Mrs. MARY S. ROBINSON 23 42 ^Oarat Aktei ^ * /\ ^v' \%i Evosten.dll'' >rexioyo_ HonstcKoiik: o BaJJboujuxrS Kenurnhxr Eski Dl\p\nru °Koz.loiia| Kaspetchan CD fp/ara Za^ora ?chirpaTi , Sliven Kamoba iAitos iJam"boT. ^ I A ^^^^ ^ N . ^ Tit 5 ^' v.. NTtt-#~r1k r»4— 'X A. / BULGARIA Past, Present and Prospective CONSIDERED WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO ITS AMERICAN MISSION STATIONS BY Mrs. MARY S. ROBINSON WITH PUBLISHED BY THE SELF-SUPPORTING LITERATURE DEPARTMENT OF THE Methodist Episcopal Church 150 Fifth Avenue, - - New York BULOARI A THE COUNTRY. BULGAEIA proper consists of a table-land slop- ing from the Balkan range to the Danube, but varied in its surface. Southern Bulgaria, Bulgaria south of the Balkans, is part of the great Thracian Plain, which stretches from the southern wall of the Balkans to the Egean and Marmora Seas. United Bulgaria is remarkable for the dis- tinctness of its boundaries. On the north the Danube runs, a clear, wide line, from the Timok river to the sea. East, that sea, the Black or Pon- tus, laves the shore of the entire length of the principality. South, the Sakhar Planina (Range), ■and the Despoto Dagh, or Ehodope, form a wall of separation from Turkey; while westward the Stara, including the Vrantanitza Planina, forms an equally defined wall against Servia. In addition, the great Hsemus or Balkan range divides the country in halves. Inclosed and defended thus by the waters and the mountains, this Switzerland of Eastern Europe receives from nature its prerogative of free- dom. 4 BULGARIA. Its area is 87,860 square miles. Its natural feature best known to tlie outside world is the Balkans, the Stara Planina, or Ancient Kange, a chain of some tliree hundred to three hundred and fifty miles in an air line, running east and west; a continuation of the Banat Carpa- thians. The range is subdivided into twenty-one or more fractional Balkans, whose names, as a rule, are derived from the principal town in or near the division so named— as Ciparorvica Planina, Berkovica Planina, etc. The range is crossed by thirty passes. The average height of the summits is 4,900 feet; the highest altitude 6,990 feet. On the north side, the rise, generally speaking, is gradual from the Danube plain. Many of the sum- mits are cupola shaped and covered with verdure; but those of the Central Balkans are Alpine, sharp, sky-cleaving "teeth" and "needles"— Alpine, too, in their solitary grandeur, their sublime scenery. The chain is believed to be the result of a "dis- location," an upheaval specially defined by the southern steeps. At the base of the south wall are numerous thermal springs and varied volcanic mat-' ter. The North and West Balkans are composed of lime and sandstone, and are precipitous on both sides, while the Central Balkans are bald and bare as a nutshell. Of the primeval forest, here and there some stretches remain; but deforesting has been a feature of the Turkish occupation, and most of the forests are of secondary growth. Many of these bear evidences of destruction; for the wandering TBE COUNTRY. 5 herdsmen are prone to burn the trees to procure temporary warmth, and let the fire spread with in- difference. Their goats also by the thousand de- vour the young shoots, and so prevent the forest growth. Yet in certain districts large areas of noble oaks, beeches and conifers deck the slopes; and the primeval growth is not entirely obliterated. Parallel with the northwest Balkan Chain, on the northern side, is a second limestone range, channeled by the Lom, the Ogust, and other streams descended from the Balkan heights. This wooded parallel range, a part of the Stolovoi system of Servia, retains the name Stolovoi (chair). Be- tween it and the main range is a singular rock country, in which enormous masses of dark red sandstone are carved by oxydation and other pro- cesses into an almost infinite variety of forms, six hundred and more feet in height — a rock world of alleys and groups ; a petrified city filled with castles, towers, houses, bridges, obelisks, ships, colossi, human and of the lower orders; a wondrous assem- blage, such as no other range of the globe can ex- hibit. Some of the resemblances as given in the sketches made by the learned German, F. Kanitz, surpass belief. Portions of the natural ramparts and turrets are incorporated into the artificial ones of the town Belgradcik. Near this region, in the Vratinitza or Vracanska Planina, lies Vraca, one of the trade and manufacturing centers of the country. The west division of the Balkans, the Stara Planina, par eminence, runs southeast to the great 6 BULGARIA. defile, some ten miles wide, of the Isker range. The range may be traced into Servia, but in Bulgaria begins properly with the mountain Ivanova Livada (Ivan's Meadow), the first of the Sveti or Saint Nicola Balkans. In the pass of the same name, a few miles below the Livada, a cross to Saint Nicola is said to have been reared in some period gone by; whence the name of pass and range. From Tri Cuki, a neighboring mountain, is seen one of those far-reaching, splendid panoramas for which the Balkans are famous. To the north lie Pirot, Ber- kovica, Belgrade, with the cities of the Danube, Vidin, Arcer, Oreshova, and the broad river itself; to the south Sofia, Vitosh, with his projecting range, and the iron city, Samakov. Southeast stretches the Berkovica Planina, one of whose bald summits rises six thousand feet. Four block houses guard this pass, through which runs the road from Berko- vica to Sofia, a part of the highway from Belgrade to Constantinople. Crossing the Isker defile we reach the Central, the heart of the southern slope, in a fruitful, popu- lous valley. From the ravines of this portion of the range flow the sources of the river Yid : here too is the Sopolska, or Trojanska Planina, rough and rude of surface, but bearing copper and silver within. At the openings of the deep valleys lie towns and villages. In the heart of the Kalofer Planina spring two sum- mits clad in perpetual snow — the Mara Geduk, 6,990 feet — the highest point between the Adriatic and the Pontus; and the Kadmilia, nearly as high, THE COUNTRY. 7 whose precise altitude is as yet unknown. To the south of the Mara Geduk runs the Rosalita, the highest of the Balkan passes. Kadmilia is the northern boundary of the rose gardens and vineyards of Kazanlyk, one of the beautiful regions of the world; the Cachmere, the Gulistan of Europe. Further east are the village and Pass of Shipka, the latter the most important of the passes, by whose roadway the valley of the Tundza is connected with that of the Jantra. From the Shipka to the Sliven P length of above twenty-two miles, stretches the typical Balkan range, mountains of granite and gneiss, valleys rarely trodden by human feet, ravines secluded from hu- man eyes, regions known only to the Haiduts, the free lancers of the Captivity. The scenery is of the wildest ; the whole region untamable. Every mountain, ravine and brook is the theme of some portion of the recited or chanted popular literature. Human life can exist here only in summer. The voivode haidut, Panajot Hitov, has written how it fares with one here in winter: "The wind roared in fury, the snow shone almost blinding white, the air was full of the sound of torrents ; wolves howled in the ravines, some winter birds circled aloft. Nothing else was seen or heard. It was all but impossible to go forward or backward. From time to time we sank in the enow. Through the night we made hardly three hundred feet. The wind blew us about at its pleasure and threw us on one another." 