It is impossible to doubt the earnest faith and missionary zeal of these few who had come out to "do the Lord's work" in the East. But to many Churchmen it will be difficult to reconcile the words of Mr. Groves, that "the Coming of Christ, the powers of the Holy Ghost, were truths being brought before the Church of God" when it is remembered that they had practically severed themselves from the visible body of Christ's Church on earth, and were themselves (without Divine authority as delivered once to the Apostles) celebrating each Sunday in their house the Lord's Supper.
Constant mention is made in the Memoir of the open persecution which the mission party suffered in Bagdad, and of "the impossibility of access to the people." There were a few converts to Christianity made, but only a few; and the disappointments were many and grievous.
Then, too, their party was lessened by the departure of Frank Newman and Mr. Kitto for England. No reason is to be traced for this decision of Newman's, and it is not easy to understand what it could have been. It happened during the spring months of the year 1833, and shortly after his second proposal to Maria Rosina Giberne and her second refusal. He had written begging her come out to Bagdad, marry him, and work with them there. No doubt her refusal was a bitter disappointment to him, and possibly he wished to go back to England (he said in his diary he did not know how long he might stay there), and try if he could not persuade her personally. But if he thought this, he was again disappointed, for his meeting with her (as I see from some papers written by my aunt and kindly supplied me from the Oratory, Birmingham), was of no more avail than before. She mentions having met him shortly after his return, and it is evident that it was a meeting not devoid of awkwardness on her part and disappointment on his.
To go back to the letters from Bagdad, after this digression, Newman gives a very graphic account of the rafts used for travelling on the river from Moosul.
[Illustrations: PERSIAN LADY AND PERSIAN SMOKING
DATE, 1827
FROM PERSIA IN "MODERN TRAVELLER" SERIES
BY JOSIAH CONDER (pub. 1830)]
"The rafts used for descending the river consist of a rude deck fastened to a flooring of blown-up goatskins…. They are used for swimming bladders as in the ancient world. They serve for barrels to carry water…. The skins are also used in the bazaars … for butter, treacle, honey, etc…. The raft is not rowed, except barely to keep it in the stream. It keeps twisting round and round, like a stone in the air;… but … you have all the freshness and life of a vast streaming river and all the tranquillity of a mere pond…. One day, a man who wished to go down the river on our raft swam to us on a goatskin…. As a Thames wherry to a Thames steamer, so is a goatskin to a raft…. It has no prow nor stern…. If driven ashore it may burst many of the skins, some of which indeed from time to time need to be blown and tied afresh…. The oars are enormous, as in English barges. In our small raft two men at a time rowed…. I cannot tell you now of Mr. Groves's plans. I have a great deal to learn. The political state of this city, from within and without, is the very reverse of satisfactory." Then there follows a sentence which seems to imply that Mr. Groves was expecting too much from his "monthly visits" to the Arabs in the way of moral results. Also there follows a delightful account of the native doctor's methods of dealing with his patients. He "contracts to cure the patient … for a definite sum, which is paid to him at once. If the patient thinks the price too high, the doctor lets him get worse; and when he applies anew, of course raises his demand. Nothing can be recovered if not paid down. Mr. Cronin" (the doctor travelling with them), "with all his practice at Aleppo, got fees only once or twice the whole time. He and Groves both despair of it here."
English patients when they use to their doctor the familiar phrase, "I put myself entirely in your hands," little think how completely and practically this was understood by these Bagdad doctors, who considered that a dollar in the hand is worth two promised after treatment of a case, and who, when they once had patients "in their hands," held them tight!
It is clear, I think, from the following entry that Newman did not approve thoroughly of Mr. Groves's methods of learning Arabic, any more than he seems to do of his "monthly visits" to the Arabs. He says that a friend of theirs, who had recently joined them, had studied Arabic and Persian twenty-eight years, and is an accomplished Orientalist, yet he "ridicules English notions of learning." Our religion, poetry, philosophy, science, are so opposed to everything here "that, he says, nothing but long time in the country can make an Englishman intelligible on religious subjects." To confirm this theory that a perfect knowledge of the language of the people to be taught is an absolute essential in a missionary—it is known, for an absolute fact, that missionaries have been eight years in India preaching until even they became convinced that sometimes they gave a totally wrong impression of what they were trying to teach to the natives, and therefore gave up all further efforts at teaching until they had learnt the language more thoroughly, and had it at their finger's—or, to speak more correctly, tongue's—end.
Eventually Mr. Groves came to the conclusion that for a long time to come "the wisest method" was to "avoid controversy with the Moslems." He formed schools not on the ground of "attending to the rising generation," but to aid him in the language … give him opportunities of "trying his wings (as he calls it) against Christian errors, and exciting the attention of Moslems. Indeed, several (chiefly Persians) have come privately and begged New Testaments to send to their friends in Persia. At present I conceive he has nearly the whole Christian population here in his hands." And later, "Groves has not at all disappointed me, do not think that from anything I have written. He is what I expected from his book, and a great deal more. He has a practical organizing directing energy which fits him to be the centre of many persons, especially since it is combined with entire unselfishness and a total absence of personal ambition or desire to take the lead which he does take. He is very sanguine…. I am apt to be sadly faithless, and to see nothing but difficulties."
Perhaps his lack of conviction that this effort at missionary work could make its way in spite of so many great difficulties, as well as his own bad health (he states that he had not had a single day of real health since they have been at Bagdad), had something to do with his decision to return to England.