town ; while all the native women, from a population of four thousand, fled from their lust, for refuge in the nioimtains. A year later, the family of Mr. Richards took refuge in the cellar from the cannon-balls of the IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS, MICRONESIA, ETC. 47 John Palmer, which passed over the roof of the house. When printed copies of the ten commandments were about to be issued, this class of men carried their opposi- tion, with threats, before the king. At Honolulu, while the matter was pending, Mr. Ruggles was approached by an American captain, bearing the satirical name of Meek, who flourished his dagger, and angrily declared himself ready " to bathe his hands in the heart's blood of every missionary who had. anything to do with it." At one time, twenty-one sailors came up the hill, with clubs, threatening to kill the missionaries unless they were furnished with women. The natives, gathering for wor- ship, immediately thronged around the house so thickly that they were intimidated, and sneaked away. At another time, fourteen of them surrounded the mis- sionary, with the same demand, but were frightened off by the resolute bearing of the noble chief Kapiolani — a majestic woman, six feet high — who, arriving at the in- stant, swung her umbrella over her head, with the crisp words, "Be off in a moment, or I will have every one of you in irons." She was the same Christian heroine who, in 1824, broke the terrible spell which hung over the volcano Kilauea, by venturing down into the crater, , in defiance of the goddess Pele, hurling stones into the boiling lake, and worshiping Jehovah on its black ledge. It is easy to understand why a certain class of captains and sailors have always pronounced the Sandwich Islands mission a wretched failure. The missionaries labored on undaunted. Eight years from their landing found them at work, some thirty-two in number, with four hundred and forty native teachers, twelve thousand Sabbath hearers, and twenty-six thou- sand pupils in their schools. At this time, about fifty 48 SKETCHES OF THK MISSIONS. natives, including Kaahumanu, the Queen Regent, and many of the principal chiefs, were members of the church. And now, in the year 1828, the dews of heaven began to fall visibly upon, the mission. For two or three years the way had been preparing. Kaahumanu, converted in 1828, and several other high chiefs, had thrown them- selves vigorously and heartily into the work. " They made repeated tours around all the principal islands," says Mr. Dibble, " assembling the people from village to village, and delivering addresses day after day, in which they prohibited immoral acts, enjoined the observance of the Sabbath, encouraged the people to learn to read, and exhorted them to turn to God, and to love and obey the Saviour of sinners." " The effect was electrical — per- vading at once every island of the group, every obscure village and district, and operating with immense power on all grades and conditions of society. The chiefs gave * orders to the people to erect houses of worship, to build school-houses, and to learn to read — they readily did so ; to listen to the instructions of the missionaries — they at once came in crowds for that purpose." About this time, too (May, 1825), the remains of King Liholiho and Ms wife were brought back from their unfortunate expedition to England, where they died from the measles. Their attending chiefs filled the ears of the people with what they saw in England ; and Lord Byron, commander of the British frigate which brought the remains, gave an honorable testimony to the missionai'ies. These various influences caused a great rush to hear the Word of God. The .people would come regularly, fifty or sixty miles, traveling the whole of Saturday, to attend Sabbath worship.; and would gather in little cond- panies, from every point of the compass, like the tribes IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS, ]4lCE0NESIA, ETC. 49 as they went up to Jerusalem. Meanwhile, the printed Word was circulated throughout the villages. At length the early fruits appeared. In the year 1828, a gracious work began, simultaneously and without com- munication, in the islands of Hawaii, Oahu, and Maui. It came unexpectedly. The transactions at Kaavaloa (Hawaii) well illustrate the work. Mr. Enggles was away from home, with Mr. Bishop, on an excursion to visit the schools of the island. They had been wrecked, and had swum ashore. Two natives, who were sent home for shoes and clothing, brought a message from Mrs. Rug- gles to her husband, requesting his immediate return, for " strange things were happening — the natives were com- ing in companies, inquiring what they should do to be saved." He hastened back, and found the house sur- rounded from morning till night, and almost from night till morning. A company of ten or twenty would be re- ceived into the house, and another company would wait their turn at the gate. So it went on for weeks, and even months, and the missionaries could get no rest or refreshment, except as they called in Kapiolani and others of the converted chiefs to relieve them. Mr. and Mrs. Euggles had the names of twenty-five hundred in- quirers on their books. With multitudes, it was, no doubt, but sympathy or fashion ; but there were also a large number of real- inquirers, and many hopeful conversions. All the converts were kept in training classes a year be- fore they were admitted to the church, and then only on the strictest examination. During the two following years, three hundred and fifty persons were received to communion at the several stations. For a time the work seemed to lull again, but in 1836 the whole aspect of the field was so inviting that the Board sent out a strong 50 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. missionary re-enforcement of thirty-two persons, male and female. At this time, and for the following year, the hearts of the missionaries were singularly drawn out in desires and prayers for the conversion, not only of the islands, but of America and of the world. And scarcely had the new laborers been assigned to their places, and learned the language, when (in 1838) there began, and continued for six years, one of the most remarkable awakenings that the world has ever witnessed. All hearts seemed tender. Whenever the Word was preached, conviction and con- versions followed. The churches roused up to self- examination and prayer ; the stupid listened ; the vile and groveling learned to feel ; the congregations became immense, and sometimes left their churches for the open air, and the prayer meetings left the lecture-room for the body of the church. There were congregations of four, five, and six thousand persons. The labors of the mis- sionaries were almost incredible. They traveled through the islands, facing the storms and climbing the ravines, visiting, preaching, conversing, examining, iu season, out of season. They preached from seven to twenty, or even thirty times a week ; and the sense of guilt in the hearers often broke forth in groans and loud cries. Probably many indiscretions were committed, and there were many spurious conversions. But, after all allowances, time showed that a wonderful work wa's wrought. During the six years from 1838 to 1843, inclusive, twenty-seven thousand persons were admitted to the churches. In some instances the crowds to be baptized on a given Sabbath required extraordinary modes of baptism ; and Mr. Coan, whose labors were incessant, and who baptized some seven thousand persons, is said to have sprinkled IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS, MICRONESIA, ETC. 51 water with a brush upon the candidates as they came before him in throngs. The uelxt twenty years added more than twenty thou- sand other members to the churches, making the whole number received, up to the end of the connection with the American Board in 1863, some fifty thousand souls. Many of these had then been excommunicated — in some instances, it was thought, too hastily ; many thousand had gone home to heaven, and in 1863 some twenty thousand still survived in connection with the churches. At length came the time when the islands were to be recognized as a nominally Christian nation, and the re- sponsibility of their Christian institutions was to be rolled off upon themselves. In Juue, 1863, Dr. Anderson, Senior Secretary of the American Board, met with the Hawaiian Evangelical Association to discuss this im- portant measure. After twenty-one days of debate, the result was reached with perfect unanimity, and the As- sociation agreed to assume the responsibility hitherto sustained by the Board. This measure was consum- mated by the Board in the autumn following, and those stations no longer look to the American churches for management and control. " The mission has been, as sach, disbanded and merged in the community." On the loth of January, 1864, at Queen's Hospital, Honolulu, died William Kanui (Tenooe), aged sixty- six years, the last of the native youth who gave rise to the mission and accompanied the first missionaries. He had wandered — had been excommunicated — and was restored ; and after many years of faithful service he died in the triumph of faith. In his last sickness he used " to recount the wonderful ways " in which God had led him. " The names of Cornelius, Mills, Beecher, Daggett, Pren- 52 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. tice, Griffin, and others were often on his lips ; " and he went, no doubt, to join them all above. God had spared his life to see the whole miraculous change that'had lifted his nation from the depths of degradation to civilization and Christianity. Could the spirit of Henry Obookiah have stood in Honolulu, soon after the funeral of Kanui, he would have hardly recognized his native island, ex- cept by its great natural landmarks. He would have seen the city of Honolulu, once a place of grass huts and filthy lanes, now marked by substantial houses and side- walks, and a general air of civilization ; a race of once naked savages decently attired, and living, some of them, in comparative refinement ; a nation of readers, whom he left without an alphabet ; Christian marriage firmly estab- lished in place of almost promiscuous concubinage ; prop- erty in the interior exposed with absolute security for an indefinite time, where formerly nothing was safe for an hour ; the islands dotted with a hundred capacious church edifices, built by native hands, some of them made of stone, most of them with bells ; a noble array of several hundred common schools, two female seminaries, a Nor- mal school for natives, a high-school that furnished the first scholar to one of the classes in Williams College ; a theological seminary and twenty-nine native preachers, besides eighteen male and female missionaries sent to the Marquesas Islands ; near twenty thousand living church members ; a government with a settled constitu- tion, a legislature, and courts of justice, and avowing the Christian religion to be " the established national religion of the Hawaiian Islands." These facts exhibit the bright and marvelous aspect of the case. But, of course, they have their drawbacks. The Sandwich Islands are not Paradise, nor even Amer- IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS, MICRONESIA, ETC. 53 ica. The plane of civilization is, as it must be, far below that of our own country. The old habits still shade into the new. Peculiar temptations to intemperance and licen- tiousness come down by inheritance. Foreign interven- tions and oppositions have been, and still are, grave hin- drances. Church members but fifty years removed from a state of brutalism cannot, and do not, show the stability, intelligence, and culture of those who inherit the Christian influences of a thousand years. But the amazing transformation of the islands is a fact attested not alone by the statements of the missionaries, or of the Board that employed them. The most generous testimony Las come from other sources. The Rev. F. S. Rising, of the American Church Missionary Society, ex- plored the islands in 1866, for the express purpose of testing the question. He visited nearly every mission station, examined the institutions, religious, educational, social ; made the personal acquaintance of the missionaries of all creeds,.and conversed with persons of every profes- sion and social grade. And he writes to the Secretary of the American Board, " The deeper I pushed my investi- gations, the stBonger became my conviction, that what had been on your part necessarily an experimental work in modern missions had, under God, proved an eminent :>uccessi Every sunrise brought me new reasons for admiring the power of divine grace, which can lift the poor out of the dust, and set him among princes. Every sunsetting gave me fresh cause to bless the Lord for that infinite love which enables us to bring to our fellow-men such rich blessings as your missionaries have bestowed on the Hawaiian Islands. To me it seemed marvelous that in comparatively so few years, the social, political, and religious life of the nation should have undergone so 54 SKETCHES OP THE MISSIONS. radical and blessed a change as it has. Looking at the kingdom of Hawaii-nei, as it to-day has its recognized place among the world's sovereignties, I cannot but see in it one of the brightest trophies of the power of the cross." "What of Hawaiian Christianity? I would apply to it the same test by which we measure the Christianity of our own and other lands. There are certain outward signs which indicate that it has a high place in the national respect, conscience, and affection. Possessing these visible marks, we declare of any country that it is Christian. The Hawaiian kingdom, for this reason, is properly and truly called so. The constitu- tion recognizes the Christian faith as the religion of the nation. The Bible is found in almost every hut. Prayer — social, family, and individual — is a popular habit. The Lord's day is more sacredly observed than in New York. • Churches of stone or brick dot the valleys and crown the hill-tops, and have been built by the voluntary contributions of the natives. There the Word is preached, and the sacraments administered. Sunday schools abound. The contributions of the people for religious uses are very generous, and there is a native ministry growing in num- bers and influence, girded for carrying on the work so well begun. The past history of the Hawaiian mission abounds with bright examples, like Kaahumanu and Kapiolani, and some were pointed out to me as I went to and fro. They were at one time notoriously wicked. Their lives are manifestly changed. They are striving to be holy in their hearts and lives. They are fond of the Bible, of the sanctuary, and prayer. Their theology may be crude, but their faith in Christ is simple and tenacious. And when we see some such in every congregation, we know that the work has not been altogether in vain." IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS, MICRONESIA, ETC. 55 In 1860 Richard H. Dana, Esq., a distinguished Boston lawyer, of the Episcopal Church, gave a similar testi- mony in the New York Tribune, during his visit to the islands. Among other things, he mentions that " the proportion of inhabitants who can read and write is greater than in New England ; '' that they may be seen ' " going to school and public worship with more regularity than the people at home ; " that after attending the ex- amination of Oahu College, " he advised the young men to remain there to the end of their course [then extend- ing only to Junior year], as they could not pass the Freshman and Sophomore years more profitably else- where, in my judgment ; " that " in no place in the world that I have visited are the rules which control vice and regulate amusement so strict, yet so reasonable, and so fairly enforced ; " that " in the interior it is well known that a man may travel alone with money through the wildest spots unarmed ; " and that he " found no hut without its Bible and hymn book in the native tongue, and the practice of family prayer and grace before meat, though it be no more than a calabash of poi and a fevs'' dried fish, and whether at home or on a journey, is as common as in New England a century ago." There is one sad aspect about this interesting nation. The population has been steadily declining since the islands were first discovered. Cook, in 1773, estimated the number of inhabitants at four hundred thousand. This estimate, long thought to be exaggerated, is now supposed to be not far from the truth. But in 1823, wars, infanticide, foreign lust, imported drinks, and disease, had reduced them to the estimated number of one hun- dred and forty-two thousand ; and in 1830, to the ascer- tained number of one hundred and thirty thousand. In 56 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. the lapse of a few years after the first visits of foreign vessels, half the population are said to have been swept away with diseases induced or heightened by their unholy intercourse. The mission has done what could be done to save the nation. But the wide taint of infamous dis- eases was descending down the national life before the missionaries reached the islands ; and the flood-gates of intemperance were wide open. The gospel has retarded the nation's decline. But foreign influences have always interfered — and now, perhaps, more than ever. The sale of ardent spirits was once checked, but is now free. The present monarch stands aloof from the policy of some of his predecessors, and from the influence of our mission- aries. And the population, reduced to sixty-two thou- sand in 1866, seems to be steadily declining. The Pa- cific Advertiser, which furnishes the facts, finds the chief cause in the fearful prevalence, still, of vice and crime, which are said to have been increasing of late; and the reason for this increase is " political degrada- tion," and the readiness with which the people now ob- tain intoxicating drinks. It must be remembered that " in the height of the whaling season, the number of transient seamen in the port of Honolulu equals half the population of -the town ; " and the influences they bring breathe largely of hell. Commercial forces and move- ments, meanwhile, are changing the islands. The lands are already passing into the hands of foreign capitalists, and the islands are falling into the thoroughfare of the nations. The proper sequel, therefore, of this grand missionary triumph may be taken away ; and the race itself, as a nation, may possibly cease to be. But in no event can the value or the glory of the work achieved be destroyed. IN THE SANDWICB ISLANDS, MICRONESIA, ETC. 57 Not only will thousands on thousands of human souls thereby have been brought into the kingdom, by the labor of a hundred missionaries, and the expenditure of perhaps a million dollars from America, but a grand experiment will have been tried before the world, and an imperish- able memorial erected for all time, of what the remedial power of the gospel can accomplish, in an incredibly short time, upon a most imbruted race. -" Fifty years ago,'' says Dr. A. P. Peabody, " the half-reasoning elephant, or the tractable and troth-keeping dog, might have seemed the peer, or more, of the unreasoning and conscienceless Hawaiian. From that very race, from that very genera- tion, with which the nobler brutes might have scorned to claim kindred, have been developed the peers of saints and angels." And all the more glorious is the move- ment, that the nation was sunk so low, and was so rapid- ly wasting away. " If the gospel," says Dr. Anderson, " took the people at the lowest point of social existence, — at death's door, when beyond the reach of all human remedies, with the causes of decline and destruction all in their most vigorous operation, — and has made them a Christian people, checked the tide of depopulation, and has raised the nation so on the scale of social life, as to have gained for it an acknowledged place among the na- tions of the earth, what more wonderful illustration can there be of its remedial power? " The history of the Sandwich Islands will stand forever as the vindication to the caviler of the worth of Chris- tian missions, and as a demonstration to the Christian of what they might be expected to accomplish in other lands, if prosecuted with a vigor at all proportioned to the na- ture and extent of the field, and crowned with the bless- ing of God. 58 SKETCHES OP THE MISSIONS. The mission church must iu due time turn missionary. So rightly reasoned the members of the Sandwich Islands mission. Thirty years had elapsed ; fifteen hundred dol- lars a year were collected at the monthly concert ; the first native pastor had been ordained by a council of native churches, and in the same year the members of the mission proposed that Hawaiian Christians should carry the gospel to other islands. The Prudential Com- mittee at Boston warmly approved the proposal. Another year (1850) saw the Hawaiian Missionary Society formed at Honolulu. Two thousand miles away to the south-west of Hono- lulu lie an immense number of islands — two thousand or more — now embraced under the general name of Micronesia — the Little Islands. Scattered in groups known by various appellations — Ladrones, Carolines, and the like — they stretch, from three degrees south to twenty degrees north of the equator, and were then sup- posed to contain a population of two hundred thousand. Many of them were built wholly by the coral insect, and lie flat upon the water, while a few of them are basaltic islands, with mountains two or three thousand feet in height. These various groups differ in language and in the details of their customs and superstitions, but agree in the general characteristics of their native occupants. They are the natural homes of indolence and sensuality, of theft and violence. The warmth of the climate ren- ders clothing a superfluity, and houses needless except for shade ; while the constant vegetation of the tropics dispenses with accumulated stores of food. A race of tawny savages stalk round almost or quite naked, swim like fish in the waters, or bask in the simshine on shore. They prove as ready to catch, as vile sailors are to com- IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS, MICRONESIA, ETC. 59 municate, the vices of civilized lands. Intemperance is an easily besetting sin, and licentiousness is, with rare exceptions, the general and almost ineradicable pollution of the Pacific Islands. But in the Kingsmill group the missionaries found a people who, though practicing poly- gamy, held in honor the chastity of woman. The attention of the missionaries was turned to three of these groups of islands — the Caroline, the Marshall, or Mulgrave, and the Kingsmill. or Gilbert Islands. The eastern portion of the Caroline chain was natural- ly fixed upon as the centre of operations by reason of the convenient location and healthful climate. Two of these, Kusaie and Ponape, were the first to be occupied. Ponape, or Ascension Island, is a high basaltic island, sixty miles in circumference, surrounded by ten smaller basaltic islands, all inclosed within a coral reef. It rises to the height of two thousand eight hundred and fifty feet, and has its rivers and waterfalls. The island is a physical paradise, with a delightful climate, in which the range of the thermometer for three years was but seven- teen degrees, and with a various and luxuriant vegeta- tion. Among the indigenous products are the bread- fruit, banana, cocoa-nut, taro, sugar-caue, ava, arrowroot, sassafras, sago, wild orange, and mango, with an im- mense variety of timber trees ; while lemons, oranges, pine-apples, coffee, tamarinds, guava, tobacco, and other exotics thrive abundantly. From the mangrove trees that line the shore the ground rises by a series of natural terraces ; and while twenty varieties of birds fill the air with life, a population of five thousand people are so hidden in the overhanging forests and shrubbery that but for an occasipnal canoe, or a smoke ascending, the pass- ing vessel would scarcely know it to be inhabited. The 60 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. inhabitants seem to be of Malay descent, and the place was " a moral Sodora." Kusaie, or Strong's Island, the easternmost of the Carolines, is one of a small cluster, and is about thirty miles in circumference. It rises to the height of two thousand feet, wooded to the summit, and it then con- tained some one thousand five hundred people, strongly Asiatic both in look and speech. Here polygamy was unknown, and labor comparatively honorable. Many of the inhabitants, with an unusual quickness of apprehen- sion, had learned of foreigners a kind of broken English before the missionaries arrived, and the Good King George, as his subjects called him, had, with surprising wisdom, forbidden the tapping of the cocoa-nut tree for the manufacture of intoxicating drink. North-east of Kusaie lie the Marshall, sometimes called Mulgrave, Islands, subdivided into the Eadack and Ra- lick, or eastern and western chains. About thirty prin- cipal islands compose the group. They are all of coral formation, but much higher, more fertile and inviting, than the Gilbert group, south of them. Majuro, or Arrowsmith, for example, is described as a magnificent island, rising eight or ten feet above the water at the landing-place, sprinkled with forests of breadfruit and pandanus trees, and abounding with cocoa-nuts and ba- nanas. The population of the whole group was esti- mated at twelve thousand or upwards, speaking, to some extent, different languages. They had been compara- tively uncontamlnated by foreign intercourse from their reputation for ferocity. Several vessels had been cut off by them, and a great number of foreigners killed at different times, in retaliation for a former deadly attack upon the natives. The residence of the king and princi- IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS, MICRONESIA, ETC. 61 pal. chiefs was at Ebon Island. The natives are in some respects superior to many of the Pacific islanders. Their features are sharper, their persons spare and athletic, and their countenances vivacious. The women wear their hair smootlily parted on the forehead, and neatly rolled up in the neck, sometimes adorned with flowers, and their skirts, fine and beautifully braided and bor- dered, extend from the ■waist to the feet. The men ex- hibit much more skill than is common in this region, and are fond of ornaments. Their comparative intelligence and exemption from foreign influence constituted the in- viting aspect of this case ; their alleged ferocity the for- midable feature. Directly south of the Marshall Islands, on both sides of the equator, lie the Kingsmill, or Gilbert Islands. Fifteen or sixteen principal islands, surrounded by a multitude of islets, raised by the coral insect barely above the level of the ocean, contain a population of thirty or forty thousand, speaking mostly a common language resembling the Hawaiian. The land is densely covered with cocoa-nut groves. This is the " tree of a thousand uses," furnishing the natives almost " every- thing they eat, drink, wear, live in, or use in any way." Their hats, clothing, mats, and cords are made from its leaves ; their houses are built from its timber ; they eat the fruit, drink the milk, make molasses and rum from its juice, and manufacture from it immense quantities of oil for use and for sale. Their religion is the loosest system of spirit-worship, without priest, idol, or temple. They practice polygamy. The children go naked for ten or twelve years. The men wear a girdle, and the women a broader mat around them. Their appearance of nudity is relieved by the tattooing with which they are profusely 62 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. and skillfully adorned. The considerable population, the unity of origin, faith, and language, and the general .resemblance of their speech to the Hawaiian, rendered this group inviting, especially to the Sandwich Island laborers, although its torrid sun, comparatively barren soil, and limited range of vegetation made it not alto- gether favorable for the American missionaries' home. Such was the region to wliich the gospel was to be carried. On the I8th of November, 1851, missionaries Snow and Gulick, with their wives, left Boston in the Esther May, and two months afterward, Mr. and Mrs. Sturges, in the Snow Squall, for Micrpnesia by way of the Sandwich Islands. Seven native Hawaiians were ready to join them, but two only, with their wives, were selected for the opening of the mission. The native churches made liberal contributions for their outfit aiid support. King Kameliameha III. gave them a noble letter of commendation to the Micronesian chiefs. A mission church was organized early in July, 1852, and -on the 15th of the same month, just thirty-three years, or one whole generation, from the date of the former parting at Long Wharf, in Boston, the like scene took place in the harbor of Honolulu. A crowd of natives thronged the shore as the missionaries put off for the schooner Caroline. On the deck of the schooner there is a prayer in Hawaiian, and another in English, a verse of the Missionary Hymn, a shaking of friendly hands, and with a gentle breeze the . vessel glides away. The Caroline arrived at the Gilbert Islands, and on the 21st of August anchored at Kusaie. The mission- aries were pleasantly received by Good King George in a faded flannel shirt, while his wife sat by in a short cotton gown, and his subjects approached him crouching IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS, MICRONESIA, ETC. 63 OQ their hands and knees. He consented to the mission, gave them supplies, promised them land and a house, and OQ hearing the thirteenth chapter of Romans and witnessing their worship, he pronounced both to be " first rate." Messrs. Snow, Opunui, and their wives commenced their work in this isolated place, where at one time they passed a period of two full years without a letter from America. A fortnight later the Caroline anchored in the land-locked harbor of Pouape, where the king came on board, and after some conversation, told them It should be " good for them to stop." And here Messrs. Sturges, Gulick, Kaaikaula, and their wives were soon established in their new home. In 1854 they were followed by Dr. Pierson and the native Hawaiian, Kanoa. These brethren brought a blessing to the crew of the whaling bark Belle that carried them ; her three mates were converted on the voyage. As they cruised among the Marshall Islands on their way to Kusaie, by a good providence, the king's sister, a remarkable woman, took passage from Ebon to another island, became attached to the missionaries, and spoke their praises at every island where they touched. The missionaries proceeded on their voyage to Kusaie, but with a deep conviction that the Lord was calling them back to the Marshall group. At length (1857) the Morning Star, the children's vessel, heaves in sight at Kusaie. She brings Mr. and Mrs. Bingham, and Kanakaole, with his wife, on their way to the Marshall and Gilbert Islands. They are joined here by Messrs. Pierson and Doane, and sail for their destination. As they set out for Ebon Island, of the Marshall group, they are solemnly warned by old sea captains of the danger that awaits them from that 64 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. ferocious people. On approaching the island, the cap- tain put up his boarding nettings, stationed his men fore and aft, and anxiously awaited the issue. Fifteen canoes drew near, jammed full of men. In the prow of the foremost stood a powerful man with a wreath on his head and huge rings in his ears. On they came, but in the same instant Dr. Pierson and the savage recognized each other as old acquaintances, and the savage came on board shouting, " Docotor, docotor ! " in perfect delight. Many months before, it seems, this man and a hundred . others had been driven by a storm upon Kusaie, where the missionaries had rescued them, and befriended them with food and medicine, and they had returned to their tomes in peace. So the Lord befriended the mission- aries in turn, and prepared them a welcome among the so-called cannibals. And when, after a further cruise of thirty days, the Morning Star returned to leave the missionaries at Ebon, they were met on the water by twenty canoe loads of people shouting, singing, and dancing for joy. On the shore they were received with every demonstration of friendship, and the aged female chief who had once sailed with Dr. Pierson among the islands took him by both hands, and led him joyfully to her hous.e. On the same voyage Mr. Bingham and Kanoa were set down at Apaiang, of the Gilbert group, where the king gave them a pleasant home. Thus was the gospel first carried to these three groups of islanids ; and here we leave them and their fellow- laborers that followed them, chiefly Hawaiians, at their self-denying toils. We will briefly sketch the progress of the work on the principal island, Ponape, as a speci- men of the whole. Here the king, though almost help- less with the palsy, was friendly to the enterprise ; while IN THE SlNDWICH ISLANDS, MICEONESIA, ETC. 65 the Nanakin, his chief officer, expressed himself warmly, and received an English book with the avowed deter- miaation to learn to read it. " The cooper should teach him how, or he would pound him." Two short months sufficed to awaken the enmity of unprincipled foreigners. Two captains had bought one of the small islands, and made out a deed for the Nanakin to sign. He brought it to the missionaries, who found it to contain the gross- est frauds, including even the forgery of the Nanakin's signature. The exposure, of course, created hostility. Six months brought fifteen vessels, and thoiigh in most instances the captains were friendly, and even kind, every arrival was attended with deplorable influences on the morals of the native women. Then came the opening of a school, some of the scholars sitting patiently for six long hours to get an opportunity to steal. Then came the small-pox, and before the end of the first year it had carried off multitudes of the inhabitants, broken up the school, arrested all plans of labor, prostrated the Ha- waiian preacher, and produced a general recklessness and bitterness of feeling through the island. To add to the evil, the vaccine matter .received from the Sandwich Islands proved worthless, and wicked foreigners circu- lated the report that the missionaries had introduced and were spreading the disease. By resorting boldly to inoculation, and beginning with the Nanakin, the mis- sionaries at length saved many lives and regained confix dence. In the midst of this calamity, Mr. Sturges' house burned up, with all its contents, driving him and his family to the woods. Hostilities arose, also, among the tribes, attended with robberies and murders, and the sailors continued to bring moral pollution. One day, in his accustomed tour, Mr. Sturges passed near three 66 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. brothels, all kept by foreigners. But the missionaries toiled on, resumed their schools, gathered their growing congregations, privately sowed the good seed, and in four years' time were printing hymns and Old Testament stories in Ponapean. After a night of eight years three converts Were at one lime received to their little church, followed by eight others soon ; and meanwhile a little church of six members was formed in another part of the island. Revivals brought opposition, and more or less of persecution. At length a chapel was built in the mountains by native hands, and at the principal station a church edifice, forty feet by sixty, solemnly dedicated to God. Hardly was it consecrated when the Morning Star arrived with an eight hundred pound bell, the gift of friends in Illinois ; and within a fortnight the Nanakin, with his wife and fourteen other converts, sat down at the table of the Lord. The chief had vibrated back and forth — now proclaiming Sabbath observance, breaking up five brothels, and following the missionary round the island, and now distributing toddy profusely among the people — till at length the Lord brought him in. Half the islanders had by this time yielded an outward defer- ence to the true religion. Early in the year 1867 there were religious services regularly held at twelve principal places, a thousand readers, one hundred and sixty-one church members in good standing, and numbers of con- verts soon to be received. Three new churches had •been erected by the natives within two years, in one of which (in May, 1867) one hundred communicants sat down to the Lord's table, in the presence of six hundred spectators, on the very spot where, fourteen years before, Mr. Sturges was near being overcome and robbed ; and another of these churches just built, though seating five IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS, MICKONESIA, ETC. 67 hundred persons, will soon need to be enlarged. At Kusaie there are one hundred and eighty-three church members, of whom ninety-three were received in 1867.* Three stone chapels had just been erected, four native deacons ordained, and the eye of the missionary turned to one man — the only living child of Good Kiiig George — for a native pastor ; while the influence of the churches is reacting on the sailors. ' There are about sixty, church members now at the Marshall Islands, and the prospects are eminently hopeful. In the Gilbert group it is still seed-time, but the knowledge is spreading from island to island. Among the laborers are ten Hawaiian missionaries, who have toiled wisely and faithfully. On many of these islands the population is steadily growing less. Possibly the religious books that now exist in these several tongues may one day lie, like Eliot's Indian Bible, with- out a reader ; but they will be monuments of noble Christian self-denial, and mementoes of souls gathered into the kingdom of heaven. It remains to say a few words of the Marquesas. The mission here is in every aspect most remarkable, whether we consider the character of the people, the origin, the agency^ or the influence of the mission. The Marquesas Islands, six in number, are situated nearly as far from Micronesia as from Hawaii. They are of volcanic for- mation, their mountains rising to the height of four or five thousand feet, with a wonderful grandeur and variety of scenery. The climate is fine, and the valleys unsur- passed in fertility, abounding in all manner of tropical fruits and vegetation. The fruits hang temptingly upon • The statistics are of 1868. See Appendix. 