8 BULGARIA. These titanic typical features are softened when we reach tlie Travna and Elena Planinas, whose slopes bear nuts, plums, pears, and from whose heights we see far toward the Danube, glowing rose gardens, vineyards and orchards, Bebrovo, Ga- brova, Plevna, the valleys of the Jantra and the Tundza, the ancient Car or czar city Tirnovo ; Phil- ippopolis, Adrianople, the Sakhar Planiua, the Rhodope, and below our feet, red roof tiles, showing bright amid the verdure; meadows, white houses em- bowered in orchards, rivers brilliant as silver gir- dles, all illuminated under the Bulgarian sun. Beyond the Pass of Demir Kapu, the iron gate, rises northeasterly the pophyry quartz Tcliatalka Planina steep from the plain, the summit a mass of desolated rock. Here the range diverges in three termini. The Kucuk (Little) Balkans run to the Great Kamchik river: the Central range termi- nates at the junction of that river with the Little Kamchik: and the lower, Matejska Planina, east of Sliven, separates the valley of the Little Kamchik from the Thracian Plain. Its last subdivision, the Emineh, ends in the promontory of the same name, whose foundations sink deep into the bed of the Black sea. These ranges bear forest and fruit trees, and are the haunt of bears, wolves, foxes, deer, hares. Three passes connect the parallel ranges. Along the coast of southern Bulgaria runs north- west, southeast, the limestone Strandza Planina, separated from the Balkans by a volcanic high- land, from wiiich spring numerous cone shaped hills, THE COUNTRY. g averaging two thousand one hundred feet, extending from the Tundza river to the sea. Landward the Strandza slope gently to the plain; seaward, the sides are precipitous. The Sakhar Planina, an isolated granite mass, wooded with oaks, commands an outlook over all the Thracian plain. Westward, beyond the Maritsa river, it meets the Kara or Black Balkans, the gran- ite spurs of the Rhodope. Eastward, beyond the Tundza defile, it approaches the spurs of the Strandza. Between the Sakhar Planina, the Rhodope, and the Strandza lies a portion of the Thracian plain, the abode of storks, eagles, daws and turtles. Parallel with the southern slope of the Balkan chain, extend- ing from Sofia to Sliven, from the sources of the Maritsa to Jambol, is a less elevated range, the much sung Sredna Gora, the Rumelian Middle Range, so called, the Turkish Karadja Dagh. The spurs of the western division, the lohtiman Planina, is the watershed between Southern Bulgaria and the basin of Sofia; between the tributaries of the Ma- ritsa and those of the Danube. Through the Ichti- man Pass runs the highway from Sofia and Belgrade to Adrianople and Constantinople. Two mountains dear to the undying national sentiment, and notable in the national history, are Vitosh, near Sofia, and Ryl, the latter giving rise to several of the sources of the Maritsa, the Struma, and the Isker. The two eminences are connected by the Verila Planina, whence stretch westward the Konjavo 10 BULGARIA. (Konia) Mountains, a region quite unknown to travelers or scholars of the West, till the opening o£ a Turkish railroad in 1872. From Vitosh extends westward the treeless plateau Golo Brdo; northward the Lilin (Lylun) Planina, which connects with the Servian range beyond the Morava and Nisava. In this labyrinth of mountains lie the basins of Eado- mir and Dupnitza, and the deep Isker valley. Here is the home of the Bulgarian tribe, the Sopin. Far up the mountain, from a stony, marshy plateau, rises a powerful rock pyramid, commanding a wide and wonderful view. "Tempe on high Olympus is entrancing, Yodena in Macedonia is magnificent, but the view from Vitosh surpasses either," writes a French traveler in the country. "Where else in the world can be had so varied, so extended a view from so easily an ascended summit?" In summer tem- pest clouds gather about the mountain's brow and break upon the plains beneath. When the snow cap is on that brow 'tis winter there, and tremendous hurricanes descend upon the regions below. East of the Eyl Planina, in a meadow bordered by the primeval forest and sheltered by lofty sum- mits, rise the ample buildings of the national shrine, the Old Bulgarian Eyl monastery; a pile commemorative of the patron saint of the nation, John of Eyl, who lived in the ninth century, and who spent many years in these solitudes with no ' other companions than the beasts of the forest, the gemsbocks and eagles of the heights. East, also, of the Planina runs a picturesque road from the THE COUNTRY. 11 monastery to Samakov, where the snow falls in Jjily. Along the road are twelve dark green and blue lakes, shut in by cliffs ; lakes with no outlet save an occasional rill, and resembling the "eyes of the sea," among the Tatra Carjjathians. "Waterfalls in forests of beech, pine and fir make music for the wayfarer. Near Ryl begins the Ehodope, or Despoto Dagh, the third of the three large ranges. Running northwest and southeast, it is the watershed of the Upper Maritsa, and of those other rivers which flow into the Egean. Its spurs jut far into the great plain. Its forests and pastures, its pyramids and pinnacles and snow fields lie opposite and often within sight of those of the Balkan range. In the Pass of Demir Kapu lies the town Cepina in a marshy cauldron-shaped valley inclosed by mountains, and interesting for its numerous spacious caves and warm springs. Near by is Lake Batak (Tresaviste), four and a half miles long and h ait a mile broad, surrounded by morasses in v/hich many unfortunate ones have perished. The lake is rich in fish, cranes, wild geese and other water fowl ; wolves, foxes and hares are found on its shores. According to tradition the whole district was once a lake, till by an earthquake the water was turned into the defile of the river, bearing with it a whale that was cast upon the plain Pesje Pole, the Dog Field, and eaten there by dogs. As in modern Greek, the word whale is charcharia, the northern region above Cepina is called Karkarija. At the base of Mount 12 BULGARIA. Karlyk, east of the Despoto Dagh runs the Stara Eeka, passing the town Batak, where the winters last eight months, and where the harvests seldom have favorable season for ripening. Above the sources of the Arda rises Mount Krusova (4,600 feet), which marks the junction of a side range, be- tween the Arda and the Maritsa — a range vine planted on the northern slopes and stretching to the suburbs of Adrianople. RIVERS. The Danube of Bulgaria is not the upper, the beautiful blue Danube, but the languid white stream, flowing from the Timok river to the sea. On the Wal- lachian bank it is bordered with marshy meadows, the haunt of waterfowl; but north of these somber stretches lie fields, gardens and other features of a smiling country. Widening from the Balkan slopes t'n*^ / S»«thward are uncounted lateral valleys and graded / uplands, sloping to rich pastures that stretch to the river bank. Twelve considerable rivers flow through this plain from their sources in the mountains to the Danube. The river basin between Shumla and Varna is one of the most fertile districts of the country. On the Bulgarian side, the river bank attains in places a height of one hundred and eighty feet. Cities and towns face each other from the two banks. Thus Kalaf at and Yidin, Turn and Nikopolis, Sim- nitsa and Sistova, Giurgevo and Euscuk, Oltenitsa and Turturkai, Karatos and Silistria, Vladen and RIVERS. 13 Hirsovo. The delta is marsh and morass, an area covered with reeds, intersected with water courses, and dotted with pools. Passing up the channel open for vessels, the traveler sees Ismail and Kilia, on the Bessarabian shore; fortresses famed in the Turko-Russ wars, and the scenes of great slaughter.* The Danube conveys to the sea a greater vol- ume of water than that of all the rivers of France combined. It holds in suspension an amount of solids that would cover an area of ten square miles to the depth of nine feet: a mass of sand and clay, deposited, for the most part, at the delta, and furnish- ing soil for the reed growth of that region. Of the tributaries of the river we mention the Ogust (Augustus), the Isker, the Osma, the Lom, the Jantra. The last rises near the Shipka Pass, flows through Gabrova, and in windings that turn upon themselves between steep banks, through the ancient city Tirnovo to its embouchure. The Dobrudscha, the northeastern corner of Bul- garia, is an elevated table land, a treeless steppe, furrowed with valleys, ravines and dry river beds, with no available quantity of surface water ; but with the use of oxen and rude machinery, water is raised from wells for the herds of cattle and smaller ani- mals that graze on the rich pastures. The name is traced to dohre (Slav, good) and tchia, of rich pas- ture; but it is more likely derived from Dobrotic, a *At the taking of Ismail by the Russian general, Suvaroff (1789), some thirty thousand Turks and ten thousand Russians were killed. 