History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions Volume I Part 4

Soon after the capture of Acre by Ibrahim Pasha, in 1832, Mr. Tod, an English merchant, accompanied by Wortabet, obtained an audience with him, and made known the case of Asaad. The Pasha directed the Emir Bes.h.i.+r to furnish ten soldiers to Mr. Tod, with authority to search the convent of Can.o.been by force, if necessary. He was received by the Patriarch and priests of the convent with dismay.

They a.s.serted that Asaad had died two years before, pointed out his grave, and offered to open it. The convent was thoroughly searched, but he was not found, and Mr. Tod was convinced that he was really dead.1

1 _Missionary Herald_ for 1833, pp. 51-57.

When it is considered how severely and in how many ways Asaad was tried, his faith and constancy appear admirable. His pride of intellect and authors.h.i.+p, and his reputation for consistency, were opposed, at the outset, to any change in his religious opinions.

Then all his reverence for his ecclesiastical superiors and his former tutors, some of whom were naturally mild in their tempers, and his previous habits of thought, withstood his yielding to the convictions of conscience and the authority of Scripture. Next, the anathemas of the Church, the tears of a mother appalled by the infamy of having an apostate son, the furious menaces of brothers, and the bitter hatred of ma.s.ses stirred up by an influential priesthood, combined to hold him back from the truth. All these things were preparatory to being seized by indignant relatives, chained to his prison walls, deprived of the New Testament and other books, and of every means of recreation, refused even those bodily comforts which nature renders indispensable; in such a forlorn condition, exposed to the insults of a bigoted populace and the revilings of a tyrannical priesthood, beaten till his body became a ma.s.s of disease, and held in this variety of grief for years, without one ray of hope, save through the portals of the tomb, who expected that he would endure steadfastly to the end?

On the other hand, if he would only recant, promotion awaited him, and wealth, indeed everything that could be offered to prevent a dreaded defection. How many are there, with all our knowledge and strength of religious principle, who, in his situation, would like him be faithful unto death?

CHAPTER V.

THE PRESS AT MALTA.

1822-1833.

The location of the press at Malta, was not the result of design, but because printing could not be done safely, if at all, either at Smyrna or at Beirt. Its operations were begun under the impression of a more extended taste for reading and reflection in the several communities of the Levant, than really existed; and it is doubtful whether the larger part of the earlier publications were well suited to the apprehension of the Oriental mind. However this may be, it was decided, in the year 1829, to make it a leading object, for a time, to furnish books for elementary schools; making them, as far as possible, the vehicles of moral and religious truth. The wisdom of this course was seen among the Greeks. A first book for schools of sixty pages, called the Alphabetarion, went into extensive use.

Twenty-seven thousand copies were called for in Greece before the year 1831.

There had been more or less of printing since 1822; but it was not until the close of 1826, that the arrival of Mr. Homan Hallock furnished a regular and competent printer. In the year following, Mr. Temple was bereaved of his excellent wife and of two children, and at the invitation of the Prudential Committee he visited the United States. Meanwhile the presence of Messrs. Bird, Goodell, Smith, and Hallock kept the press in operation. Mr. Temple returned in 1830.

The establishment consisted of three presses, with fonts of type in English, Italian, Modern Greek, Greco-Turkish, Armenian, Armeno-Turkish, and Arabic, but the greater part of the printing was in the Italian, the Modern Greek, and Armeno-Turkish. The most important work was the translation of the New Testament in the Armeno-Turkish, which was printed at the expense of the British and Foreign Bible Society. It was prepared from two translations, one by Mr. Goodell, with the efficient aid of Bishop Carabet, the other by an Armenian priest at Constantinople, in the employ of Mr. Leeves, agent of the British and Foreign Bible Society. Mr. Goodell's version was made conformable to the original Greek, and the last sheet was printed in January, 1831. During that year, there were printed seventy-eight thousand copies of fourteen works, amounting to nearly five millions of pages, all in modern Greek. The whole amount of printing at Malta, from the establishment of the press in July, 1822, to December, 1833, the time of its removal to Smyrna, was about three hundred and fifty thousand volumes, containing twenty-one millions of pages. Nearly the whole were put in circulation, and additional supplies of some of the books were urgently demanded. The Roman Catholics opposed this work from the first, and anathematized the books issued.