68 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. the trees, or drop on the ground. The islands contain about eight thousand people, of Malay origin, speaking a language very similar to the Hawaiian. The natives have fine athletic forms, great vivacity and quick appre- hension, but are to the last degree impatient of labor and control. They are, in fact, among the most lawless, quarrelsome, and ferocious of the tribes of men. They have no acknowledged form of government. The indi- vidual gluts his revenge unhindered, and the clans in the various valleys are in perpetual warfare. The bodies of the slain are cut in pieces, and distributed among the clan to be devoured, the little children even partaking of the horrid meal. In 1859, when the whaje-ship Tar- light was wrecked off the Island of Hivaoa, the natives conspired to massacre the crew in order to plunder the vessel, though in both objects they were frustrated. The community cannot have forgotten the letter of President Lincoln to the missionary Kekela, a few years ago, thanking him for his services in rescuing the mate of an Amei-ican ship, Mr. Whalon, from being roasted and eaten by these cannibals. The disposition of the natives is to some degree symbolized by their personal appear- ance — the men hideously tattooed with lizards, snakes, birds, and fishes, and the women smeared with cocoa-nut oil and turmeric. Add to this the most oppressive system- of tabus, so that, for example, the father, the mother, and the grown-up daughter must all eat apart from each other, and we have some idea of the obstacles to the Christian religion in those islands. Some years ago a Hawaiian youth was left by a vessel at these islands sick. He recovered, and by his superior knowledge became a man of importance, and married the daughter of the high chief Mattunui. The father- IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS, MICRONESIA, ETC. 69 in-law was so impressed with his acquisitions, which, as he learned, were derived from the missionaries, that, after consultation with the other chiefs, he embarked for Lahaina to seek missionaries for Marquesas. This was in 1853. The Hawaiian Society felt that the call was from God. Two native pastors — one of them Kekela — and two native teachers, accompanied by their wives, were deputed to go. They were welcomed with joy. Mattunui sat up all night to tell of the " strange things" he saw and heard in the Hawaiian Islands ; and an audience of a hundred and fifty listened to preaching pn the following Sabbath. The missionaries entered at once on their various forms of Christian activity, organ- izing their schools, and in due time translating the Gos- pel of John. One foreigner alone was with them — Mr. Bicknell, an English mechanic, a noble man, afterward ordained a preacher ; otherwise the whole enterprise was Hawaiian. Bomau Catholic priests hurried at once to the islands, but the Hawaiian preachers held on, amid immense discouragements, with great energy and perse- verance, and with admirable good sense. At length God gave them the first convert, Abraham Natua. Soon after this the missionaries determined to break down the system of tabus, and a great feast was gotten up on the mission premises, at which the high chief Mattunui, and many others, sat down for the first time with their wives, and broke through the system in every available direction. It was a grand blow at the whole institution. In four years the intolerable thievishness of the natives was so far checked within the range of the missions that clothing could be exposed, and the mission premises could be left unlocked the entire day, with perfect safety. Urgent calls came from various parts of the islands for 70 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. missionaries, five or six pieces of land — more than could be occupied — being given in Hivaoa alone. . Converts [came dropping in slowly, one by one, at first ; and a quiet and powerful influence has been difiusing itself through the islands, and filling the minds of these de- voted preadhers with great hopes of the future. In 1867 there were eleven male and female missionaries at the islands, who had organized five churches with fifty-seven members, and were about to establish a boarding school ^for boys and another for girls. And in 1868 Mr. Coan, who had just visited the islands, wrote thus : " The light, and love, and gravitating power of the gospel are per- meating the dead masses of the Marques»ns. Scores already appear as true disciples of Jesus. Scores can read the Word of the living' God, and it is a power within them. Hundreds have forsaken the tabus, and hundreds of others hold them lightly. Consistent missionaries and their teachings are respected. Their lives and persons are sacred where human life is no more regarded than that of a dog. They go secure where others dare not go. They leave houses, wives, and children without fear, and savages protect them. Everywhere we see evidence of the silent and sure progress of truth, aud we rest assured that the time to favor the dark Marquesans has come." Whether we view the people on whom, or the people by whom, this power has been put forth, we see alike a signal movement of the gospel of Christ. MISSIONS IN TUEKET. 71 CHAPTER IV. MISSIONS IS TURKEY. In a missionary point of view, Turkey is the key of Asia. Nowhere has the providential guidance of the missionary work been more remarkable. The divine hand has alike prepared the minds of the Armenian peo- ple in Turkey for Christian influences, directed attention thither, blessed the missionaries with wisdom, interposed continually for the protection of their work, and led them forward to a success already so broad and deep, as to be silently molding the destinies of the empire. The first effort of the American Board in Asia Minor was quite wide of the mark. It was when, in 1826, Messrs. Gridley and Brewer were sent to Smyrna, the ancient home of Polycarp, to labor witli the Greeks and Jews. The movement was attended with no great suc- cess, and the place became important chiefly as a print- ing station. The Mohammedans of the country mean- while seemed inaccessible to all direct Christian labors. But there was one most interesting people in tho coun- try, signally qualified to be the recipients and almoners of the divine grace. It is the old Armenian race, now widely scattered from their native Armenia, and dispersed everywhere in Turkey and Persia, and found even in India, Russia,' and Poland. There are supposed to be at least three millions of them, more than half of whom are said 72 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. to be in Turkey. They are a noble race, and have been called " the Anglo-Saxons of the East." They aue the active and enterprising class. Shrewd, industrious, and persevering, they are the bankers of Constantinople, the artisans of Turkey, and the merchants of Western and Central Asia. The nation received Christianity in the fourth century, and had a translation of the Scriptures made in the year 477 A. D., which is still extant and pro- foundly venerated, though now locked up, with many other religious works of theirs, in a dead language. The Armenian church is a body as marked as the Ro- man Catholic or Greek church, strongly resembling them in deaduess and formalism. Its head is the Patriarch. It holds to transubstantiation, invokes the saints, enforces confession and penance, teaches baptismal regeneration, priestly absolution, and the merit of good works, observes fourteen great feast days, one hundred and sixty-five fast days, and minor feasts more numerous than the days of the year. It has nine grades of clergy, some of whom are obliged to be once married, and performs all church services in the ancient Armenian, not one word of which is understood by the people. For purposes of persecu- tion, as well as government, the Patriarch had, until re- cently, almost despotic power. But there are hopeful features even about this fossilized church. It openly ad- hered to the Christian name and profession under centu- ries of persecution and oppression. It regards the Word of God with almost unexampled reverence, so that when the Armenian is once convinced that any proposition is contained. in the book he has learned to kiss at the altar, that is to him an end of all controversy. Another hope- ful circumstance, directly connected with this, is that the errors of doctrine and jpractiee with which the church is MISSIONS IN TUKKET. 73 incrusted round, have never been fixed by any decree of council. Their standard of moral purity is also said to be immeasurably above that of the Turks around them, and they have a conscience which can be touched aad roused. The enterprising character of the race, their wide dispersion, their preservation of the sentiment of national unity, and their acquaintance with the languages of the lands of their residence, render them a people of great promise for missionary purposes in those several lands. A singular coincidence of judgment fixed the atten- tion of the American Board upon this race. The mis- sionary ParsoaSjOn his first visit to Jerusalem, in 1821, encountered some Armenian pilgrims, whose interesting conversation drew from him the suggestion of a mission to Armenia itself. " We shall rejoice," said they, " and all will rejoice when they arrive." M-r. Fist soon after wrote from Smyrna to Boston, recommending the meas- ure. But before a word was heard from either, intelli- gent friends of the Board at home had urged the same proposal. At Beirut, Syria, among the earliest converts were the. Armenian ecclesiastics (in 1826), two of whom, Bishop Dionysius and Krikor Vartabed, had traveled ex- tensively in Asia Minor, and resided once in Constanti- nople. These brethren assured the missionaries that the minds of the Armenian people were wonderfully inclined towards the pure gospel, and that should preachers go among them, doubtless thousands of them would be ready to receive the truth. They themselves wrote letters to their countrymen, which excited no little attention. During a dozen years or more, already, the British and Russian Bible Societies had put in circulation several thousand copiesx)f the Scripturesiu the ancient: Arpienian 74 SKETCHES OP THE MISSIONS. tongue, which were widely distributed in Turkey, and could be understood by the teachers and higher clergy ; and at length they printed the New Testament in Ar- meno-Turkish and modern Armenian, intelligible to "all who could read. Another important link in the chain of influences was the letter of Dr. King to the Roman Catholics, written on leaving Syria, and stating the reasons why he could not be a Pa^st. This letter, translated by Bishop Dionysius, and forwarded in manu- script to certain prominent Armenians in Constantinople, produced an extraordinary eiFect. A meeting was held, its Scripture references examined, and the determination adopted to do something to purify the church. One im- mediate effect was a training school for priests. At the head of it was placed Peshtimaljian, a profound scholar, a theologian, and a humble student of the Bible — a sort of oriental Melanchthon, even in his timidity. For while steadily exerting an evangelical influence, and silently guiding his pupils into new paths of inquiry, he was alarmed when he saw them joining the evangelical move- ment ; and though at length he gained firmness enough to encourage their course, it was only on the year of his death that he openly declared his position. All the first converts at Constantinople were from his alumni. In 1829 the Prudential Committee prepared the way, by the exploring tour of Messrs. Smith and Dwight among the Armenians ; and two years later the noble Goodell began his work at Constantinople, to be fol- lowed in due time by the admirable band of associates, Dwight, Eiggs, Schaufiler, Schneider, Hamlin, Bliss, 'Powers, Homes, S t o ddttgd i^ and others, whose names are as household words in the churches. Their firmness, fidelity, and wisdom have been the theme of frequent MISSIONS IN TURKEY. 75 commendation from foreigners in public as well as in pri- vate life. The first missionaries, Goodell and Dwight, seemed compelled, by the circumstances of the case, to reach the people, at first, chiefly by means of schools and the press. The several translations of the Bible, — Armenian, Arr meno-Turkish, Osmanli-Turkish, Hebrew-Spanish, He- brew-German, and finally Bulgarian, — and the various other books which they and their coadjutors have gradual- ly sent forth, till they amount to a great body of literature, proved in due time to be the planting of siege guns, and the unlimbering of heavy artillery. "When Mr. Goodell called upon the Patriarch to seek his co-operation in establishing popular schools on an im- proved plan, that blandest of Orientals promised to send schoolmasters to learn the new method, and assured him of a love for the missionary and his country so prr found, that if Mr. Goodell had not come to visit him, he must needs have gone to America to see Mr. Goodell ! The one assurance meant as much as the other. The Patri- arch promised again and again, but never moved till he moved in opposition. For nearly two years the mission- aries gained little access to the Armenians. But God .brought the Armenians to them. The dawn of hope began in January, 1833, when young Hohannes Der Sahagyan came to open his heart. Some years before his father had bought a cheap copy of the New Testament, which the young man read and pondered, and compared with the principles and practices of his church. Then he joined the school of Peshtimaljian, where his inquiries were encouraged and aided. He was joined by his friend Senekarim, and for two years and a half they were seeking and praying together for 76 SKEIGHES OF THE MISSIONS. light, unable to grasp the great and simple doctrine of salvation by grace alone. At length a hostile report turned their attention to the missionaries, and to them they went, first Hohannes, and afterwards both together, saying, " We are in a miserable condition, and we need your help. We are in the fire ; put forth your bands and pull us out." They soon found peace in believing, and be- came active laborers for the truth. From that point there appeared tokens of the constant presence of the Holy Spirit among the people. Opposition was speedily aroused, the school broken up, and for a time the press was stopped at Smyrna. But the good work went on. The number of attendants at Mr. Goodell's weekly meet- ing, and of visitors at the houses of the missionaries, steadily increased, and their errand was to talk of the way of salvation. The Bible was eagerly sought for, and the disposition to talk on religious subjects spread through the city, the suburbs, and the villages on the Bosphorus. In every circle there were found defend- ers of the truth, and occasionally a sincere believer. An influence was abroad which Mr. Goodell character- ized as a " simple and entire yielding of the heart and life to the sole direction of God's Word and Spirit." Evangelical sermons began to be heard from the priests. . The missionary force was increased. A high school was opened at Pera, and stations occupied at Broosa and Trebizond. A school for girls — a novel thing in Turkey — was opened at Smyrna. The missionaries steadily pursued the policy of disseminating the truth, without making attacks upon the Armenian church. Still, op- position was more and more aroused, but was either frustrated or overruled to the furtherance of the mission. Then the wealthy bankers of Constantinople determined MISSIONS IN TUKKET. 77 to crush the high school. To provide a substitute, they founded a college in Scutari, and remodeled the national school in the quarter of Hass Keuy, which they com- mitted to the supervision of a great banker residing there. In breaking up the high school, the vicar who conveyed the message unwittingly informed the boys for the first time that the sign of the cross is not enjoined in the Scrip- tures. And when Hohannes Sahagyan was suddenly re- moved from his school of forty, to the amazement of all concerned, he was engaged by the banker of Hass Keuy to take charge of that school of six hundred. Every ef- fort was made to shake the banker's decision, but though he had never been known as favoring the evangelical cause, he was perfectly firm ; and so Sahagyan was ad- vanced to a post of far greater influence and freedom, which he held for two years with marked success. The year 1839 witnessed a deep-laid plot for the ex- pulsion of Protestantism from the land, suddenly over- thrown by the providence of God. The enemies of the mission had enlisted some of the Sultan's chief officers, and even gained the ear of the Sultan himself. Sahagyan and two other persons, a teacher and a converted priest, were arrested, imprisoned, and, with much personal cruelty, banished. The mild Armenian Patriarch was deposed, and his place filled by a man of violence ; bulls were issued by both the Greek and Armenian Patriarchs, prohibiting the reading or possession of all missionary books, and even all intercourse with the missionaries. Long lists of heretics were made out, and the storm seemed about to descend in its fury, when, the hand of the persecutors was arrested by the hand of God. The rebellious Pacha of Egypt was the instrument of rescue. The Sultan, with his broken army, was suddenly forced 78 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIOKS. to call on the Patriarchs for several thousand recruits. Then came the utter defeat of his army, the death of the sultan before he heard the tidings, the surrender of the ■whole Turkish fleet, the succession of the boy Abdool Medjid to the throne, and the threatened dissolution of the Tnrldsh empire. The persecution was effectually stayed. By a remarkable providence, the young Sultan, -unsolicited by his people, granted them a charter of civil protection and religious liberty. The commotions concerning the missionaries gave them publicity, and brought inquirers. In 1840 Messrs. Dwight and Hamlin visited Nicomedia, where, two years before, Mr. Dwight had found a little company of believers who had been led to the truth by a copy of the Dairyman's Daughter, and other printed tracts. While here a mer- chant from Adabazar was induced, by the warning letter of the patriarch, to come and visit them. The report and the tracts with which he returned to Adabazar were the beginning of a good work ; and when, in the follow- ing year, Mr. Schneider, in response to repeated invita- tions, visited the place, he found there already a little band of converted men. In 1843 a young Armenian, who had embraced and renounced Mohammedanism, was publicly beheaded in the sti-eets of Constantinople. But this event became the occasion on which the English ambassador, 'Supported by the ministers of France,- Prus- sia, and Austria, extorted from the sultan a written pledge that no person thenceforward should be persecuted for his religious opinions. The British ambassadordeclared the transaction to be little less than a miracle. And though the pledge has been often evaded and violated in prac- tice, it stands as a great landmark in the religious history of the empire. The Patriarch himself^ two years later, MISSIONS IK TURKEY. 79 made a fixed, attempt to violate this guaranty, which redounded speedily to the establishment of the faith. He issued a sentence of excommunication against all adherents of the new doctrines, which was accompanied t>y scenes of shocking violence iu the chief cities of the empire. Christians were stoned in the streets, unjustly imprisoned, ejected from their shops, invaded and plun- dered in their houses, bastinadoed, and abandoned by their friends. It marked an era in their history. For after meekly and nobly enduring this protracted abuse, they were, by the resolute efforts of the foreign ambassadors, headed by Sir Stratford Canning, taken forever from under the patriarch's jurisdiction, and organized into a separate Protestant community. On the 1st of July, 1846, was formed at Constantinople the first Evangelical Armenian church in Turkey, with a native pastor; and during that summer similar churches were formed in Nicomedia, Adabazar, and Trebizond, The enemy had overdone his work. The excommuni- cation was a blunder; for it founded four Protestant churches the first year. And the previous measures had been equally blundering. For, remarkable as was the spirit of inquiry among the Armenians, it had been vastly increased by the measures taken to put it down. The enemies of a pure gospel had done an immense amount of gratuitous advertising almost from the first. The Bomish Patriarch had (in 1836) tried his hand at a public denunciation of the missionaries and their books. Four years later, the Armenian Patriarch had issued a " bull," followed in a fortnight by a bull from the Greek Patriarch, both of the same description, and by an imperial firman apparently re-enforcing them, and in another six weeks by still another Armenian 80 SKETCHES or THE MISSIONS. bull, with terrific anathemas. A Patriarchal letter had been sent to Trebizond in 1840 ; and in January, 1846, two successive and still more furious anathemas had been issued by the Patriarch in his official character, with the lights extinguished, and a vail before the altar, whereby the adherents of the new gospel were " ac-? cursed, excommunicated, and anathematized by God, and by all his saints, and by us." They were printed, and sent to all the churches. For six nSonths continu- ously was this anathema kept dinning every Sabbath in the ears of the faithful, till cursing grew stale. The final excision that year (July) was read in all the Armenian churches. So much thundering sent many flashes of light through the dark. The Patriarch had better facilities for adver- tising than the missionaries. He unquestionably sent them a multitude of inquirers. Thus his letter of warn- ing brought the merchant of Adabazar to Messrs. Dwight atid Hamlin at Nicomedia for information ; and he it was who carried back the Testament and tracts that began the good work there. Many an inquirer came to ascertain personally of the missionaries whether the stories were true that the Americans were a nation of infidels, without church or worship. When the Patriarch had hurried Bedros, the vartabed, out of the city for his Protestant tendencies, the vartabed had gone distributing books and preaching throughout the whole region of Aleppo and Aintab. When he had sent priest Vartanes a prisoner to the monastery of Ma- rash, and then banished him to Ce^area, Vartanes had first awakened the monks, and then preached the gospel all the way to Cesarea. •The missionaries wisely availed themselves of this MISSIONS IN TURKEY. 81 rising interest, in tours for preaching, conversing, and distributing religious treatises. Messrs. Powers, John- ston, Van Lennep, Smith, Peabody, Schneider, Goodell, Everett, Benjamin, pushed forth to Aintab, Aleppo, Broosa, Harpoot, Sivas, Diarbekir, Arabkir, Cesarea, and various other places, through the empire. They soon found that they were in the midst of one of the most extraordinary religious movements of modern times, silent, aitd sometimes untraceable, but potent and pervasive. In every important town of the empire, where there were Armenians, there were found to be, as early as 1849, one or more " lovers of evangelical truth." But it was no causeless movement. The quiet working of the "little leaven" was traceable almost from its source by indubitable signs. It was a notable sight to see, when, in 1838, the vartabed and leading men of Orta Keuy, on the Bosphorus, where the missionaries first gained access to the Armenians, went and removed the pictures from the village church. It was a notable thing to hear, when, in 1841, the Armenian preachers of Constantinople were discoursing on repentance and the mediatorial office of Christ. It was another landmark, when, in 1842, the fervor of the converts not only filled the city with rumors of the new doctrines, but, after a season of special prayer, held in a neighboring valley, sent forth Priest Vartanes on a missionary tour into the heart of Asia Minor. A still more significant fact it was, when, in that year and the next, the Armenian women were effectually reached and roused, till family worship began in many a household, and a Female Sem- inary at Pera became (in 1845) a necessity. The breth- ren had observed the constant increase of inquirers, often from a distance, and they had found, even in 1843, such 82 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIOKS. a demand for their books as the press at Slnyrna was unable fully to supply. In many places, as at Nicomedia, Adabazar, and Aintab, books and tracts began the work. ■ The preaching services at Constantinople would be occasionally attended by individuals from four or five other towns, and at Erzroom one Sabbath (February, 1846) there were attendants from six different places. The Seminary for young men at Bebek (a suburb of Constantinople) drew visitors from greaf distances, and from all quarters, as far as Alexandria, St. Petersburg, iand the Euphrates. The native brethren also had been engaged in disseminating the truth, and the first awaken- ings at Killis, Kessab, and Eodosto, for example, were due to their labors. And thus, though the movement rolled on at last with great power and speed, tjie- prep- aration had been long and broad. Yet not without abundant and fierce opposition. Indeed, the resistance was so common, sooner or later, that it gives only a glimpse at the facts, to tell how, even at Constantinople, the brethren and one of the missionaries were once pelted with stones ; how the little band at Nicomedia were at times compelled to hold their worship, somewhat like the early Christians and the Covenanters, in distant fields, and even after religious liberty was proclaimed, were abused in the streets, and had their houses stoned ; how, at Adabazar, a Protestant teacher was put in chains and in prison; how at Trebizond the very women at- tacked with stones two of their own sex, as they returned from the preaching, and the husbands who protected their own wives were thrown into prison and the stocks, like Paul and Silas of old ; how the mob at Erzroom burst into the house of Dr. Smith, and destroyed his books and furniture ; and how, in 1847, Mr. Johnston MISSIONS IN TURKEY. 83 was expelled from Aintab by the governor, and stoned out of town by Armenian school-boys and teaqjiers, although the very next year Aintab became the seat of a church that grew with singular rapidity, and a great centre of Christian activity. These things died out only by de- grees ; not until after the Sultan had issued his firmans, first (in 1850) placing the Protestants on the same basis with other Christian communities ; and again (in 1853) placing his CKristian subjects on the same level with Mohammedans before the law ; and yet once more (in 1856) granting full " freedom of conscience and of re- ligious profession ; " not until long after three Patriarchs, Stepan, Hagopos, and Matteos, had tried each to outdo his predecessor in severity, and the third of them had (in 1848) been deposed for financial frauds. It was in the year 1849 that the missionaries, with five native pastors ordained already, and with the clear recognition of the broad fields now white for the harvest, adopted a Report, setting forth to the native Christians the great duty of supporting their pastors and religious institutions, relieving the missionaries for other fields, and themselves engaging " in the further extension of the truth." Next year they turiied and asked the home churches for twelve more missionaries, to oversee this wonderful uprising. For several years in succession the Board repeated the call for " twelve more missionaries.'' For two j'ears six only answered. " From every part of the land," wrote Mr. Dwight, in 1853, "there comes to us one appeal, ' Send us preachers, send us preachers ; ' " and Mr. Schneider wrote home, " I almost fear to have the post arrive." Six other laborers responded in 1854 ; and next year came the urgent call for " seventeen," to meet the great emergency. 84 SKETCHES OP THE MISSIONS. The Crimean war for three or four years agitated the natiou and thg nations. But the spiritual reformation rolled on ; it was a mightier and a deeper force. It was impossible for the missionaries to keep pace with the calls. The wonder is, that they could accomplish so much as they did. At one time (1855) they hurried five young students into the ministry before their studies were completed. But they felt and wrote that they were losing opportunities all the time. And they were right. Hu- manly speaking, it seemed as though with a sufficient missionary force the Armenian element of Turkey could have been carried everywhere by storm. From this time forth the enterprise became too broad even to trace in this rapid way. If the whole movement shall ever be suitably recorded, the history of this refc ormation will be second in interest to no other that ever has been written. There are scores and scores of villages, each of which would furnish materials for a volume ; and multitudes of cases that recall the fervor, faith, and for- titude of apostolic times. Let us hope that they may find their adequate historian. For the present we can only refer to the contemporary pages of the Missionary Herald. The breadth of the movement began also to demand new missionary centres. The book depository, which had been on the north side of the Golden Horn, planted itself boldly (1855) in the heart of Constantinople ; and six or eight boxes of books might be seen at a time, marked to " Diarbekir," " Arabkir," " Cesarea," " Ain- tab," and so on. The Seminary proved inadequate to the demand for preachers and teachers, and the organiza- tion of other seminaries about this time at Tokat and Aintab, indicated the time as no* distant when there MISSIONS IN TTJEKEY. 85 should be three missions, instead of one, in Asiatic Turkey. Indeed, Mr. Dunraore was writing, in 1857, that " forty- men " were needed at once, as teachers and preachers around Harpoot ; and Dr. Hamlin was urgently pressing •the wants of the Bulgarians in European Turkey. One of the most delightful instances of Christian mag- nanimity was displayed in England about this time. The financial troubles of 1857 in America had embarrassed the Board, and threatened serious embarrassment to this mission. Noble Christians in England, of all Evangeli- cal communions, including ministers of the Church of England, came at once to the rescue. They formed the " Turkish Missions Aid Society," invited Dr. Dwight to present our cause in England, and raised money thence- forward, not to found missions of their own in Turkey, but to aid ours. At an anniversary of the Society in 1860, the Earl of Shaftesbury crowned this magnanimity of deeds by an equal magnanimity of words. He said of our missionaries in Turkey, " I do not believe that in the whole history of missions, I do not believe that in the history of diplomacy, or in the history of any negotiation carried on between man and man, we can find anything to equal the wisdom, the Soundness, and the pure Evan- gelical truth of the men who constitute the American mission. I have said it twenty times before, and I will say it againj ' — for the expression appropriately conveys my meaning, — that they are a marvelous combination of common sense and piety." At this point, the enterprise, like a Banyan tree, changed its branches into new roots, and henceforth was reported as the Western, Central, and Eastern Turkey missions. The main feature of intecest became that of sure but gradual growth. 86 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. The Western Turkey mission-field covers a region of singular historic interest. It includes alike the field of Troy and of the " Seven Churches." It probably saw the origin both of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and of the Apocalypse and the fourth Gospel. In its north-western portion flows the little river Granicus, where Alexander first defeated the Persian armies, and in its south-western part lies the once world-renowned seaport of Miletus, where Paul made his affecting speech to the elders who had come from Ephesus, that seat of the marvelous tem- ple of Diana, and of the church of the " Ephesians." The poor little village of Isnik, too small for a mission station, is all that remains of the Nicsea, famous for the Nicene Creed, framed in a council where Constantine presided — a city long the bulwark of Constantinople against the Turks, then the capital of the Sultan Solyman, and afterwards retaken by the first crusaders. The centre of missionary operations is the great city of unparalleled site and matchless harbor, rebuilt by Constantine, the object of six captures, and more than twenty sieges, the ignis fatuus that turned the first Napoleon towards Mos- cow rather than St. Petersburg, the long-coveted treasure of the Russian czars, and the place of five great Chris- tian councils. Broosa, another of our stations, is at the ancient capital of the Ottoman empire ; and its castle is said to commemorate the time and the work of Hannibal the Carthaginian. Nicoraedia, still another station, was once the capital of the Bithynian kings, the home of Dio- cletian when he ruled the Eastern empire, and the place where poison ended the life of Hannibal. One of the stations last occupied, Manissa, is the old Magnesia, where the two Scipios defeated Autiochus the Great, and won for Rome the empire of the East. MISSIONS IN TURKEY. 87 In this region, covered thick with historic associations, the twenty-four churches, with their thousand members, their twenty-nine pastors and licensed preachers, and their forty-five hundred enrolled Protestants, only indicate the deep under-current of influence now at work. A con- siderable body of missionaries are still furnishing the ori- ginal forces. The press pours forth some fifty thousand volumes and thirty thousand tracts a year, in six different languages, including the English. Two " Evangelical Unions " of native churches and pastors have been formed, and the churches contribute already to Christian objects four thousand dollars a year. A theological seminary, and a ladies' boarding-school, now at Marsovan ; two other girls' schools ; training classes at Broosa and Sivas ; Ro- bert College, the indirect child of the mission, now looking out conspicuously over the Bosphorus, with its hundred and eighty students of seventeen different nationalities ; and last, not least, a band of lady missionaries finding their way into the homes and hearts of their sisters, — these are some of the influences unfalteringly at work in the heart of the Turkish empire. The Central Turkey mission numbers among its thirty stations and out-stations Antioch, the old " Queen of the East," long the chief city of *Asia, if not of the world, then the residence of Syrian kings, 'and afterwards of Koman governors, the place where " the disciples were first called Christians ; " Aleppo, which succeeded Pal- mjra, in the trade between Europe and the East, still the commercial centre of Northern Syria ; Oorfa, a traditional " Ur of the Chaldees ; " and Tarsus, where Paul was born, and Alexander nearly . died. Here twenty-two churches comprise eighteen hundred members, and aver- age congregations of more than .five thousand persons, 88 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. with eight thousand registered Protestants." A theologi- . cal seminary, with thirty-seven students, at Marash ; two female seminaries ; eighteen hundred and forty com- municants in twenty-two churches, some of which carry all their own expenses, while the whole body contribute six thousand dollars in gold for Christian charities ; eight tl^ousand registered Protestants ; nineteen pastors and preachers ; an Evangelical Union, courageous enough to plan a Christian college, and to gain pledges from their own churches of nine thousand dollars for the purpose ; a strong staff of lady missionaries working most hopefully among their sex ; and a general diffusion of light among both Armenians and Mohammedans, which no figures can display, — indicate a hold of the gospel in this region so strong as to raise the question of " closing up the proper missionary work in Central Turkey at no distant day." An amount and variety of active Christian effort has been put forth here, and a long-continued religious agitation awakened from such centres as Aintab and Marash, which no one can understand, except as he traces back the letters of the missionaries for the last fifteen years. The history of all the commotions at Aintab, from the time" when Mr. Johnston was stpned out of town to the time when it has become the seat of two self-supporting churches, with native pastors and near five hundred mem- bers, surrounded by a cluster of thirteen out-stations, containing nearly four hundred more church members, would require a volume. The whole course and working of the mission are far too remarkable to be dismissed in this summary way. There is a wide-spread expectation of a coming change, of which the two hundred and twenty members admitted to the churches during the last year are but the few drops before the shower. MISSIONS IN TURKEY. 