14 BULGARIA. Bulgarian prince, who ruled over the country in the fifteenth century. In the upper part, near Baba- dagh, rises the Sakar Bair, a wood-ed mountain group of 1,545 feet. Great numbers of nomad herdsmen rpve the steppe, some of whom come annually from Transylvania, above a hundred miles away. The villages and towns are few. Population largely Tartar, and along the coast a mingling of many nationalities. Into the Egean flows the Maritsa, one of the prominent, the national rivers, so to speak, of the country, flowing from its source in the Eyl Planina. It intersects the great and remarkably fertile plain which composes much of southern Bulgaria, and which is one of the three granaries of the continent. On the left bank of the river in the western por- tion of southern Bulgaria, lies the ancient Philippo- polis founded by Alexander of Macedon twenty-one hundred years ago, and built on three of seven granite hills in proximity to one another — the chief city of the southern region. It has two high schools, large solid structures, one for boys and one for girls, of which the citizens are justly proud. That for boys containing five hundred pupils of ages from ten to twenty-two years, cost nearly thirty thousand dollars, and is maintained at a yearly expense of about twenty-five thousand dollars. The course of instruction is practically free. The curriculum includes some studies usually pursued only in colleges, and a high grade of scholarship is maintained. There are also lower schools enough RIVERS. 15 to accommodate the greater proportion of the chil- dren of the city. Palatavo, a few miles above, is the head of navi- gation. Here boats, made of trees from Eyl and Ehodope, and laden with rice and grain, descend the river. The largest tributary of this latter is the Tundza, which rises in the Kalofer Balkans, flows eastward through the basin of Kazanlyk and south- ward past Sliven and Jambol. The Struma, not without an ancient fame as the Strymon, flows through fruitful and populous valleys, past several towns of importance, watering wide fields of maize and tobacco, and wihding past slopes covered with vineyards and orchards. At Demir Hissar it meets the wide fruitful coast plains of Seres, whose soil is a rich black mold, and flows into the sea not far from the ruins of the ancient Amphipolis. In former centuries, when the Bulgarian Cardom included the entire peninsula, the Vardar and other rivers of Macedonia, Lakes Prespa and Ochrida, with the city of the same name — in the tenth and eleventh centuries the capital of the realm — the rivers and mountains of Albania and Servia would have required some mention. Ethnographically these regions are still allied with the country* and contain a Bulgarian element in their population; for during the Turkish occupation not less than a million of the people of the conquered province emi- grated beyond her boundaries. — The country being pre-eminently an agricultural one has not many large cities and towns. Loftcha has a population of 3,000; 16 BULGARIA. OsDian Bazar and Bourgas, 5,000 eacli; Dupnitsa and Berkovica, 6,000 each; Kostendil and Jeni Bazar, 8,000 each; Nicopolis and Tartar Bazarjik, 12,482; Plevna, 14307; Tirnova, 15,000; Zagora, 16,039; Sofia .and Silistria, 20,000 each; Selimno, 20,893; Shumla, 23,161; Yraca, 25,256; Euscuk, 30,000; Philippopolis, 33,462. The country is full of anti- quities — tumuli of vanished races, ruins and relics of the Greco-Roman, Byzantine, and Bulgarian periods. HISTORY. The Bulgarian is one of the three oldest races in Europe: only the Letts and Finns of Northern Rus- sia, with whom it is allied, and the Letts of Livonia contesting a doubtful priority of migration from the common home in Asia north of the great Altai mountains, crossing the Ural boundaries some four centuries before the Christian era. The first hordes, later known by the national name, founded an "empire" along the shores of Azof and the north- western shores of the Black sea; an empire gov- erned by a shagran or native khan. In course of ^ time, being hedged about by the Kazars, a Turko- Finn- race, who had preceded them in the march of emigration, they divided their hordes near A. D., 650, under the several leaderships of the sons of the last chief of the previously united country. Asperich, the youngest, turned westward, and finally settled in Lower Moesia, an outlying province of the Roman Empire of the East. HISTORY. 17 Great Bulgary, the chosen home along the Volga of one of the emigrant hosts, was a strong, well-ordered state, containing a score or more of sizable commu- nities, whose dwellings and defenses were of wood. The people were peaceable, industrious, skilled in weaving, tanning and other domestic arts, at a period when their neighbors, the Euss-Slav tribes, later immigrants from upper Asia, were roving the woods and steppes, clad in the raw skins of beasts, Vv'hose bodies they had devoured, and whose plane of existence was hardly lower than that of those who had hunted and killed them. The hordes that crossed the Danube had also a fair degree of civili- zation. Soon in Moesia arose their capital, Pereias- lavl ; later arose Great Pereiaslavl ; and later still, Och- rida and Tii*nova. Blooming gardens and bountiful orchards covered the country. Churches, monas- teries, palaces were reared, structures of hewn stone, adorned in the interior with woods of varied hue, with ornaments of gold and silver, with marbles and mosaics. Prior to the hordes of Asperich, the Slavs had entered the province,' and as tillers of the soil had gained a foothold in it. For purposes of common defense the two races agreed to live in peace, the Slav continuing as the agriculturist, while the Bul- garian filled the army ranks and took his part in the oft-recurring wars against the legions of the Eoman Empire of the East. To the mingled nationality the former gave his language ; the latter gave his name and his khan. In this life of unity the nation 2 18 BULGARIA. went on increasing in strength for three and a half centuries, gathering to itself the arts that render a people self-sustaining and internally strong. More than once did its captains defeat those of the Roman legions. Many a bride was brought from Constan- tinople, Servia, or Hungary to grace the halls of Great Preslava and Tirnova, and many a daughter of the Bulgarian Cars, or, as we should say, Czars, was joined in marriage to a member of the regnant family of the Lower Empire. But the frequent wars waged with that empire, in coiirse of time sapped the strength of the young nation; and in 1019, after a struggle maintained through forty years, it succumbed to Basil II., surnamed Bulgar- oktonos, or slayer of the Bulgarians, and remained a province of his empire for a hundred and seventy years. At the end of that long period of captivity the yoke was broken by two brothers, John and Peter Asen, of Tirnova, who restored the ancient auton- omy and founded a dynasty of dignity and splendor, some of whose Cars bore rule over a realm bounded by the Black, the Egean, the Ionian seas: a Bulgar- Wallach empire, that at certain periods included the entire peninsula, with a large portion of Greece. This era was brought to a close partly by processes of internal decay, and more evidently by the aggressions of the Turks, who having crossed from Asia into Europe (1359) put to rout the allied Danubian armies on the field of Amsel, Kossovo pole, the field of Blackbirds, in 1389, and reduced all the Balkan countries to subjection to their Sultan. HISTORY. 19 This second captivity continued for nearly five hundred years: a severe discipline for an ancient, honorable, self-governing people. Nearly every vestige of their history was destroyed by the bar- barous conquerors. The archives of the capital, the manuscript treasures of the monasteries were burned by the wagon load or irrecoverably buried. The monasteries were converted into public baths, the churches into mosques. Of the Carevec, the citadel and seat of the palaces of Tirnova, scarce one stone was left on the other. The taxes were severe, the laborers reduced to the grade of serfs, were com- pelled to give a stated amount of labor to the spahis, the Turkish official. The National Church was given over to the prey of the Fanars — Greeks in the Government service, who bought and sold the dio- ceses to incumbents most unworthy of their place — - cooks, pipe-fillers, coffee-makers, and the like. The native priests were treated as menials; were put to grooming the horses and scouring the floors of their ecclesiastical masters. The very name of the coun- try was officially obliterated, and the despairing people were sunk 'so low, that they were scarcely considered worth the counting for the census of the empire. But from 1760, or near that year, onward occurred a widespread awakening of the peoples of the various nations. The schoolmaster and the missionary were abroad. Between 1804-56 Servia, Greece, Moldavia and Wallachia revolted and asserted each its independence. The other nation- 20 BULGARIA. alities of the peninsula caught the contagion of unrest, were aroused to a sense of