History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions Volume II Part 15

Perkins, Mr. and Mrs. Stoddard, and some others, and reached Oroomiah in June. After laboring there with unprecedented success as the Princ.i.p.al of the Seminary for fourteen years, the state of her health constrained her return to the United States in 1858.

Up to her arrival at Oroomiah, the school had only day scholars, and the pupils were of course in habitual contact with the vice and degradation of their homes. She sought to make it a boarding-school; and after two years the prejudices of the people had been overcome, and the day scholars were all dropped. Her grand object was the salvation of her pupils, and of their relatives who visited the inst.i.tution. After the first revival, in 1846, the school became the centre of holy influence for the women. She, and her worthy a.s.sociate Miss Rice, found enough to do, day and night. When they went to a village, the women expected to be called together for prayer; and when these women returned the visit, they asked to be prayed with alone. There was a revival almost every year of her stay at Oroomiah; and probably few servants of Christ have had more occasion for grat.i.tude, in being the means of bringing others to him, than Miss Fiske. When leaving Oroomiah on her return home, the many women and girls who gathered around to bid her farewell, asked "Can we not have one more prayer-meeting before you go, and in that Bethel?"--meaning, her own room. There they prayed, that their teacher "might come back to mingle her dust with her children's dust, hear the trumpet with them, and with them go up to meet the Lord." They were accustomed to style her "mother," and themselves her "children."

Her usefulness after her return to the United States, was probably as great as it ever had been. This was not owing to the predominance of any one quality in her character, but to a combination of qualities of mind and heart surpa.s.sing anything I have ever seen in any other person. Her emotional nature was wonderfully sanctified, and each of her powers being well developed, and all nicely adjusted one to another, the whole worked with regularity and ease. Hence that singular accuracy of judgment, and that never-failing sense of propriety, for which she was distinguished. Hence the apparent absence of fatigue in her protracted conversations and conversational addresses. Hence the habitual control of her sanctified affections over her intellectual powers, so that she seemed ever ready, at the moment, for the call of duty, and especially to meet the claims of peris.h.i.+ng souls. She seemed to me the nearest approach I ever saw, in man or woman, in the structure and working of her whole nature, to my ideal of the blessed Saviour, as he appeared in his walks on earth.

The amount of her usefulness was as extraordinary as her character, and probably the tidings of no death have awakened so many voices of lamentation over the plain of Oroomiah, and in the glens of Koordistan.[1]

[1] See _Woman and her Saviour in Persia_, by Dr. Thomas Laurie, and _The Cross and the Crown, or Faith working by Love, as exemplified in the Life of Fidelia Fiske_, by Dr. D. T. Fiske.

Another death occurred this year, which was also sensibly felt by the mission. It was that of Deacon Joseph, of Degala. Dr. Perkins lamented the loss of his services in connection with the press, a kind of labor for which his qualifications were unequaled among the people. His well-balanced mind, his fine scholars.h.i.+p, the solidity of his Christian character, his eminent services in this department, especially the very important a.s.sistance he rendered in translating the Old Testament from the original Hebrew, would have secured him an honorable position in more enlightened lands.

In 1863 and 1864 Mr. Shedd made extended tours in his mountain field. In the first, he crossed to Mosul, and from Oroomiah to Amadia he travelled mostly on foot, in native snowshoes and moccasins, with much fatigue and exposure. At Mosul, he enjoyed the hospitality of Mr. Ra.s.sam, and had conferences with Mr. Williams of Mardin. The second tour was in the autumn, and extended as far as Tiary.[1] The mountaineers may be viewed, he says, in two very different lights; first, as feeble, unreasonable, and lawless; poverty stricken, and lacking in self-respect, and self-reliance; connecting their interest in spiritual things too often with the hope of temporal benefits. Then there are constant feuds between villages, clans, and chiefs. The hopeful side is in the great preparatory work that has been accomplished, the general friendliness of the people, and the growing influence of the mission helpers. The following tabular view will give some idea of the mountain work in its incipient state, for, in some important respects, it was in that state as late as the year 1863:--

Occupied Districts.