89 The Eastern Turkey mission deserves special mention foF the method and rapidity of its achievements. Coming later, for the most part, than the other divisions of the Turkish missions, it was enabled to build on their foun- dation and profit by their experience. Its methods have been largely the same which were employed in Turkey from the beginning, and specially and powerfully developed in the central mission, but perhaps still more concen- trated here. We have also the advantage of a very full narration from the chief actors in the scene. Their vigoi> ous and invigorating work, novel not so much in con- ception as in execution, bids fair to mark an epoch in the history of missions. The territory includes, at Mosul, the site of Nineveh, and in ancient Armenia, probably the cradle of the human race. The gospel is carried to the region of " the Fall." One portion of this terri- tory, the Harpoot mission field, has been the scene of a most interesting and remarkable experiment. About fourteen years ago, Messrs. Wheeler and Allen, with their wives, entered on this field, followed in two years by Mr. Barnum, .his wife, and Miss West. The region committed to them was somewhat larger than Massar chusetts, containing twenty-five hundred villages, atid a population of five hundred thousand persons. These brethren went with the determination to introduce a self- supporting, self-propagating religion ; to offer Chris- tianity " as a leaven," and not as a " leavened loaf; " to confer privileges which in the reception should test the self-denial of the recipient. They adhered to three funda- mental, and, as they thought, apostolical principles : First, to " ordain elders in every church," giving a pastor from among the people to every church at its formation ; Second, to leave each church to choose its own pastor, 90 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. make its own pecuniary engagements with him, and assume the responsibility, of fulfilment. Temporary aid might be granted, to the amount of one half the ssilary, to be reduced each year, and in five years to cease. The third principle was, to make the churches at once inde- pendent of missionary control. These points were not carried without a hard struggle, and often bitter opposition. It took seven years to bring the church at Harpoot up to the entire support of its pastor. All their firmness, patience, ingenuity, and en- ergy were taxed to the utmost ; but they carried it, and the next three were made self-supporting more easily .than that one. They determined in like manner to do ■for the people in all respects only just what would enable them to do for themselves. They put upon them nearly the whole cost of their church edifices. In their schools they taught no English, to tempt their young men into foreign employments. They insisted that their converts, even those who pointed to their gray hair in remonstrance, should learn to read the Bible, and that those who had learned should go and teach others, especially their wives. -After the schools were fairly under way they threw the support of them upon the natives. Their books, ithe Scriptures included, they made it a rule to sell at some , price, but never to give away. Almost without excep- tion those who bought books were first taught to read them ; and the main dependence has been on the Bible -^ read, preached, and sung. The sacred volume itself, without the living preacher, has, in frequent instances, borne blessed fruit. Thus, in the village of Bizmishen, "thief" Maghak bought a Bible, learned to read it, became ,an honest man and .Christian, and established public worship with a good chapel and the nucleus of a MISSIONS IN TUEKEY. 91 little churcli in his village. Another Bible, sold by him, gathered an audience of thirty men and women at Na- jaran, fortj^ miles away, to hear the Bible read and ex- plained. In another instance, a colporteur, spending the flight at Perchenj, found seventy men assembled in a stable, listening to one who was reading the Bible. Messrs. Wheeler and Barnum visited the place, spent a Sabbath, and sent them a teacher. A revival followed, and in two years the little church numbered forty mem- bers, with twenty-one hopeful converts, and a native pastor settled over them, and owned a chapel and a parsonage. These brethren, self-moved, organized a mis- sionary society to go, two and two, into the neighboring villages, to explain and sell the Bible. Two of them entered Hooeli, a village where the missionaries had re- peatedly and vainly endeavored to gain a foothold. They prayed as they went, " O Lord, give us open doors and hearts." Their prayer was answered. The villagers applied to the missionaries for . a teacher ; but as none • could be had, the men of Perchenj sent one of their own number to begin the work. Soon after, a seminary stu- dent went to spend his summer vacation there, and a mob pitched him and his effects into the street. But the leaven vy^as working. A place of worship, holding three hundred persons, was erected ; schools were opened to learn the Bible ; a blessed awakening came, attended with forty or fifty conversions, including some of the most hopeless cases in the village ; and at the last information they were about to organize a church, and to settle and support as pastor one of the men who first came with the Bible and a prayer to God for a hearing. Such is the nature of the work. Every church and every community of Bible readers has a Bible society, i 92 SKETCHES OP THE" MISSIONS. that sends forth its books in bags on the backs of donkeys ; and the churches send forth their members, two by two. for days and weeks together, in the home jmissionary work. The community of Harpoot had thirty-five mem- bers thus engaged at one time. They are also prosecuting a " Foreign Missionary " enterprise in a region extending from four to, twenty days' journey to the south. This movement is aided by the theological students in their long vacation — the seminary being founded on the prin- ciple of accustoming students to pastoral work while pursuing their studies. These young men are trained to be Bible men and practical men. When on one occasion they were found to be above doing some necessary manual labor at the seminary, they were brought to their senses by a reduction of their beneficiary aid. The persevering and often amusing methods by which a penurious people have been made generous and self- sacrificing, and the modes in which the missionaries have persisted in doing the work, not of mere educators, nor even of pastors, but of Christian missionaries, infusing the " leaven," must be learned from Mr. Wheeler's book, " Ten Years on the Euphrates." It is as brimful of in- struction for the home field as the foreign. Would that many of the home churches might be brought up to the same level. So thoroughly has the spirit of independent action been infused into these churches, that, in 1865, they organized themselves into an " Evangelical Union," with a thorough system of Christian activity, Bible distribution, Education Society, Home and Foreign Missions, and church erec- tion. The fruits are yet largely in the future — we may hope, in the near future. The missionaries are already feeling that the time is not distant when they can leave MISSIONS IN T0RKEY. 93 this field for another. Already is their work represented by eighteen churches, — ten of them entirely indepen- dent, — by seventy out-stations, by a hundred and twelve native preachers, pastors, and other helpers, " by thou- sands of men and women reading the word of God, and by thousands more of children and youth gathered into schools ; in a word, by the foundations of a Christian civilization laid upon a sure basis in the affections of an earnest, self-sacrificing, Christian community." Many outward tokens begin to show the silent power of this mission. In Harpoot city and its seventy out- stations, in which years ago were two hundred and fifty- six priests, there were in 1867 but one hundred and forty-five. The revenue of the monasteries is passing away. The monastery of Hukalegb, which once collected three hundred measures of wheat from that village and Bizmishen, then collected but eighteen. The cause of temperance is advanced ; believers spontaneously leave ofi^ wine-drinking. A wonderful elevation Jias taken place in the character and position of woman. " How happens it," said a man one day to Mr. Wheeler, " that all the missionaries' wives are angels ? " But now, says Mr. Wheeler, " some of them there have angels too for their companions." One of the most blessed fruits of the gospel is seen in its effects on the family circle. These believers " are as careful to maintain secret, family, and social prayer as Christians in this land, and the last more so." The Sabbath is carefully and conscientiously kept by them. And in their Christian liberality they seem to be an example to the best churches of this country. The Eastern Turkey mission, of which Harpoot is a principal station, now occupies one hundred and six out- stations, and has twenty-eight churches, containing a 94 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. thousand members, with average congregations of fifty- flve hundred persons. Nearly, if not quite, half the churches are self-supporting. Twenty-seven native pas- tors and twenty-three licensed preachers are dispensing the gospel, and sixty-two young men are now training for the ministry. The Evangelical Union is maintain- ing four missionary stations . among the mountains of Koordistan. In glancing over the present religious aspect of Asiatic Turkey, it is impossible not to feel that the seeds of great events have been widely sown. Seventy-four churches, with four thousand members, an average attendance of fourteen thousand persons, and about twenty thousand registered Protestants ; a huudred native preachers, occu- pying more than twice that number of places, scattered through the empire, who have received five hundred m'embers in the year just passed; a hundred and forty- three young men on their way to the ministry ; four Evangelical Unions, apparently able to carry on the Lord's work, were every missionary taken away by the providence of God ; a Christian press, pouring forth ten million pages in a year ; a general spirit of inquiry through the empire ; — all are tokens of changes, if not of revolutions, in Turiey, which even this generation may look upon with wonder. He that is wise will watch the course of events. It is several years since Layard, the English explorer, could testify that there was scarcely a town of importance in Turkey without a Protestant community. And now we have a remarkable voice from within. Hagop Effeu- di, the civil head of the Protestant community, has recent- ly made a tour of observation through the empire, at the charge of the sultan. In his report he declares that MISSIONS IN TUKKET. 95 " those who have become Protestant in priaciple far ex- ceed in number the registered Protestants, and those who are willing to avow themselves such. The in- direct influence of Protestantism has been greater and healthier than what is apparent. The fact that eighty- five per cent, of the adults' in the [Protestant] community can read, speaks greatly in favor of its members. Any one acquainted with the social condition and religious ideas of the Oriental people, who will take pains to com- pare them with the liberal institutions introduced, can reajilily imagine the state of society which must neces- sarily follow such a change. I should hardly do justice were I to pass without noticing the strictly sober habits of our people. The use of strong drink is very seldom foupd and habitual drunkenness is very rarely known. I was gratified to find everywhere a great improvement in domestic relations as compared with the condition of families before they became Protestants. I need not weary our friends with details to show the effect of the healthy influence of the various Protestant institutions — such as Sabbath schools, social prayer-meetings, women's meetings, and the little philanthropic associations coming into existence with the advance of Protestantism. The noble institutions and liberal organizations which have been introduced among this people are yet in their in- fancy ; and their power of elevating the individual man, in his moral and intellectual capacities, is not so apparent in the unsettled state of affkirs which of necessity follows such a mighty social and religious revolution ; but they are objects of great interest and a source of great en- couragement to every close observer of the course of affairs, even in the very confusion which is produced by them." 96 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. In a recent letter to Secretary Clark, he makes the following interesting statements : — " Tlie inost zecdous advocate of American civilization could not have done half as much for his country abroad as the missionary has done. The religious and social organizations, the various institutions introduced, are doing a great deal in introducing American civilization. From the wild mountains of Gaour Dagh, in Cilicia, you may go across to the no less wild mountains of Bhotan, on the borders of Persia ; or you may take Antioch if you please, and go on any line to the black shores of the Euxine ; you will certainly agree with me in declaring that the American missionary has served his country no less than his Master. Even in wild Kurdistan you will find some one who can reason with you quite in Yanljee style, can make you a speech which you cannot but own to be substantially Yankee, with Yankee idioms and American examples to support his arguments ; and if you want to satisfy your curiosity still more, you may pay your visit to the schools established by the mis- sionaries in the wild mountains of the Turkomans, in Kurdistan, the plains of Mesopotamia, Cappadocia,_ or Bithynia. Question the school-boy as you would at home ; you will find his answers quite familiar to you. You may question him on geography, and you will cer- tainly find, to your surprise, that he knows more of the United States than perhaps of his own native country. Question him about social order, he will tell you all men are created equal. Indeed, what Dr. Hamlin is silently doing with his Bohert College, and the American mission- ary with his Theological Seminary and school-books, all European diplomatists united cannot overbalance. Having seen all this, you will certainly not be astonished if you MISSIONS IN TDKKEY. 97 see Yankee clocks ; American chairs, tables, organs ; Anlericaa agricultural implements ; Yankee cotton-gins, saw-mills, sewing-machines ; American flowers in the very heart of Kurdistan ; Yankee saddles, and a Yankee rider on the wild mountains of Asia Minor, perhaps sing- ing, with his native companion, some familiar tune. Be not surprised if you be invited to a prayer-meeting on these mountains, where you hear the congregation singing Old Hundred, as heartily as you have ever heard it at home. You will certainly own then, if you have not be- fore, that the American people have a sacred interest in this country." The European Turkey mission, separately organized in 187($,4 »Bt ao the Wcstera- ' Tu i' liioy ■ m iagiQa.jaaSJP*' rondorod to anothoP ' B eacd, and using Constantinople as' its centre of publication, deserves a few words, by reason of its prospective importance. The country was ex- plored, and a small beginning made, as long ago as 1858. In that year Mr. Morse entered Adrianople ; but his books and two thousand copies of the Turkish Testament were seized by the authorities. When, on remonstrance of the British and American consuls, the Porte ordered the surrender of the books, the desponding utterance of the Turkish officials was well worthy of notice : " If it is the will of God that the Bible prevail, let his will be done." The mission is directed primarily not to Turks, but to Bulgarians, a people numbering perhaps five or six mil- lions. They belong to the Slavonic race, and nominally to the Greek church. They are a pastoral people, neat, amiable, and industrious, but uneducated and uninquir- ing. Early attempts to awaken their interest were un- successful and discouraging. But with the coutinuance 98 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. of these efforts, the intrusion of macadamized roads, railways, and civilization, a change has taken place. Education begins to be prized, and forty young Bul- garians are in Robert college. Everything is now in readiness for a vigorous campaign, if the Christian sol- diers can be found. The field is thoroughly explored. The strong points are designated, and three stations occupied. A complete Bulgarian Bible — the fruit of Mr. Riggs's twelve years' toil — is ready ; and there is a wide-spread desire to obtain it. A few converts are scattered here and there, and a young and active church is just organized. Two other hopeful signs are seen : The spirit of persecution has been awakened at Yamboul ; and at Bansko an earnest written demand for light in the Greek church itself — for elevation of the schools, for the observance of the Sabbath, for religious services in the language of the people, and " that the teachings of the gospel be preached." Here everything seems now ready for the sickle. If the laborers can but be furnished, and the enterprise pushed as the greatness of the opportunity requires, we may well watch, and pray, and hope for cheering re- sults. It is a mission on which to look with an intelli- gent interest, for itself and for its relations. THE MISSION IN STRIA. 99 CHAPTER V. THE MISSION IN SYRIA. The interest which attaches to the Syrian mission is peculiar. It does not rest, as in some other -fields, upon greatness of outward results, or rapidity of achievement, but on the formidableness of the obstacles surmounted, the pertinacity of the struggle, and the greatness of the stake. Syria has well been called the romance land of missions. In population, Syria is not a great country ; it has now only about one million nine hundred thousand inhabitants. But it is the key to the Arabic-speaking portion of the race. The Arabic Bible can utter its message to at least a hundred and twenty millions of people, spread through Barbary, Nubia, Arabia, Persia, India, Tartary, to the Philippine Islands on the north-east, and to Central Africa on the south-west. ■ The Scriptures from the Syr- ian press have been sold on the borders of Liberia, and to the Mohammedans in Bombay. The Syrian mission, if thoroughly successful, places itself; as it were, in con- tact with one tenth part of the human family. Of Arabs by descent (not merely in speech), there are supposed to be some forty or fifty millions in the world. They are a very noble race. We are not to think of them only in the guise of the shriveled and fiery Bedouin who howls around the traveler for " bakhshish," or hovers 100 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. about his pathway with matchlock and spear. That fleshless and scowling robber is the wild offshoot of the race whose renown once filled the world. It is the stock of Omar, and Saladin, and Haroua al Raschid. His ancestors swept in military triumph from the banks of the Indus to the heights of the Pyrenees, and in their decadetice fought even-handed with the hosts of Philip Augustus and Bichard Plantagenet. They made Bagdad for five hundred years the seat of incredible wealth and luxury in the East, and for the same length of time, Cordova the Athens of the West. They filled Southern Spain with the graces of oriental architecture, and during the " dark ages " of Europe, made that region a circle of light. There they gathered the treasures of science from Armenia, Syria, Egypt, and Constantinople. Seventy public libraries illuminated the cities of the Andalusian kingdom, and illustrious professors attracted students from all Western Europe. A long and brilliant history has proved the capacity of the Arab race. The Arab of Syria, however illiterate and ignorant, carries with him a native dignity of address and deportment unsur- passed by the highest culture of civilized lands. . But while the Arabic tongue is the general language of Syria, and Mohammedanism the prevailing religion, comparatively few of the inhabitants are of the pure Arab stock. They are, with the exception of a few Jews, Turks, and Armenians, a mixed race, descended largely from the ancient Syrians, with a considerable mixture of Arabian blood imported by the followers of the caliphs. The eye of the traveler is caught by a variety of costumes, from that of the city gentleman, with his flowing robes, yellow slippers, red overshoes, and faultless white turban, down to that of the Bedouin of THK MISSION IN STRIA. 101 the desert, with his simple calico shirt, and Icufiyeh bound about his head by a strand of camel's hair. Be- neath all outward diversities lies a still more complicated division of religious sects, offering, separately and unit- edly, powerful obstacles to the spread of the gospel. Here are Mohammedans, some eight hundred and fifty thousand, the mass of the people, including the 8unnites, or Traditionists, and the Shiites, or followers of Ali, to- gether with the Ansairiyeh and the Metawileh. Here are Kurds, Yezidees, and Gypsies. Only about fifteen thousand Jews are found in all Syria, including Palestine (five thousand more than in Chicago), of whom four fifths, chiefly foreigners, reside at Safet, Hebron, Tibe- rias, and Jerusalem. Here are the Druzes, a powerful body, with a creed long undiscoverable. And there are many sects nominally Christian, — the Greek church, the most influential body, having two patriarchs and a hun- dred and fifty thousand members ; the Maronites, the most numerous sect, comprising two hundred thousand persons ; Jacobites, Armenians, Greek Catholics, and Syrian Catholics. The Moslems were found as corrupt in their principles and morals as they were fierce in their religion, and when the missionaries arrived, were sus- tained by the death-penalty for a change of faith. The nominal Christians of all sects, equally low in morality, and formalists in religion, were despised by the Moham- medans for their picture-worship and Mariolatry, while not behind in the disposition, and formerly in the power, to persecute. The Druzes, ferocious in war, though hospitable in peace, are bound together by secret obliga- tions so strong and so unscrupulous, that, unless quite recently, not more than three or four are known to have been eflFectually reached by the gospel. And the Jews, 102 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. in addition to their proverbial bigotry, are dependent on foreign Israelites for support, and are thus by their daily bread pledged to resist the truth. But in the midst of this, thick-ribbed ice the fire was hopefully kindled, and in spite of every species of extinguisher has been made to burn. As to method, indeed, man has proposed, but Grod has disposed. The Board originally had the Jews prominently in mind, Jerusalem as the centre of opera- tions, and Levi Parsons and Pliny Fisk, as at first, their chief agents. Yet thus far almost nothing has been done there directly for the Jews. Jerusalem^ after a lingering experiment, was given up to others, and Par- sons and Fisk were early removed' by the hand of Provi- dence. Mr. Parsons reached Jerusalem in February, 1821, barely surveyed his field, and suggested the mis- sion to the Armenians of Turkey, when, in June, he was driven away by failing health, weeping as he turned to take his last look of the Holy City ; and two years later he died at Alexandria, where every trace of his grave, as well as of the memorial of affection erected to his memory, has long been obliterated by the monks. Another year his friend Fisk, who pressed his dying hand, and " kissed his quivering lips," approached the city with the- memories of Parsons crowding upon his heart. Two years of ardent labor in Jerusalem, Bei- rut, and other parts of Syria ended. his earthly career. With a mind full of expansive schemes, a vigorous working power, a nobly balanced character, and a fa- cility of scholarship, whereby he could preach in French; Italian, Arabic^ and Greek, he, too, passed away in per- fect peace. In his last hours at Beirut he dictated let- ters of hope and good cheer to his father and his mis- sionary friends King and Temple, called for the hymn THE MISSION IN SYKIA. 103 he had sung alone at the grave of Parsons, and while Bird and Goodell sat by his pillow, and caught his last words, the Arabs wept around, and men of different nationalities followed him to the grave in tears. So was accomplished the prayer recorded in the written covenant of Fisk and Parsons in America that they two might be " in death not far divided." Mr. Fisk had early marked Beirut as a centre of missionary operations, and by his plans and his re- searches in the country had done much to give a hopeful character -to the mission. The missionary friends Bird and Goodell, who soothed his last hours, had established the station at Beirut in the autumn of 1823, the year in which he followed Parsons to Jerusalem. Beirut is a city of sixty thousand, though then of less than twenty thousand inhabitants, lying under the shadow of Mount Lebanon, and perched upon a bold promontory that pro- jects three miles into the sea, the solid central mass of buildings being fringed with beautiful villas that extend up the sides of the adjacent heights. Here the perma- nent work began. About the time of Mr. Fisk's death (1825) there was a remarkable state of religious inquiry, and Mr. Bird and Mr. Goodell were thronged by men and women who came to learn the follies of their own system, and to be taught the truth. At the same time, also, rose the spirit of persecution, which, shared in by Greeks, Maronites, and Papists, often encouraged by the French and Russian authorities, and enforced by Moslem power, for more than a quarter of a century laid its heavy hand upon the missionary work. Already had the Sultan, instigated by the college of the Propaganda, issued his firman to all the pachas of Western Asia, forbidding the circulation K 104 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. of the Scriptures. And now (1826) Eome sent in hot haste twenty fresh priests and thirteen thousand dollars to Syria, while excommunications began to be thundered from the Greek and Romish churches. The first Maronite conversions revived the martyr, spirit and the martyr fate. Asaad Shidiak, secretary of the Maronite Patriarch, and afterward instructor of Jonas King, sat down to answer Mr. King's, farewell letter, which he had been employed to copy. As he reached the last page of his reply, light flashed in upon his mind with marvelous suddenness. He laid down his pen, and surrendered to the truth. The Patriarch •wrote him letters, and sent him messages, with threats on the one hand, and promises of ofBce and money on the other. But in vain. A personal interview was equally fruitless. His marriage contract is broken ; but he stands firm against the love of woman. Twenty of his relatives deliver him up by force to the Patriarch, and the Patriarch to prison. He is kept in chains, and daily beaten. The people visit him to revile him, and spit in his face. His own brother opposes an application for his release. Once they led him out of his dungeon, offered him an image of the Virgin Mary on the one hand, and burning coals on the other, and ordered him to take his choice. He took the coals, pressed them to his lips, and returned to his cell. At length he was ■walled up alive, and scantily fed through a, hole in the wall to prolong his sufferings, and break his spirit. , But though the body wasted away, the unconquerable mind held firm, and he proved " faithful unto death." Pharez Shidiak escaped his brother's fate by a timely flight to Malta. The next year Mr. Bird was driven out of the village of Ehden, in Lebanon, vrith peril of his life, and THE MISSION IN STEIA. 105 the sheik, his friend, who had invited him to his moun- tain home, was excommunicated by the Patriarch, and violently assaulted by a band of Arabs. The Patriarch afterwards summoned the sheik to his presence, and threatened him with the fate of Asaad Shidiak. But the sturdy sheik laid his hand on his sword, aud defied him. Meantime the first fruits were gathered the same year in the conversion of two Armenians, Dionysius Carabet and Gregory Wortabet, who, with their wives, were re- ceived into the mission church at Beirut. Before the year's end (1827) came the great battle of Navarino, aud the next year, rumors of war between England and Tur- key having broken up the schools, cut off their inter- course, and endangered their safety, the missionaries Bird, Goodell, aud Smith for a time withdrew to Malta. It was two years before they returned ; and in 1832 they were again shut in by pestilence and war. But the mis- sionaries held on till, in 1835, they had ten schools, with three hundred pupils, aud an Arabic congregation of from forty to eighty persons, besides the band of beggars that Mr. Bird used to gather in his yard to read to them the Scriptures before he gave them bread. At this time numbers of the Druzes, to escape the Mohammedan con- scription, applied to the missionaries for baptism, and the whole Druze population of sixty or seventy thousand persons seemed ready to be baptized forthwith into the Christian church. But as, of course, they could not be so received, their new-born zeal died out before the end of the year, and left but the solitary Kasim in attendance on the preaching. He was then arrested, and threatened with death, as an apostate Mohammedan, and was re- leased only after he had made every arrangement for his expected execution. 106 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. The mission was gradually re-enforced by admirable men : Eli Smith, prince of Arabic scholars, with his noble and gifted wife, for a time "the only schoolmis- tress in Syria," too soon cut off; Van Dyck, the worthy successor of Dr. Smith in the work of translation ; Thomson, of " The Land and the Book ; " Calhoun, the saint of Mount Lebanon, of whom Daoud Pacha said, " If that man says I can not see out of my right eye, I would believe him ; " Whiting, Jessup, De Forest, Bliss, Ford, Post, Eddy, and others, their worthy companions. Stations were occupied at Abcih, Sidon, Tripoli, Hums, Deir el Komr, and some twenty-five other stations and out-stations. Never were missionary patience and courage more sorely tried. For, in addition to every form of steady opposition, oppression, and sometimes open violence, war and pestilence again and again broke over and broke up their labors. In 1840 Beirut was bombarded by the English fleet, and the rebellion of the Maronites closed the young seminary at Deir el Komr. Next year the civil war destroyed that village and many others. Again, in 1845, came auother war of the Druzes and Maronites in Lebanon, sweeping the whole country, fighting one of its battles at the station of Abeih, and covering Lebanon with smoking villages. Occasional outbreaks in the same region culminated in a bloody conflict in 1859. The year 1860 witnessed a horrible butchery of the nominal Christians, extending through all Lebanon to Damascus. The Druzes executed the slaughter, joined, however, by Turks and Moslems, and not discouraged by the Papal clergy. Scores of villages were laid in ashes, thousands of families made homeless, and multi- tudes were slain. At Hasbeiya, one of the out-stations, THE MISSION IN SYRIA. 107 more than a thousand helpless persons were slaughtered ; at Rasheiya, another out-station, out of a hundred and thirty surrendered and disarmed men only two escaped ; and the fated Deir el Komr was burned to the ground, and its male inhabitants butchered. In Damascus the slaughter raged five days, and averaged a thousand lives a day. During this time, however, Mr. Bird's defense- less family staid unmolested amid the carnage of Deir el Komr, and Mr. Calhoun, though warned by the consul to remove, remained on the mountains in safety through- out the war, while both belligerent parties in turn de- posited their spoils in his house and yard. The Protes- tants, in the main, were left uninjured. Ruined villages still tell the tale of those terrible ravages, and many of those scattered communities have never recovered from their dispersion. In 1865 came the plague, the locusts, and the cholera in a single year, and produced a panic ; in 1867 a Maronite rebellion, attended with great excite- ment, besides a most disastrous reaction from the Euro- pean war, producing financial failure and distress in Syria. Thus heavy has the hand of Providence been upon the mission. There was some alleviation in the fact that the war of 1860 effectually broke the power of the persecuting Maronite Patriarch, and brought the missionaries into favorable contact with the people, seventy-five thousand of whom, first and last, received aid from abroad through their ministrations. Meanwhile the hand of persecution has always been lifted to strike. During the year 1843, by procurement of the Greek Patriarch and the Russian consul, the Protestants of Hasbeiya were stoned, in the streets, and were twice driven out of the village by threats of death from armed men. In 1849 Rev. Dr, Williams lyas 108 SKETCHES OP THE MISSIONS. violently expelled from Ehdeii, near the famous Cedar Grove, by a mob led on by the clergy, who unceremoni- ously began to tear down the house over the heads of the ladies within. In 1858 the Greek Bishop of Hums gave permission to beat' all who visited the missionary. In 1858 the Protestants of Alma renewed the experience of Paul and Barnabas at Philippi — beating, chains, the stocks, and the dungeon. One Ishoc, the converted son of a notorious robber, was first saved by his mother from death at his father's hands ; and though the father also was afterward converted, the son has often been robbed, beaten, and wounded in his tours to do good. In 1866 the Bishop of Akkar publicly exhorted his people to kill the Protestants. The Christians at Safeeta have endured, and still suffer, the severest abuse. Where the persecu- tion cannot assume the form of open violence on directly religious grounds, it still has power, by forged evidences of debt, false accusations of crime, ecclesiastical and social excommunication, and interruption of business, to inflict a most painful oppression. Not less discouraging than the outward violence has been the fossilized formalism of the whole population. For generations the most sacred words and symbols had been prostituted not only till they had lost all meaning, but seemed to have obliterated all power of spiritual ap- prehension. The attempt to give the true gospel was like imparting life to a mummy. The Syrian mission has called for indomitable nerve, patience, and faith. Our missionaries have met the call. They have never faltered. Dr. Eli Smith, in all the dis- couragements of 1841 and 1842, resolutely opposed a withdrawal. When the disasters of 1860 were still fresh, one of them wrote thus : " To the question, Are you dis- - THE MISSION IN SYRIA. 109 couraged? we answer, No." But it was not till 1848 that they were permitted to organize the first native church, of nineteen members, at Beirut. The origin and history of the second church are remark- able. In a deep valley, just above the Hasbany foun- tain of the Jordan, and at the very base of Jebel esh Sheik, that rises ten thousand feet above the level of the sea, lies the town of Hasbeiya. Though mostly in ruins now, before the war of 1860 it contained six thou- sand inhabitants. The valley is governed by sheiks in whose family the tenure of office comes down from Saladin himself. Through the high hills that shut in Hasbeiya no missionary foot had ever entered, but the Word of God had found its way. In February, 1844, the little congregation at Beirut was enlarged by the presence of fifty Ilasbeiyans, who had corae to ask for religious teachers. They went home with a conditional consent, and soon wrote that the conditions were ful- filled, and they wanted the men. A little delay brought another deputation, who returned with their teachers. " It seemed almost a dream " to the missionaries. The Protestants — for so they became known — hearkened at oice to their instructions, broke off their drinking and swearing. Sabbath-breaking and dishonesty, and the name of Protestant became an honored name. In July nearly two hundred persons were publicly enrolled as a Protestant community, and when threatened with armed subjugation, seventy-six men instantly signed a written covenant to stand by each other till death. A school was immediately opened. Yovmg Syria, however, soon compelled the men to flee to Abeih, and when they re- turned, stoned them in the streets. Persecution deepened their religious experience, and they met at midnight to 110 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. pray. One of them, who was fined, beaten, and impris- oned, was found late at night enjoying himself in reciting Scripture and in prayer. They soon appealed directly to the Sultan for protection, and obtained it. But the . Patriarch, by his dreaded anathema cutting them off from all intercourse, reduced them to great distress, till their blameless character broke the force of the anathema, and procured them associates and friends. In the unset- tled state of the country they often went to meeting, like the Covenanters and the Plymouth 'Pilgrims, with arms in their hands. In 1851 they formed a churcli of six- teen members, soon built a church edifice furnished with a bell, and were making effectual progress in spreading tha gospel around them, contributing also, in one year, twenty-eight dollars to circulate the Bible in China, when the storm of 1860 burst upon them. Their " holy and beautiful house was burned with fire," eight of them perished, and the rest were scattered. After five years, less than a dozen members could be rallied. But in 1866 another and a beautiful church edifice was built, chiefly with Turkish indemnity money, and in place of the bell whose fragments now serve as weights in the market, another bell, the gift of the corporation of Wil- liams College, again calls the diminished l)and together. But a widow, who lived on the hill, excused her absence from the evening meetings in 1868, with the sad and significant reason that the houses about her were all in ruins, and the hyenas prowled around by night. Through such discouragements the work has gone on. Since the war a new earnestness of inquiry has been awakened, and a call for labor that the little missionary band have been entirely incapable of meeting. " More persons avowed themselves [nominalj Protestants iu THE MISSION IN STKIA. Ill 1862 than for the previous forty years." In 1863 depu- tations and petitions were constantly coming from the ■whole -region between Hums and Acre. And though the motives were largely secular, the movement showed the way to be open. Eighteen persons were added to the churches in 1865, thirty-one in 1866, and twenty- nine in 1867. There are now eight churches, compris- ing two hundred members.