the humiliation of their subjection, and entered on a period of tentative revolution. In 1762 Paisius, a Bulgarian monk of Mount Athos, wrote a popular history of the Bulgarian People, Cars, and Saints; a volume vivified with patriotism, and eagerly read by every literate native of the country. Schools were organized in Greece, Servia, Bulgaria, and in con- tiguous provinces. The merchants of Bulgaria, especially those who had made fortunes in Odessa, Bucharest and elsewhere, were to the front in this movement of reanimation, and made generous sacri- fices for the welfare ot their countrymen. One of them gave two hundred and fifty thousand dollars — an enormous sum in that part of the world — for the founding of a girls' school at Athens. In 1835, M. Aprilov, a wealthy citizen of Galirova, a town in the northern spurs of the Balkans, by a gift of thirty-five thousand dollars, increased by the bene- faction of a brother citizen, founded a high school for boys, the first of the kind in the country, and one of the best of its kind in any country. Eobert College, an American institution, was established near Constantinople in 1862. To it flocked youth from the various provinces of the Empire, Bulgarians among the others. William Goodell, a missionary of the American Board, had already begun (1831) the preaching of a pure gospel, for the first time in the city's history, in Constan- tinople ; an^ somewhat later Drs. Biggs and Long, HISTORY. 21 aided by Petko Slaveikoff, the leading Bulgarian litterateur, produced the Scriptures in the vernacular ; a timely benefaction awakening great interest, and in demand everywhere through the country. The Crimean War increased the ferment among the Bulgarian people. Russia for three centuries had been the friend of the Balkan Christian pi-inci- palities ; hence Bulgaria might expect relief, perhaps liberation, if the Russian arms were to prevail. But Great Britain also was friendly to the principalities; hence if the Allies should win, Bulgaria might look to the British for relief. The Hatti Humayan, an edict procured at the Treaty' of Paris, by Lord Strat- ford de Redliffe, gave an exemption from serfage to the peasants that the Porte was slow in acknowledg- ing. After persistent efforts, however, on the part of those concerned, the particular liberation was secured, but "with so much reluctance that it was hopeless to look for further concessions from the Sultan's government. The discontent and agitation increased till in 1876-7 occurred that series of atroci- ties which stirred to horror the civilized world, and occasioned the Russ-Turkish War, of which the final outcome was the erection of Northern Bulgaria into a virtually independent principality by the Treaty of Berlin in 1878. During the same period (1837-70) this people contended vigorously and persistently for the resto- ration and independence of their National Church. They succeeded in obtaining from the Sultan, over the head of the Greek patriarch, a firman granting 22 BULGARIA. that independence, and the appointment of an exarch, resident in Constantinople, in whose person was measurably restored the order of the ancient patri- archs. In both these struggles they had the friendly sympathy, sometimes the counsel and assistance of the missionaries and of other foreign Christians, resi- dents in Turkey. The hold, however, of the ancient church has no longer the strength it had in past centuries, on any class of the people. The educated class leans to rationalism, while the plain people keep tenaciously to their ancient customs, at the same time that they are open to a half recognized influence from the liberating forces that have helped in the work of their redemption. The government officials have shown no lack of ability in the conduct of affairs, but are deficient in stability of character. The country is as yet in leading-strings, and the leaders have much to learn. The effects of five hundred years of serfage are not shaken off in a day ; yet in every direction the people are making progress visible and measurable. CLIMATE AND PRODUCTS. This ancient, bountiful, beautiful country has the climate of the south temperate zone, with seasons wet and dry. In the mountains it varies with the altitude ; the highest lands being covered with snow eight months of the year, while lower down, malarial conditions prevail in certain areas on account of the imperfect land culture. The soil is of the richest, producing spontaneously most of the trees, fruits, CLIMA'TE AND PRODUCTS. 23 cereals and vegetables that grow in temperate zones, including some sub-tropical products. Roses, vine- yards, mulberry trees, tobacco, ilax, cotton, rice, honey, wax, tallow, skins, are among the staples. The forests abound in varieties of fruit trees, the cherry and the apricot among the rest. Over three hundred specimens of flora have been catalogued, including many aromatic shrubs and brilliant flowers of the plain and highland glen. The Danube levels are covered with wheat and maize. The river itself is known to the Turks as the foster-father of Constantinople; for the wheat and dairy products it bears to the sea are used at the sultan's table, and in former years portions of the richer land of the country were his personal pro- perty. The minerals are iron, copper, gold, coal, turf or peat; but as yet these resources are but par- tially developed. None the less the iron of Samakov and Kostendil supply Constantinople and much of the coasts of the Black Sea; and the wrought-iron pistol and musket barrels of Selimna are equal to the best made in the Turkish Empire. Saltpetre of good quality is produced at Philippopolis and elsewhere. The raising of live stock divides with soil-tilling the care of the people. Horses, cattle, buffaloes, sheep, goats, swine with the resultant hides, wool, horn, etc., have constituted one of their chief indus- tries for many centuries. The finer skins are in demand in the great capitals of the AVest. An enum- eration of some of the industrial centers will convey 24 BULGARIA. an idea of the natural resources of tlie country and of the diligent habits of those who occupy it. Ciporovica with neighboring towns, is a center for rugs or carpets: an industry that occupies hundreds of men, women and children, there and elsewhere. Berkovica is noted for its raw products, as are most of the other towns ; its skins for export, and its silk. Vraca, for lamb and kid skins, wax, honey, wine, cattle, leather fabrics and silk; but has its chief renown in its silver tilagree, which is noted beyond the boundaries of the principality. Other silk-producing towns are Chirpan, Kazanlyk, Tetevan, Zagora. Tetevan makes also the yellow aba or cavalry cloth, silk hosiery, fine wood carving, and sheig, a light woolen fabric in general use among the people; and does a considerable business in the sale of mountain trout. Trojan produces articles in brass and silver, sheig, cutlery, wood carving, and raki, a light brandy. Loftcha has tan- neries, peasant shoes, broidered garments, bakeries, silk, vineyards. Sevlijevo, admirable wood carving. The seven hundred spindles of Kalofer whirl from dawn to dusk, while its lace and other decorative work are in demand in the bazars of the cities. Gabrova turns out remarkable ciitlery, from small knives for ordinary purposes, up to the costliest jatagans — the curved blades or poignards in general use for personal defense throughout the Balkan regions. Kazanlik, a small city, is an entrepot for attar of roses and rose sweetmeats, and is embowered in orchards and vineyards. With these might be CHARACTER OF THE PEOPLE. 