Gawar Tekhoma Amadia Rakan Nerwa Jeloo Berwer Total No. of Christian Villages. - 6 6 3 4 - - - Estimated Christian Population. - 4000 - 250 300 - - - When first occupied by Helpers. 1852 1856 1857 1861 1862 1862 1863 - No. of Helpers the Past Year. 4 4 2 1 1 4 2 18 No. of Villages visited by Preachers the Past Year. 20 6 5 3 3 9 10 56 No. of Villages with stated Congregations. 5 3 3 1 1 2 1 16 No. of Persons in Congregations. 88 55 55 15 10 90 35 348 No. of Sabbath Schools. 3 2 1 1 1 2 1 11 No. in Sabbath Schools. 42 25 25 8 7 75 25 207 No. of Regular Day Schools. 2 - 1 - - 1 - 4 No. of Scholars. 21 10 8 5 5 28 3 80 No. reached by Family Visitation. 550 250 100 50 50 560 100 1660 No. of Communicants. 20 7 4 1 1 9 - 42 No. of Candidates. 2 1 9 - 1 2 - 15

[1] _Missionary Herald_, 1863, pp. 358-363; 1864, p. 231.

Mr. Shedd visited the young Patriarch, in his second tour. The leaders whom he met there from different mountain districts, were surprised by the friends.h.i.+p shown to the missionaries by Mar s.h.i.+mon, and that they heard not a word against them in the Patriarchal mansion. There were frequent interchanges of visits, and Mr. Shedd was a.s.sured that the young Patriarch was well disposed towards the mission and its labors. But there was no evidence that he had any real conviction of the truth.

The seminary pupils were now working on a higher level. To a large extent, the pupils were daughters of Nestorian helpers and other pious parents, who had given them a Christian training. The contrast was striking between their general appearance and that of the earlier cla.s.ses in that favored school. A considerable part of the expense was now met by the parents of the pupils.

The Rev. Austin H. Wright, M. D., was the immediate medical successor of Dr. Grant, at Oroomiah,[1] where he arrived July 25, 1840. To be thoroughly furnished for his work, he determined to master the Turkish, Syriac, and Persian languages; and it was doubtless his perfect acquaintance with these, coupled with his knowledge of medicine, and the gentle courtesy of his manners, that gave him so much influence among all cla.s.ses of the people. "The influence of Dr. Wright in Oroomiah," said an intelligent Nestorian, "is that of a Prince." He is said to have spoken each of the languages above named with a precision, fluency, and grace, rarely equaled by a foreigner. In consequence of this proficiency, the intercourse with the higher cla.s.ses was to a great extent in his hands. Persian gentlemen, polite and courteous in the extreme, appreciated the dignified yet simple ease and grace with which he met them. Having gone out alone, he was united in marriage June 13, 1844, to Miss Catherine E. Myers, who joined the mission in 1843, and was then engaged in teaching. After twenty years his health and the interests of his family demanded a visit to his native land.

Here he remained four years, devoting the latter half of that time to a revision of the Syriac New Testament, preparatory to its being electrotyped and printed in pocket form by the American Bible Society. To this the Psalms were afterward added. Mrs. Wright and four of the children remained in this country; but taking with him his eldest daughter Lucy, he returned to Oroomiah in September, 1864. His return was joyful to him, and to the mission, and no less so to the Nestorians; but in three short months the summons came, calling him to a higher service.

[1] For a biographical account of Dr. Wright, see _Missionary Herald_ for 1865, pp. 129-134.

It had been arranged that he and Mr. Rhea, should translate the Scriptures into Tartar-Turkish for the benefit of the Mussulman population of Azerbijan and the regions beyond; but Dr. Wright's work was finished. His disease was typhoid fever, and during much of his sickness he was unconscious.