* Four stations and twenty- nine out-stations are at present occupied, and the mis- sionaries are aided by two native pastors, and ten native preachers. The mission directly maintains thirty-one common schools, with a thousand pupils ; while, stimu- lated by their example, twenty other schools are sup- ported in Lebanon by Scotch and English funds, and scores of others by the people ; and the Druzes, Maron- ites, and Greeks have established high schools of their own. The mission has a girls' boarding-school at Sidon, a seminary, with a theological department, at Abeih, a female seminary at Beirut, and though not connected with the mission, yet as a true child of the mission, a well-manned college of high order, at Beirut, opened with a freshman class of nineteen, and a sophomore class of ninety-two. The mission has done a great and well- recognized work in the cause of education and literature. Its press, in the year 1866, issued twenty-three thousand tracts, and twenty-eight thousand volumes, including fourteen thousand copies of the Scriptures. But such statistics as these hardly give a hint of the revolution which these unconquerable men have organ- ized in Syria, if their eiForts could now be adequately fol- lowed up. They have fought through the principle of • The figures are those of 1868. See statistics in the Ap- pendix. 112 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. toleration till the Papal Govemor of Lebanon has per- mitted them to preach where they please, to open all the schools they can, to use the Bible in their schools, aad to sell it without hindrance. They have made the name of Christian honored in a region where once it was despised. They have' fairly planted a band of churches, some of which, like those of Beirut, Sidon, Tripoli, and Hums, have begun by colporteurs, and other native labors, to radiate light in surrounding regions. They have difiused a noble spirit of education, till Mohammedans are send- ing their girls to mission schools, and Druzes, Maronites, and Greeks are founding schools of their own. They have provided one of the best translations of the Bible in the world, and devised a type so beautiful as to satisfy the fastidious eye of the Arabs, till now " there are voweled Testaments among the Moslems, and Bibles among the monks in Greek and Maronite convents," and the call comes from Egypt, Assyria, Liberia, and even from Pekin, "Give us Arabic books." Forty thousand copies of the Arabic Scriptures have been circulated, mostly by sale, the Sheik of Mahardee paying for six copies with mats, and for a seventh with his trusty sword, while the colporteur has pushed his way beyond Jordan, and into the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. " The number of novices in the convents is greatly on the decrease. Ritualism is losing its hold on many of the sects. There are Mohammedans who eat during the daytime in Bamadan, and Greeks and Papists who eat meat during Lent." In a Moslem village, near Sidon, in 1867, the men called the women and children to- gether to hear with them the preaching of the gospel, and in another village a Mohammedan kept the colpor- teur two days to read and expound the Scriptures. THK MISSION IN SYRIA. 113 Such facts as these indicate that it is now a critical period in the history of Syria. The land is open. It might be made a time of great spiritual sowing, and reaping, too. Scores of villages are asking for teachers. Education is diffused ; perhaps it has been disproportion- ately cultivated. The Bible is widely scattered. Six- teen secular presses are now at work — a fact which tells that tares, too, may be, and are already, sown. Everything indicates such an opportunity and such a crisis as seldom occur. There are, indeed, difficulties in the conflict of two civilizations, the Europeauized condition of Beirut, and the primitive state of the country ; in the excessive pre- dominance of education, pressed on by foreign influences ; in the lack of helpful development of the native churches ; . but, above all, in the numerical inadequacy of the mis- sionary band. What is needed now is, that these native churches be at once developed into self-support and active labor, and that the multitudes of waiting villages be at once occupied with the gospel. Could this inviting field be adequately cultivated forthwith, what harvests might we not see 1 And to this end there is needed now a strong band of fresh laborers to enter in and reap where noble men have sown in tears, and yet in hope. It will be borne in mind that this sketch of the Syria mission was written in 1868. The mission was trans- ferred to the Presbyterian Board in 1870. MISSIONS IN CHINA. 115 CHAPTEE VI. MISSIONS IN CHINA. Few minds comprehend the greatness of China, past, present, or prospective,. When we utter those two short syllables, we mention one third of the human family ; and each letter of that word stands for more than a hundred million souls. Every aspect of the empire is colossal. Huge moun- tain masses of imjnense altitude inclose it on the west, and shoot through the country their two long ranges so high that the great road from Canton to Pekin winds through a pass eight thousand feet above the . ocean. Vast basins of land lying between and among these mountain ranges are fertilized and commercially inter- woven by great navigable streams, the chief , of which are the Hoang-ho, more than two thousand miles in length, and the Yang-tse Kiang, near three thousand miles long, ascended four hundred miles by the tide, and bearing myriads of barges and boats back and forth on its placid waters. Each of these, and other great rivers, are only the central threads of great networks of navigable streams, which render the empire pre-eminent among the nations in facilities for internal trade. Meanwhile the wide ex- tent and varied surface of the country, stretching through thirty-eight degrees of latitude and seventy-four of longi- tude, give rise to almost every kind of climate, and admit 116 SKETCHES OP THE MISSIONS. of almost every species of vegetable production ; and the numerous rivers are remarkable for the abundance and variety of their fish. One tenth of the population derive their food from the waters. Nature has bestowed on China certain peculiar treasures and sources of immense profit in the tea-plant, the camphor-tree, the sugar-cane, the bamboo, of endless uses, indigo, cotton, rhubarb, the var- nish tree, and in the silk-worm, which is indigenous, and abounds in all parts of the country. The mineral re- sources are ample — gold, silver, zinc, lead, and tin in considerable quantities, extensive mines of quicksilver, with iron and copper in great abundance. Porcelain clay is found in great deposits, and immense stores of coal, bituminous and anthracite, and, in short, almost every mineral production requisite for the. complete sup- ply of the empire. Not even our own country has an area more directly fitted and furnished by nature for a great concentric empire, with all its resources at home, than this grand Asiatic region. In many respects the development of the empire has been proportionate to its resources. The almost un- equaled facilities for internal traffic afforded by its great river systems are increased by four hundred canals, greater in extent, possibly, than those of all other na- tions together, the longest of which was constructed six hundred years ago, and is twice the length of the Erie Canal. The most titanic work of defense ever erected by man is that famous wall, from fifteen to thirty feet in height, fifteen feet broad at the top, and fifteen hundred miles in length, built so long ago that the centuries of its age are more by five than the hundreds of miles of its length. The agriculture of China has been carried out on such a system as to utilize every kind and particle of MISSIONS IN CHINA. 117 refuse, and to maintain a density of population, in some of its provinces, — Kiang-ke, for example, — three times as great as the average of England, and more than twice that even of Belgium. Those four or five hundred millions have been accumu- lating and toiling there for ages. Old England is an infant in the presence of China. Passing its fabulous era, the curtain of history rises two thousand years before Christ, and discloses already an elective monarchy ; and the eye wearies with reading the names and the exact dates of fifty-eight monarchs, from Ta-yu to Yew-wang, ■who reigned on the Yang-tse Kiang before Romulus had sucked his " wolf's milk " on the banks of the Tiber. The empire boasts a hoary civilization too, which, if never quickened by the true religion, has yet accumulated splendid trophies. Its perfection of agricultnre and its marvelous industry challenge our admiration. Many of its great canals are two thousand years old. From time immemorial the nation have been manufacturers of silks. Wood-engraving and stereotype printing are at least five hundred years older in China than the time of Gutenberg and Faust in Germany. The earliest Christian mission- aries found here the magnetic needle. Gunpowder was in use at a remote antiquity, and the Tartars in the twelfth century learned here the use of guns and swords, and thence, perhaps, conveyed the knowledge of artillery to Europe. Seventeen hundred years ago the Chinese were using paper ; they had a lexicou of their language, that is still reckoned among their standards ; and the imperial library numbered eighty thousand volumes, two thirds of them "ancient" then. One honorable mark of the pervasive civilization of China is found in the wide diffusion and high estimate 118 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. of education. Distinction in public life can be attained ,only on condition of scholarship, tested by rigid ex- aminations. The knowledge of reading, writing, and arithmetic is with the men almost universal ; so that even the peasantry can keep their accounts, conduct their correspondence, and read the proclamations of the man- darins. In the southern provinces, especially, every village has its school, founded and supported by the vil- lages themselves. To the foreign visitor the school-rooa seems a young bedlam, for the children study rocking themselves backward and forward, and chanting the lesson, often indeed bawling it at the top of their voices. In the midst of the hubbub sits the master, listening and correcting ; and when each pupil has thoroughly rocked and screamed his lesson over to himself, he presents him- self to the teacher with a low bow, and " backs his book," that is, he turns his back and repeats his lesson. And it marks the old and stereotyped character of the civiliza- tion, that the children learn largely the ancient writings of Mencius and Confucius, committed in parrot style to memory. The peculiarities of the nation have been in- tensified by its inner completeness and outward seclusion. Shut off from the wave of western conquest by the mountains of Thibet, enveloped by inhospitable plains on the north, withdrawn from commerce by the breadth of the Pacific, and intrenched within her own exclusive policy, she knew for ages only the weaker nations and roving tribes upon her borders. Consequently, until within these last few years the national conceit has been insufferable and insuperable. The emperor was the " Son of Heaven," sitting on the " Dragon Throne," and signing decrees with the " vermilion pencil ; " and his empire was the " Middle Kingdom," the " Inner MISSIONS m CHINA. 119 Land," and the " Flowery Country." Their map of the world gave nine tenths of its space to China, and to Eng- land a spot as large as a thumb-nail, while our country was nowhere. The government documents designated foreigners as " barbarians," and the common people in many parts of the empire called them " foreign devils." So diverse have been all their customs from our own, as to place a barrier between us from the outset. " We read horizontally, they perpendicularly ; and the columns run from right to left. We uncover the head as a mark of respect, they put on their caps. We black our boots, they whitewash them. We give the place of honor on the right, they on the left. We say the needle points to the north, they to the south. We shake the hand of a friend in salutation, they shake their own. We locate the understanding in the brain, they in the belly. We place our foot-notes at the bottom of the page, they at the top. In our libraries we set our books up, they lay theirs down. We now turn thousands of spindles and ply hundreds of shuttles without a single hand to propel, they employ a hand for each." But the most singular thing of all, perhaps, is the lan- guage. Some have said it was specially invented by the devil to exclude Christianity. The fundamental concep- tion of it is difficult for a foreigner to grasp. It is chiefly monosyllabic, having no other letters or words than syl- lables. In one respect it is as colossal as the nation — in the number of its characters. Every character is the name of a thing. An immense number of seemingly arbitrary signs is therefore to be mastered. The labor is alleviated, however, by the fact that there are certain root words, variously estimated at from three hundred and fifteen to four thousand, and some two hundred and 120 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. fourteen symbolic characters, entering into, classifying, and characterizing the various combinations of signs. The number of words contained in the official dictionary is forty-three thousand five hundred, and other authorities reckon as many more. But the missionary Doolittle affirms that a knowledge of three or four thousand char^ acters is sufficient for the reading of most books. The characters become so complicated in form that one re- markable specimen is made by fifty-two strokes of the pen. The language is still further complicated by the tones and inflections, which vary the meaning of the char- acters, and by the diversity of form and signification often attached to words identical in sound. The missionaries have found themselves greatly embarrassed, too, by the utter .earthliness of the language. Among all its forty thousand words,, rankly luxuriant in all the expressions for hateful passions and groveling vices, there was no suitable phraseology to describe one of the graces of the Spirit ; and it was for half a century a matter of grave discussion what should be the proper name of God. Difficult as the language confessedly is, the difficulty has, no doubt, been greatly magnified. It is one which for ages past has been constantly surmounted by these countless millions themselves ; it is one which Dr. Milne overcame so readily as to publish an address in Chinese within a twelvemonth after he entered the field. And the labor of acquisitioB is more than counterbalanced by the breadth of utterance. For though there are numer- ous .spoken dialects, mntttally unintelligible, the written language of this vast «mpire is one. And the weary translator, toiling at Jiis task, may cheer himself with the thought that every verse he painfully prepares can speak in God's name to any one of four hundred million souls. MISSIONS IN CHINA. 121 The labor was lightened, too, from the beginning, by the fact that the missionary needed no outlay for types, presses, and printing offices with foreign printers and binders, but had only to give his manuscript to a China- man, and receive back his book all printed, and bound, and ready for circulation. China has been called the Gibraltar of heathenism. In some respects the statement is true. The complica- tion of the language is, after all, but a trivial barrier, for it can be as well surmounted for the cause of Christ as for every earthly purpose. We long had a grand obstacle in the overweening vanity and singular exclusiveness of the nation ; but the collisions with England and France, twelve years ago, have shaken these to their centre. There still remains the wonderful tenacity with ^hich the nation identifies itself with the past and clings to its time-honored institutions, and especially the mighty hold which Confucius has upon their reverence and actual adoration. Considering the number of centuries sincd his death — twenty-three — and the multitudes of men who have ever since chosen him for their great light, no man has ever carried so wide an influence. Said two old men of Shantung, refusing a religious tract, " We have seen your books, and do not want them. In the instruc- tions of our sage we have sufficient." They only gave voice to the hereditary feeling. Those doctrines, at their best estate, are but a self-sufficient morality. Another powerful obstacle to the true religion is the worship paid to deceased ancestors. It has its- regular services and set times in every household ; is established by universal custom, compulsory by public sentiment, and, if neglected, enforceable by law. When we consider how deep are the sentiments of humai^ nature on which it lays hold, 122 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. we can easily see how firm that hold must be. The nation is also trained from childhood to the practice of innumerable other idolatrous ceremonies, till they have become a network in which the whole life is woven. These idolatries are supported at enormous expense. A missionary who had made careful inquiry through the district of Shanghai, and estimated the empire on the same scale, computed the annual expenditures of Chinese idolatry at the almost increditable sum of one hundred and eighty millions of dollars. Surely there is some money-power in China arrayed against the annual half a million of the American Board, expended on the world. But perhaps neither Confucianism, Tauism, nor Bud- dhism, — the three chief forms of religion, — offer obsta- cles 4p great as the character and habits of the nation. Under a calm and courteous exterior, foreigners have found them cunning and corrupt, treacherous and vin- dictive. Gambling and drunkenness, though abundantly ■prevalent, are far outstripped by their licentiousness, which taints the language with its leprosy, often deco- rates the walls of their inns with the foulest of scenes, by them called " flowers," and lurks beneath a thin Chinese lacker as a deep dead-rot in society. Said Dr. Bridg- man, after sixteen years' labor among them, — and Mr. Johnson, with a still longer experience, confirmed his words, — " The longer I live in this country, the more do I see of the wickedness of this people. All that Paul said of the ancient heathen is true of the Chinese, and true to an extent that is dreadful. Their inmost soul, their very conscience, seems to be seared, dead — so insensible that they are, as regards a future life, like the beasts that perish. No painting, no imagination, can portray and lay before the Christian world «the awful sins, the horri- ble abominations, that fill the land." MISSIONS IN CHINA. 123 Associated with all this corruption is the deepest degradation of woman. From the cradle to the grave her life is one long-drawn woe. Her birth is a disgrace and a burden to the family ; and infanticide of females accordingly prevails to a shocking extent. In forty towns around Amoy, Mr. Abeel found that two fifths of the girls were destroyed in their infancy ; and intelligent Chinese informed Mr. Doolittle that probably more than half the families of the great city of Foo Chow have destroyed one or more of their daughters — drowned in tubs, thrown into streams, and buried alive, commonly by the father. Sometimes they are exposed, sometimes sold in infancy for slaves or for wives. A girl of one year will bring two dollars, and each additional year, till she is old enough to work and be more valuable, two dollars more. If spared alive at home, she is but a menial ; taught to work, but not to read or write. She is sold in marriage to some man whom she never sees till the wedding day — a man with whom she never eats, who holds and uses the right to starve her, beat her, or to sell her permanently or transiently to some other man, or in due time to place another wife by her side. From the prolonged curse of life not seldom she escapes by suicide. Said the Mandarin Ting to the French traveler Hue, folding his arms, and stepping back a pace or two, " Women have no souls." And when it was insisted and argued that they had, he laughed long and loud at the thought. " When I get home I will tell my wife she has a soul. She will be astonished, I think." Does not one mighty wail sweep over the waters of the Pacific, and sound day and night in the ears of the wives, mothers, and daughters of this country, beseeching them to go and to send to the rescire of these their degraded, suffering sisters? 124 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. One other obstacle only shall be mentioned — the use of opium. Perhaps it is the most formidable of all. Two names deserve to be handed down to infamy : those of Vice-President Wheeler and Colonel "Watson, of the British East India Company, who, in the beginning of this century, conceived the, deplorable thought of sending the opiuin of Bengal into China. Even the heathen em- pire roused itself at length, and nobly struggled hard to eject the horrid gift, — this Pandora's box, — but the British government, in 1840, forced it back at the can- non's mouth. The effect has been hideous beyond de- scription. The physical, social, and moral evils with which it is steadily flooding the nation, in its lava-like course, no tongue can tell. The Chinese grow excited when they speak of it ; and the missionaries, with one voice, declare it to be, next to native depravity, the most dreadful barrier to the progress of the gospel. Surely Christendom owes China the gospel with a fearful force of obligation. No doubt the difficulties are great. But the motive, and the moving power, are greater far. Here is a huge prize for the Lord of Hosts. If China has been thought the Gibraltar, it may yet become the Waterloo, of hea- thendom. Long ago Christian eyes were turned to the shining mark. Twelve centuries ago the Nestorian Church, in her palmy days, planted churches in China, which, after various successes and reverses, were crushed by the heel of Genghis Khan, overrun by the victorious march of the Mohammedan princes, and forcibly obliter- ated by the dynasty of Ming. In the thirteentli century Kome came here with an archbishop, seven assistant bishops, and a train of missionaries. Again she returned in 1581, in Jesuit disguise, led by one Eicci,43f whom a MISSIONS IN CHINA. 125 Catholic writer thus speaks : " The kings found in him a man full of complaisance ; the pagans a minister who accommodated himself to their superstitions ; the Man- darins a polite courtier, skilled in all the courts ; and the devil a faithful servant, who, far from destroying, estab- lished his reign among the people, and even extended it to the Christians." Since that time, by the customary superficial methods, which in China do not include the distribution of the Scriptures, and very seldom the ability to preach intelligibly, the Papacy has prosecuted its work, till in China proper it now boasts of twenty bishops, four hundred and seventy priests (half of them native3) , and three hundred and sixty thousand converts, or baptized persons. The father of Protestant missions in China was Rev. Eobert Morrison — a man who had prepared for the Divinity School, at Ploxton, by studying between the hours of seven at night and six in the morning, making boot-trees during the day. With a burning desire to preach to the heathen, he broke away from the dissua- sions of his friends and the tears. of his father, to this dark land. Under tlie charge of the London Missionary Society, and with a letter from James Madison to the American Consul at Canton, he, in 1807, found his way in that city to the ware-rooms of a New York merchant, where, in the native costume, with long nails and cue, he ate, slept, lived, and studied by day, and, with his small brown earthen lamp, by night, praying his daily prayers in broken Chinese. After seven long years, he gave the natives the New Testament entire, and baptized his first convert from a little spring gushing from the hill-side by the sea, in utter solitude. la that same year he was joined by the noble William Milne, who had 126 SKETCHES OP THE MISSIONS. sprung from a Scotch peasant's home ; at the age of six- teen had spent whole evenings at prayer in a sheep-cote, kneeling on a bit of turf that he carried with him ; at twenty had consecrated himself to the mission work ; then spent five years in providing for his sisters and widowed mother ; told the committee-man, who objected to his rustic appearance, that he was ready to go as a hewer of wood and a drawer of water, so that he might be in the work, and in a year from his arrival was pub- lishing a Chinese address. Three years later, Morrison and Milne issued the whole of the Scriptures, — a work which,, in her hundreds of years of occupancy, the Rom- ish Church never did nor attempted. Other translations have since been published, — the New Testament, in Mandarin colloquial, quite recently, at Peking. Morrison and Milne were feebly reenforced from home, and after almost a quarter of a century, their earnest call — which proved to be Milne's dying call — reached America. It was then (1829) that the American Board began its work in the persons of the excellent Bridgman and Abeel, fol- lowed in succession by other noble men and women, some of whom have also followed them to heaven, in firm faith of the sure harvest in due season. Among earlier mem- bers of the mission were Williams, Parker, Doty, Pohl- man, Ball, Peet, Bonney, and other honored names. The Board is at present represented in China by thirty-nine Americans, male and female, who, with their native preachers and helpers, occupy some seven stations, and fifteen out-stations, where they have organized eleven small churches. Other Protestant Boards have followed them, until, according to a recent statement prepared at Tientsin, one hundred and twenty-four [ordained] mis- sionaries are now in the field, who, with their wives, MISSIONS IN CHINA, 127 Other helpers, and native preachers and assistants, occupy some twenty-six principal points and adjacent stations. Morrison's, Marahman's, Gutzlaif's, and Medhurst's translations of the Bible, and other versions, or partial versions, have been issued, together with some eight hundred different tracts and books, many of which have been widely circulated. Many churches have been or- ganized ; most of them small, although three of those belonging to the Reformed Church at Amoy together number three hundred and seventy-seven communicants. Already native pastors are at the head of some of these churches, while many native evangelists are preaching the gospel to their countrymen. The number of converts was given, two years ago, by Mr. Williams, Secretary of Legation at Peking, at more than three thousand. But the history of missions in China is a history still of the future ; let us hope of the near future, and a glorious history. For " what are these among so many " — one missionary to three or four millions of people? They stand oppressed before the greatness of the work, and the magnificence of the opportunity, amid the won- derful renaissance that is sweeping over China. Mr. Chapin wrote from Tientsin, in 1867: "Would that we had a hundred men full of faith, and zeal, and love. Where is there such a field? I wonder that the hearts of the pious and enterprising youth of our country are not so stirred up, in view of the glorious service, as to lead thousands of them to present themselves to the Board, and beg to be sent forth on this holy, joyous mission." It is, indeed, a future of glorious hope and possibilities. Great as are the obstacles, the power of the gospel has shown itself greater, and some of the very obstacles may 128 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS, yet throw their enormous weight upon its side. The Holy Spirit has proved his ability to pierce the worldly and sensual Chinese heart. Tsae A-ke, that first convert whom Morrison baptized in the solitude of the sea-shore, proved faithful unto deatli, and many others have proved, also, faithful in life, till now that solitary believer is represented by three thousand, many of whom are faithful preachers of the word. The Missionary Herald recently informed us of a young Chinese merchant in Hawaii, who has left his business to labor for Christ among his countrymen upon those islands. A gentleman in manner and character, he speaks English, Hawaiian, and six dialects of the Chinese, and preaches with fervor and with power ; and his countrymen there are abandoning their idolatry, and predicting the speedy prevalence of Christianity through their native empire. God has, indeed, wrought wonders since that time, — not a generation gone by, — when the whole foreign in- tercourse of the empire was concentrated in the Hong merchants of Canton. The opium war closed, in 1842, by unlocking five other ports to open commerce. The war with France and England, ending in 1860, did still greater things. It reversed the policy of the empire. When the foreign armies steadily advanced toward Pe- king, storming every fort on the way till they had burned the summer palace, and invested the capital, the treach- erous Emperor fled to Tartary, the national vanity and obstinacy broke down together, and a new day dawned on China. Not only are eighteen ports now open to trade, but the empire is free to foreign travel and teach- ing, with the definite pledge of toleration to Christianity, and of protection to its missionaries. The government MISSIONS IN CHINA. 129 has at length learned, by hard experience, thoroughly to respect and desire the civilization of the West. Chinese troops have been drilled in foreign tactics on the very battle-grounds where they had been defeated within the year. The Viceroy of the Fukien and Chekiang prov- inces is building gun-boats by the aid of French ship- builders, and is training thirty youug men to learn the French language and the art of ship-building, and as many more to learn the English and the art of naviga- tion. Wheaton's Law of Nations has, by order of the government, been translated and distributed to the officials of the empire ; and so well has it been conned, that, in a recent difficulty of the Prussian Minister v/ith the au- thorities, he was both astounded and discomfited by their citation of its principles. The government has founded the University of Peking. There is a longing for foreign science, so earnest that it will suffer the leaven of Chris- tianity that accompanies, as when the Viceroy of Kiang- nan publishes, with his own sanction and introduction, a translation of Euclid, wherein the missionary translator boldly advocates the cause of religion in the preface. A man of wealth and learning has recently argued, in one of the Chinese papers, in favor of the missionary work as a matter of policy, declaring that " the benefits which we derive from the teachings of the missionaries are more than we can enumerate," and that " their influence on our future will be unbounded." The embassy of Mr. Burliugame was a startling event ia the drowsy policy of this ancient empire. A powerful progressive party is rising into iniluehce which may yet throw the momentum of the empire in favor of Christianity. For it seems an admitted fact — reiterated to Mr. Burlingame by a mem- ber of the Board of Foreign Affairs — that the intelligent 130 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. men of China " put no faith in the popular religions," and that a large part of the people, notwithstanding their industrious observances of forms, are wholly indifferent to the principles of their faith. Thousands of copies of the Bible, and other Christian books and tracts, have been scattered among this reading people. They begin to ask for Christian books. Attention is turned to Christianity. Messrs. Lee and Williamson, of the Scotch and London missions, iu a long tour of two thousand miles, in 1866, found multitudes who bought their books^ and hung eagerly on their words. Mr. Chapin, in his journeys in the neighborhood of Tientsin, spoke to audi- ences of two or three thousand persons. Mr. Williams, of the Bible Society, after a two months' tour from Peking, reported the people as calling for the living preacher. The very degradation of the Chinese women may yet prodigiously react in behalf of our religion, with its elevation of the sex. The girls' schools are already growing in favor. Mr. Williams writes from Peking that they are specially encouraged by their access to the women, who in several families welcome their visits ; and Mr. Blodget speaks of " boat loads of women " coming in from the country towns, bringing their food ■with them, to be instructed in the gospel. Mrs. G-ulick, on her visit to Yiicho, while talking to a room full of women, was accosted by one who took her by the hand, saying, " I believe in Jesus, and last New Year's day burned all my idols." Others were much moved ; three or four offered simple, but earnest prayers, declared their faith in Jesus, and asked for baptism. In truth, the long dormant elements in China are rous- ing to action. A period of awakening, and of possible instruction, has come at last. It is a time of formation MISSIONS IN CHINA. 131 and of hope. Everything is ready and waiting. It is an important hour for that vast empire. Where, now, is the solid phalanx of young Christian heroes, wise with a heavenly wisdom, fired with a Christ-like zeal, and filled with a largeness of heart, and a breadth of comprehen- sion, as great as the opportunity, to cast themselves into the breach, and win the empire to Christ? Where are those men? Let them now stand forth, unfurl the ban- ner of the cross, and call on the churches to pour out their prayers and their money like water for their sup- port. And the churches dare not say them nay. China and the world will owe them the profoundest debt of- gratitude, and the Master will say, " Well done." Has there been such an opportunity since the world began? While preparing this article for the press the writer has met with a statement which casts new light on the prospects and condition of China, and more than con- firms all the foregoing assertions. It shows how great a foundation has been laid, and how rapidly the work rolls up, increasing as it goes. It shows, also, how firm a hold the gospel can lay upon the seemingly wooden heart and mind of the Chinaman. It was written by Eev. S. L. Baldwin, a Methodist Episcopal missionary, and ap- peared in the Independent, December 21, 1871, in answer to certain disparaging inquiries of a contributor.'' It is a pretty eflfectual answer : — " I. What has been accomplished in Chiiia? "Answer. — Although the first Protestant missionary to the Chinese landed at Canton in 1807, and about sixty missionaries were sent from Europe and America, be- tween 1813 and 1842, to China, an'd to* the Chinese set- tlements in Java, Siam, and the Straits, the real era of 132 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. the commencement of Protestant missionary labor in China is the year 1842, in which the treaty with Great Britain was signed, which opened the ' five ports ' to the commerce of the world. Our missionaries were then permitted to enter at all the open ports with the word of life. A long period of preparatory work was then en- tered upon — breaking down the prejudices of a people for centuries secluded from the rest of the world, over- coming the superstitions of the masses, and undermining their faith in idolatry. While this work was going on — for ten or twelve years — there were scarcly any con- Verts ; so that nearly all the converts have been received within the last sixteen years, and by far the larger part of them within the last seven years. The following table will show the ratio of increase during the last eighteen years : — In 1853 the number of native Christians was " 1863 " " " " " 1864 " " " " " 1868 " " " " The present number is very nearly 351 , 1,974 2,607 5,743 . 8,000 " But we should get a very inadequate idea of the work done if we were to look only at the number of communicants. Over five hundred different books have been printed in the Chinese language by Protestant mis- sionaries, including the Sacred Scriptures, commenta- ries, theological, educational, linguistic, historical, geo- graphical, mathematical, astronomical, and botanical works — books ranging in size and importance from the child's primer to Dr. Martin's translation of ' Wheaton's International Law,' Dr. Hobson's medical and physio- logical works, and Mr. Wylie's translations of ' Euclid's Geometry ' and ' Herschell's Astronomy.' MISSIONS IN CHINA. 133 " Besides, the vast advance made in eradicating the prejudices of the people, securing their confidence, and gaining entrance into the interior, is to be taken into the account. The fact that fifty thousand native patients are annually treated in Protestant missionary hospitals is also full of significance. It is a common thing for us to meet with people now who say that for eight, or ten, or more years they have not worshiped idols ; that they were convinced by preaching that they heard, or books that they received, so long ago, that idolatry was wrong, and had given it up. We find them now, in interior cities and villages, ready to become adherents of the gospel of Christ. " II. What are our prospects for the future ? " Answer. — Rev. M. J. Knowlton, of Ningpo, calls attention to the fact that of late the number of out- stations, of native preachers, and of converts has doubled once in a period of a little over three years, and that we may reasonably expect that by the year 1900 the native Christians will number over two millions. Bishop Kingsley, in addressing the native Methodist preachers at Foochow, in 1869, reminded them that there were more Methodists then in Foochow than there were in America a hundred years before. Let this fact be borne in mind, namely, that, although the Chinese move slowly, when they begin to move they move in masses, and there is no reason why this rule may not operate to the advan- tage of Christianity. In the Foochow mission of the Methodist Episcopal church we had last year nine hun- dred and thirty-one members, and nine hundred and sixty-nine probationers, showing the work of the year preceding to have equaled, in the number of converts, all the years of the mission's history that had gone before. 