25 mentioned the church pictures of Travna ; the fine wool coverlets, and the manufactory of woolen clotli at Sliven; the silver reliefs, the tine cabinet work and saddlery of Ruscuk, and much else besides. Travelers agree that this people is pre-emineiitly the industrial, the artisan people of the peninsula. As gardeners and horticulturists its men are in demand throughout Eastern Europe and the further Orient. Those whose work is within the province of art show also a native perception of form and color, notable in their rugs, their carvings, their filagree, and paintings; products, whose merits were recog- nized at the Vienna Exposition some years ago, and whose designs are imitated in the establishments of Paris and London. Yet in these and his other arts, our Balkan friend is entirely self-taught; learning from designs that have been handed down from father to son, and suggested now and then from the designs of illuminated manuscripts discovered on a for- gotten shelf of the library of an ancient monastery. River and sea, not less than the earth, are boun- tiful, and all teem with animal life, utilised as yet but sparingly, but awaiting a day of expansion, of energy, and of fuller development of knowledge. CHARACTER OF THE PEOPLE. The Bulgarians are scattered over the peninsula to and beyond the boundaries of Greece, in Mace- donia, and Asia Minor. As a whole they number about five millions. The population of the princi- pality is about three and a half millions, consisting 26 BULGARIA. of a composite mingling of some fifteen nationalities. The original race number 2,326,250; next to them are the Turks, Greeks, Jews, Zinzars or Gypsies, Wallachs, other Slavs, Tartars, Eussians and Ger- mans. For the instruction of the young people the state has some four thousand elementary schools in which are gathered 129,777 boys and 42,200 girls; a total of 171,983. In addition are gymnasia, or high schools in all the larger towns, with numbers of intermediate, or grammar schools, for both sexes ; o iie or more technical schools, a university and a free library at Sofia; two agricultural colleges, one of them near Philippopolis ; a military school, a State Church theological seminary. These in addition to several Eoman Catholic institutions, those of the American Board and of the Methodist missions. Education is compulsory for a term of not less than four years. The State appropriation for its educa- tional system is four hundred thousand dollars : a high ratio as compared with the estimates for the other departments of the administration. Prior to the Eenaissance the proportion of illiteracy was eighty per cent. : it is at present not far from sixty per cent, and is continually decreasing. The boys school of Gabrova maintains a higli grade of scholarship: and the technical school of Kniajevo, near Sofia, where lads are trained to fine iron and wood work, to cabi- netry, carpentry, the use of improved agricultural implements, etc., is one of the best of any land. Reading circles and women's unions for plmwrwirn-bic CHARACTER OF THE PEOPLE. 27 mental entertainment are maintained in many places. The girls Lyce6 at Sofia, giving instruction to one hundred and fifty pupils from eleven to eighteen years of age, employs thirteen teachers, diplomSes, and has an extensive course of study. The public library of Sofia already referred to, contains fifteen thousand volumes, four thousand of which are in the English language: the remainder are in nine other languages. The Eeading Eoom of the library has upward of fourteen Bulgarian journals on its list.* The average countryman is mild, peaceable, industrious, frugal to parsimony, practicing the domestic virtues and loving domestic comforts ; not belligerent, but fighting sturdily when once aroused, and thoroughly tenacious. Inasmuch as down to 1857 he never had a pure Gospel, and has been but incompletely imbued with its spirit, he is devout as regards the rites and ceremonies of his religious system, but superstitious and ignorant — of the earth, earthy. He is prone to injure himself with strong drink and tobacco. The tendency of young Bulgaria is to shake himself loose from the old coil of subju- gation. He reads Spencer, Huxley, Darwin, is in a cocoon state of spiritual existence, and is by no means blind to the refining effects of the later Christianity in his own and other countries. He distrusts his immediate neighbors, especially the Russians and Austrians, and has a cautious eye upon foreigners generally. Bulgaria fara da se. *The statistics show that one young person in every five is under public or private instruction. 28 BULGARIA. At the same time he perceives that the Americans have no designs upon his country, and that they have sought his welfare with a disinterestedness to him as admirable as it is inexplicable. As long ago as 1860, Kanitz wrote that our beloved Dr. Long, one of the translators of the Bulgarian Bible, was known throughout the length and breadth of the land. With all these resources, with a substantial groundwork of firm character, with an enlarging freedom, a future of self-maintenance seems to be assured to this young, re-united principality. The Eenaissance preceded the Eevolution. In mental acquisition and activity, this people passed beyond its subjugators before it escaped from their shackles. "Educate! Educate!" cried up and down the laud the students returned from Eobert College and the universities of the West.- The literacy of every man, woman, and child is the aim of all such earnest students; the prospective intention of the collective people. It is but a few years ago that the country awoke from its death- slumber of five centuries: yet already it can show a goodly company of notable men. Kotel, Travna and other mountain towns have given, to the nation more than one son crowned with the laurel, haiduts or free lancers of the heights: among them Hitov, who is also a vigorous writer: revolu- tionary leaders and captains, one of whom, Kiriliki, is or was a general in the Eussian army ; martyrs and patriots such as Haidji Jordon Stoijko: patri- THE MISSIONS. 29 cians and benefactors sucli as Ivan Ducev, and Aprilof ; manufacturers like the brothers Papasoglu and Borcu who are large dealers in the attar of roses: editors, compilers, translators, literary men, historians such as Paisius and Drinov. Paisius' His- tory was the first of eight hundred books of per- manent value produced in the new era, issued at the rate of about fifty volumes a year, in addition to some fifty periodicals. Of teachers and ecclesiastics a number of names of prominence might be men- tioned; while among statesmen, or perhaps more properly politicians, there are at least eight who are adjudged by good authority to compare in executive ability with the men of similar profession of Great Britain. The missionaries of the American Board have stations in Southern Bulgaria and in Macedonia. For temporary reasons our own success has slightly fallen oif during the last year, but in accordance with the law of spiritual advancement it must soon pass beyond its previous attainment. The following par- tial tabulation of the condition of the work for 1894 ! conveys an idea of the present outlook. THE MISSIONS. AM. BOARD. M.E. CHUBCH 16 Stations Out stations Missionaries Pastors and preachers Teachers and helpers . Lady assistants 2 27 11 20 37 13 *24 10 5 'Approximate. 30 BULGARIA AM. BOARD. M. E. CHURCH. 743 123 21 21 *750,000 t466,000 Theological Seminary and Literary In- 1 1 7 28 ■ 2 2 13 55 Total young persons under instruction including Sunday-school scholars.. 1,991 470 26 Appropriations for 1894 112,658 $21,115 Contributions from Bulgarians for self supporfand Church benevolences. . $3,683.19 $1,018.11 In direct religious success tlie Methodist mission is not one of those at tlie front in our world girdled enterprises; but educationally and politically it is a force in the country; and it is well for those inter- ested in the re-Christianising of Bulgaria to keep this prominence in view, in their estimate of its prospec- tive value. For it would seem to be a consideration worthy of remembrance that a good portion of $38,475 annually transmuted into printing presses, model homes, churches, schools, the remainder of the sum paying for an effective personnel, imparting itself socially, pedagogically, from the pulpit and from the press, constitutes elements of usefulness by no means to be ignored from those which go to the ujjbuilding of a " little state " some three thousand miles smaller than our State of Ohio. In addition the work of the two other stations of the European *Approximate. finclusive of 4,000 vols. THE MISSIONS. 