The labor and expense were increased by the singular use of alphabets in the Levantine regions. The Maronites and Syrians spoke the Arabic language, but employed the Syriac alphabet in writing.

The Armenians, to a large extent, spoke the Turkish language, but wrote it with the Armenian alphabet. The Greeks in Asia generally spoke the Turkish language, but used the Greek alphabet. The Grecian Jews spoke the Grecian language, the Spanish Jews the Spanish, the Barbary Jews the Arabic, but all three used the Hebrew alphabet.

Then, too, the wors.h.i.+p of the Syrians, Greeks, and Armenians was in the ancient languages of those nations, which were for the most part unintelligible to the common people.

Mr. Temple began preaching in Italian early in 1826, and during his whole residence on the island he preached every Sabbath, either in Italian or English. The rule he prescribed for himself, whether preaching to Gentiles or Jews, was to preach the great truths of the Bible plainly and faithfully, appealing as little as possible to Fathers, Councils, or Rabbins. Contemporary with him were Mr.

Jowett, of the Church Missionary Society, Mr. Wilson, of the London Missionary Society, and Mr. Keeling, of the English Wesleyan Society, and all were on the best terms of Christian fellows.h.i.+p.

In December, 1833, Messrs. Temple and Hallock removed to Smyrna, with the printing establishment, and Dionysius Carabet accompanied them as a translator. Wortabet had previously returned to Syria.

CHAPTER VI.

PRELIMINARY EXPLORATIONS.

1828-1831.

Enough was known, in the year 1828, to encourage the belief, that Greece and Western Asia would soon demand a more extensive prosecution of the missionary work; but more specific information was indispensable to an intelligent enlargement. The temporary suspension of the Syrian mission had brought the whole of the missionary force of the Board in that part of the world to Malta (except that Mr. Temple was on a visit to the United States), thus making consultation easy. Other reasons called for a more free and extended official intercourse than could be held by letter.

Accordingly the author, then a.s.sistant Secretary of the Board, was sent to Malta at the close of 1828, with instructions to confer with the brethren, and afterwards to visit Greece and other parts of the Levant. The conferences at Malta occupied two months, and aided much in determining subsequent measures. When these were over, the author, in company with the Rev. Eli Smith, afterward so favorably and widely known in the Christian world, visited the Ionian Islands, the Morea, and the Grecian Archipelago. Count John A. Capodistrias was then President of Greece, and had his residence on the island of aegina. Athens was still held by the Turks. It was made inc.u.mbent on the author to propose inquiries to the President on certain points, and this was rendered easy by his urbanity and his frank and explicit answers. The inquiries were mainly for gaining the needed information; and they elicited some facts which deterred the Committee from a cla.s.s of expenditures, that would have been in accordance with the popular feeling at that time, but might have proved a fruitful source of disappointment. Mr. King was then in Greece as a philh.e.l.lene, in charge of supplies sent by ladies in New York to be distributed among the impoverished people. Perhaps the most important result of this negotiation with the Greek government, besides facilitating Mr. King's protracted and useful connection with the Greek mission, was a written a.s.surance by the chief ruler of the nation, that among the books to be used in the schools of Greece should be the Bible, the New Testament, and the Psalms, all translated and printed in modern Greek.

Among the results of the consultations at Malta, was Mr. Bird's visit to Tripoli and Tunis on the African coast, for which he was specially qualified by his free use of the Arabic language. He had opportunities at Tripoli for conversing with Jews, Moslems, Papists, and persons of no religion. His books and tracts were chiefly in the Hebrew and Arabic languages. At Tunis, he distributed copies of the Scriptures, but in neither place did there seem to be a sufficient opening for inst.i.tuting a mission.

Another result of the Malta conferences was the distribution of the mission forces; Mr. Bird to Syria, Mr. Goodell to Constantinople, and Mr. Smith for an exploring tour among the Armenians of Turkey.