134 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. Such facts as these will have weight with all thinking minds. " III. What is the character of Chinese converts? " Answer. — As among converts at home, there is every variety of character among them ; but in general they are faithful, earnest, devoted men. The difference between them and their Pagan neighbors is marked. The Pagan neighbor is dirty. The Christian is clean. The Pagan lies, and delights in lying. The Christian becomes truthful. The Pagan treats his wife as a slave. The Christian treats her as an immortal being. The Pagan regards the birth of a daughter as a calamity. The Christian welcomes the little girl, gives her to God in baptism, and tries to prepare her for a useful life. " One of our native Christians at Foochow went on Saturday to an American mercantile house with samples of tea. The agent in charge said, ' Come to-morrow.' The native replied, ' To-morrow is Sunday, and I never transact business on God's day ! ' (Some incidents of this kind may go far to account for the asserted fact that * merchants do not expect great things from the mission- aries.') " When Li Cha Mi, a few weeks ago, was stoned by persecutors until he was nearly dead, and afterward, in attempting to elude his pursuers, fell over a precipice twenty feet high, while he was falling he prayed, ' Lord, have mercy upon them, and forgive them.' " After Ling Ching Ting had been beaten with two -thousand stripes, as soon as he was able to move he re- turned to the place where he had been beaten, and preached the gospel so faithfully that some of the very men who brought that trial upon him were converted. " When Hii Yong Mi was driven from his home by a MISSIONS IK CHINA. 135 mob, and his wife cruelly outraged, they both held stead- fast to "their faith in Christ, emulating the spirit of Job : ' Though he slay me, yet will 1 trust in him.' " When old Father Ling, at Ku-cheng, was told by heathen friends, ' You must not try to give up opium smoking now after forty years' practice ; it will kill you ; ' his reply was, ' I belong to Jesus. I have prom- ised to give up every sin. I would rather die trying to conquer this sin than live an opium smoker.' " I speak only of men I have personally known, whose Christian character commands my admiration, and whose Christian lives are evidence of the genuineness of their profession." THE MISSION TO PERSIA. 137 CHAPTER VII. THE MISSION TO PEESIA. Henry Marttn was the pioneer of moderm missions in Persia. Sabat, his Armenian friend and supposed convert in India, had painted in glowing colors the read- iness of the Mohammedans of Persia to throw off their delusion. When the fatal letter came that blasted all his earthly hopes, announcing that an English mother re- fused to the missionary chaplain one daughter from her numerous family, and that the daughter also refused solely because of the mother's refusal, the last bond that held him was severed. Early in June, 1811, accompanied by the " assassin-looking" Sabat, and attended by a pain in his chest, and a deeper pain in his heart, — the har- bingers of his doom, — he rode into Shiraz. For eleven months he wrought there at his Persian translation of .the New Testament and the Psalms, thronged at his house by wrangling Mussulmans, and in his horseback rides saluted with brickbats by Mohammedan boys. At length disease gained the victory. Four months he lay at Ta- briz, with the fever raging in his frame, and wasting him " to a skeleton." Then, in a transient rallying of his strength, he wrote his last letter, — it was to his " dearest Lydia," — started for England, and at Tocat rested in heaven. To all his other blessed memories, he added SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. that of being one in whom the love of Christ was mightier far than the tenderest love of woman. It was reported that some conversions followed his labors. There was even a touching story of a Persian Mohammedan who once listened in silent sadness to the profane levity of a British gentleman at dinner, and told him afterward that he had been led by Martyn to the. Saviour. But Eev. J. L. Merrick, some twenty years later, searched in vain to find traces of such a person. Yet Dr. Perkins found a Chaldean bishop who, after the lapse of forty-seven years, vividly remembered the frail appearance and fascinating manners of " the finest Eng- lishman he ever saw," who, in his temperate way, " break- fasted on an egg, and dined on a chicken-wing," wrote from morning till night, and boiled over with animation and discussion ; while Martyn's Persian translation of the New Testament is still doing service for the Master. Eighteen years passed away. Smith and Dwight, on their exploring expedition for the American Board, found their way to Persia, and their hearts were deeply enlisted for the Nestorian Christiafis of that country. Their whole history, condition, and position seemed eminently hopeful. The Nestorian Church is the oldest of the sects. It traces its origin, truly or falsely, to the apostle Thomas, and claims a great army of one hundred and sixty thou- sand martyrs in one province more than fifteen centuries ago. Certain it is, that from the third century onward, and more especially from the middle of the eighth to the middle of the fourteenth century, that Church was char- acterized by a remarkable series of missionary labors, preaching the gospel in Busra and Khorasan, to " the Bactrians, Huns, Persians, Indians, Pers-armenians, MISSION TO PERSIA. 139 Medes, and Elamites. They followed the roving Tartar, and established bishoprics in the middle kingdom." Under the reign of the Caliphs, says Gibbon, " the Nestorian Church was diffused from China to Jerusalem and Cyrene, and their numbers, together with those of the Jacobitfes, were computed to surpass the Greek and Latin communions." In India alone they had fourteen hun- dred churches. They were named — or nicknamed — from Nestorius, the deposed Patriarch of Constantinople, because they espoused the doctrines for which, in 431, he was con- demned as a heretic, when he was only h reformer. His chief offense was, that he objected to calling Mary " the mother of God," and opposed, sometimes rashly and con- fusedly, the views and tendencies which were symbolized in that phrase. But though the churches in Persia were the earliest representatives of the doctrines of Nestorius, they were but a fragment of a great communion, which at one time counted twenty-flve metropolitans, and whose Patriarch established his See successively at the great commercial cities, Ctesiphon, Seleucia, Bagdad, and Mosul. This once mighty church, that so grandly prosecuted its missionary work, chiefly while all Europe was slumber- ing through the dark ages, was now reduced to a rem- nant of less than one hundred and fifty thousand. Their Patriarch, bearing the linear title of Mar Shimon, had his seat in an obscure village in the mountains of Koor- distan, surrounded by one or two millions of ferocious Mohammedan Koords, and a large portion of his people lived in the plains below, enveloped by twelve millions of Mohammedan Persians. They live thus in the border- land between the two great Mohammedan sects, the 140 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. Sunnees and the Shiites. It is a curious and romantic juxta-position of races. For the Nestorians are clearly of the old Semitic stock, allied to the Jews — if they be not, as Dr. Grant more than doubtfully maintained, relics of the lost ten tribes. The Koords, whether sprung or not from the Parthians, who defeated Crassus, are the race to whom the great Saladin belonged ; while the modern Persians are descendants of the old Medes and Persians. But the glory of the church had long departed. In outward extent and missionary labors it had never rallied from the slaughters of the ferocious Tamerlane, about the opening of the fifteenth century. Piles of seventy thousand human heads in the public squares of Ispahan, and ninety thousand at Bagdad, bore witness to his method and the thoroughness of his work. A-nd while reduced in numbers, it had also lost its ancient life, and become one of the dead churches of the East ; only not so locked up in death as many others. The reasons which first drew the hearts of Messrs. Smith and Dwight especially toward this feeble remnant of a great church, were its extreme liberality to other sects, and its entire rejection of the confessional, that fetter and curse of the other Oriental churches. The Nestorians were also found to have been trained up with a singular reverence for the Scriptures, — little as they knew of their contents, — and the utmost readiness to refer everything to that ultimate tribunal. The Moham- medans of Persia were meanwhile wholly inaccessible to direct approaches ; for deatk was the penalty of their conversion — a penalty, which, as Mr. Merrick avers, at that time would certainly have been inflicted. Besides, it would have been impossible to awaken in their minds MISSIOK TO PERSIA. 141 any respect for the gospel so long as the representatives of Christianity among them showed it to be barren and dead. It seemed clear that tlie Christian work in Persia must begin with the Nestorians. Justin Perkins was then a tutor in Amherst College. Before the report of Smith and Dwight was published, it was arranged that he should enter upon this field. A widowed mother, aged iand dependent, cheerfully gave him up ; and in September, 1833, he and Iiis wife (Char- lotte Bass) embarked at Boston. But toil and excitement had prostrated him with- a dangerous sickness. He was carried twenty miles on a bed to his berth in the vessel. As he was lifted on board, the captain said to the mate, " We shall soon throw that man overboard." But the Lord had thirty-six years of Christian labor in him yet. He lay there, silently thanking God that he was on his way to Perisa, and soon rose to the most vigorous health. After a winter at Constantinople, gladdened by tlie re- enforcement of Dr. and Mrs. Grant, destined for the same mission, they left by schooner for Trebizond, and thence six hundred miles on horseback, over a mountain region where sometimes the bridle of Mrs. Perkins was held by one muleteer and her saddle by another. A royal firman procured an unmolested passage for the " Nobleman Perkins" through the Turkish dominions ; but intolera- ble annoyances followed them through the Eussian prov- inces of Georgia. Scarcely had they been welcomed most delightfully by the British embassy at Tabriz, when Mrs. Perkins sank down with almost fatal sickness. Before she had fully recovered, her husband setoiF for Oroomiah in search of a teacher. The first Nestorian with whom he shook hands, and who returned with him to Tabriz, as both 142 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. teacher and pupil, was the good bishop whose manly face became afterward so well known in America — Mar Yohannan, the fast Friend of the mission. A large num- ber of the simple villagers flocked around, exclaiming, " Welcome, most welcome ! The Lord has heard our prayers." The bishop accompanied the missionary to visit the Patriarch in the mountains, where for three hours they conversed by three interpreters through a chain of four different languages, — the Syriac, the Turk- ish, the Armenian, and the English. The Patriarch also said, " Thanks be to God, this is what I have been praying for." Another year found Messrs. Perkins and Grant sta- tioned at Oroomiah, the birthplace of Zoroaster, and the seat of the ancient fire-worshippers. It was one general "welcome." Mar Yohannan rode forth at full gallop to meet them on the way. At dinner, his young brother, a lad of fourteen, taught by himself, pulled from his pocket a New Testament, and read to them in English the third chapter of Matthew with its message of "repentance" and the drawing nigh of " the kingdom of heaven." A furious storm drenched them through that night, as they rode into Oroomiah. But next morning, while their room was full of boxes and packages, the Mohammedan Gov- ernor, who had previously declared, with Persian ex- aggeration, " The whole city shall be yours," sent his chief officer to congratulate them, and, a few days later, his cousin also, who affirmed that their coming was " like the sun's rising on the world." In their excursions among the villages, the simple-hearted Nestorians flocked around, and sometimes came out with drums and trum- pets to greet them. They soon descended from Persian poetry and Nes- MISSION TO PERSIA. 143 torian rejoicings to the prose of hard work. Let us look on the scene. A province, a plain, a lake, and a city, all bear the name of Oroomiah. A beautiful plain, some forty or fifty miles by twenty, lies forty-five hundred feet above the ocean level. Three rivers from the mountains are cut up into hundreds of canals to irrigate its deep al- luvial soil.- The streams fringed with willows, sycamores, and poplars, the roads in every direction lined with fruit trees, magnificent grain fields, large vineyards, number- less gardens and orchards, laden with almost every fruit of the temperate zone, ofier the aspect of an earthly par- adise. The air is so clear that Jupiter's moons and Saturn's rings often can be seen by the naked eye. In the center of this great plain lies the mud-walled city, with its twenty thousand people, and the region round is sprinkled with three hundred villages, numbering from a hundred to a thousand inhabitants in each. The whole eastern side of the plain is skirted by the lake of Oroomi- ah, eighty miles in length, as salt and as heavy as the Dead Sea, and as destitute of fish, but enlivened by the scarlet flamingo and other fowl along its shore ; while on the west rise the treeless mountains of Koordistan, covered for a long distance upward with rich vegetation, sprinkled with flocks and shepherds, and dotted with two hundred villages that lie nestled in the valleys or perched on the hill-sides, till the rocky heights, fifteen thousand feet above the level of the ocean, are crowned with per- petual snow. The missionaries found one serious draw- back on this scene of beauty : the exhaustless fertility and the irrigation of the plain, with the heat of the sum- mer sun, were the fruitful source of malaria and disease ; and a summer-house at Seir, in the mountains, soon be- came a necessity. The experience of the first mission- 144 SKETCHES OP THE MISSIONS. aries was peculiarly adverse, because the workmen were Still at work in repairing their dwelling when they ar- rived ; and while in the warmer room of Mr. Perkins grains of barley sprouted from the mud-plaster of the walls, in the colder room of Dr. Grant the frost stiffened the bedclothes by night. Here began their work among these " Protestants of Asia," the peasantry of Persia, and the " dogs " of their Mohammedan oppressors. There was abundant call for faith. However cordial the reception of the missionaries, the Nestorian was still a dead church. They, indeed, abhorred image-worship and the confessional, but clung tenaciously to their almost endless fasts. Of regenera- tion the priests knew nothing deeper than water baptism. They venerated the Bible, but it was locked up from them in the ancient Syriac. Profaneness was inter- woven into the texture of their language, and falsehood they defended as unavoidable. The Sabbath was largely a day of business. Their wines, plentiful as water, made intemperance equally abundant. Few but the priests could read or write, and of the women only the sister of the Patriarch. Indeed, not the least of the missionary trials was the low condition of woman and the family. The ordinary Nestorian house is built of clay, and contains one room, tenanted often by four or five generations, and commonly, not less than ten or fifteen individuals. In the moun- tains the cattle also occupy the sides of the room, and face the family ; but on the plain, the stable and the store-room have separate entrances. A tannoor, or oven, in the centre, heated once a day with dried ma- nure, does the cooking anii the warming, and a hole in the flat roof is both chimney and window. The walls MISSION TO PERSIA. 145 are black and shiny with smoke, and every article within smells of creosote. A bed is a thin mattress, quilt, and pillow, spread on the ground, by night filled witli a naked occupant, and piled away by day. Of course privacy was impracticable, and cleanliness out of the question. The missionary ladies were shocked into tears by the inevitable contact with vermin, alike when they visited the Nestorian houses, or were visited at their own homes. When a girl came to the boarding-school, the first necessity was a thorough cleaning from head to foot. This only illustrates the degradation of the women. They were betrothed at twelve, and often married while children of fourteen. They spent the day in out-door labor, taking their infants with them ; at night they pre- pared the husband's supper, and ate when he was done. The wife was never consulted by the husband, and the education of a woman was deemed an impropriety. The sex were as profane as the men. Though down-trodden and oppressed, yet often, perhaps for that very reason, they rose to imperiousness and fury. Printed books there were none ; though there were parchment manuscripts of the Bible six or seven hundred years old. Indeed, the modern tongue had never been reduced to written form. The first formal work of Mr. Perkins was to prepare a series of school cards in the Nestorian tongue, the printing-press being still five years distant. The school opened with twenty-four scholars, including three deacons and a priest. Sabbath worship and social meetings were commenced, in which the good bishop Mar Yohannan, as well as priests Abraham and Yohannan, gave assistance ; and in two months the great work of translating the Bible was begun. 146 SKETCHES or 1-HE MISSIONS. Meanwhile Dr. Grant, who had left a large medical practice in Utica, N. Y., entered on a still larger one at Oroomiah. He was so thronged as to have time for little else. Grateful patients literally bathed his feet with their tears, and haughty Mohammedan MooUahs stooped to kiss the border of the Christian's garment. In addi- tion to his indispensable services in saving the lives of the missionary families, it is unq'uestionable that the pro- tection and early popularity of the mission were chiefly due to his influence. Amid all this occupation he studied Turkish and Syriac, and opened a Sabbath school with fifty scholars. Mrs. Grant had the health and freedom from family cares to become the pioneer of female educa- tion in Persia. She was herself highly educated. At twenty-one she spoke the French, and read the Latin and the Greek. And now she speedily learned to write the ancient Syriac, speak the Turkish, and read and write the modern Syriac. W-hile she prepared maps, and taught bishops and priests in her own house, she indus- triously sought the acquaintance of the women, both Christian and Mohammedan. Finding it impossible so far to surmount prejudice at once as to open a school for her sex, she began by teaching her domestics ; and, after two years and a half, she succeeded in commencing, with four girls in a barn, what was the germ of the female seminary of Oroomiah. In the midst of all outside workings and informal con- versations, we catch a glimpse of the inner activity of the mission in a letter of Mrs. Grant : " On Monday and Saturday evenings there is a Bible class, when the mis- sionaries and native helpers study together the sacred word. On Tuesday evenings the former meet for con- sultation. There are reunions twice a week, when the MISSION TO PERSIA. 147 natives present their English sentences for criticism to the missionaries, and in turn criticise the Syriac of their teachers. Thursday evening is devoted to a prayer meeting. On the Sabbath, after two religious services in Syriac and one in English, the mission families meet with the Nestorians to siug the Lord's songs in that strange land which is yet their chosen home." The in- structions and the aim of the missionaries were not directed to the formation of separate churches, but to the infusion of spiritual life into a church which had the body of Christianity, but not the soul. The work at first was slow, as usual. The first eight years saw hardly more than half that number of clear conversions. There was much sufiering, too, from sick- ness. " For three years, say they, " on an average, one half our number have been sick half the time." Dr. Grant perhaps saved the life of the mission. But they labored on cheerfully. One of the royal princes visited and commended their school. The Mohammedan popu- lation were almost jealous of the privileges of the Nes- torians ; and the latter entered enthusiastically into the educational plans of the missionaries. The Patriarch, for a considerable time, was favorably disposed ; and the British embassy at Tabriz were throughout their fast fi'iends. In three years the village schools had increased to twelve, and afterward to sixty. The missipn was speedily joined by Messrs. HoUaday, Stocking, Wright, Breath, and their wives, and for a time by Mr. and Mrs. Jones and Mr. Merrick, the latter seeking ineffectually to reach the Mohammedans. While Mr. Perkins and his associates prosecuted their work upon the plain, the heart of the indomitable and fearless-Dr. Grant warmed for the mountain Nestorians. 148 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. His frail health required the mountain air. And at this juncture his beloved wife was called away, at the early age of twenty-five, exclaiming, "Christ is my all — my all; if I have one desire to live, it is for you and your [Nestorian] people : for myself, I am ready to depart." During her sickness a venerable bishop lingered several days and nights round the mission premises ; Meerza, her Mohammedan pupil, " could not sleep," and wept like a child with apprehension ; the Nestorians in church kneeled down together, and prayed that sh& might be spared ; and as she serenely and happily passed away, those of them that gathered round her were overcome, and wept aloud. The bishops said, " We will bury her in the church, where none but holy men are buried, and we will dig the grave with our own hands." Precious as was her influence, more precious was her departure ; and it has been well suggested whether that scene and blessed memory were not a powerful preparation for the subsequent revivals. Sadly cut loose from his moorings, Dr. Grant now carried out his long cherished desire. Five successive journeys did he take to the mountains, then beginning to be agitated by the Koordish disturbances which culmi- nated in havoc. " To the borders of their country," said the Pacha of Mosul, " my head for yours ; carry gold on it, and fear not ; but I warn you I cannot protect you a step further." But Grant was a stranger to fear. His simple trust in God's guidance and care bore him on. Upon his journeys he at one time almost perishes in a snow storm. Now he glides from his mule as it stum- bles and totters on the brink of a precipice. Now he boldly faces a robber band of Koords ; now crawls the ravines round their villages, hearing the watch-cry close MISSION TO PERSIA. 149 at hand. In the loneliest part of the way he firmly refuses the demand of his guides for more pay under penalty of abandonment. Again he is summoned to visit the fierce emir of Hakkarah, — the destroyer of Dr. Schultz, — and is ushered through two iron doors into his room, hung with swords, pistols, guns, and daggers. Of two missionaries, — Mitchell and Hinsdale, — whom his own earnest appeals had summoned to his help from America, and for whose coming he hastened to prepare, he had the sad news that the first died suddenly on the way, near Mosul ; and to the other, who had just visited the mountains, he was summoned only to see him die. But he pressed on. He won the hearts of the mountain Nestorians, and the protection of Koordish chieftains. With his saddle-bags full of medicines, and his gold se- cured in a roll of blister salve, he pushed his way till he had founded his school of thirty pupils in the village of Ashitha, with a title deed, confirmed by the emir and the Patriarch, " unto Hekim Grant," " even unto the resur- rection." When at last the troubled elements burst out into a flame of war, or rather of slaughter, every- thing for a time was swept away, though last of all was the mission village. Ten thousand mountaineers perished in every form of cruelty, the Koords even amusing themselves by tossing Nestoriau infants into the air, and catching them on their daggers as they fell. Dr. Grant survived the ruin but a year or two, and passed away, leaving a name and an influence more precious than rubies. That mountain mission was crushed for the next ten years. But the horror of those .massacres recoiled on the Koords. The Porte ■was compelled to break them down. Bader Khan Bey, their leader, was sent into exile, and it was Mr. Perkins's 150 SKETCHES OF TUB MISSIONS. , lot to encounter, on the steamer at Tal/m; twenty of his connections, in chains, on their way to join their fallen chief. The Nestorians, driven from the mountains, were brought into tenderer and more effective contact with the gospel. The harvest-time came at length after the lapse of tea years. The Nestorians were steadily poring over the Word of God. The missionaries were laboring with them privately and publicly, and after a time, preaching by invitation in their churches. The priests and bishops were changing their services in an unknown tongue for living interpretations and exhortations. Mrs. Grant's death had disclosed new visions of the power of religion, and touched a tenderer chord. A few individuals ■ — priests John and Abraham among them — seemed to feel its power. The visit of Mar Yohannan to America, of his own sole determination, exerted a marked effect on his views and character. In that journey Mr. Perkins placed his heart, and at length his hand, on young Stod- dard, with his restless intellect and his burning piety, ■. — " Henry Martyn, Junior," as B. B. Edwards loved to call him ; and Miss Fidelia Fiske, with all her culture, character, and womanly power, in response to the same call, detached herself from the instructor's chair at South Hadley to raise her degraded sex in Persia. The two seminaries — for boys and for girls — were now in these admirable hands, and by being both converted into boarding-schools, had at length brought the pupils away from the contamination around, and under a direct re- ligious control. It had been a hard struggle to do this for the girls. Some of the missionaries had thought it impracticable. It had been Mrs. Grant's purpose, and now became Miss MISSION TO PERSIA. 151 Fiske's. At length Mar Yohannan said, " Tou get ready, and I will find girls." When the time came — it was the autumn of 1844 — he appeared, leading one in each hand, Selly and Khanee ; and as Miss Fiske shed tears of joy, he said to her, "Now you begin Mount Holyoke in Persia." It took all winter to get six girls, but the number finally i-ose to twenty-five, and the cause was won for all time. Mount Holyoke, with its mighty religious influences, had, indeed, begun in Persia. Thir- teen years later Miss Fiske sat down to the c9mraunion table with ninety-two of her sisters, whom she had per- sonally and privately led in prayer to Christ. It was in the summer and autumn of 1845 that a deeper attentiveness than usual had settled down on the village of Geog Tapa. In December an uncommon seriousness in the boys' school caught the attention of the cleal'-headed Mr. Stocking. Early in January, on the day of special prayer in the mission, two girls, after morning prayers, asked Miss Fiske for. a day to seek the Saviour. Nicholas, the mission servant at Seir, had been hopefully renewed. This seemed all. But of a sudden, on the 19th of the month, the Spirit came down on both schools, in their entire separation, with singular power. Mr. Stoddard called a moment at the door to tell Miss Fiske that four or five of the boys were seeking Christ, and found her just dealing with five girls, also bowed down with the deep sense of their sins. For several days the two institutions} mostly ignorant of each other's state, presented scenes that never will be forgotten by those that were there. For days and weeks all minds, and hearts, and mouths were full of one great theme. On the third evening the boys kept Mr. Stoddard up till midnight to converse with them, and were waiting for o 152 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. him when he awoke early in the tnoraing. Midnight again found the teachers of both schools engaged in the same blessed work. In Miss Fiske's school, the first evening, every available place was occupied for prayer ; and she was often waked in the morning by pupils stand- ing at her bedside with some inquiry about the way of life. Two gifls prayed all night for their two brothers in the other school. And for a long time the very breath of the school, at home or in the daily walks, seemed to be laden with prayer. Indeed, it became necessary for the teachers firmly to hold their pupils to their wonted habits of relaxation, food, and sleep. "Wise measures were adopted to keep down all mere animal and social excitement. When Mr. Stocking found some twenty boys on the floor together, groaning and crying for mercy, he told them of the Nazloo River, shallow and babbling over the hill-side rocks, but still and deep on the plain, and sent them to their closets. In both schools the pupils were kept much by themselves. A deep and powerful work went on for several weeks, the fruit of which was the hopeful conversion of twenty girls and thirty young men, being three fourths of their number. The work spread outside, for, after a little, visitors came. Ten or fifteen women would come and spend the night at Miss Fiske's. She would converse with them till midnight, and then from her room she could often hear their voice in prayer till morning. Deacon Guergis, " the vilest of the Nestorians," came to visit his daughter in full Koordish dress, with gun on his shoulder, and dagger at his side. As the girls wept and prayed, he ridiculed. When his daughter prayed for him, he raised his hand to strike her ; but the Lord held it back. When he was personally addressed by Miss Fiske, he laughed, MISSION TO PERSIA. 153 and laughed again. All Saturday, and till Sunday noon, lie opposed and scoffed. One solemn, final appeal struclj him like a flash of lightning. He burst into tears, and hastened by himself to pray. When he re-appeared, the gun and dagger were gone, and the big tear-drops were falling as he stole into meeting, and bowed his head on the desk. " My sins,'' said he that night, " my sins are higher than the Jeloo Mountains ; '' and he bowed to the floor. " Sir, I could not carry this load of sin if there were no hell." Next morning all he could say was, " My great sins, and my great Saviour." Miss Fiske was wholly incredulous, and warned Mr. Stoddard not to be imposed upon. But before noon Guergis was on his .way to his mountain home. He was next heard of sur- rounded by his friends, telling them of " sin and of Christ." For ten years that was his one work. He traveled the mountains in his huge turban, striped jacket, and red trousers, with Testament and hymn-book in his knapsack, telling men of sin and of Christ. In the rocky passes, and as he rested by the fountain-side, his stentorian voice could be heard singing, "Eock of Ages," and " There is a fountain filled with blood." In the wanderings of his last sickness, lie would rouse up, and say, " That blessed Mr. Stocking ! O, it was free grace — free grace ! " These were almost the last words from his lips, and the last voice that fell on his ear was that of his praying daughter. The good walking- stick that accompanied him on the mountains lies in the mission-house at Boston. This good work extended into the villages, and its influence was felt even in the mountains ; not alone by reaction on the families of the pupils, but by their active efforts in term-time and vacations, and other independent 154 SKETCHES OP THE MISSIONS. labors. In Geog Tapa there were supposed to be fifty conversions. Profane and intemperate ecclesiastics were reformed. Degraded women were lifted up. Laboring men, with spades in their hands, spoke of Christ, and the voice of prayer and praise was heard in vineyards and fields. " The general aspect of the village," writes Miss Fiske, " is much changed." The other villages shared in the work. It was remai-ked that this revival came about in the ordinary use of ipeans ; that it bore all the marks of revivals in America ; that those were first reached who had been most thoroughly taught ; and that it wrought a revolution in the character of the schools, and a great change in some of the villages. Again, in 1849, came a still more wonderful refresh- ing, beginning again simultaneously in the schools, and spreading forth without. The first of January was the day of fasting and prayer. On that day a Bible was found in a girl's room, open at the fifty-first psalm, its large page sprinkled so thick with tears that there was not room for a finger-point between. But no general awakening appeared ; till one night, when the bell rung for retiring, no one moved. One pupil then came, and said that many were distressed for their sins, and it was a time to pray, and not to sleep. The girls had assembled in one room, where the pious were in earnest prayer, and nearly all the impenitent were melted down with a sense of sin. It seemed as though eternity had opened upon them, and wreck and ruin were before them. " O Lord," began one prayer, " throw us a rope, for we are on a single plank, on the open sea, and wave after wave is dashing over us." And so they prayed on till their teachers — for Miss Kice had now joined Miss Fiske — sent them, afler midnight, to their rest. Before long MISSION TO PERSIA. 155 every girl in the seminary over twelve years of age was hopefully converted, and the delightful scenes that filled that household seemed to the teachers a foretaste of heaven. In the other seminary the revival began a little earlier. Unexpectedly, one afternoon, the voice of sepa- rate prayer was heard from a dozen chambers, and a group of boys had assembled in one of the rooms to pray together. A few of the older students spent all night in prayer, and next day the whole school was alive with the presence of the Holy Spirit. On one occasion, a few days later, every room and every closet in 'the building was occupied for prayer, and boys were praying in the open yard, kneeling upon mats in the snow. There were one or two days when study was impracticable, and the school exercises had to be suspended. In attempting to sing, "Alas, and did my Saviour bleed," they broke down with weeping. As they came to the light, both pupils and teachers became intensely interested in the little village of Seir around them, and were unremitting in their labors. Two pupils went out from the girls' school to visit the families. And the Holy Spirit de- scended also on the village with singular power. Old and young, men and women, were brought to the cross. " God has visited every house," wrote the girls Sanum and Moressa to Constantinople. As they approached one dwelling, they heard an old man of ninety praying in the stable, and his wife in the house. The old man wel- comed them Vfith tears, and prayed with them " as though Christ stood right before him." Of nineteen houses in the village, every one had a family altar. The larger village of Geog Tapa was again blessed. The flame first kindled in the heart of Deacon John as he came back to his home, and paused at the door to 156 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. pray that he might not enter again, as heretofore, with- out God's blessing. His spirit spread till he could say, " The Christians here are becoming like fire." Said his aged mother, then seventy years old, " Christ sits by me all day long." And Christ worked through her, too, all day long. The malek, or ruler of the village, had just been converted at Oroomiah. He had called at the school to see his daughter, and the arrow of truth struck him. Still he sat proudly erect in his chair as his daughter, and soon her young friends, prayed around him ; but his feelings mastered him, and he sank to the floor. He soon rejoiced in hope, and became an earnest laborer for Christ, till, seven years later, the Master called him home. He at once joined the praying circle at Geog Tapa in its daily meetings. A band of them visited from house to house, and were astonished to find even the bitter opponents of religion receiving them joy- fully. Men of notorious wickedness were convicted and converted. And when some of the seminary students in vacation returned to their homes in the village, still a new impulse came with them. One remarkable Sabbath is well remembered, and known as " the Pentecostal Sabbath," when, in a large assembly, scarcely an indi- vidual was not affected to tears. The thrilling scenes of that time are beyond all power of description. " Several scores of souls " were led to Christ. The daily prayer- meeting was continued for five years at least, if not till now, and deep changes wrought in the whole character of the place. Into Degala, too, which one of the native deacons called " the Sodom of the Nestorians," the influence extended. A young man from that place, who was employed by the mission, came to the missionaries one MISSION TO PERSIA. 