31 Turkey Mission, also of the Eastern, Western, and Central Turkey Missions of the American Board, reaches hundreds of Bulgarians both within and beyond the bounds of their country. Our mission, the only evangelizing force of the peninsula north of the Balkans, a force to be used, as has been hoped, for the future' religious welfare of the ten nationalities, mostly Yougo or Southern Slav, of the region, has been more than once threatened with suppression by those who looked for quick and commensurate results, and to whom the obstacles in the way of the undertaking were difS- cult to -understand. Yet the causes of the slow growth, in this case, are not far to seek. For above a thousand years this people have given their alle- giance to that form of the Eastern, which was ac- cepted as their national Church; and they are a peo- ple averse, slow to change. With a creed containing some of the pure truth of the Christian system, though much obscured by the overlaid traditions of cen- turies, the Bulgarians, like the Eomanists elsewhere, show the example of the difficulty of invading the venerable corrupted old, with the fresh, the vitalized new. Their re-established Church links them again to the ancient, the honorable past; to the glorious reigns of Simeon, of the Asens, of Kalo-John. The plain people know little of Protestantism, save that it is the religion of the English consuls, who are in the country purely for political purposes; and as from foreigners have come, as they think, all their privations and sufferings, a Protestant to them is 32 BULGARIA. what a Turk ■would be to us, if the Turkish govern- ment were an overshadowing power, waiting its opportunity to engulf us, as a boa engulfs a rabbit. jReligious toleration, it is true, is enjoined by the constitution of the principality; but the standard of thought and feeling is as yet far below the plane of that ideal document. All the political officials are exjDBcted to be, nominally at least, adherents of the National Church. All the national schools hold with that church, notwithstanding that not a few of the teachers have religious tendencies quite apart from it. No place in edizcational nor in administra- tive departments is open to a person, however well qualified, who has not studied in a national school or college. The hierarchy, from the exarch down to the obscurest priest, avails itself of the prerogative of the national sentiment, and has exerted to the utmost its power and that of the State against our modest Methodist mission. In the year 1889 the exarch directed all authorities, ecclesiastical and civil, to take measures against the spread of Protestantism in the principality. The bishops instructed the priests to watch and prevent the distribution of tracts, and to report every attempt at proselytism. The Minister of Education pro- hibited the employment of any not native Bul- garian in any private school; a prohibition .directed specially against the two American mis- sionary teachers. The Minister of Justice forbade the circulation of Bibles in prisons. The Minister of War forbade the distribution of any religious THE MISSIONS. 33 literature among the soldiers. The Minister of Public "Worship closed all public services in places where they were not "recognized" according to his construction of tlie word. The Minister of Finance imposed an oppressive interpretation of the tax law, by means of which payments were demanded for the five immediately preceding years. A number of priests, monks and scholars published books exposing "the evil work of the mission " and the iniquities of Protestant civilization. It was urged that there must be but one Church in one undivided State. The young patriotic party was warned that Protestantism would antagonize their plans for the welfare of the country. The pupils of the public schools were for- bidden to attend the mission services. Some youths of Tirnova who disregarded this prohibition, and experienced a spiritual change, were expelled from the High School, on the charge of " religious moral depravity." In the same period, by order of the government, the mission school at Sistof was closed, the teachers were taken forcibly to jail, and the missionaries were treated with contumely. Two priests acknowledged the purity of effort, the good influences of the mem- bers of the mission. One of them was driven from the village at the instance of the civil authorities, who were incited by the bishop,' and forbidden to return; nor was an appeal to superiors, nor even to the prince of avail. The villagers had been disposed to think with their priest, but were cowed into submission. He cast in his lot with our 3 34 BULGARIA. people, and it' is. grateful to add that, later, he was sent for again, by certain of his former flock, to bring them the books "about Jesus," which they received with appreciation and gratitude. At an earlier year, when Dr. Long and Mr. Flocken were at Euscuk, new-comers, the citizens of that place, acting along lines suggested by their compatriots in Constantinople, took every measure possible to dis- parage these excellent men, and to thwart their purpose. Young men who had attended the meet- ings conducted by them were summoned, admonished and threatened, so that the greater number were intimidated and kept away. The people generally, throughout the country, long servile under the Turk, and equally timid under the authority of their own administrators, feared to give countenance to " the Protestants ;" and he who was loudest in abuse of them, was likely to stand highest in the estimation of his fellows. In addition the condition of the country has been unpropitious. Political disturbances have absorbed public attention. The government has been autocratic, conspiracies have been rife. Any social meeting was liable to be apprehended as a gathering of suspicious characters. At some sta- tions the evening meetings were suspended because of the danger of being out after dark. In the mountain regions brigands were abroad, capturing persons whom they tortured and murdered if a ransom was not paid within a given date. In the massacre of 1878 Brother Naiden Voinoff, a native preacher. THE MISSIONS. 35 with six of his members — about all the germinant society — was murdered. Brother Nicolof Todor, a potter of Loftscha, who had suffered much for his Master, lost his parents and fiye other near kindred in the same massacre. He died soon afterward, leaving two delicate daughters with no protector save Him, who protects His beloved, even when He calls them to endure the extreme of tribulation. Another native preacher, beaten and stoned, was per- manently injured, and, though still alive, is disabled for all time to come. The group of Methodists at Sistova endured prolonged persecution. At Loftscha a Methodist was publicly rebuked by the diocesan bishop for abstaining from Sunday labor; and our school building at that place was in peril of demolition, by order of the same prelate. Bishops have instituted boycotts and priests have threatened beatings. One convert died in circumstances that indicated his murder. The wife and child of another were taken from him. They would be restored if he would renounce his conversion. This he refused to do, and his wife was given to another man. Demeter Ivanoff of Orchania, a colporteur, was hooted at, stoned, endured hunger and cold ; but unmoved, he continued to urge upon the people copies of the Testament and of the Psalms, bore all affronts without retort, and in time was sent for to bring particular books that should tell the new story of Him whose abode is within the contrite purified hearts of his earth-born brethren. The shadow of the captivity is but gradually 36 BULGARIA. lifted from the land. The moral character, generally speaking, is in the first phase, the beginnings of reconstruction. The Eonmanians across the Danube, and occupying many villages of Bulgaria proper, have scarce any perception of some virtues and pro- prieties; and the generality of Bulgarians are little if any in advance of these, their northern neighbors. Especially are they indifferent to the reception of moral and spiritual truth. With their settled, stolid nature, they give themselves no concern about such things; with their oxen and buffaloes, their goats and sheep, why should they trouble their heads about other affairs ? The new business of voting, of office seeking, of keeping an eye out for the opportune party, is more than enough to absorb their newly awakened intelligence, and to demand the attention of their lately aroused faculties. Nominally a Chris- tian nation, the people know and care to know nothing about the perception of things invisible which transforms the inward and outward life. A priest who had become impressed with "the new doctrine" talked with Dr. Long with deep feeling on the status of his people. "They know noth- ing of heart religion. I am a poor ignorant man. What can I do? If I tell them they must pray they say: 'We are not priests; 'tis your business to do the praying.' I went to the ekonomon (superior priest), and asked him for a Bible. He answered: 'What do you want with a Bible? 'Tis no book for you.' Yet I cannot see why I should not read it." When Charles Wesley was summoned THE MISSIONS. 