HISTORICAL SKETCH MISSIONS OF THE AMERICAN BOARD TURKEY. BT Rev. S. C. BARTLETT, D. D. BOSTON: PUBLISHED BY THE BOARD, 1 Somerset Stkeet. 1878. BARTLETT'S SKETCHES. Missioisrs iisr 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 with 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 ] 2 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. to be in Turkey. They are a noble race, and have been called " the Anglo-Saxons of the East." They are 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 Eo- man Catholic or Greek church, strongly resembling them in deaduess and formalism. Its head is the Catholicos. 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 practice with which the church is MISSIONS IN TURKEY. 3 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 and 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 Parsons, on his first visit to Jerusalem, in 1821, encountered some Armenian pilgrims, whose interesting conversation drew from him the suggestion of a iTiission to Armenia itself. " We shall rejoice," said they, " and all will rejoice when they arrive." Mr. Fisk 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 copies of the Scriptures in the ancient Armenian 4 SKETCHES OF 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 Papist. This letter, translated by Bishop Dionysius, and forwarded in manu- script to certain prominent Armenians in Constantinople, 'produced an extraordinary effect. 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, Pratt, Wheeler, 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. 5 sommendatioQ 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, Ar- 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 profound, 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 6 SKETCHES or 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 hands 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. 7 to crusli the higli 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 bis broken army, was suddenly forced 8 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. to call on the Patriarchs for several thousand recruits. Then came the Titter 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 Turkish 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 streets 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 ambassador declared 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 TUEKET. 9 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 by scenes of shocking violence in 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 proti-acted 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 Ist 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 Romish 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 H 10 SKETCHES OF 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 months 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 and 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 Cesarea, 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 TOEKET. 11 rising interest, in tours for preaching, conversing, and distributing religious treatises. Messrs. Powers, Jolm- ston, Van Lennep, Smith, Peabody, Schneider, Goodell, Everett, Benjamin, pushed forth to Aintab, Aleppo, Broosa, Harpoot, Sivas, Diarbekir, Ai-abkir, Cesarea, and various other places, through the empire. They soon fouiKl that they were in the midst of one of the most extraordinary religious movements of modern times, silent, and 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 th& 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 12 SKETCHES OP THE MISSIONS. a demand for their books as the press at Smyrna was nnable fully to supply. In many places, as at Nieomedia, 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 great distances, and from all quarters, as far as Alexandria, St. Petersburg, and 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, the 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 Nieomedia 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 m TURKET. 13 was expelled from Aintab by the governor, and stoned out of town by Armenian school-boys and teachers, 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 Christian 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 turned 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 years 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. 14 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. The Crimean war for three or four years agitated tl.e uatiou and the nations. But the spiritual reformatioa 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 coidd 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, llu- manly speaking, it seemed as though with a sufficient missionary force the Armenian element of Turkey could have been can-ied 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 ref- 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 ; Ind 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 not distant when there MISSIONS IN TURKEY. 15 should be three missions, instead of one, iu Asiatic Turkey. Indeed, Mr. Dunmore 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 Tui'key. 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. Dwiglit 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 again, ■ — 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. Tlie main feature of interest became that of sure but gradual growths 16 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. The Western Turkey mission-field covers a region of singular bistoric 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 a^feet^ng 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 Nicaja, 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 Eussian 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. Nicomedia, 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 XDRKET. 17 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-iive 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 Eoman governors, the place where "the disciples were first called Christians;" Aleppo, which succeeded Pal- myra 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. SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. With eight thousand registered Protestants. A theologi- cal seminary, with thirtj-sevea 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 ; eio-ht thousand registered Protestants; nineteen pastors a°nd preachers ; an Evangelical Union, courageous enough to plan a Christian college, and to gain pledges fromlheir own churches of nine thousand dollars for the purpose ; a strong sta£f of lady missionaries working most hopefully among their sex ; and a general diffusion of light among both Armenians and Mohammedans, which no flo-ures 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 stoned out of town to the time when it has become the seat of two self-supportino- churches, with native pastors and near five hundred memt bers, surrounded by a cluster of thirteen out-stations, contammg nearly four hundred more church members would require a volume. _ The whole course and workin<^ 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 " Piembers admitted to the churches during the last year are but the few drops before the shower. MISSIONS IN TUKKET. 19 The Eastern Turkey mission deserves special mention for 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 vigor- 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, after two years, by Mr. H. N. Barnum and his wife. The region committed to them was somewhat larger than Massa- chusetts, containing twenty-five hundred villages, and 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, 20 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 salary 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 stru<.<.le and often bitter opposition. It took seven years to brin^ 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 tor 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, the 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 Mhief 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 TUEKET. 21 little church in his village. Another Bible, sold by him, gathered an audience of thirty men and women at Na- jaran, forty miles away, to hear the Bible read and ex- plained. In another instance, a colporteur, spending the night 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 was 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 22 SKETCHES OF 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 missionary work. The community of Harpoot had thirty-five mem- bers thus engaged at one time. They are also prosecutin- 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- sacrificmg, 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, infusinc. 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 mto these churches, that, in 1865, they organized themselves into an " Evangelical Union," with a thorou