157 day, burst into tears, and hid his face in his coat, as he sobbed out the request that he might go and tell his relatives of their lost condition. The request was granted, and Sayid went. His first address melted the congregation in the Nestorian church, and when Mar Yohannan and Deacon Tamo went there to preach, some were so wrought upon as to cry out in the midst of the sermon, "Brethren, what shall we do?" Strong oppo- sition was encountered, but there were several hopeful and some remarkable conversions. The villages of Charbash, Vazerowa, and others shared in the blessing. These are but glimpses of scenes the most remarkable. They who would understand their power must read in detail the sketches of Perkins, Stocking, Stoddard, Miss Fiske, and others who saw and felt it all. Not only said good Deacon Guergis, " It is such an awakening as I never have seen," and the printers said, " Glory to God ; we never have seen any thing like it," but Miss Fiske, too, who had shared in many refreshings at South Had- ley, could write, " I never before have witnessed such . thrilling scenes," and the calm Perkins wrote, " In depth of interest I never have witnessed- such scenes elsewhere, nor expect elsewhere to behold them." And yet he had seen the labors of Nettleton. He adds that these scenes " have reminded me more of the revivals associated with the labors of Nettleton, in the days of my youth, than any others I have witnessed, so far as the difference of the people thus blessed, and their very diverse circum- stances, would admit of comparison : the same deep and searching conviction of sin experienced by the impeni- tent, his sins appearing to him, like the sands on the sea- shore, innumerable, and like mountains for magnitude ; the almost overwhelming sense of his lost condition by 158 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. nature, but not less of the bouuclless fullness and freeness of salvation through a crucified Redeemer ; the grasping of that provision with all the heart, casting the soul prostrate and contrite at the foot of the cross, and laying its sins on the head of the atoning Lamb ; and the unre- served surrender of soul and body into his hands, to be his v?hoIly and forever." These remarks of Mr. Perkins were applied to the whole series of revivals, of which there were eight or nine others withia the next twelve years, although, perhaps, none of such remarkable power. A little volume, called " Nestorian Biography," gives some notice of the Christian, lives that have been the fruit. Here we must leave those devoted men and women at their noble work. The Nestorian Patriarch, under Pu- seyite influence, at length turned bitterly against them. The Persian government, after twenty years of favor, was stirred up to jealousy, and at times endeavored to hamper their movements ; but the leaven had been working too long already. Deaths too, has mowed down their ranks, but not their zeal. Grant, Stoddard, Stock- ing, Crane, Breath, Bhea, Mrs. Grant, Mrs. Wright, Mrs. Rhea, Mrs. Stoddard, Miss Fiske, and last of all, the patriarch Perkins, have passed away. Noble men and women have re-enforced their ranks. The work has gone quietly on. No figures or statis- tics can tell the change that has been effected. Where once but one woman could read, and the sex were doomed to ignorance, hundreds attend the annual exam- inations of the Female Seminary. Houses have become homes, the abodes of peace and joy. Woman has risen to dignity, and been transfigured into loveliness. Hos- pitality, sympathy, and beneficence have taken the place MISSION TO PERSIA. 159 of oriental compliment and shallownesfs. Some of the most striking Christian lives have here been developed. A sure and steady influence is reaching the larger Ar- menian population around, and beginning to tell on the Mohammedan. But the outward landmarks are also abundant. Till 1854 the mission had celebrated the Lord's Supper by themselves. Some of the converts then asked permis- sion to join them. From that time onward more than nine hundred have professed their faith in Christ, and each year the number steadily increases. The impracti- cability of all thus coming together at Oroomiah has led, step by step, to the celebration of the ordinance in every village virhere there are converts ; and this silent, spontaneous withdrav\ral from the dead formalism of the old church quietly created a new organization. With the aid of a hundred native helpers, of whom fifty- eight are ordained preachers, the gospel is dispeosed from eighty-five centres, more than half of which are missionary stations or out-stations.* Last year the press issued half a million pages ; colporteurs scattered the gospel to a hundred villages ; while a thousand pupils were in the schools. A library of true religion, litera- ture, and science has been given to that people in the heart oi' Asia. The mission is meditating a wider move- ment, and is henceforth to be no longer the Nestorian, but the Persian mission. Great as are these results, they are but the seeds of the future. What a growth already ! And one man — the noble man Perkins, who passed away while these pages were writing — has seen it all from the beginning. * These statistics are of the year 1870. See Appendix. 160 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. Blessed privilege ! Yea, blessed are such " dead who die in the Lord ; for they rest from their labors, and their works do follow them." " Heaven itself," Mr. Perkins once wrote, — it was but ten years ago, — " while complete in its bliss, will not present that pecu- liar form of interest of beholding penitent Nestorians turning to the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of the world, except as viewed in the retrospect, and contemplated in those monuments of mercy among the blood-washed inhabitants of that bright world." He has now experienced both the joys of which he spoke. Who can imagine the blessedness of that goodly company, separated on earth, but now met in heaven, as they com- mune again upon the glorious scenes of Persia ! The mission was, in 1870, transferred to the Presby- terian Board of Missions. MISSIONS IN AFRICA. 161 CHAPTER VIII. AFRICA. Africa has been a dark land. Excepting the extreme northern part, its history is unknown. Its surface was long wholly unexplored. Its moral condition was gloomy, and its prospects forbidding. Its coast line, without bays or peninsulas, was repellent. . Malignant fevers stood sentinel along its rivers. Petty fighting tribes were a terror to the traveler, and a hundred and fifty dialects a bar to the missionary. Among its explorers, Horne- mann, Oudney, Clapperton, Overweg, Duncan, Ritchie, and probably Livingston, have perished, and Park, Neu- wied, Laing, Vogel, and Maguire have been murdered. And yet nature has dealt lavishly with Africa. It is indeed the land of great deserts and of torrid heat. The sands of Guiuea and of Nubia will roast an egg or blister a negro's foot ; but the vegetable and animal life of the continent are marvelous in abundance, variety, and mag- nificence. Its species of quadrupeds are three times as many as those of America, and five times those of Asia. The most brilliant birds, the most beautiful insects, the hugest reptiles, and the lordliest brutes abound. Fruits, grain, spices, and vegetable products in immense variety, fill its interior. In Yoruba, says a traveler, " the hill- sides and banks of streams often present the appearance of solid walls of leaves and flowers. The grass on the 162 SKETCHES OT? THE MISSIONS, prairies is from eight to twelve feet high, and almost im- pervious." And at Natal you " can find flowers every month in the year, and at times so thick in the open fields that scarce a step could be taken without treading some of them under foot." Lowest and meanest of its productions are its human beings. "With exceptions, the races of Africa seem best fitted to show how nearly a man may sink to an animal. Nothing is too low to worship. Slavery is the most ancient inheritance of the country. The chief coast trade for ages was in slaves ; and systems of brigandage were organized all through the interior to supply the market. Polygamy of the lowest, loosest kind is universal. For an ox or two the husband buys his wife, and for a string of beads the mother has sold her child into bondage. The frightful prevalence of cannibalism was checked by the greater value of the victim for the slave market than the table. Everywhere woman is the animal of all work, and in many tribes modesty in personal exposure .is almost unknown. The traveler beholds " young women dabbling in the creeks," innocent of clothing and of scruples. Yet all that was forbidding in Africa has not repelled the missionary, nor prevented his success. More than twenty different Boards have planted stations in this moral waste. They have found the people highly susceptible to religious influences, wherever rum, war, and the slave trade would permit those influences to act. They reckon some forty-seven thousand communicants at the present time, many of them, however, in churches that do not make conversion a condition of church membership. Many a thrilling story could be told of the labors and adventures of such men as Vanderkemp, Shaw, the Al- MISSIONS IN AFRICA. 163 brechts, Krapf, and Moffatt. It was hard at times for Moffatt to know whether he was safer among the Bechu- anas by day, or among the eight lions that roared around his wagon in one night. It would be delightful to sketch some of the remarkable revivals that have visited the Methodist, Wesleyan, Moravian, Baptist, and Presby- terian missions, and to portray some of the Christian lives they have wrought, and the transformations of soci- ety. But we leave the tempting field for the humbler work of the American Board. The missions of the Board have been two — the Ga- boon mission in West Africa, near the equator, and the Zulu mission in South Africa, toward the Cape. They are interesting in quality rather than in quantity. They show how the gospel can struggle with the mightiest of obstacles, and what it can do for the most degraded of characters. The Gaboon mission need not detain us long. Its operations have been small, obstructed, and interrupted ;• and the mission is now transferred to the Presbyterian Board. In the year 1834, John Leighton Wilson landed at Cape Palmas to explore the place where, in the follow- ing year, he landed with his wife, and was received with joyful acclamations by the natives. Here he erected a framed house, which he had brought from Americaj opened a school, and began a book in the native tongue. Other missionaries followed — Messrs. White, Walker, Gris- wold, and Alexander Wilson, with their wives. The mission was headgd for the interior. The plan was to make tliis the entering-wedge for a great system of in- land operations. It is scarcely possible for a Christian American to conceive the degradation of these Guinea negroes. Their p 164 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. morals were blacker than their skins. Mr. Wilson has drawn a large portrait of them with such strokes as these : " Falsehood is universal. Chastity is an idea for. which they have no word, and of which they can scarcely form a conception." And after enumerating almost every varied form -of vice, he concludes, " It is almost impossi- ble to say what vice is pre-eminent." But even with such a people the gospel proved " the power of God." Twenty-three of them were in due time converted and added to the church. A large boarding-school was filled with pupils, and day schools established at seven stations. Mr. Wilson at one time had a native audience of six hundred persons ; but the embarrassments of the Board in 1837 first crippled the mission ; and collisions with the neighboring American colony from Maryland, which Mr. Wilson had once saved from the fury of the natives, after seven years compelled a removal to the Gaboon. Here Satan's kingdom had not then been introduced from other lands — only the fetishes and native devils of Africa were the foes. There was no foreign government within five hundred miles on either side, and no trading factory along the shore. Nobler raees, the Mpongwes and Bakeles,, gave the missionaries a warm welcome. Scarcely was the work under way when, in two years, three French ships of war entered the river, and by brandy and fraud, bought the territory. French guns even endangered the lives of the missionaries, and French influence reigned over the region. Still converts came dropping in — six, nine, twelve, eighteen in a year, Christian assemblies were organized. Two dialects were reduced to writing. More than a hundred youths gained a Christian educa- tion, and many thousands received light enough for sal- vation. Precious missionary martyrs -^ Mr. and Mrs. MISSIONS IN AFRICA. 165 White, Mr. and Mrs. Griswold, Mr. aad Mrs. Porter, Dr. Wilson, Mrs. Walker, Mrs. Bushnell — cheerfully laid down their lives. But while the relations of the French authorities ultimately became pleasant, they were the cover for introducing Romish missionaries and all the unutterable abominations of the foreign trade. English, Scotch, and Dutch trading factories, and native dram- shops, crowded the shore, and a medley of tribes from every quarter rushed thither. The foreign captain, who had left a white wife perhaps in New England, hired an ebony wife or wives " by the week," or " by the run," in Africa. Bum became the presiding demon of the region. "Satan," said a missionary, "has an agent in every foreigner in the river." Well might he say it, when even " a Scotch Presbyterian elder sent a hundred thousand gallons of ' liquid damnation ' to the heathen in a single T*ssel, and atoned for the whole by giving a missionary free passage." " It is these things that kill," wrote the missionary. Yea, they killed ! Year after year these and kindred influences corrupted the whole community and the native church members. It 1868, seventeen were excommunicated at one time, nearly all of whom commenced their downward course in connection with rum. " The missionary works at the entrance of Ge- henna," writes Mr. Walker in 1869 ; and his wail is echoed by the deliberate utterance of a Scotch missionary on the western coast, '^ But for the British rum trade, I feel confident that long ere this the native membership of the church at Duke Town would have been reckoned by hundreds instead of tens." Never was a more formidable struggle. It was one long conflict, not alone or chiefly with African heathen- ism, but with the outlawed vices of the French, English, 166 • SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. American, Dutch, and Scotch nations. But in this Africo-European " Gehenna," the devoted missionaries never gave up heart or hope. After a quarter of a cen- tury of buffeting with Satan in his citadel, Mr. Walker could say, " I desire to live to see the Gaboon mission in a different condition. I have faith in God. I believe that he will perform all his grand promises. The gospel is still the power of God unto salvation." The latest re- port of the mission announces the boys' school and the girls' school still in encouraging operation, six accessions to the church, and Sabbath congregations " as attentive as any in the States." Still the church is but a shadow of what it should have been. Mr. Walker has retired after his twenty-eight years of toil and conflict, and the mission is transferred to the Presbyterian Board, with a prayer for God's blessing on it. The Zulu mission is a brighter field, though the fiei^ ordeal has swept over it. It deals with a higher style of man. The Zulus, an offshoot of the Caffre stock, stand midway between the negro and the European type. The black skin and woolly hair are joined often with the aquiline nose, straight lip, prominent forehead, mild eye and lithe and muscular physique. The scantiness of their costume — ranging from nothing up to a greased cow-skin demi-skirt — is compensated for by a profusion of bracelets, armlets, ankletSj necklaces, girdles, shoulder- bands, and rings for the ears, fiogers, and thumbs. The people live in kraals, or circles of wicker-work beehive houses, thatched with grass, and floored with mixed ants' nests and cow-dung. The men take care of the cattle, do the tailoring for themselves and wives, lounge, drink, smoke, snuff, and when food is plenty, gorge like boa- constrictors ; while the poor woman, " with her pickaxe MISSIONS IN AFRICA. 167 and basket, must serve as plow and cart, horse and ox," corn planter, grist-mill, and cook. In other words, woman was virtually a slave. They were brimful of superstitions, with witchcrafts and witch doctors, the latter wielding practically the power of life and death ; and they worshiped the spirits of their ancestors. In these huts, infested with cockroaches, and in cold weather filled with soot and smoke, imagine them round the cen- tral fire, seated on their haunches, like the dogs by their side, snuffing, smoking, eating, chattering, and laughing till bed-time, then dropping on their rush mat and block pillow, covered with a hide, while goats, sheep, and calves share their hut, — and you partly apprehend the case. Such was the inviting scene which, in 1834, six mis- sionaries set forth to see. They were Rev. Messrs. A. Grout, Champion, Lindley, Wilson, Venable, and Dr. Adams, with their wives. But they were not at once to be gratified. One company of them designed to stay at Port Natal, the other to strike for the interior. The latter party traveled a thousand miles in ox teams, only to be driven back by the Boers, or half-savage Dutch farmers, ov«r wretched roads, thirteen hundred miles in length, — leaving the lifeless form of Mrs. Wilson till the resur- rection. Mrs. Grout, of the coast party, had died of consumption soon after landing in Africa. Meanwhile the coast party had begun their work at Umlazi, near Port Natal. While Messrs. Grout and Adams were conveying their families and goods to the place, Mr. Champion opened a school. His first school- house was the shade of a tree ; his first school-book was the sand, in which he traced the letters ; and of his first twelve scholars, some were nurses, with infants tied to 168 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. their backs. Three other stations were occupied a few months later. Two schools, with fifty scholars, were already established, a printing press in operation, and a Sabbath congregation of five hundred persons gathered, when the storm of a war between the Dutch farmers and the Zulus broke upon them, and drove them away. Four years later a part of them returned and resumed the brok- en work. The printing press was working again in the Scorched mission buildings at Umlazi, a flourishing school gathered, a Sabbath school of two hundred, and a con- gregation of five hundred ; and, O, joy ! at last there was one hopeful convert. A second station at Empangeni numbered an audience of two or three hundred, in the centre of thirty-seven kraals, when, one morning, at day- break, a sudden attack from King Dingan, on six of the nearer kraals, doomed three of them to utter destruction. Though no harm was done to the missionary, it was an act of distinct hostility to the mission, and of retaliation for its growing influence over Dingan's subjects. Mr. Grout declined the unequal contest, and left the field.. In view of these repeated disasters, and the unsettled state of the country, the Prudential Committee determined to abandon it. Here seemed the end of nine years' labor. But Provi- dence interposed. Natal meanwhile passed under British control. The natives began to flock thither for protec- tion, till ten thousand of them had collected ; and it be- came clear that the government was about to pursue an honorable policy. When Mr. Grout reached Cape Town, on his way home, he was met by a united remonstrance from Christians and ministers of every denomination, as well as from the American consul and the British gov- ernor. A public meeting was called, and a year's support MISSIONS IN AFRICA. 1C9 for Mr. Grout was raised. The post of government missionaries was offered to Messrs. Grout and Adams, and of government preacher among the Boers to Mr. Lindley. The Board recognized the plain interposition, and re- voked their instructions. The missionaries turned joy- fully to their work. After ten years of toil, a solitary convert at Umlazi — an old woman — sat down with Mr. and Mrs. Adams to the table of the Lord. Six months later, two men came out from heathenism and polygamy, and took each one wife in Christian marriage. At the end of the year still another. The long-deferred harvest was begun. Ke-enforcements came. Six years after the mission was on the point of being abandoned, it comprised thir- teen missionaries — Adams, A. Grout, Lindley, Bryant, L. Grout, McKinney, Eood, Marsh, Ireland, Abraham, Tyler, Wilder, Dohne — with their wives, laboring hope- fully at twelve stations. Nine churches had been organ- ized, containing one hundred and twenty-three members, thirty-six of whom were received in one year. But trials were not over. The young school of teachers and preachers that was started in 1853 with nine scholars, and in four years increased to twenty-five, was broken up by the failure of Mr. Rood's health. In the great dis- cussion of polygamy in 1855 and 1856, Bishop Colenso defended the system. The disturbed state of the country for several years hindered religious interest. The mis- sionaries toiled on. A Zulu Dictionary of ten thousand words appeared, and a Grammar of four hundred and thirty pages. The Scriptures were printed by gradual installments, beginning with the historic portions of the New Testament. School books of various kinds ap- 170 SKETCHES OP THE MISSIONS. peared. Steady congregations were gaiaed and held. By the end of 1863, such palpable signs as these were seen : two hundred and sixty-six church members in good standing ; one hundred and seventy-five Christian families, comprising five hundred baptized children ; sev- eral congregations of from one hundred to three hundred, three fourths of them respectably clad, worshiping in brick buildings erected chiefly by the natives ; two native home missionaries, supported by native converts ; schools maintained by the natives ; "prayer meetings well sus- tained, and monthly concerts, with contributions aver- aging a dollar a year to each member ; many families living in brick houses, with neai'ly all the appliances of civilized life ; a hundred Yankee plows at work in the fields, to the inexpressible relief of poor, toiling woman. These things were palpable to the eye. The year 1865 brought a cheering revival like those of the home churches, and, sooner or later, of all the missions. Its extent was not great ) yet it brought sev- enty-nine converts into the churches in a single year. The same year witnessed the establishment of a perma- nent training-school for teachers, and measures for a boarding-school for girls. And when, next year, Mr. Grout saw three native preachers supported by the native missionary society, and a thousand dollars of native con- tributions ; ninety-seven members in his own church, and an average of four hundred in his congregation — he who had been driven away from three successive stations, and waited eleven years for his first convert — well might he exclaim, " If I was a fool in the eyes of some men, I have lived to see a hundred fold more done than I ever dreamed that I might eflTect in a long life; and have en- joyed a hundred fold more than I expected. Every MISSIONS IN AFRICA. 171 promise of God has been abundantly fulfilled to me." It was written in the very year when Bishop Colenso said, " the plan of salvation was so difficult, he never tried to explain it to the Zulus." The good work has gone steadily, if not rapidly, for- ward. The annual report for 1870 shows nineteen sta- tions and out-stations, with twelve churches, containing about five hundred members, twenty-eight of whom were received within the year. The little band of mission- aries, — apostolic in number, — with their fifteen female assistant missionaries, are at length re-enforced by thirteen native preachers and two native pastors — one of them rejoicing in the honored name of Rufus Anderson, — eighteen teachers and four catechists, eighteen common schools, a female seminary with twenty-six bright-eyed, quick-witted girls ; the training-school, with its thirty- five young men, — its British aid of one thousand dollars a year, and its expanding plans, — give cheering promise that the harvest-time is not far away. Meanwhile, where once were only kraals, the visitor would now see more than two hundred upright houses, a dozen of them built of brick ; children engaged with their books, or perhaps praying in the bush ; readers of the Pilgrim's Progress and the Dairyman's Daughter, translated by a Zulu girl ; students of Barnes's Notes ; congregations that can sing, " Nearer, my God, to Thee ; " school girls that will repeat a psalm or hymn without mistake, after a single hearing — one of whom learned the first seven psalms in half an hour. He would hear a dying mother say, " I know I am dying ; but why should I fear to go home ? I love my Saviour. I love my God. I have no fear — all is so bright." He might see a man in the prime of life who has abandoned Zulu wealth and power, and 172 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. resisted the dissuasions and almost compulsions of his friends to travel with the gospel message to many hun- dreds of his fellows, ever hearing those words, " Son of man, I have set thee for a watchman." He could see, in the day schools at Mapumulo, four grandchildren of a man who once refused to send his own children, lest they sh6uld become Christians, while one of those very sons now takes part in the prayer meeting. In those African schools you might see a girl with eight spear-marks on her person ; another who was untied from the back of her dead mother in the waters ; another who fled from the den of the polygamist, to which she had been sold for two extra cows ; a young man whose tribe-mark is an amputated finger ; and another whose relatives once burned his clothes, and intoxicated him by force, to keep him away. " These are they which came out of great tribulation." * Or you might take a walk with a lady missionary to the homes of the Christian Zulus around her. Passing the white cottage flanked by rows of orange trees, where the wife is away, -^ though the husband, dressed in his straw hat, blue shirt, and black trousers, invites you in, ^ you enter the next house, where the mother, in calico dress, sits sewiri^ with the baby by her, and a boy and girl sit by the table, one with a book, the other with the needle, while the room contains chairs, book-shelves, and a cupboard, with cups and saucers, and the bed-room adjoining shows a bed with its blankets, and pillows, and patch-work quilt. The next, a brown cottage, shows a little girl in front teaching the baby to walk. In the parlor a young woman is cutting and making a dress, the father reading aloud, while the wife sits near at work, and some children are playing with a doll. And when you MISSIONS IN AFKICA. 173 leave, the three-year-old "Jeremiah" will take up the song he heard on Saturday in school. " Beyond, we came to a red-brick house, a flower-garden in front, cur- tained windows, and matted floor. In the parlor stood a table, with ink, pens, paper, and books on it, and a clock ticked away merrily on the shelf. The table was set for tea in the back room, with cloth, plates, cups and saucers, spoons and forks, bread., butter, and sugar, while hot coffee was ready, of which the cup we drank was very acceptable. I asked the father what he did evenings. ' O,' he said, ' we light the candle, my wife sews, and I teach the children their lessons for school the next day. "When this is done, we pray, sing a hymn, I read a chap- ter, and we go to bed.' " Reader, these scenes are in Zulu land, these people are jet black, and the kraal is still in sight of their homes. And one of the noble men who began that blessed change, Alden Grout, after thirty-five years of undaunted toil and trial, still lives to thank God for it all ; and through eternity will he rejoice in the work God gave him to do. AMONG THE NOETH AMERICAN INDIANS. 175 CHAPTER IX. MISSIONS AMONG THE NOETH AMERICAN INDIANS. It has beeu often said, You can not tame an Indian. The statement betrays a singular ignorance of facts. No more docile pagans have been found than some of the North American tribes. Seldom have earlier fruits been reaped than in the Indian missions ; seldom have brighter promises of a glorious harvest been blasted by adverse events and wicked interferences. It has been so from the first. Within a year of the- landing at Plymouth, Elder Cushman informed his friends in England of the "tractable disposition" of the Indian youth. As early as 1643, John Eliot had been through " varieties of intercourse with them, day and night, sum- mer and winter, by land and by sea," and had had " many solemn discourses with all sorts of nations of them, from one end of the country to another." Probably by this time commenced the long-continued and successful labors of Bourne and Tiipper at Marshpee. And in 1646 began, in good earnest, the preaching of Mayhew on Martha's Vineyard, and of Eliot around Newton. Eliot's work has become historical. The index and monument of his achievements and. his prospects is found in that famous Indian Bible — the first, and long the only, Bible printed in America. It has scarcely one 176 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS, * living reader now ; yet thirty-five hundred copies of it once issued from the Cambridge press. Eliot had, in 1674, a circuit of fourteen villages, and eleven hundred praying Indians. Next year came the terrible .blight of " Philip's War," and cut down his congregations to four. Thiey never recovered from the shock. In fact, only their Christian connections saved the whole of them from extinction at the time. The suspicions, jealousies, irri- tations, and revenges then aroused never ceased. Then began the long catalogue of organized Indian miseries. The General Court collected the remnant, and removed them to the islands in the bay, where they suffered " in- credible hardships ; " and the five hundred removed had, in 1698, shrunk to two hundred and five Indians in all what was then Massachusetts proper. Removal ! The old, old story, ever new ; the fatal rock of all their prospects. In the next century, various efforts were equally hope- ful, and equally frustrated. The relics of the Mohegans, at Stockbridge, were gathered by John Sergeant into a thriving town, with twenty houses, built in English style, and a church of forty communicants. The Revolution- ary War made, in various modes, sad havoc among them ; and after the war, they" removed, first to Central New York, then to Indiana, then to Green Bay, then to Lake Winnebago. A relic of them remained in New York, and were transferred, in 1827, with the relics of other tribes, to the care of the American Board. But ia all their removals, averaging one for every twenty or twenty-five years, the tribe never lost its civilization. An early and most hopeful mission of the Moravians to the Indians of New York was thrice broken up by fire and sword,, and three or four times broken down by AMONG THE NOBTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 177 removals. David Brainerd's mission in New Jersey, and the opening efforts of Eleazer Wheelock's Indian school and college, with its various Indian missionaries, seem to have been almost fatally interrupted by the struggles, absorptions, and complications of the Revolu- tionary War. A generation passed away. Within three years and a half of the time when Hall and his associates sailed for India, the American Board was adopting measures (1815) for carrying the gospel to the Indians. One hundred thousand of them were then supposed to reside east of the Mississippi, of whom about seventy thousand were comprised in the four southern tribes — Creeks, Chickasaws, Choctaws, and Cherokees. The Prudential Committee, whose previous purposes had " from time to time been frustrated," now brought the matter in earnest before the Board and the Christian public. They ap- pealed to the success with which Rev. Gideon Black- burn, of the Presbyterian Church, had already labored among the Cherokees, in five years enabling four or five hundred youth to read the English Bible, and receiving several individuals as " hopeful and exemplary Chris- tians." Before another annual meeting, the first Indian missionary of the American Board, Cyrus Kingsbury, fresh from Andover Seminary, had visited the Chero- kees. He passed through Washington, on the way, where a Cherokee chief expressed his deep interest in the efibrt. He said that his nation had long wished for schools, and had even " thought of devoting a part of their annuity to the object." President Madison also ordered the' Secretary of War to say that the Agent for Indian Affairs would erect a house for the school, and one for the teacher, to be followed by others, as occasion 178 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. might require, and success might justify. The agent ■would also be instructed to make the munificent provision of " two plows, six hoes, and as many axes, for the pur- pose of introducing the art of cultivation among the pu- pils," aud when female pupils should be received, and a female teacher engaged, " a loom, half a dozen spinning- wheels, and as many pair of cards." All these, how- ever, " will remain public property, to be employed for the benefit of the nation " — a nation of many thousand souls. The government would gladly have done more, but its means were " limited." Mr. Kingsbury went on his way rejoicing. In Octo- ber he had a grand talk with the assembled chiefs of the Cherokees and the Choctaws, at the close of which a principal chief took him by the hand, and sententiously informed him : " We have listened to what you have said, and have understood it. We are glad to see you. We wish to have the schools established, and hope they will be of great benefit to the nation." Another chief was appointed to assist in selecting a site, and they fixed upon Chickamauga, ten miles from the place forty-seven years later made famous by the repulse of the Union army, on the banks of the creek which some rebel termed the River of Death, and seven miles, also, from the brow of that Lookout Mountain, where, in " the bat- tle of the clouds," the Confederacy received a stunning blow. The missionaries called it Brainerd. A neigh- boring height still bears the name of " Mission Ridge." Mr. Kingsbury, followed at once by Messrs. Hall and Williams, with tlieir wives, and soon after by others, immediately began the enterprise. It was a compound of mission, boarding-school, and agricultural college. The beginning, as well as the continuance of it, entailed AMONG THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 179 immense care and labor upoa the missioaaries. The government contractor, like many of his successors, failed to build the houses agreed upon, and the mission- aries soon found themselves engaged in making twenty thousand bricks, burning lime, digging cellars and a well, besides the by-play of bringing their meal forty miles, and planting " twenty or thirty acres of corn, some cot- ton, flax, and potatoes,'' to say nothing of a school of twenty-six young Cherokees, a Sunday school of thirty blacks, and preaching on the Sabbath. In eighteen months the Treasurer of the Board visited the mission, and was delighted. He found the Indian boys alike willing to work, docile to learn, and orderly and gentle in their behavior. They could plant an acre of corn be- fore breakfast ; fifteen of them could read in the Bible, and eleven in easy lessons ; and eighteen could write. Their deportment at prayers, at table, at school, would have been creditable to white children. Five natives were already in the little church,. followed the same year by two others. The religious experiences of some of these Indian converts were most striking and refreshing. One day (May 27, 1819) President Monroe, accompanied by General Gaines, suddenly made his appearance, un- announced till he stood at the door. He expressed him- self so well pleased with all he saw, that, on tlie spot, he ordered a much better building for the girls' school, at the public expense. No wonder the friends of missions took courage. Christian farmers and mechanics offered their aid. Meanwhile the committee determined to push on to the Chickasaws and Choctaws, who ardently desired them to do so. Accordingly, in 1818, Mr. Kingsbury selected a site among the Choctaws, on the Yazoo, four hundred 180 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. miles south-west of Braiuerd, and called it Eliot. He found intemperance already there to an alarming extent, and the vicious whites who introduced and fostered it. Here again the first work was chiefly of secular arrange- ment. A dense forest covered the ground, although the works of the ancient mound-builders, here and there, indicated a former population in the wilderness. Amid the sickness of acclimation, and innumerable difficulties and hardships, in eight months they had erected some ten log buildings for various uses, the lumber all hewed and sawed by hand ; cleared and inclosed thirty-five acres of land ; set out fruit trees ; besides cutting roads, building small bridges, and even making tools and furni- ture. So eager were the Choctaws for instruction that eight children were brought a hundred and sixty miles before the missionaries were ready, and the school was prematurely opened in April (1819), under this con- straint. When opened, more scholars applied thau could be received. The Choctaw king promised two hundred dollars annually from the nation's annuity ; and at a council, in August, a subscription was made of seven hundred dollars, eighty-five cows and calves, and five hundred dollars a year from the annuity. In one year from that date, the nation, acting in three several dis- tricts, voted to devote to the schools their entire annuity of six thousand dollars fixsm the sale of lands to the United States. The oifieial letters of the nation, an- nouncing this fact, express the earnest hope of " taking their place among the enlightened nations of the land ; " they overflow with gratitude to their " good, white broth- ers," and they add that " more than one thousand chil- dren in our nation are waiting and looking up to our white brothers for instruction." AMONG THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 181 Among the Choctaws, the missionaries, however, were doomed to incessant annoyances and hindrances, chiefly from the slanderous reports and vile influences of rene- gade whites, who had fled from the restraints of civilized life, and were the sworn enemies of the missionaries. For these, and perhaps other reasons, among the Choc- taws, conversions lingered. But with the Cherokees, everything moved steadily forward. It is believed that from the first there was no year without conversions. " Wicked Jack " becomes a new man, and chooses the significant name of John Crawfish. Six members of one family connection (the Sanders family), men and women grown, are received into the church at one time, dedi- cating their households, too ; and " there is not a dry eye in the house." Old John Sanders says " he can sit all night to hear the word of God ; " Alexander, though tempted, " would not touch a drop of whisky for five hundred dollars ; " and the brothers all became lay- missionaries at once. Catharine Brown, after " emi- nently adorning the doctrine of God " for six years, dies in blessed peace. David Sanders's little girl, fatally burned, passes away in prayer. John Arch, the inter- preter, who had come a hundred and fifty miles to school, oiFering his gun for clothing, so " wild and for- bidding " in appearance that the missionaries shrunk from receiving him till he almost forced himself in — he, too, after five years of Christian life, leaves " evidence of love to God and man much beyond what is common in the best organized Christian communities." The chief. Rising Sun, comes to secure a school and a pious blacksmith for his home, and is determined to " obey the Bible." The missionary Butrick, in a tour of two thou- sand miles, addresses a hundred and fifty meetings, 182 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. ranging in size from fifty to two hundred persons, and is everywhere received with attention, and often with gratitude. Men came twenty miles to Willstown, and two men twenty-five miles to Carmel, for religious in- struction. At the latter station, on the 21st of March, 1824, eighteen persons were received to the church, from "the gray-headed sinner of seventy" to "the youth of eighteen." Mr. Butrick preached, by invitation, the previous autumn, before the National Council. The Council observed the Sabbath during its session, and prohibited all trade or business on that day. Sabbath observance began, indeed, to extend to many villages. In one instance, a man came nineteen miles to inquire ■when the next Sabbath would arrive, because he and his neighbors were intending afterward to keep it as well as they could. All was hopeful. Arrangements were made for a network of mission schools. In 1822 the king's interpreter came to smoke with the missionaries the silver-hooped " pipe of peace," its bowl the head of a tomahawk, and its stem the handle ; and Path-Killer, the king, and his chiefs, in National Council assembled, expressed the warmest thanks, and came, one by one, from their seats, to take Mr. Hoyt, the missionary, by the hand. The old king visited the schools, in company with a principal chief. The tears flowed incessantly down his dusky cheeks while the children sang ; and both of them most affectionately addressed the school, — the king a second time, — and closed by taking all the scholars by the hand. The nation soon established regular courts of justice, converted its council into a legislative body, and in 1827 appointed- a committee to draft a constitution. Such was the early movement among the Cherokees, AMONG THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 183 when a singular Providence came to its aid just at this point. One George Guess (or Sequoyah), a half-breed Cherokee, about fifty years old, invented the remarkable Cherokee alphabet. He could neither write nor speak English, but simply knew that a mark could be made the sign of a souud. He set himself to work to gather up all the syllables of the Cherokee tongue, which proved to be eighty-six. He used English letters, and various modi- ficationq of them, with some characters of his own. The whole was so simple that in " three days " a bright learner could commence letter- writing. When the fact first came to the notice of the Prudential Committee, in"* 1825, the Cherokees in Wills Valley had for two years been corresponding with their countrymen beyond the Mississippi. In three or four years, half the nation could read ; and in the solitudes of the forest, one might often see the trees inscribed with Cherokee. Within a year of the translation of the four Gospels into their lan- guage, the National Council were appropriating money (1826) for a printing press and types, and a Boston firm were soon engaged in cutting punches. Guess, it is said, never became a Christian, and lamented his invention when he saw it used for circulating the New Testament. But he could no more recall his alphabet than Erasmus his Greek Testament, when it had been launched upon the world. In 1826, besides the missions to the Cherokees of Georgia, then numbering seven stations, and that to the Choctaws of Mississippi, with ten stations, and one to the Cherokees of Arkansas, two hundred miles beyond the Mississippi, the Board received several other Indian missions from the United Foreign Missionary Society, as follows : Among the Osages of the Neosho, or Grand 184 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. River ; the Osages of Missouri ; mixed tribes at Macki- naw ; the Ottawas at Maumee ; the Senecas at Alleghany, Cattaraugus, and Seneca, as also the Tuscaroras in New York. The Osages were a powerful tribe of several thousand. The New York Indians numbered not more than twenty-five hundred souls. This year, also, the Board took under its charge the little remnant of the Stockbridge tribe, at Green Bay, whose ancestors had enjoyed the ministrations of John Sergeant, President Edwards, and Dr. West, in Massa- chusetts. Through all their removals, for a hundred • years, they had kept alive a school, and probably had exemplary professors of religion among them. Their church had been revived in 1818, and thirty-three mem- bers were added to it in 1827 and 1828. They had their choir of singers, and conducted public worship with Bible and hymn-book in hand ; and their whole settle- ment, of two hundred and fifty souls, bore an aspect of comfort and civilization. In 1827 the mission to the Chickasaws, which had been begun seven years previous by the Synod of Georgia and South Carolina, was received by the Board. And now a glance at these missions, about the close of the year 1830, would have shown a singular state of promise all along the line. It seemed as though all things were now ready for one wide ingathering into complete civilization, and into the kingdom of God. Everywhere were centres of light. The traveler would have found half the Cherokees in Georgia able to read, and leavened with eight churches ; while the arts and methods of civilized life were rapidly spreading. There were schools, courts, a legislature, and stringent laws against intemperance and the sale of strong drinks. The AMONG THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 185 Choctaws, also, had at last been visited by a revival, and during the year, two hundred and fifty persons were re- ceived to church fellowship. There was a church among the Chickasaws, and another among the Cherokees of Arkansas. The haughty Chickasaws, in not a few in- stances, traveled ten miles to an evening meeting, return- ing by torchlight, in foot-paths full of mud and water ; and Mr. Holmes, a teacher, had written, in 1828, " I have never seen a people so hungry for the bread of life." Numerous conversions had just taken place among the Osages, and a few at Mackinaw. About one fifth of the few Stockbridges, at Green Bay, were church members.. The Ottawas at Maumee, and the Indians at Tuscarora, Cattaraugus, and Seneca each had their church, their temperance society, and their benevolent organizations. At this time, tlirec fourths of all the church members in the missions of the American Board were among the In- dians ; and it was an ascertained fact, that for twenty years the numbers of the Cherokee, Greek, and Choctaw tribes had been steadily increasing. But the great southern missicn lay upon a volcano, and the next year it burst forth. One blushes to write the truth of history. Greedy white men had their eye upon the fine lands guaranteed forever to the Indian tribes. As early as 1819, an attempt was made by the United States to remove the Cherokees from their reser- vation. A deputation to Washington, headed by the noble chief, Charles E. Hicks, had bafiied the scheme. They had even then pleaded their new hopes of civiliza- tion, and the disastrous effects of removal, as the great objection ; and when by treaty their remaining lands were secured to them in perpetuity, amid the abounding joy and gratitude of the nation, a hundred thousand 186 SKETCHES OP THE MISSIONS. acres of the ceded lands were also appropriated as a perpetual school-fund. " This marks, indeed," said the Prudential Committee, " a new and auspicious era." But alas ! the camel's head was already in the cabiu window. Once and again, near the beginning of the century, had the tribe been pacified by money payments for lands already occupied by white " squatters." Again, in 1805, under the specious plea that their growing civil- ization required less territory, another sale had been secured. And now, at the time of which we write, " the ii-ritating proximity of the Indians and white men " — a euphemism for the perpetual intrusion of reckless, law- less whites upon the Indian Territory — suggested the wolf's method of " inducing " all the Indian tribes to remove beyond the Mississippi. A great body of Chero- kees were " persuaded" to go in 1819. The Choctaws had ceded a large tract in 1816, and were awaiting further suasion. The tribe of the Chickasaws, whose motto, " Here we rest," still remains embodied in the name Alabama, had already made three cessions ; and about the year 1818, ♦the northern tribes also were bought up. The scheme slumbered for a time at the South. But in 1828, the United States Government, pressed by evil agencies behind, began its work. A deputation of the Arkansas Cherokees at Washington, though not authorized, but forbidden by the standing law of the nation, to alienate any portion of their land, con- sented to a new removal, and the pressure began to be applied to the Cherokees of Georgia, and to the Choc- taws, Creeks, and Chickasaws. All four of these tribes were "greatly agitated and distressed" at the prospect of a compulsory removal from lauds guarantied to them by treaty after treaty with the United States. For AMONG THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 187 several years, it became ihe one absorbing and distract- ing theme of the Cherokees. It threw the Choctaws at once into great trouble, despondency, and violent dissen- sions, in which the missionaries stood between two fires : the pagan portion of the nation falsely charging them with favoring the removal, and the United States author- ities regarding and treating them with suspicion and severity. One is ashamed to write that in September, 1829, United States Commissioners assembled the Choc- taws in council, and proposed terms of removal ; that a committee of sixty Choctaws, representing the three dis- tricts of the nation, reported almost unanimously against it, and the whole body of Choctaws approved the report, and a large proportion of them went home ; that, on the next day, the Commissioners assembled the remainder, and by threats of withdrawing the agent, making them pay the expenses of the treaty, leaving them to the . mercy of state laws, and by bi'ibery of certain chiefs and their relatives, forced the treaty through, to the "general indignation " of the great majority of the warriors and captains ; and that, meanwhile, the presence of the mis- sionaries at the treaty-ground was forbidden by the United States Commissioners in writing, although the presence of all other persons was allowed. But these are dark facts of history. The Cherokees resisted longer. They felt, like the Choctaws, that it was only the begin- ning of the end ; and the few that consented earlier did it in the firm conviction that all would be compelled to go, and that the last would be the worst off. But the vise did not finally hold the victim till the year 1836. In the July previous, the United States sent as Commis- sioner, to persuade the Cherokees, the Eev. J. F. Scher- merhorn. But in vain. In October, another attempt; E 188 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. again in vain. The Cherokee delegates then departed to Washington to confer directly with the Secretary of War. lu-their absence, within a month, this gospel messenger called another council of a fraction and faction of the tribe, got up another delegation and another treaty, which was soon ratified by the President and Senate ; although the chief, John Ross, and fifteen thousand of the nation — a vast majority — protested against the treaty in every stage of its progress, as unsatisfactory, contrary to the will of the nation, and made with persons wholly un- authorized. The treaty was concluded, it is alleged, with three chiefs and about six hundred men, women, and children.* The chiefs were afterward put to death by the nation for their treachery, though against the eflfbrts of John Ross. But the Rev. .J. F. Schermerhorn's treaty stood ; and General Winfield Scott, and two thousand troops, were afterward detailed to execute its provisions. But the State of Georgia did not wait for the treaty. Three years before it divided up the whole Cherokee country into sections of one hundred and forty acres each, sold them by lottery to its citizens, and extended its laws and courts over the territory. Men with white skins and black hearts rushed in. They carried gambling, in- temperance, lewdness, and outrage among a people broken and despondent. The Cherokee laws against intemper- ance and liquor-selling were overborne by the laws of Georgia, as were those of the Choctaws by the laws of Mississippi. All was demoralization. There was even a reaction against the missions, and a direct loss of influ- ence. The missionaries were viewed as citizens of the nation that oppressed them, and as representing its re- * New Am. Cyc. But Eev. W. Willey writes, " Sixty men and no chiefs." • AMONG THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 189 ligion ; and, though the missionaries were actually driven out of Georgia into Arkansas, they were suspected as " treaty men." A singular experience was that of the two mission- aries Butler and Worcester, in 1831. In January they and their companions received notification of a law of Georgia, recently enacted, requiring all white men re- •siding on the Cherokee lands to take the oath of allegiance to the State of Georgia, and get a license from the Gov- ernor, under penalty, if found there after the 1st of March, of penitentiary imprisonment at hard labor not less than four years. Well knowing this to be in open conflict with their rights under the constitution, laws, and treaties of the general government, they remained at their post. On the 12th of March appeared a detachment of the " Georgia Guard," headed by a colonel. Three of the missionaries were arrested, and taken to the head- quarters of the guarS. On being brought, by writ of habeas corpus, before a County court, the Judge released them on the ground that, as missionaries patronized by the general government, they were in some .sense its agents, and not within the range of the law. Forthwith a correspondence ensued between the Governor of Georgia and the President, in which the latter declared that he did not consider them in any sense agents of the govern- ment ; and the Postmaster-General, to clear the track, made haste to remove Mr. Worcester from the office of postmaster. The Governor now sent warning letters, and the agent of Georgia gave them two days to leave. Messrs. Worcester and Butler frankly, but respectfully, declined. And now appeared once more the Georgia Guard and a Georgia colonel. Messrs. Butler and Worcester were arrested, with a Methodist missionary 190 SKETCHKS OP THE MISSIONS. (Mr. Trott), and a Cherokee named Proctor. The latter was for two nights chained by the neck to the wall of the house, and by the ankle to Mr. Trott, and marched two days chained by the neck to a wagon ; and Dr. But> ler was marched also with a chain about his" neck, and part of the time in pitch darkness, with the chain fastened to the neck of a horse. Two Methodist clergymen meet- ing them, and expressing some sympathy and indigna- tion, the gallant Colonel Nelson cut a stick and gave one a severe blow on the head, and his subordinate, Brooks, dismounted the other, and drove him along the road, com- pelling him with the bayonet to keep the centre of the road, through mud and mire, "pouring out upon the com- pany the vilest obscenities and oaths, and taunting them, " Fear not, little flock." After eleven days' confinement in a filthy log prison, aggravated by every practicable dis- comfort, a Georgia court (Clayton, J.) sentenced Messrs. Worcester and Butler to four years hard labor in the penitentiary. A memorial was addressed to the Presi- dent of the United States. But President Andrew Jack- son replied by Lewis Cass, the Secretary of War, that he had satisfied himself that the laws of Georgia rendered the acts of Congress " inoperative," and he had no power to interfere. The case was carried to the Supreme Court of the United States, Judge Marshall presiding ; and the action of the Georgia court was reversed and annulled, and the discharge of the prisoners ordered. The court of Georgia refused to obey, and Governor Lumpkin re- fused to interpose his executive authority to release the prisoners. When, therefore, a geueratian later, the Union camp-fires blazed on Mission Bidge, as Bragg, and Hardee, and Longstreet fled, defeated and broken, and when Sherman swept all Georgia from Chattanooga AMONG THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 191 to Savannah, and the Georgia Governor, as he fled, vainly released a hundred penitentiary criminals to fight for their native state, it was difficult for some now living not to remember the days of Nelson, and Clayton, and Lumpkin. For fifteen months and more Messrs. Butler and Worcester lay in the penitentiary. A memorial to the Chief Executive of the nation, requesting the enforcement of the decree for their liberation, was prepared ; but they were dissuaded from presenting it, the more easily, whether wisely or not, because it was well understood that the President of the United States would not enforce that mandate of the Supreme Court of the nation. " Old Hickory " was now a willow wand. They gave notice, however, of a new motion in court. And now appeared on the scene two Georgia congressmen, rejoicing in the allegorical names of Schley and Coffee, to reconcile them to their bitter cup. These gentlemen, and other personal friends of the Governor, promised theiji that they should be released if the motion were not made. The mission- aries conferred with the Prudential Committee. In view of the facts that their rights had been judicially asserted, that the law itself was now repealed, that their own speedy liberation was guaranteed, that no executive en- forcement of the national judiciary mandate could be counted on, that it was too late thus to benefit the Chero- kee nation, and especially that this might be a case in which it was for Christians rather to suffer than to appeal to force, they withdrew the notice of a motion in court, and were liberated by proclamation of the Governor. Georgia could well afford to repeal its law and liberate its prisoners. It had triumphed over the national court, and handcuffed the national executive. It had mean- 192 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. while put in operation such influences as intimidated and compelled the Cherokees to remove. Within eighteen months of the liberation of the missionaries, the white " squatters" on the Cherokee lands were more numerous than the Indians. And yet, under all the pressure of threats, and- bribes, and interruption, and corruption, and outrages, so resolute was the opposition of the nation, that, as we have seen, no treaty of cession could by any fair means be secured. Even when Rev. J. F. Scher- merhorn and his " six hundred" had compounded for the nation with the President and Senate, the nation con- tinued peacefully to struggle for their rights. In the winter of 1836 an effort was made for a new treaty. In July, 1837, a delegation was chosen to visit Washington. They presented their cause at the opening of Congress in a most able and lucid manner, sustained by the signa- tures of almost the whole Cherokee nation, and by nu- merous remonstrances from citizens of the United States. All was vain. ISo essential modification of the treaty could be effected. Still, they could not believe that a treaty which seemed to them so iniquitous and oppressive would be executed. And while the military were gath- ered round them, like the vultures round their victim, and while numerous fortifications were erected in the country, they remained quietly in their homes. Their grounds were planted for a larger crop than usual, when, on the 23d of May, 1838, the troops began to gather them from their cherished homes to the camps. Late in the season (August 19) the missionaries celebrated the Lord's Supper for the last time at Brainerd, and sixteen thou- sand people soon bade a mournful and reluctant adieu to the lands of tlieir fathers. A five months' journey was before them. Siek and well, old man and infant, mothers AMONG THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 193 and mothers that were to be/through the winter months they traveled on, from six to eighteen miles a day. There were births and there were deaths — but the deaths, alas ! were two to one. They averaged thirteen deaths a day. They arrived at last ; but more than four thousand — more than one fourth of their whole number — in that ten months time they had left beneath the sod. This shocking mortality was not due to special ill-treatment, but inevitable in such a removal. They bore it, on the whole, patiently. Many- of the companies had religious services on the way, and all showed the in- fluence of the missionaries in the fact that no such out- breaks of resistance as the government anticipated took place. No wonder that " Indian blood " so far boiled up the next year as to bring to an untimely end the three men who had sold their nation. Major Ridge was way- laid and shot. John Ridge, his son, was taken from his bed and cut to piecfes. Elias Boudinot was decoyed from his house and slain with knives and hatchets. But John Ross and his friends expressed the deepest regret at such transactions, while the United States officers scoured the country in vain for the murderers. Aside from this, the deportment of the Cherokees, under their terrible trial, was worthy of a Christian people. And when men say the Indians cannot be civilized and Christianized, pos- terity will sadly judge which party displayed the higher type of Christian manhood — John Ross and the Cherokee nation, or Andrew Jackson, Lewis Cass, the Reverend Commissioner Schermerhorn, Congressmen Coffee and Schley, Governor Lumpkin, Colonel Nelson, the Georgia Guard, the Georgia Legislature, and, must we add, the Senate of the United States in 1835. These things are facts of record ; on record let them stand. 194 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. But the palmy days of Indian missions were past for a generation. The shock of these events, and of the broad scheme to which it belonged, agitated and affected every tribe in the country. The little remnant of the Stock- bridges were, for years, distressed by the question of a new removal. The Indians of New York were kept in a state of bitter complaint and internal dissension. The remainder of this story may as well be briefly dispatched. It was almost a harvest of disasters, spring- ing from one common root. The incoming flood of white and Indian corruption among the Chickasaws compelled the abandonment of that mission in 1834. The Osages, in 1836, made it positively unsafe to remain. In the same year the Creeks, instigated by neighboring whites with slanderous charges, petitioned the United States agent to remove the missionaries ; and they were sum- marily expelled, without a hearing. In the discour- agement of long-continued and still unsettled removal agitations, attended with a steady downward movement, the last missionary among the Stockbridges withdrew in 1848, and left them to a native pastor, Jeremiah Slinger- land. The relics of the Tuscaroras in New York, with many of the marks and some of the vices of civilization, were left to themselves in 1860, having a church of a hundred members, and, for a time, the partial services of Peter P. Osunkirhine, a preacher of the Abenaqui tribe. In the Choctaw nation the influences of religion, never so thoroughly established, had been unfavorably affected by removal. The nation had recovered, in good degree, from the diminutions and the losses of removal ; but they had learned from their former oppressors to enact stringent laws in defense of slavery, ^ome of these laws directly conflicted with the liberty of teaching and AMONG THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 195 preaching. On the principles that should govern, and the methods that should be pursued in the circumstances, an important diversity of sentiment arose between the mis- sionaries on the one side, and the Prudential Committee, the Board, and its patrons on the other. By reason of these embarrassments the mission was, in the year 1859, discontinued. At that time there were twelve churches, containing thirteen hundred and sixty-two members, of whom a small number, some twenty or thirty, perhaps, were holders of slaves. The Cherokee nation at this time numbered about- twenty-one thousand. Our mis- sionary work among them had never resumed its former importance, the four churches numbering only about two hundred communicants. But the Baptists, Moravians, and Methodists had largely entered. Meanwhile the nation had become, though with serious drawbacks, a " nominally Christian nation." For this alleged reason, re-enforced, no doubt, by other grave considerations, the mission was, in 1860, discontinued. The Seneca mission, in New York, was transferred to the Presbyterian Board in 1870, with the tribe increased one -third in number . (from twenty-flve hundred in 1818 to thirty-three hundred and eighty-three in 1870), with houses finished and fur- nished, and lands cultivated, and their persons dressed like their white neighbors, with the district school system in full operation, and a record of sis or seven hundred hopef«l conversions during the history of the mission. The Dakota mission, the only remaining inheritance of the Board among the native tribes, deserves a separate description. THE DAKOTAS. 197 CHAPTER X. MISSIONS AMONG THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. THE DAKOTAS. In the year 1835 the Sioux, or more properly Dakota, Indians were one of the most powerful tribes on the continent, numbering, probably, from forty-five to fifty thousand. Their vast hunting-grounds extended from the forty-third to the forty-ninth degree of latitude, and from the Mississippi to the Black Hills west of the Mis- souri. The great State of Minnesota now occupies their eastern borders ; and only- a few years have passed since they were the sole occupants of Winona, Red Wing, and the region about St. Paul. It was within a few miles of ong of the first missionary stations, near Fort Snelling, that Longfellow found a name which he has made famous. Minnehaha is a Dakota word, and means " durling Water." A little stream plunges a precipice of sixty feet in a parabolic curve, and goes on its way, " curling along in laughing, childish glee," to join the Father of Waters. The name Dakota, " alliance" indicates the numerous bands that unite to form the tribe. As early aa the year 1833, two adventurous young Christian brothers from Connecticut, Samuel W. and Gideon H. Pond, pushed their way to Fort Snelling, joined a neighboring Indian village, built a log cabin, and applied themselves to learn the language, while in various 198 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. •ways they made themselves useful to the natives. They afterward became ministers and missionaries of the Board, and their location seems to have determined one of the first two missionary stations, which was at Lake Harriet. Two years later the American Board took up the work, sending the Revs. T. S. Williamson and J. D. Stevens, and the farmer Alexander Huggins, with their wives, and two unmarried ladies, Miss Stevens and Miss Poage. They were soon re-enforced by Rev. S. R. Riggs and wife, and the Messrs. Pond, with other lady teachers, and in later times by the children of the earlier mis- sionaries. The rough savage whom the missionaries found was quite, a different person from the sentimental red man of the romance and the poem. The only poetic thing about the Dakota was the kind of religious maze — or mud- dle — in which he lived, whereby everything was wakan, or mysterious. So abundantly did the tahoo-wakan, or the supernatural and mysterious, protrude itself through all nature and life, making gods innumerable, as to con- stitute almost a pantheism, or rather a pan-diaboHsip ; for " heaven and earth were full of demons, rankling with hate, and engaged in eternal strife ; " and " dread of future evil filled the souls " of the Dakotas. One " Great Spirit," omnipotent and all-pervading, so far at least as this tribe is concerned, is not so much an Indian belief as a white man's dream. Their chief gods were the. most grotesque conceptions. The water god, or gods, rather, mightiest of all, one of whom dwelt in an iron den under the Falls of St. Anthony, in the form of a prodigious ox, with horns and tail expansible to the skies, the organs of power ; the thunder gods, of bird-like form, but terrible and hideous proportions, with double or quad- THE DAKOTAS. 199 ruple-jointed wings, and of four varieties, black, yellow, scarlet, and blue, — the last of them globular in shape, without eyes or ears, and w^ith eyebrows made of lines of lightning, hanging down in long, zigzag chains, — all dwelling in a palace, .sentineled on its four sides by a butterfly, a bear, a reindeer, and a beaver, euveloped in scarlet down ;• the moving god, dwelling in a boulder and in the four winds, as hard-hearted as the one, and as capricious as the other ; the anti-natural god, in four varieties, one of which carries a huge drum, using as a drumstick a thunder god, whom he holds by the tail, shivering with cold in hot weather, and fanning himself, naked, when the mercury congeals, bold in danger, and terrified in safety, with good for his evil, and evil for his good ; and so on, in infinite inconsistency and hopeless confusion. Their religious rites and worship were worthy of the hideous beings they worshiped. Streaked With blue and red paint, the Dakota performed his holiest services. He offered sacrifices to his gods (and to the spirits of the dead) from a piece of cloth or a kettle, a portion of every anima'l killed in the chase, or that greatest luxury of the Indian's own palate, dog-meat, up to the self-immolation, wherein, somewhat like the Hindu, the Indian cuts be- neath the muscles of his breast, arms, and back, and suspends himself, by ropes passed through the incisions, to the top of a pole, for two or three days together, with- out food or drink. He has religious dances and feasts, in one of which the worshipers howl round a great kettle of boiling meat, seizing the hot meat and devouring it, and then having the hot water thrown upon their legs ; and in another of which they dance round a pile of raw fish, till suddenly inspired, as they say, by the spirit of a s 200 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. cormorant, they rush upon the fishes, tear them in pieces^ and eat them down, scales, bones, entrails, and all. Sorcery and jugglery go naturally together. The modern so-called spiritualism or spiritism of the ■white man Is an old story with the Dakota Indians. They practiced summoning the spirits of the dead, and eliciting information concerning distant jelatives and friends, all the while according to the most approved white man's mode, sitting with the fire-light extinguished, their blankets over their heads and singing in a low key,- till the spirit comes with his "hair-erecting" dis- closure. Indeed, the lofty feat wherein the Davenport brothers have, by twenty years' practice, acquired such expertness, tying and untying rope-knots in the dark, is, in all its important features, only the domestication of an ancient Dakota trick. Thus the juggler Red Bird, bound with ropes so tight as to break the skin, then tied, feet and ((lands together, and the whole body enveloped in knots and twists, with a buffalo robe fastened over all, was rolled into a tent, the lights extinguished, and all observers withdrawn. The tent is filled with rattlings, drummings, and voices. When at length the torches are lighted, Red Bird has slipped out of the robe and out of his fastenings, and left all the knots still tied. There was little romance in Dakota life. It was bard on the men, and harder on the women. Bark wigwams were for summer, and the winter home was a conical- spreading tent, made of dressed buffalo-skins, supported by a framework of poles. A hole at the bottom let in the Indian, and a hole at the top let out the smoke. A coat- ing of hay on the ground, covered partly by skin mats, with a central space left for the fire, formed floor and bed. Here, in bad weather, men, women, and boys sat THE DAKOTAS. 201 and smoked. The women cut the fire-wood, dug the tepsinna root, dressed the buffalo-skins, cultivated the corn-patch, and packed and often carried the tent. The men did the hunting, fishing, fighting, and lounging. Food was precarious. After a hunt, meat was abundant. At other times, especially on a journey, they were re- duced to great hardships, and went to bed "empty." Mr. Gideon Pond, on such an expeditiou, had the pleasure of regaling himself with otter, turtles, ground-nuts, and muskrats, while his copper-colored friends pronounced some dead fish, found on the lake shore, to be " good ; " and Mr. S. W. Pond once saw some " hickory chips which had been boiled to get nourishment." When the former gentleman was feasted on turtle-soup, his appetite was reduced by having witnessed the turtles boiled alive in the savory mess, and by seeing a friendly squaw, as a special courtesy, wipe out his dish first with grass from beneath the floor-mat, and secondly with the corner of the short gown she had worn, day and night, all winter. The tribe were not without their amusements, gay or grave. Their dances were varied enough for a more civ- ilized race ; six or seven in number, and crowned by the hideous scalp-dance. The great national game was ball, on which they bet as high as white men, staking not only their trinkets and equipments, but their horses, and some- times their women. They had their more quiet games, their " plum-stones," partly answering the purpose of dice, and their "moccasin" game, — not exactly a com- pound of " button " and " hunt the slipper." The tooting of a rude flute or flageolet, and the pounding of a rattling, one-headed drum, or tambourine, sometimes enlivened the smoky wigwam of a winter evening or a stormy day. The language was troublesome to the missionaries. 202 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. It not only abounded in clicks, and gutturals, and unpre- cedented compositions, splitting a verb with ia pronoun or a preposition, but, like other heathen languages, it was sadly defective for the utterance of religions ideas. A " good heart " was but joy ; a " bad heart," grief ; and a "hard heart," courage. The Wahan-Tanka, or "Great Spirit," was but an inferior god. The language was, of course, unwritten, and imperfectly known. Sixteen years from the oommencement of the mission saw the publication of a grammar, and a dictionary of fifteen thousand words. In the midst of this degradation, the mission families sent by the Board quietly and hopefully took up their abode, in 1835, at two stations, — at Lake Harriet, near Fort Snelling and the Falls of St. Anthony, and at Lacquiparle, two hundred miles further west. Their good work began even at Fort Snelling, where they organized a church, and received eight new converts, connected with the garrison, together with six members of other churches. The very first year, at Lacquiparle, brought in seven Dakota converts, and the second winter nine, the third year ten, till, in six years, forty-nine persons had been received. The missionaries found, at Lacquiparle, a fast friend and invaluable helper in Joseph Renville. He was the son of a French father and a Dakota mother. Born in a wigwam, and educated from his tenth year in Canada, he had worked his way up from a trader's "runner" and Indian " brave " to be an interpreter, a British cap- tain, and agent of John Jacob Astor's American Fur Company. He had now gained a commanding influence in the Dakota nation, — an influence which he steadily 'used for the benefit of the Indian, the traveler, and the missionary. In a journey of seven hundred miles, from THE DAKOTAS. 