In the twenty-five years of his service, he performed a great variety of labors,--as a preacher, a physician, a co-laborer in the department of the press, and, not least, as a s.h.i.+eld to the poor oppressed Nestorians; for he was greatly respected by their Mohammedan rulers. And these duties he performed with marked ability, scrupulous fidelity, and an almost unerring judgment.

In this year, also, died the Rev. Thomas L. Ambrose, on the 19th of August. The three years he spent in the mountains were to him years of suffering, the result of an ardent mental and moral temperament, as well as of the labors he performed. He returned home in 1861, hoping to resume his missionary work; but feeling that his country had claims upon him, and receiving an unsolicited appointment as chaplain of a New Hamps.h.i.+re regiment, he entered the service, was wounded while pa.s.sing from entrenchments to a hospital, and after a few weeks died in the General Hospital at Fortress Monroe. In his relations to the mission and the Nestorian people, he beautifully exemplified the spirit of his Lord, in not desiring "to be ministered unto, but to minister."

The harvests of 1865 were abundant, but there had been a famine in several of the previous years; and this had given a stimulus to the vagrancy, so frequent and annoying among the Nestorians. "Of the four thousand vagabonds," writes Dr. Perkins, "from the less than forty thousand Nestorians of Oroomiah, who made want their pretext for scattering themselves over Russia and other parts of Europe, as common beggars, hardly less greedy for lucre and for vice, than are locusts for every green thing, only a moiety return; many dying in those distant regions, from diseases induced by strange climates, or oftener by criminal indulgence; and many who survive, lying in prison for crimes, or preferring their vagabond life to the decent restraints of home. Many who do return are worse than lost to their people; coming only to spread a moral pestilence, being thoroughly demoralized; recklessly squandering their ill-gotten treasures till hunger drives them off again to beg. Happily they are now shut out of Russia by the government, and they have little hope from England.

But Germany is still a golden land to them."

Mr. Rhea, another very able member of the mission, was suddenly removed from earth on the 2d of September, 1865. He was on his return from Tabriz, with his wife and children. The whole scene, as described by Mrs. Rhea in the Memoir of her husband, is one of the most touching in missionary history.[1] He was ill when they left Tabriz, and not until they had gone too far to return did his wife awake to the alarming fact, that his disease was cholera.

[1] See _The Tennesseean in Persia and Koordistan, being the Scenes and Incidents in the Life of Samuel Audley Rhea_, by Rev. Dwight W.

Marsh, for Ten Years Missionary in Mosul, pp. 338-349.

She then hoped to reach Ali Shah, a village four hours from Oroomiah. It was necessary to put the bedding on one of the loaded horses, and then to place Mr. Rhea upon it, and for two men to hold him on; which was done by the faithful Nestorians, Daniel and Guwergis. The motion of the horse extorted frequent, though gentle, groans of pain. He was very thirsty, and both the children were crying for water. There was none. At a brackish brook he had tried to drink, but spit out the bitter draught in disgust.

"At length the moon rose, and the children became quiet. Daniel pa.s.sed a rope around Mr. Rhea's back, and over his shoulders, to keep him from shaking about on the horse; and, taking off his hat, protected his head with a flannel. He grew quiet, and I said, 'He sleeps.' So we rode on and on in the still night; no sounds except from the horses' feet, or an occasional word about the precious load. 'Will the village never appear?' They said it was very near.

O, how long the way seemed!

"My mind was very active, picturing that comfortable room where we should rest, the refres.h.i.+ng water, the quiet rest, the soft bed for the dear invalid, the quick cup of tea, his sweet words, our subsequent journey home in the takhterawan, our safe arrival there.

All this time my eyes were on him, and my ears strained to catch a sound. 'How long he sleeps! How still he is!'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER x.x.xVII.

THE NESTORIANS.

1867-1870.