Soon after the return of the a.s.sistant Secretary, the Rev. H. G. O.

Dwight was designated to accompany Mr. Smith in his proposed tour of exploration, and the Rev. George B. Whiting as the companion of Mr.

Bird on his return to Syria. Mrs. Dwight was to remain at Malta during her husband's absence.

The two explorers sailed for Smyrna in March, 1830, in the same vessel which had brought Mr. Dwight from Boston. After some days at Smyrna, in the family of Mr. Brewer, who had returned to that place in connection with a society of ladies in New Haven, they went overland to Constantinople. This was a journey of eight days, and was made necessary by the long detention, to which sailing vessels were liable from north winds at the mouth of the Dardanelles. The time for steamers had not yet come in these regions.

The departure from Constantinople was near the close of May, in the most charming season of the year. As in the journey from Smyrna, they put themselves under a Tartar, who, for their greater security, had set his seal to a written contract in presence of the Tartar aghasy. The government became thus responsible for their persons and property. Instead of trunks, they had two large bags, two saddle-bags, and two valises, all of thick Russian leather, fastened with padlocks, and impermeable to water. Instead of mattresses, each had a carpet and coverlet rolled in painted canvas, that served as a floor at night, when it was their lot to lie on the ground. Each had an ample Turkish pelisse, lined with the fur of the Caucasian fox.

Four copper pans, a mill for grinding coffee, a pot, cups, and a knife, fork, and spoon for each, were their utensils for cooking and eating. A circular piece of leather served for a table when spread upon the ground, and when drawn together like a lady's reticule, and suspended from the saddle, it formed a bag to carry their bread and cheese. The whole was so compact as to require, on ordinary occasions, but a single extra horse. As the Turkish post furnished only horses, they were obliged to add saddles and bridles to their other accoutrements; and to their saddles, as was usual, were attached holsters, to deter from hostile attacks upon them. To avoid unnecessary notice, expense, and trouble, if not insult, they wore loose Turkish robes, the Oriental turban, and the enormous Tartar stockings and boots. Of course they had also the needful firmans, pa.s.sports, and letters of introduction.

Their route lay along what at that time might be called, for the most part, the high road to Tabriz, and pa.s.sed through Tokat, Erzroom, Kars, Tiflis, Shoosha, Nakhchevan, Echmiadzin, and Khoy, a distance of more than fifteen hundred miles. At Tokat, the travellers visited the grave of Henry Martyn, who died there in 1812. On the 13th of June, they entered Erzroom, then in possession of an invading army of Russians; which soon retired, and was accompanied by a large portion of the Armenian population in that district. The Turks of Erzroom found it hard to comprehend from what country the travellers came. Kars, Tiflis, Shoosha, and Echmiadzin had been subjected to Russian rule. Tiflis was the capital of Georgia. Shoosha, where they arrived about the middle of August, worn down by fatigue in descending the insalubrious valley of the Koor, or Cyrus, was then the seat of a German mission, which gave a cordial reception to their American brethren. The cholera prevailed in all that region, and it was estimated that as many as seventy thousand people died of it, during the two months and a half our travellers spent in Shoosha. They gave an interesting account of the German colonies in Georgia, which had their origin in extravagant views concerning the millennium. "Previous to 1817, several popular and ardent ministers in the kingdom of Wurtemberg maintained, in commentaries on the Apocalypse and other publications, that the wished-for period would commence in 1836, and would be preceded by a dreadful apostasy and great persecutions. These views, in addition to the fascinating interest always connected with prophetical theories, being enforced with much pious feeling, acquired so great credit as to be adopted by nearly all the religious people in the kingdom, and by many others. At the same time, the advocates of the neological system, being the predominant party in the clergy, succeeded in effecting some alterations in the prayers and hymns of the Church in accommodation to their errors. This grieved exceedingly all who were attached to evangelical principles, and was taken to be the apostasy they expected. Their prophetical teachers had intimated that, as in the destruction of Jerusalem the Christians found a place of refuge, so would there be one now, and that, somewhere in the vicinity of the Caspian Sea. Many, therefore, of the common people determined to seek the wished-for asylum, that they and their children (for whom the better sort were particularly anxious) might escape the impending storm, and also be able to form an independent ecclesiastical establishment according to their own notions. To these were joined others desirous of change, or in straitened circ.u.mstances, who though not at heart pious, professed for the time to be influenced by the same principles and motives. In fact the latter became the most numerous. The company, when it left Wurtemberg, consisted of fifteen hundred families. But no adequate arrangement having been made for the journey, and the sinister motives of the majority contributing to create disorder, they suffered exceedingly on the way, and before they reached Odessa, two thirds had died."1 The number of the colonists, in 1832, was about two thousand, but their enterprise had not been successful.