37 before a bishop to be reprimanded, he said: "No marvel that the dumb ass spoke to rebuke the folly of the prophet." And certain of the young Bulga- rian Christians have had to reply to their ecclesi- astical overlords with something of the same man- liness of spirit. The superstition of this long-degraded, much- tried people colors their whole existence. In addi- tion to the legends, the saint and image worship, the puerile wonders of their church, they have never relinquished the system of their ancient mythology. The woods are still full of youdas and samovilas ; nereids float in all the water sources ; naretchnitzas, or Fates, decide the destiny of new-born children. The vampire emerges from the grave. Dragons and lamias hover in the air and ride on the wines of the storm. Every house has its domestic spook. Pressed between the upper and the nether millstone of these two effete systems, what scant room is left in heart or mind for the expansive, illuminating instruction of genuine spiritual truth? "When a Bulgarian will tolerate a Protestant prayer in his house he has overcome about the last vestige of prejudice," writes Superintendent Challis in 1885. "He has a childish terror at seeing a person pray with closed eyes." To accommodate one's-self to such understandings one must truly have an open vision! More than this, it seemed likely, in the earlier period, that the missionaries might have to invent a new vocabulary for things religious, so perverted had become much of the nomenclature of the Gos- 38 BULGARIA. pel scheme. Faith, to the Bulgarian mind, meant simply assent to the creed of the Eastern Church. Repentance convej^ed substantially the Koman Catn- olic conception of penance. Regeneration was a change that occurred at baptism; and as this cere- mony is always performed upon infants, the change is believed to occur, as by miracle, at that period. The missionaries had to re-teach the very rudiments of the Christian system. Yet even amid such adverse conditions, the Divine Spirit remains quick and powerful to manifest itself with those who fear the Father of all, and cherish the instinct of right- eousness. A venerable Sheikh, chief over a dervish monastery at Tirnova, saw Dr. Long pass one day, called him in, and greeted him in a friendly manner. "He had heard of me and wished to make my acquaintance. I told him frankly that I had not called upon him because I had not known whether I should be welcome, but that hereafter I should cer- tainly avail myself of the privilege. We had a long conversation. ' I am not concerned whether a man wears turban, fez or hat,' said my friend, ' I only wish to know his heart; whether it is like mine; whether he loves God. I do not ask whether he prays in the name of the holy prophet Mohammed (may his name be praised!), or in the name of the holy prophet Jesus (may His name be praised!), I only ask, does he know God — not merely believe in Him, but know Him. Does God dwell in his heart? I am going to Constantinople; am burdened with years and may never return. Therefore I have THE MISSIONS. 39 visited the churches of the city and in eacli church I have prayed that God would turn the people from their errors.' When I took leave he held my hand affectionately and said with solemnitjr, pointing upward: ' We may not meet again here on earth, but in another place I shall see you. In the great and final day of God we shall meet again. May we both live -as they live who see the eye of God above them ; may we spend eternity together in His presence.' " Even to a dervish the all-compassionate Father is not an unknown Deity. ^ In harmony with the general aspiration for edu- cation, the colporteurs and other distributors of relig- ious literature have had a success that ought to appease the impatience of the most peremptory critic. Dr. Long who has devoted himself from the beginning to the creating of a Christian literature, visited a school early in his career, taught by a Bulgarian lady, where all the text-books were "American" translations. A child read to him a lesson from the book latest received, the Dairyman's Daughter, ren- dered into the native language by the listener him- self. With a large number of tracts and other small works, with two editions of Pilgrim's Progress, with Stalker's Life of Christ, Lives of Huss and of Wes- ley, the Methodist Discipline and Catechism, a Church history, one or more of Drummond's bro- chures and several of the Chautauqua text-books, a useful, practical collection for dissemination has been formed. From four hundred thousand to seven hundred thousand printed pages, much of it in book 40 BULGARIA. form, liave been scattered abroad yearly through the thirty-one years of the active life of the mission. The chief work of the native helpers has been this of colportage. In the three months vacation, the students of the seminary have gone out in couples, eight and nine at a time, scattering broadcast these leaves of healing, and supplementing them with instruction and exhortation. They have returned from these journeys with joy, for many of the com- mon people had received them gladly and even some priests had been curious to examine their wares. Here and there, where a priest opposed them, they have had a seasonable word of reply. " Take this Testa- ment. Examine it for yourselves and see whether it contains aught contrary to the teachings of the Church. Enlighten yourself before you judge. Did not our blessed saints Konstantine and Kyril labor by day and by night to give. us' this same Gos- pel, in what was our native language, at the time in which they wrought? What did the monks in the monasteries of the blessed Naum and Savva, a thou- sand years ago, but write out for our ancestors these same evangels?" The people, quick to discern a superior intelligence, usually side with the success- ful debater, the man of the new-old learning. In 1867 Dr. Long wrote: "Our literature is obtaining a commanding position in this country. The young people are growing up readers. Letters frequently come to me from Bulgarians giving testi- mony of the good effects produced by the reading of our books." In 1880, 10,266 pp., inclusive of THE MISSIONS. 41 4,262 volumes, were sold or distributed. By that year every part of Bulgaria, north of and inclusive of the Balkans, had received this literature and hun- dreds had been nourished with the Gospel. Every hamlet has some of these helpful words. All Bul- garia is honey-combed, so to speak, with the sweetness of the truth as taught by Jesus, and deposited by his humble, faithful disciples. The leaven of Christian instruction, the power of Christian exhortation are leavening the whole mass. A sick woman in a mountain village has a Testament under her pillow. It comforts her in all her sickness. A helper sells a Bible to a family. Other families go to hear it read. Soon a request, with money enclosed, is received by the missionary for four more Bibles, to be sent to each of the familes who had attended the reading meetings. Some caution is still necessary in order to avoid the hindering interference of officials and priests, yet the new movement advances as leaven pervades the measure of meal, as the silent air falls upon river and glade and field. At Orchani people generally read the Scriptures. One of the residents was wounded in the head by a billet of wood wielded by his belligerent wife, "to cure him of reading the Bible." "But I only love it the more, my son, and I read it daily. In the room adjoining the shop we meet Sundays, with our friends, and have it read aloud." The Balkandzi, hardy, brave, religiously inclined, strenuous in perse- cution, are zealous and devoted when once converted. What a happy day that will be in which their beauti- 42 I BULGARIA. ful glens shall echo with the gaiety of innocent, happy existence, and the harmonized natures of men shall respond to the spiritual symmetry of the Divine Man! In the period of which we write two women, Bible readers, are going from house to house, teach- ing and exhorting. One of them, Clara Klaia, who possesses remarkable energy and discrimination, does this work in all the stations of all the districts. In 1886 it is reported that in most of the towns of the mission districts are at least one or two, who, though but partially instructed in religious truth, do yet confess Christ openly and endure opposition for his sake. The people also perceive that by changing ecclesiastical masters they have not obtained the end of their desires. In certain quarters the Bulgarian bishops have prohibited the reading of the Bible in the vernacular in the churches ; a ruling that has aroused open resistance: and certain of the priests read the Bulgarian version to the congregation notwithstand- ing the prohibition. One of them ventures to preach the Gospel "like the Methodists." He is roughly treated by his superiors, but remains a sturdy and significant protester. The newly elected church bishops do not receive the unquestioned, implicit homage of the former days, nor is "orthodoxy" recognized as the one prevailing spiritual force. It is even hinted here and there that priestcraft, in so far as it opposes the Methodists, is not a power to be dreaded. In 1892 The Christian World, a sixteen-page paper with additional cover, has upward THE MISSIONS. 