203 Fort Snelling to the Brftish posts, his ever open mansion was the one welcome resting-place. He furnished the missionaries a temporary home, and became at once their singularly sagacious and competent interpreter of the Scriptures. From the first, when Mr. Williamson wanted a chapter to read in meeting, he went to Mr. Renville for a translation. A little later, in 1837, there was from time to time a pleasant sight to be seen in his reception-room. In front of a roaring fire sat Mr. Ren- ville at his ease, and at a table near, with books and writing materials, sat Messrs. Williamsou, Riggs, and G. H. Pond. A verse was read aloud from the French Bible, repeated by Mr. Renville in Dakota, and written down by the missionaries. Thus they went through the gospels of Mark and John. Mr. Renville's interest in the missionaries was not without its reward. His In- dian wife was the first full-blooded Dakota convert, and the first that died in the faith. He himself became a worthy and consistent elder in the church, while two of his sons and one or more of his grandsons became preachers of the gospel. For some years the accessions to the church were mostly women. Their obstacles were less than those of the men. The change involved far less revolution of dress, habits, life, and piirsuit ; drew less attention and less opposition. To the man, it meant complete reversal and reconstruction, outward as well as inward, from the cutting of his long hair, and the putting on of decent apparel, to the abandonment of polygamy ; from the " scalp-dance" to the scalping expedition. Meekness of spirit and industry of life were hard sayings to an Indian brave. But in the end, the word and Spirit of God proved equal to the work. 204 SKETCHES OP THE MISSIONS. From tHe first there were lovely spirits developed in those rude bodies. There was Hapanna, at Lake* Cal- houn, long enduring, all alone, not only the social oppo- sition and persecution of her whole band, but from her own husband slanders, threats, beatings, dangerous wounds, and final abandonment ; yet living and dying in the faith, and followed to heaven by her once abusive hnsband. There was Lightning-Face, wife of Pine- Shooter, once ragged and dirty, and a heathen so zealous as to forbid her children attending the meetings, hide their moccasons, and leave them to go barefoot in the snow, yet led by the Spii-it to embrace the gospel with a wonderfully firm and child-like faith. And when, one summer morning, in 1867, a flash of lightning called her away, none doubted she had gone to be with God, where her husband had gone before. There was Catharine Brown, willing to be put away as the second wife ; sub- mitting to the cutting up of her blanket, and other simi- lar trials ; keeping the Sabbath, even though it entailed separation from her traveling company ; learning to read, spin, knit, and weave, and entering into every plan for her people's elevation ; bringing up her children for the Lord, and holding fast the faith in a good old age. There were Christian children, like Jenny Simon, weep- ing over her sins, and giving her heart to Christ when eleven years old, and passing away at fourteen, with such words on her lips as these : " I love all ray friends here, but I love Jesiis more." These, and many like cases, proved from the first the old, but ever new, transforming power of the gospel. The life of the missionaries was not destitute of ad- ventures. Mr. S. W. Pond barely escaped perishing on a trip from La&e Harriet to Lacquiparle. Overtaken by THE DAKOTAS. 205 a storm, losing his way, benumbed with cold, four days fasting, mistrustful of the gun of his Indian guide, a stray horse bore him exhausted to his destination, and saved his life. Dr. Williamson passed one winter in fear of starvation, the young men who wont for his winter's supply having been compelled to abandon all, and almost perished on the way. On one occasion Mr. and Mrs. Hopkins and Mrs. Eiggs encountered an Ojibwa war-party with two fresh Dakota scalps, and just afterward the still more dangerous party of excited Dakotas, who laid the blame of the murder upon the missionaries, and killed one of their horses ou the spot. The terrified women pursued their way on foot, under a burning sim, comforting their hearts with those same words with which the Geoi-gia colonel had once taunted the Cherokee missionaries : " Fear not, little flock." Mr. Riggs was once a " mark for an Indian arrow," and again " chased by the scalping-knife in the hands of a drunken man." These were stray shots. At length came something of the grapple that is almost inevitable in the history of missions to the heathen. Wlien the gospel began fairly to take hold of the Indian warriors, their chiefs and braves set themselves to stop it. They frightened away the children and broke up the schools, in some cases for months together. They posted guards to prevent attend- ance on Sabbath worship, and cut up the blankets of those who persisted. In more than one instance men who had embraced or favored the new religion died sud- denly and mysteriously, and there was talk of " bad medi- cine," — the witchcraft of ancieut and of modern times. Sometimes they used the methods of the tempter. Simon, one of the bravest of the braves, had become a Christian. 206 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIOKS. For four years he nobly stood the scorn of all his asso- ciates, and the very hootings of the children as he went abroad, that Simon was a woman now. But another band tried friendship and flattery. They invited him to their dog-feasts, praised his prowess, and treated him to " spirit-water." He fell, repented, fell, repented again, and fell deeper. For some years he stood aloof. He was followed by prayers and persuasions. He would listen, promise, and slink away. At length he came and sat on the church doorstep, but would not enter. In 1854 all the mission buildings at Lacquiparle, except the church, burned down. It was the signal for Simon's full and final return. He was restored to his standing, honored his profession, stood by the mission in the hour of its fiery trial, and became at length a preacher of the gospel. But not all the tempted were thus recovered ; and sti-ong drink was one of the chief temptations. There was a time, in 1849, when many of the schools were shut up, the attendance at religious meetings very small, two fifths of the church members in a state of defection, the mission almost disabled by the stealing of their property and the constant killing of their , cattle, a war raging between the Dakotas and the Ojibwas, and the country flooded with stfoug drink. Still it did not pre- vent the formation of two little churches in 1850. Then came the protracted excitement of treaties and cessions to the United States, the influx of settlers and specula- tors in village sites and city lots. But now also came the happy influence of the missionary work on the desti- nies of Minnesota ; for the men who carried the gospel to the aborigines, also aided in forming the religious institutions of the white settlers. Four members of THE DAKOTAS. 207 the mission, indeed, withdrew to engage in the home service. Meanwhile new Indian churches were organized at Yellow Medicine and Eedwood, the one at Lacquiparle being traasferred to Hazelwood ; and when the treaty excitement had passed away, the field seemed more hopeful than ever. In 1866 was formed the " Hazel- wood Republic," with a written constitution, and all the methods of a Christian civilization. It was followed by a similar one at Redwood. The chapel at Yellow Medi- cine had been built without cost to the Board. The little church at Redwood was often filled to overflowing, and the clear-toned bell at Hazelwood often summoned near a hundred worshipers. The Indians built them log, and frame, and — with government aid — brick houses, and began to raise grain, and other farm products, for sale. But now drew nigh the time that tried the faith and tested the work of the missionaries. Opposers had said that the mission was a failure, and that the Christian Indians were more hostile to the whites than were the pagans. God signally branded the falsehood. But he did it, as it could only be done, in scenes of fire and blood. There was a premonition as early as 1857. A white settlement of six or eight families, on the beautiful clus- ter of waters called Spirit Lake, lay near the hunting range of the chief Scarlet End. The winter was suowy, and hunting unproductive. The Indians, after annoy- ing the settlers all around, came to an (fp&n rupture at Spirit Lake. They killed forty persons, and carried off the cattle, clothing, and provisions, and four captive women. One of the women was killed at the Sioux River because she could not cross it upon a log, and another afterward in the Indian camp ; the third was 208 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. purchased, and restored to her friends, by two sons of the early convert Bebekah, and the fourth was recovered by the courage and skill of three Indian messengers. Great excitements and alarms attended the ineffectual attempts of the government to bring the offenders to justice. At one time Dr. Williamson saw the conical tents of five thousand warriors on the prairie between him and the camp of Major Sherman. The escape of Scarlet End and his assassins was not forgotten. Five years passed away. The United States was fairly locked in its great struggle with the southern rebellion. The heathen portion of the Dakotas, stimu- lated by their medicine men and war prophets, had long been growing bitter toward Christianity and civilization, and watched their opportunity. Said they to Mr. Potter, " We do not desire your instruction ; we wish you gone." The government and the traders had badly compromised Christian civilization. Of the general course of the government agents, and the traders to these Indians, it is but historic justice to say that it had been one long- continued imposition and outrage. The traders sold them goods at enormous prices, plunged them in debt, drugged them with spirits, and debauched their women. The traders and the government steadily played into each other's hands. It was the old fable,' true at last, of the lion and the jackal. When ^, cession of lands was to be procured, the traders lent themselves, by fair means and by foul, to bring it about. They threatened loss of trade and of credit on the one hand, tbey held out the most delusive expectations on the other, and they procured the signatures of the Indians, on false pretenses, to contracts and vouchers not explained nor understood. When the money came, the government THE DAKOTAS. 209 agents paid, first of all, the claims of these traders ; and " most of the money due under these treaties,'' says one ■who had investigated, " went into the hands of govern- ment officials, traders, and other swindlers." * The gov- ernment had a way, too, of "breaking chiefs" when necessary, and, as Red Iron said to Governor Ramsay, of " having boys made chiefs to sign papers, and getting single chiefs to council at night to be bribed to sign papers." In one instance four hundred thousand dollars were paid by the government directly to the traders otx old indebtedness, of which one Hugh Tyler received (in 1857) fifty-five thousand dollars for getting treaties through the Senate and through the chiefs. Nor were the stipulations about schools and .implements carried out. " The treaties," says the writer above quoted, " are born of fraud, and all their stipulations curtailed by iniquity." f These general exasperations were, in 1862, embittered by fresh grievances. A large sum (a hundred and sixty- six thousand dollars) due from the government had remained unpaid for four years, and then less than one tenth was paid, and that not in cash, but in goods. In July five thousand Sissetons came for their money. It was not ready, nor even promised them. Pinched with hunger, and some of them dying of starvation, they broke into the warehouse, helped themselves, and went home. The agent was thoroughly frightened for, the time. A little later some of the traders not only refused the Indians credit, but insulted them by telling them they " might starve or eat dirt." It was close upon the outbreak. * Heard's History of the Sioux War, p. 42. t lb., p. 33. 210 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. Rumors of fighting came up from the rehellion, and acted like the distant smell of blood upon a wolf. The Indians kept hearing that their " Great Father was whipped." They saw that whites and half-breeds were invited to enlist. The able-bodied men of the white settlements were away to the war. Now was the oppor- tunity. The prudence of the old chiefs was overridden by the fierce counsels of the young braves, and they de- termined to carry desolation through all the settlements of Minnesota, and seize again the hunting-grounds of their fathers. The tinder was all laid when the spark fell. At Acton, four Indians, first roused by a mutual quarrel, then ejected from a house after a contention with the owner about liquor and a gun, and called " black devils" by his wife at a neighbor's, suddenly shot them and three other persons, and hurried away to their band with the story. All felt it to be an irretrievable step. Next morning, early, a hundred and fifty armed and mounted Indians throng round the house of Little Crow, all eager for a fray. The old chief sits up in bed, aud great beads of sweat stand on his forehead. He sees the peril, for he had been in "Washington. But the die is cast. His hopes aud fears at home, and the excitement of the hour, force him on. "I am with you. Let us go to the agency, kill the traders, and take their goods." Deacon Paul and John Otherday boldly resisted in council, at peril of their lives, but in vain. They then rescued the white families, conferred with the troops, organized op- position, and afterward delivered the prisoners. Little Crow and his vultures hurried to the lower agency, near Redwood, the same day, surrounded the houses and stores in small squads, and on the firing of THE DAKOTAS. 211 the signal gun at the store where first they were told to " eat dirt," they commenced an indiscriminate slaughter. When the horrid work was finished here, they scattered to spread it through the country. Messengers were sent to the upper Indians, and numerous bands engaged in the massacre. It was the- evening of the 18th of August that word came to Haeelwood of the slaughter, forty miles away, and of a band of fifty soldiers, hastening to the spot, driven back, with the loss of half their number, and all their arms. After dark strange faces were seen flitting round the mission, and the property began to disappear. Larger bands came passing by, and Simon and Paul hastened the mission family away. At mid- night a company of twenty persons might have been seen stealing to the woods in the rear, guided and aided by Indian friends. ' It was Mr. Eiggs- and his company. They were paddled across the Minnesota, followed by an Indian woman with a foi-gotten bag of provisions. Then they crawled through the ravines to the prairie. Here they joined the company of Mr. Williamson, who had lived two miles away. For a week they plodded on to- gether, through driving rains and long, wet swamp grass, exhausted, and often hungry. 'The children, as they crawled under the wagons, out of the rain, at night, cried for " home ; " and the young traveling bride from New Jersey thought in the morning " they might as well die as live." Th6y crossed several trails of the murderers, and little knew that one savage party was on their own trail, but was misled by their friend Peter Bigflre. They came in sight of Fort Eidgely ; but it was sending up rocket-signals of distress, and they went on, by an escape so narrow that four men who left their company were T 212 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. killed an liour after, within hearing of the guns. They reached St. Paul in safety, just as the dispatch had come from New Jersey to recover the bodies of the young bride and her husband. On the same morning, when these left Hazelwood and Redwood, another company of sixty-two left Yellow Medicine. Honest John Otherday was their guide and protector. With the chances of escape, as ha said, " one in a thousand," he brought them all safe to St. Paul ; " and," said he, " my heart is glad." Simon, too, the re- lapsed and recovered Simon, proved true as steel. Leav- ing his own family to shift for themselves, he brought Mrs. Newman and her three children to Fort Ridgely, he and his son drawing them in a small wagon with their own hands. Five weeks later, a hundred captive women and children were found at " Camp Release," also rescued by the loyal Indians, by purchase or persuasion. But long before this Little Crow and his horde had done their work. With torch and tomahawk they had swept an area of twenty thousand miles, — fifteen or twenty border counties. They had killed some six or seven hundred persons, burnt the mission premises, and the houses of all the Oiiristian Indians, pressed Forts Ridgely and Abercrombie, and defeated a detachment of two hundred troops. In the horrors they committed the savages outdid themselves, and relapsed into fiends. They tortured the living, and ofiered evei^ conceivable indignity and insult to the dead. They cut ofi" the hands, feet, and heads of their victims, and tore out their hearts. They roasted an infant in an oven, spared not even the unborn, nailed children to tables and doors, threw their knives and tomahawks at them, and amused them- THE DAEOTAS. 213 selves by shooting arrows at women and children. One wretch killed seven children in one wagon. Still fouler wrongs were inflicted on captive women, to an incredible extent, ended sometimes by natural death, and once at least by the horrid torture of impalement. These mur- ders and tortures of women and children were mostly tlie work of the younger braves, against the advice of their chief. For three weeks they carried all before them. The Christian party put fortli a bold and powerful influ- ence to resist and divide their counsels, and formed a camp for self-protection. At length a body of twelve hundred United States troops pushed up the Minnesota Valley, routed the forces of Little Crow at Wood Lake, and finally scattered them to the west and north. The leaders and the most guilty escaped. Little Crow fled, appropriately, to Devil's Lake. In the following July, near the town of Hutchinson, an Indian was shot while picking berries in the woods. His height and his grayish hair, his teeth, double all round, his left arm withered, and his right arm once broken and badly set, marked him as Little Crow, the foremost orator and hunter of the Sioux Indians. His skeleton, we believe, adorns the rooms of an Historical Society. Four or five hundred men fell into the hands of our troops, by capture or voluntary surrender. The govern- ment was now resolved to punish ; but the work was overdone. A military commission tried nearly four hun- dred men in one month, dispatching them at the rate, sometimes, of thirty or forty in a day, and, of course, on very summary grounds. Fifty were acquitted, twenty sentenced to imprisonment, and more than three hundred condemned to be hung. President Lincoln was wiser 214 SKETCHES OP THE MISSIONS. than the military commission. He ordered that sentence of death be executed only on those who were proved guilty of individual murders or of rape. On that find- ing, thirty-eight Dakotas were hung in one day. Only three of them could read, and none of them had ever attended a mission school. Three hundred and thirty remained in prison at Mankato. And here were unfolded the strange plans and methods of God. The prisoners were broken and humbled. Eight or ten of them could read and write. Dr. Wil- liamson and his sister distributed among them slates, paper, and pencils. As the readers and writers began to while away the time, their example became contagious, and soon the whole prison was a school-house. They wrote to their families at Camp Snelling, and that, too, became a school. On a visit made in March, 1863, Mr. Riggs carried some four hundred letters from the camp to the prison, and about as many back to the camp. The Indians lost confidence in their gods, and listened more earnestly to the gospel. By a notable providence, among them was Robert Hopkins Chaskay, an elder in the church at Yellow Medicine. He had been caught hanging fool- ishly round the scene of havoc, with his gun, which he fired at an ox, and was condemned to death. By special efforts of the missionaries his sentence was commuted. He was thus in prison, to cooperate within with the mis- sionaries without. A great revival took place in the prison that winter, and in the spring two hundred Dakotas were added to the church in one day ; and when the government trans- ferred the prisoners by steamer to Davenport, they passed St. Paul in chains, indeed, but singing the fifty-first psalm, to the tune of Old Hundred. The good work THE DAKOTAS. 215 spread at the same time, as by electric induction, into their families, and went on in the prison at Davenport. It was not till 1866 that the prisoners were released and joined their families, then at Niorbara in Nebraska. All the professors of religion, now numbering four hundred, chose to be gathered at first into the one " Pilgrim Church." Next year a long step forward was taken, in the choice of two native pastors, and the licence of two other native preachers of the gospel. And now was inaugurated in the Dakota mission, — although on a more limited scale, — substantially the same policy which was about the same time begun in Central Turkey, of falling back upon the home agency, — apostolic missionaries and native pastors. The mission had now reached the stage where this course was possible. No eye but tliat of God could have seen, in the great Indian uprising and massacre, the opening of a new missionary expansion. When the missionaries fled from Hazelwood, Miss Martha Riggs wrote in her journal, " The feeling came over us that our life-work had been in vain," The Lord seeth not as man seeth. It was but the opening of a new era. Since then the prosperity of the mission has gone steadily forward, except so far as it has been lately in- terfered with by another denomination, till, in 1871, the mission was able to report nine stations and out-stations, and eight churches, containing more than seven hundred members, — one hundred of them received during the year. Mr. Riggs is now aided in the good work by two sons, (the younger having gone to Fort Sully in February, 1872), and a daughter, and Mr. Williamson by his son : while Joseph Renville, though dead, preaches the gospel by his sou and his ^audson. Six pastors, four licen- 216 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. tiates, and three teachers, all natives, are aiding the missionaries, and planting permanent institutions. Two training-schools are raising up more helpers. A Dakota newspaper is binding the churches together. Three thousand Indians are said to have embraced a civilized life, and the influences of civilization have more or less been brought to bear on ten thousand more. Some of them have renounced all tribal relations and allegiance, and all expectation of sharing in the annuities, that they may become citizens of the United States, own their in- dividual homesteads, and stand on the plane of full civil- ized manhood. The churches are doing much toward the support of their own institutions. There is increasing willingness to hear the gospel in new fields; young men come from a distance to school; and the missionaries and native pastors are steadily pushing forth in new ex- plorations, with much encouragement. A station is at once to be occupied at Fort Sully, three hundred miles beyond the Santee agency, among the " wild " Indians on the Upper Missouri. ■ It is also a gratifying fact that the tribe, and particularly the more civilized portion, is steadily increasing. The government policy seems to have changed at last. Congress has taken up an apparently resolute inquiry into the colossal frauds that are perpetrated upon the aborigines of this country, and while this sketch is writing, President Grant has declared " his purpose to see that all the rights and interests of the Indians are protected." If this new policy can but be adhered to, and faithfully executed, and should the present missionary movement be suffered to go on with- out interference, there is reason to hope that the great problem of Indian Christianization, civilization, and .preservation, will at last be effectually solved. APPENDIX. STATISTICS OF THE MISSIONS OF THE A. B. C. F.M. (These statistics are mostly from returns made by the missions in the year 1871.) ■sJSJoqET; JO jaqmnjs[ aioq^ ^r, fO -^oc 0\ »o ^ ro ".«0000\0 . N «-" CO W ^ •sisiqDajE^ puE sjaqDEajj aAijejii CI M r< tH M c< ■-» _j7 Th •sao,sM =A!,HN 1 ^" 2 :: st:" "^ : :5a : 1 On| ■ill -nno3 sjm uiojj [eiox ON 10 t>. «-« -^ »-« I>.00 •-« \o 00 -^vo ■S3[EIU3J *0 On-^pOp* mvO wO -^i^ -^ « M M ■sauuaois . . . . •sauE M N M M HC M * M ■suo(icjs-)no 00 ro ■<*- H-vD 00 1- po M • • ■ \0 MM • ■ > i^ •saoijEJS w -"J-r^Thiot^Mir^cq inO\« iH rot ool J &■.!...• . Zulus. . . European Turk Western Turke Central Turkey Eastern Turke; Mahrattas. . Madura. . . Ceylon. . . Foochow. . North China. Micronesia. Japan. . . 1 CO . a B (< (218) APPENDIX. 219 Hi o o s u w n < 1^ X o •s|idnj JO jaqainN spqAV « 00 (r> Tf- ■(h'o « i>\0 ir*QO . . . \n ■^vo ^ ^o UI !>. .C--.VO PD !>. T3- \J-iCO \0 CO N MM... M M ro « fo w ON japun siinpv «HlO ..ro-^M....O\.... ' ■ -^ KD ' * ' '\0 ' * ' ' . , M 00 00 M 00 « -^O OCO Ol>.tOT*-0 in ■siooiiog uouiino^ « ■^ -^ w M O J>. MM •ojjip ni sijdn^ l^ •ojjip ui sjidn J 1>- *:!- M eO N « N" :sXog joj ssuBoHiiag pnB S[Ooq3s'3uraiBJx M * HI M Cl M M M * ' * • « M ■iE3_\ 3115 3uunp aoissajojj Xq pappy l>.t^OrO'^Jr^t^i- : pUE siooips Sujuieaj, - « « • •jE3j^ 3111 3aunp4. uoissajoi(j Xq pappv • •sjaqmaj^I 2 3; 8 ^ • ■saqainqQ jo jaquini^ ■H i Gaboon. . . . Syria Persia Senecas. . . . 222 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. STATISTICS OF THE SANDWICH ISLANDS CHURCHES. The proper missionary work of the American Board being virtually completed at the Sandwich Islands, a report on the mission there appeared for the last time in the Annual Report of the Board in 1870; but it maybe well to present here some of the statistics of that iield as they were at that time, or as they have been reported since. There were then 14 mis- sionaries (i. e., ordained Americans still supported wholly or in part by the Board), 21 female assistant missionaries, 49 ordained Hawaiian ministers (of whom 39 were pastors, and 9 foreign missionaries in the Marquesas Islands and Micro- nesia), and 12 licensed preachers. The common schools (supported by government) were 224, with 5,938 pupils ; 29 day-schools, in which English was taught, had 1,458 pupils; and there were 15 boarding-schools, including Oahii Col- lege, attended by 28b boys and 251 girls. The statistics of the churches reported in June, 1871, give, churches, 59; members in good standing, 15,108; received by profession during the year, 424; whole number received by profession from the beginning, 49,260. At the Marquesas Islands the Hawaiian Board had 7 stations, 4 churches, 55 members. AFFUNSIX. 223 MISSIONARIES OF THE BOARD. The following list presents the names of missionaries now in connection with the Board, in the field or expecting to return, giving the mission and station with which each is connected. Zulu Mission. Missionaries. Went out Station. Rev. Daniel Lindley, . . . . l8.-?4- , Inanda. Mrs. Lucy A. Lindley, . . 1834. Rev. David Rood, , . . . 1847. . Umvoti. . Mrs. Alzina V. Rood, . . 1847. Rev. William Ireland, . . 1848. . Araanzimtote Mrs. R. O. Ireland, . • . 1865. Rev. Hyman A. Wilder, . 1849. . Umtwalumi. Mrs. Abby T. Wilder, . . 1849. Rev. Josiah Tyler, .... 1849. . Esidumbini. Mrs. Susan W. Tyler, . . 1849. Rev. Andrew Abraham, . 1849. . Mapumulo. Mrs. Sarah L. Abraham, . 1849- Rev. S. B. Stone 1850. . Ifafa. Mrs. Catharine M. Stone, 1850. Rev. William Mellen, . . 1851. . Umsunduzi. Mrs. Laurana W. Mellen, 1851. Rev. Stephen C. Pixley, . iSss- . Amanzimtote. Mrs. Louisa Pixley, . . . 1855- Rev. Elijah Robbins, . . . 1859. . Umzumbi. Mrs. Addie B. Robbins, . 1859- Rev. Henry M. Bridgman, i860. . Umzumbi. Mrs. Laura B. Bridgman, i860. Mrs. Mary K. Edwards, . 1868. . Inanda. Miss Gertrude R. Jiance, . 1870. . Umvoti. Miss Laura A. Day, . . . 1870. . Inanda. Rev. Myron W. Pinkerton I87I. Mrs. Laura M. Pinkerton, I87I. 224 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. European Turkey Mission. Rev. Mrs. Rev. Mrs. Rev. Mrs. Rev. Mrs. Rev. Mrs. Rev. Mrs. Rev. Mrs. Miss Miss Mrs. Missionaries. Went out. Elias Riggs, D.D., LL. D., 1832 Martha J. Riggs, 1832 James F. Clarke i859' Isabflla G. Clarke 18,9. Henry C. Haskell, .... 1862 Margaret B. Haskell, . . . 1S62 Henry A. Schauffler, ... 186 Clara E. Schauffler, . . . 1865 Lewis Bond, Jr 1868 Fannie G. Bond, 1868 William E. Locke, .... 1868 Zoe A. M. Locke, .... 186S. Henry P. Page 1868 Mary' A. Page, 1868 Minnie C. Beach 1869, Esther T. Maltbie, .... 1870. Anna V. Mumford, . ... 187 1 Mission to Western Tukkey. Rev. Benjamin Schneider, DO Mrs. Susan M. Schneider, . Rev. George W. Wood, D. D Mrs. Sarah A. H. Wood, . Rev. Edwin E. Bliss, D. D., Mrs. Isabella H. Bliss, . . Rev. Justin W. Parsons, . . Mrs. Catharine P.-irsons, . Rev. Wilson A. Farnswonh, . Mrs. Caroline E. Farnsworth Rev. Andrew T Pratt, M. D., Mrs. Sarah F. Pratt, . . . Rev. Sanford'Richardson, . Mrs. Rhoda M. Richardson Rev. Ira F. Pettibone, . . . Rev. Julius Y. Leonard, . . Mrs. Amelia A. Leonard, . Rev. Joseph K. Greene, . . Mrs. Elizabeth A. Greene, . Henry S. West, M. D., . . Mrs. Lottie M. West, . . . Rev. George F. Herrick, . . Mrs. Helen M. Herrick, . . Rev. William W. Livingston, Mrs. Martha E. Livingston, . 1833 1858, 1838 187 1, 1843 1843 1850, iS'io 1852 1852 1852 1852, 1854, 18.H. 185s I85.7. i8s7' 1859, 1859. 1859. 1859. 1859- 1859. i860. 1S60. Station. . Constantinople. . Samokov. . Eski Zagra. . Samokov. . Eski Zagra. . Samokov. . Samokov. . Samokov. . Samokov. . Samokov. Eroosa. Constantinople. Constantinople. Nicomedia. Cesarea. Constantinople. Broosa. Constantinople. Marsovan. Manissa. Sivas. Marsovan. APPENDIX. 225 Missionaries. Rev. John F. Smith, . Mrs. Lizzie Smith, . . Miss Eliza Fritcher, . . Mrs. Elizabeth Giles, . . Rev. Theodore A. Baldwin Mrs. Matilda J. Baldwin, Rev. Charles C. Tracy, . Mrs. L. A. Tracy, .... Rev. Lyman Bartlett, . . Mrs. Cornelia C. Bartlett, Miss Sarah A. Closson, . Mr. H. O. Dwight, . . . Mrs. Mary A. Dwight, . Miss Ursula C. Clarke, . Miss Flavia S. Bliss, . . Rev. Milan H. Hitchcock, Mrs. Lucy A. Hitchcock, Rev. Edward Riggs, . . Mrs. Sarah H. Rfggs, . . Miss Ardelle M. Griswold, Rev. J. O. Barrows, . . . Mrs. Clara S. Barrows. . Miss Julia A. Rappleye, . Miss Julia A. Shearman, Miss Cornelia P. Dwight, Miss Mary L. Wadsworth, M. Rev. William A. Spaulding, Mrs. Georgia D. Spaulding, Miss Laura Farnham, . . . Miss Phoebe L. Cull, . . . D Rev. P. O. Powers, ... David H. Nutting, M. D., Mrs. Mary E. Nutting, . Rev. T. C. Trowbridge, . Mrs. Margaret Trowbridge Mrs. J. L. Coffing, . . . Miss Myra A. Proctor, . Rev. Giles F. Montgomery, Mrs. Emily R. Montgomery, Rev. L. H. Adams, . . Mrs. Nancy D. Adams, Rev. Henry T. Perry, . Mrs. Jennie H. Perry, . Miss Mary G. HoUister, Went out Stations. 1863. . . Marsovan. 1863. 1863. . . Marsovan. 1864. . . Cesarea. 1867. . . Manissa. 1S67. 1867. . . Constantinople 1867. 1867. . . Cesarea. 1S67. 1867. . . Cesarea. 1867. . . Constantinople 1867. 1868. . . Broosa. 1868. . . Marsovan. 1869. . . Constantinople 1869. 1S69. . . Sivas. 1869. 1869. . . Cesarea. 1869. . . Cesarea. 1869. 1870. . . Constantinople 1870. . . Broosa. 1S71. . . Sivas. , 1871. . . Constantinople 1871. . . Nicomedia. 1871. 1871. . . Nicomedia. 1871. . . Manissa. TRAL TU RKEY. 1834. . . Antioch. 1854. . . Antioch. 1854. 1855- . . Marash. 1857. ■ . Marash. 1859. . . Aintab. 1863. . . Marash. i86j. 1865. . . Antioch. 1866. 1866. . . Marash. 1866. 1867. . . Aintab. 226 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. Rev. Mrs. Miss Rev. Mrs. Miss Miss Missionaries. Carmi C. Thayer, Mary F. Thayer, . Hattie G. Powers, Henry Marden, , Mary L. Marden, Sarah L. Wood, . Mary S. Williams, Went out. 1868. 1868. 186S. 1869, 1869, 1870, 1871 Stations. Antioch. Antioch. Aintab. Antioch. Marash. Mission to Eastern Turkey. Miss Maria A. West, . Rev. George C. Knapp, Mrs. Alzina M. Knapp, Rev. O. P. Allen, . . . Mrs. Caroline R. Allen, Rev. Crosby H. Wheeler, Mrs. Susan A. Wheeler, . Rev. Herman N. Barnum, Mrs. Mary E. Barnum. Rev. Moses P. Parmelee, Mrs. Julia F. Parmelee. . Miss Hattie Seymour, . . Rev. Henry S. Barnum, . Mrs. Helen P. Barnum, . Rev. A. N. Andrus, . . . Mrs. Louisa M. Andrus, . Miss Charlotte E. Ely, . Miss M. A. C. Ely, . . . Miss Cyrene O. Van Duzee Rev. J. E. Pierce, . . . Mrs. Lizzie A. Pierce, . Rev. R. M. Cole, . . . Mrs. Lizzie Cole, . . . Miss Olive L. Parmelee, Miss Isabella C. Baker, Rev. Theodore S. Pond, Mrs. Julia H. Pond, ... George C. Raynolds, M. D Mrs. Martha W. Raynolds, Miss Caroline E. Bush, Miss Mary M. Patrick, Rev. Joseph E. Scott, . Mrs. Anna E. Scott, . . 1852. 1855- 1855- 1855- 1855. 1857- 1857. 1858. 1863. 1871. 1867. 1867. 1869. 1868. 1868. 1868. i868. 1868. 1868. 1868. 1868. 1868. 186S. 1868. 1868. 1868. 1869. 1869. 1870. 1871. 1871. 1871. Harpoot. Bitlis. Harpoot. Harpoot. Harpoot. Erzroo'm. Harpoot. Harpoot. Mardin. Bitlis. Bitlis. Erzroom. Erzroom. Erzroom. Mardin. Mardin. Mardin. Harpoot. Harpoot. Erzroom. Van. APPENDIX. 227 Mahratta Mission, Missionaries. Rev. Samuel B. Fairbank- Mrs. Mary B. Fairbank, . Rev. Allen Hazen, , . . Mrs. Martha R. Hazen, . Rev. William Wood, . . Mrs. Elizabeth P. Wood, Rev. Lemuel Bissell, . - Mrs. Mary E. Bissell, . . Rev. Charles Harding, . Mrs. Elizabeth D. Harding, Rev. Henry J. Bruce, . Mrs. Hepzibeth P. Bruce Rev. W. H. Atkinson, . Mrs. Calista Atkinson, Rev. S. R. Weils, . . . Mrs. Mary L. Wells, . Rev. Charles W. Park, Mrs. Anna M.Park, . . Rev. Richard Winsor, Mrs. Mary C. Winsor, . , Miss Harriet S. Ashley, 1846. 1856. 1846. 1846. 1847. 1865. 1851. 1851. I8S6. 1869. '1862. 1862. 1867. 1867. 1869. 1869. 1870. 1S70. 1870. 1870. 1871. Station. . Sholapoor. . Bombay. . Satara. . Ahmednuggur. . Bombay. . Rahoori. . Sholapoor. . Bhuinj. . Sholapoor. . Ahmednuggur. . Ahmednuggur. ■ Madura Mission. Rev. William Tracy, D. D. Mrs. Emily F. Tracy.. Mrs. Martha S. Taylor, . Rev. John Rendall, , . . Rev. James Herripk, . . . Mrs. Elizabeth H. Herrick Rev. John E. Chandler, . Mrs. Charlotte H. Chandler, Rev. Thomas S. Burnell, Mrs. Martha Burnell, . . Rev. Joseph T. Noyes, Mrs. Elizabeth A. Noyes, Rev. W. B. Capron, ... Mrs. Sarah B. Capron, . Rev. Edward Chester, . . Mrs. Hophia Chester, . . Rev. George T. Washburn, Mrs. Elizabeth E. \Yashburn Mrs. Charlotte E. Penfield, Miss Rosella A. Smith, . . 1836. 1S44, 1845 1845 1845 184.? 184.? 1848 1848 18 " i8 iSs6 1856. 1858 1858, i860, i860, 1866, 1866, Tirupuvanam. Mandapasalai. Battalagundu. Tirumangalara. Madura. Meliir. Kambam. Mana Madura. Dindigul. Pasumalai. Tirupuvanam. Pasumalai. 228 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. Missionaries. Miss Martha S. Taylor, Miss Sarah Pollock, . . H. K. Palmer, M. D., . Mrs. Flora D. Palmer, Miss Mary E. Rendall, Rev. Levi Spaulding, D. D Mrs. Mary C. Spaulding, Miss Eliza Agnew, . . . Rev. J. C. Smith, .... Mrs. Mary S. Smith, . . Rev. William W. Hdwiand Mrs. Susan R. Howland, Rev. Eurotas P. Hastings, Mrs. Anna Hastings, . . Samuel F. Green, M. D., Mrs. Margaret W. Green, . Miss Harriet E. Towhshend, Rev. William E. De Riemer, Mrs. Emily F. De Riemer, Miss Hester A. Hillis, . . Mrs. Caroline Z. Sanders, Rev. Thomas S. Smith, . Mrs. Emily M. Smith, . . Went out Station. 1867. . . Mandapasalai 1867. . . Mandapasalai 1868. . . Madura. 1868. 1870. . . Battalagundu. ISSION. i§i9. . . Oodooville. 1819. 1839. . . Oodooville. 1842, . . Oodoopitty. 1837- 1845- . . Tillipally. 1845. 1846. . . Manepy. 1846. I847-- • . Manepy. 1862. 1867. . .' Oodoopitty. 1868. . . Batticotta. 1868. 1870. . . Batticotta. 1871. . . Batticotta. ' 1871. . . Oodoopitty. I87I FoocHow Mission. Rev. L. B. Peet, . . . Mrs. H. L. Peet, . . . Rev. C. C. Baldwin, . Mrs. Harriet F. Baldwin Rev. Charles Hartwell, Mrs. Lucy E. Hartwell, Rev. Simeon F. Woodin Mrs. Sarah L. Woodin, Miss Adelia M. Payson, D. W. Osgood, M. D., . Mrs. Helen W. Osgood, 'f39- • 1858. 1847. . 1847. 1852. . 1852. 1859. . 1859. 1868. . 1869. . 1869.- Nantai. Nantai. Foochow. Foochow. Nantai. Foochow. Mission to North China. Rev. Henry Blodget, ..... 1854. . . Peking. Mrs. Sarah F. R. Blodget, . . . 1854. Rev. C A. Stanley 1862. . . Tientsin. APPENDIX. 229 Missionaries. Went out. Mrs. Ursula Stanley, 1862. Rev. Lyman D. Chapln, .... 1862. Mrs. Clara L. Chapin, .... i8s2. Rev. Chauncey Goodrich, . . . 1865. Mrs. Abbie A. Goodrich, . . . 1861;. Rev. John T. Gulick 1864. Mrs. Emily Gulick, 1864. Rev. Mark Williams, 1866. Mrs. Isabella B. Williams, . . . 1866. Alfred O. Treat, M. D., . . . . 1867. Phinea.s R. Hunt, 1868. Mrs. Abigail N. Hunt 1868. Miss M. E. Andrews 1868. Miss Mary H. Porter, 1868. Rev. Thomas W. Thompson, . 1868. Rev. Chester Holcombe, . . . 1869, Mrs. Olive K. Holcombe, . . . 1869. Rev. Devello Z. Sheffield, . . . 1869. Mrs. Eleanor W. Sheffield, . . 1869. Miss Mary A. Thompson, . . . 1869. Miss Naomi Diament 1870. Rev. Isaac Pierson, 1870. Miss Jennie E. Chapin 1871. Station. Tungcho. Ya-cho. Kalgan. Kalgan. YU-cho. Peking. Tungcho. Peking. Kalgan. Peking. Tungcho. Peking. Kalgan. YQ-cho. Tungcho. Japan Mission. Rev. V. C. Greene, 1870. . . Kobe. Mrs. Mary J. Greene 1870. Rev. O. H. Gulick 1870. . . Kobe. Mrs. Ann E. Gulick, 1870. Rev. J. D. Davis 1871. . . Kobe. Mrs. Sophia D. Davis, .... 1871. J. C. Berry, M. D 1872. Mrs. Maria G. Berry, 1872. Micronesia. Rev. Benjamiti G. Snow, Mrs. Lydia V. Snow, . . Rev. Albert A. Sturges, . Mrs. Susan M. Sturges, . Rev. E. T. Doane, . . . Mrs. Clara H. S. Doane, Rev. Hiram Bingham, Jr. Mrs. Minerva C. Bingham, Rev. Joel F. Whitney, . . Mrs. Louisa M. Whitney, 1851. 1851. 1852. 1852. 1854. 1S54. 1856. 1856. 1871. 1871. Ebon. Ponape. Ponape. Apaiang. Ebon. 230 SKETCHES OP THE MISSIONS. North American Indians. Missionaries. Went out. Stations. Rev. S. R. Riggs, 1837. Rev. Alfred L. Riggs, 1870. Mrs. Mary B. Riggs, 1870. Mr. Wyllys K. Morris, .... 1870. Mrs. Martha Riggs Morris, . . 1870. Rev. Thomas L. Riggs 1872. Mission to Spain. Rev. Luther H. Gulick, .... 1871. Mrs. Louisa L. Gulick, .... 1871. Mr. William H. Gulick, .... 1871. Mrs. Alice W. Gulick 1871. Missionaries Resident at the Hawaiian Islands. Mrs. Lucy G. Thurston 1819. Mrs. Mercy P. Whitney, . . . . 1819. Rev. Ephraim W. Clark, . . . 1827. Mrs. Helen S. Clark. Mrs. Maria P. Chamberlain, . . 1827. Mrs. Maria Ogden, ...... 1827. Rev. Dwight Baldwin, M. D., . 1830. Mrs. Charlotte F. Baldwin. Rev. Lorenzo Lyons, 1831. Mrs. Lucretia G. Lyons. Rev. David B. Lyman, .... 1831. Mrs. Sarah B. Lyman. Rev. William P. Alexander, . . 1831. Mrs. Mary Ann Alexander. Mr?. Ursula S. Emerson, . . . 1831. Mrs. Rebecca H. Hitchcock, . . 1831. 'Rev. Lowell Smith, D. D., . . 1832. Mrs. Abba W. Smith. Rev. Benjamin W. Parker, . . 1832. Mrs. Mary E. Parker. Rev. Titus Coan, 1833. Mrs. Fidelia C. Coan. Mrs. Lois S. Johnson, ..... 1836. Rev. Elias Bond, 1841. Mrs. Ellen M. Bond. Rev. J. D. Paris, 1841. Mrs. Mary C. Paris. Honolulu. Waimea, Kauai. Honolulu. Honolulu. Honolulu. Lahaina. Waimea. Hilo. Wailuku. Waialua. Honolulu. Honolulu. Honolulu. Hilo. Waioli. Kohala. South Kona. APPENDIX. 231 MlssiadAHiss. - Went out. Rev. Daniel Dole, 1841. Mrs. Charlotte C. Dole. Rev, James W. Smith, M. D., . 1842. Mrs. Melicent K. Smith. Rev. John F. Pogue, 1844. Mrs. Maria K. Pogue. - Station. Koloa. Koloa. Honolulu. 232 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 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