1 _Missionary Researches in Armenia_, vol. i. p. 264.

On the way from Echmiadzin to Tabriz, a distance of nearly two hundred and fifty miles, Mr. Smith suffered greatly from illness.

When seventy miles from that city, his strength gave out entirely, so that he could go no farther with the conveyances then at command.

His life was probably saved by Mr. Dwight's sending a messenger to the gentlemen of the English emba.s.sy at Tabriz, requesting the aid of a takhtirewan, the only native carriage known to the Persians. It resembles a sedan-chair, except in being borne by two mules or horses, and closed from the external air, and in requiring a lying posture. The vehicle soon arrived; but was preceded by Dr. McNeill, the physician and first a.s.sistant of the emba.s.sy, who then commenced those acts of kindness which ever endeared him to the Nestorian mission. Colonel McDonald, the amba.s.sador, had lately died, and Dr.

McNeill was soon obliged to leave for Teheran. Dr. Cormick, who had healed Henry Martyn of a similar disease, then took the medical charge of Mr. Smith. After their long experience of filthy stables, the comfortable, well-furnished apartments provided for them at Tabriz, through the generous hospitality of Major Willock, former commander of the English forces in Persia, and Captain Campbell, the acting Envoy, were more grateful to the weary travellers than can well be conceived. Mr. Nisbit, an officer in the commissariat department, together with his wife, entered fully into their feelings as missionaries, and sympathized with them in their views of the spiritual wants of the country.

Messrs. Smith and Dwight were required by their instructions, to investigate and report on the condition of the Nestorians inhabiting the northwestern province of Persia. In former ages, this people had been distinguished beyond any other Christian people--except perhaps, their contemporaries in Ireland--for missionary zeal and enterprise. From the seventh to the thirteenth centuries, they had missions both in central and eastern Asia. Previous to the overthrow of the Califate, A. D. 1258, their churches were scattered over the region forming modern Persia, and were numerous in Armenia, Mesopotamia, and Arabia. They had churches in Syria; on the island of Cyprus; among the mountains of Malabar; and in the extended regions of Tartary, from the Caspian Sea to Mount Imaus, and beyond through the greater part of what is now known as Chinese Tartary, and even in China itself. The names of twenty-five metropolitan sees are on record, embracing of course a far greater number of bishoprics, and still more numerous congregations.

These facts, though known to learned historians, had fallen out of the popular mind. Indeed, they were not in the recollection of the executive officers of the American Board, when the author drew up the instructions to Messrs. Smith and Dwight. But while preparing them, his attention was incidentally drawn to a brief article in a Virginia publication, from the pen of Dr. Walsh, British chaplain at Constantinople, ent.i.tled "Chaldees in Persia;" and it was the impression made by that article, which led to a positive direction to visit that people, should it be found practicable, and see whether the churches in this western world had any duty to perform to them. The English at Tabriz confessed to an almost entire ignorance of the religious doctrines and character of the Nestorians. The only important fact our brethren could learn there was, that a considerable body of them were accessible in the provinces of Oroomiah and Salmas, at the distance of somewhat more than a hundred miles.