43 of four hundred business men among its subscribers. An American religious bookstore is established at Ruscuk. Gradually the prejudice that seemed to be ineradi- cable gives way. The Methodists do not affiliate with the Russians, as do many of the higher clergy. They are so intelligent, so courteous, so loyal. Their schools maintain so high a grade of scholar- ship and of morals. Their graduates are sought for as employes. Soon it becomes the fashion to respect them and their teachers. It becomes appar- ent that they have a message worth hearing and are abundant in earnest labors. Their circuits compare in extent with those of the fathers in the lands of the West. Demeter JSTaidenhoff traverses one, several times a year, of two hundred miles, containing thirty thousand inhabitants, in cold and hunger oft, among a semi-savage people, in out-of-the-way villages, in peril of brigands, in peril of stripes and contumely, but enduring and prevailing by heavenly mindedness, and by the support of a power invisible. Other of the preachers gain an entrance to the caf6s and bazars, lift their voices in the market places, and conquer a respectful attention. If challenged by the priests they have ever a ready answer, and soon they are permitted to go their way unmolested. The people, naturally kind hearted, give a welcome to men who come to them with a message of good- will. In the Bulgar-Servian campaign of 1885 the girl's school at Loftscha offered its building as a hospital, and provided beds for the wounded brought home 44 BULGARIA. from the front, who were cared for by the pupils. Clearly there was no conspiracy brewing among those young people. The mayor attends our even- ing services, the officers, and privates of the garrison frequent our Sabbath service and pay a respectful attention to it. It is reported that "we have many friends and well wishers at Loftscha." Was ever a mission abandoned on whose ground the people were its friends and well wishers ? — a ground sown thickly with the Bible, with other useful, spirit- ually healthful literature, and tilled by diligent laborers? In this same town a few years ago so deep was the impression made by the group of Methodists in it, that in a meeting convened for church purposes fifty men out of two hundred present declared themselves Protestants, and unwilling longer to act as adherents of the orthodox church. This attitude of friendliness they maintained, although their con- servative feeling restrained them from further advances toward the new movement. The bookseller canvassing the Varna district in 1885 reports that in twelve cities there are one hundred persons altogether who "are not against us." Forty of the hundred he locates at Shumla. It is averred that there are fifty secret believers in the district for each open convert. With the Scriptures in every reading household the country seems to be in a Nicodemus state. It has had too many sudden changes to plunge forthwith into a religious revolution, but it bides its time and moves forward at its own graded THE MISSIONS. 45 rate of motion. Dr. Long, preaching to a congre- gation of representative business Bulgarians at Con- stantinople, imparts his influence by their inter- course, over into many a Bulgarian home. The ' hymns of the mission stations are frequently sung in the public schools. D. Tranoff, a preaching, sing- ing student, believes that the great need of Bulgaria is the preaching of the Gospel. The archimandrite (next in rank to a bishop) of Samakov, in conver- sation with Elder Stephan Thomof, tacitly approves the methods of the mission, and admits that nothing less than aggressive religious methods can arrest the progress of infidelity. This moral attitude of the thinking Bulgarian means much. "He is neither brilliant nor dashing," writes one who knows him well; "but for persistent hanging on, commend me to him." In 1889 a government official sends blank books to T. Constantine, native preacher at Varna, for the record of births, marriages and deaths occurring in his society ; giving it thereby, communal rights with the other religious bodies of the city. There is a steady increase from year to year in native preach- ers and helpers, in contributions for self-support, and for Christian philanthropies, in colportage, in pupils and in adherents. By 1886 we have valuable church property, admirably located at Euscuk, Varna, Sistof, Loftscha. We hear of Methodist mayors, of social meetings held in the homes of these, and of other similar attestations of advancement among those of the Ee formed belief. " The rock is slowly 46 BULGARIA. yielding. Skepticism dies liard, but facts can kill it," is the testimony of one of the chief laborex's. Comparing the first yeai-, 1859, when two obscure missionaries and their wives were stationed in a town scarcely known to Amei-icans, with the sixteen stations, the eighteen preachers, thirteen of whom are Bulgarians, the thirty-four teachers and helpers, the eighteen institutions of learning, the four hundred and seventy pupils under instruction, the four hundred and fifty members and adherents, the one thousand dollars per annum, contributions of the people, the twenty-two thousand dollars of mis- sion property, the thorough dissemination of the Scriptures and of other Christian literature, the respectful recognition of the people, and to a good degree of the priests, in 1893, we are constrained to give thanks to "the God of the Christian," who in this dawning hour, this hour of awakening, in the face of turnings and overturnings, invasions and abdications, of wars and rumors of war, has set a hedge of defense around his Bulgarian people, and who, it is lawful to believe, will raise up in their country, messengers to declare His tidings of recon- ciliation to their race brethren of Eastern Europe. During the conference of 1893, a man seeking rest for his soul came a hundred miles on his quest, and was comforted at seeing Bishop Joyce; for in the nature of things a bishop of any com- munion is a personage of "quality" and of conse- quence. The good man was lightened of his burden, and in his grateful joy, he proposed to draw the THE MISSIONS. 47 bishop through his town, with six of the largest buffaloes to be had. He was invited to an evening meal with his Episcopal friend, and with members of and visitors to the conference. In the evening, at a parlor service, the bishop discoursed on the doctrines and methods of the communion he represents. Here indeed is a primitive Methodist experience. The Moravians have been known to labor at cer- tain of their stations ten, twenty and even more years, patiently carrying forward the processes of social and moral improvement, without persisting on a given reward of defined conversions. These, they sayj are of God, who will send them in His good time. They are to labor and to wait. A Moravian settlement among the bushmen of Dutch Guiana is named Bambey — the bushman's "By- and-Bye." "Only wait, have patience," they say. "Have long patience." Behold the patience of the saints. Every evangelical field contains some spot whose proper name is Bambey — Only Wait. For such success as has been won in Bulgaria, a Moravian mission would chant a Laudamus at every sunrise. When with us Methodists the demurrers cease and the doxolog-ies begin for that country, haply its people may respond to the efforts made for them, as the Telegus of Southern India responded, when after thirty years of patient seed sowing by the mission toilers, with next to no results, two thousand two hundred and twenty-two were baptized in a day and fifty thousand within six weeks. In any event, the foundation laid cannot 48 BULGARIA. now be removed, and the outlook for the country, religiously and otherwise, is forward rather than backward, upward rather than downward. To fore- cast otherwise would imply a reversion of divine laws, inexplicable alike to reason and to faith in Him who guards the interests of those whose trust is stayed upon His merciful care.