Our travellers remained at Tabriz from the 18th of December to March, 1831, when restored health and the opening season permitted them to resume their journey. In Salmas, they first came in contact with the Chaldeans, as those Nestorians were called who had been won over by Roman Catholic missionaries since the year 1681. The name means no more than papal Syrians, or papal Armenians. Some of their bishops and priests had been educated in the college of the Propaganda at Rome, and spoke Italian fluently. The Chaldeans were reported, at that time, as a neglected and declining sect.

Pa.s.sing from Salmas into the province of Oroomiah, the travellers were received by the Nestorians in the most friendly and confidential manner, and the week pa.s.sed among them was intensely interesting. While showing very clearly the need the people were in of religious instruction, they gave as additional considerations in favor of sending missionaries to them, their extreme liberality towards other sects, their ideas of open communion, and their entire rejection of auricular confession.

The return of Messrs. Smith and Dwight was by way of Erzroom and Trebizond, thence by sea to Constantinople and Malta, at which last place they arrived on the 2d of July, 1831, after an absence of fifteen months and a half. In this time, their land travel exceeded two thousand and five hundred miles.

The results of their inquiries were embodied by Mr. Smith, during a visit to his native land, under the t.i.tle of "Researches in Armenia, including a Journey through Asia Minor and into Georgia and Persia, with a Visit to the Nestorian and Chaldean Christians," and were published in two volumes in Boston, and republished in London.

Though nearly forty years have since elapsed, there is still a freshness of interest in the entire work, which makes it matter of regret that it is now out of print. The religious condition of the Armenians at that time, is comprehensively stated in the following paragraphs:--

"The slightest acquaintance with ecclesiastical history may convince one, that before the commencement of the fourth century, Christianity had extensively degenerated from its original purity as a religion of the heart, into a mere profession of theoretical dogmas, and the observance of external rites. Such, it is natural to suspect, was the form of it to which the Armenians were at that period converted; and the circ.u.mstances of the event, if national tradition has correctly preserved them, confirm the suspicion, that they have from the beginning known extremely little of true conversion. We are told that immediately upon King Durtad's embracing the faith, the nation followed his example in a body, and were baptized. To say nothing of the doubtfulness of all national conversions, the very hastiness of this proceeding, by allowing no time for competent instruction, shows that the Armenians could not have been enlightened converts; the fact that the Scriptures were not translated into their language until a century afterward, is an additional indication of the scantiness of their religious knowledge; and the confessed backsliding of many of the n.o.bility into the most scandalous immoralities and the blackest crimes, even during the lifetime of Durtad, proves how superficial was their conversion.

"Thus the Armenian Church was a soil well adapted to the rapid growth of all the corruptions, which from that time sprang up, in such speedy succession, in different parts of the Christian world.

Even those which then existed were, it would seem, not sparingly introduced by St. Gregory. For, by the immediate consecration of four hundred bishops, and a countless number of priests, he betrayed a disposition to multiply an idle and unqualified priesthood; and by the construction of convents and nunneries, and spending the last of his days in a solitary cave, he showed that he was ready to foster the monastic spirit of his age. So deeply, indeed, was the taste for monkhood implanted, that his fifth successor is said to have built two thousand convents.

"Of the rites and dogmas subsequently adopted by other bodies of Christians, there was a free importation for the two centuries that the Armenians formed a regular branch of the General Church. A special messenger was sent to Jerusalem for the ceremonies observed in that church, and brought thence eight canons regulating the sacraments and other rites. For a similar object, a correspondence was carried on with the Bishop of Nisibis. One Catholicos, who had been educated at Constantinople in the influence of all the secular ideas and regulations introduced into the Church under the patronage of Constantine and his successors, brought from thence 'various observances, which, like precious stones, he inlaid into the old.'

And several who followed him distinguished themselves by their _improvements_ in the services and laws of the Church. So that when, by rejecting the Council of Chalcedon, A. D. 491, the Armenians cut themselves off from the communion of the great body of Christians, they were doubtless in possession of all the legendary dogmas and observances which had then been adopted by the Christian world."1

1 _Researches in Armenia_, Amer. Edition, vol. ii. pp. 290-292.