The learned and amiable Peshtimaljian died in the year 1837. In the same year, Mrs. Dwight and one of her children became victims of the plague. Her husband escaped the contagion, though of course greatly exposed. This terrible disease had been almost an annual visitation at Constantinople, and was believed to be imported from Egypt. As soon as it made its appearance, schools must be closed, public worship suspended, and the giving and receiving of visits in great measure interrupted. The quarantine appears to have been an effectual preventive.
In the course of this year, the missionaries had a meeting at Smyrna, at which Messrs. King, Temple, Goodell, Bird, Adger, and Houston were present. Its results were important and interesting. During the sessions, Mr. King preached two sermons to a Greek audience in the chapel of the Dutch Consulate. This was seven years after the commencement of his mission in Greece. Mr. Bird was there, on his way from Syria to his native land, and wrote, on hearing Mr. King preach and seeing the apparent effect, that he became quite reconciled to his laboring among the Greeks, rather than the Arabs.
In the same year Boghos, vicar of the Patriarch, encouraged by certain bankers, resolved to break up the mission High School for Armenians in Pera, of which Hohannes was the principal. In preparation for this, a College had been built at Scutari, some months before, on an extended scale; and the public school in Has Keuy, superintended by Kevork, had been committed to the general supervision of one of the great bankers residing there, that it might be remodeled according to his own wishes, and made a first-rate school. This was deemed a needful preliminary to shutting up the mission High School. Early in the year, the parents were summoned before the vicar, and ordered to withdraw their sons from that school. The plan of the opposing party was, in this case, after breaking up the school, to procure from the Turkish government the banishment of Hohannes. But they had misapprehended the banker, and great was their astonishment when they heard that Hohannes was no sooner released, by their own act, from his connection with the mission school, than he was engaged by the banker of Has Keuy to take the superintendence of the national school they had placed in his hands. In vain they remonstrated. To their assertion, that it was the American system he had adopted he replied, that he knew nothing of the Americans, but had adopted the system because it was good. To their objection, that the principal was evangelical, he responded, "So am I." He at length declared, that unless they permitted him to manage the school in his own way, he would withdraw from the Armenian community. They could not afford to lose one of the leading bankers; and one of the principal opposers, finding it necessary, in a business transaction, to throw himself on his clemency, opposition ceased for a time, and a school of six hundred scholars went into successful operation, with Hohannes for its superintendent, and Der Kevork, the active priest, for one of its principal teachers.
It is worthy of special note, that up to this time, the banker was wholly unknown to the missionaries, and to the evangelical brethren generally. He was evidently raised up by divine Providence for the occasion. Not only did the Has Keuy school greatly exceed the mission school at Pera in the number of its pupils, but it was formally adopted as the school of the nation, and Hohannes was appointed its principal by the Armenian Synod. Having liberty of action, he devoted an hour each day to giving special religious instruction to a select class of sixty of the more advanced pupils, besides his more general teaching, and the daily good influence exerted by Der Kevork and himself. The course of study was liberal, the philosophical apparatus of the mission was purchased by the directors, lectures were given on the natural sciences, and the school obtained a temporary popularity.
Yet there were secret opposing influences too powerful to allow this state of things long to continue. In the middle of the year 1838, the distinguished patron understood, not only that there was a growing dissatisfaction among the leading Armenians with the school, and especially with its principal, but that his munificence was attracting the attention of the Turks; and he deemed it prudent to withdraw his patronage. Before the close of the year, the teachers were dismissed, and the school was reduced to its former footing. The leading men of Has Keuy sent a delegation to the Patriarch deprecating the disaster, but obtained only fair promises. Hohannes now renewed his connection with the mission, and was placed in charge of the book distribution. Der Kevork spent much time in going from house to house, reading the Scriptures to the people, and exhorting them to obey the Gospel.
At Broosa, the number of visitors at the house of the missionaries was increasing, and among them were two young teachers in the Armenian public school, who were specially interested in the subject of personal religion. They were among the first to make the acquaintance of Mr. Powers, on his coming to take up his residence in their quarter of the city. One of these young men, named Serope, had the sole charge of about fifty of the most advanced scholars, whom he instructed daily in the Word of God. The principal men in the Armenian community at Broosa soon decided to place a select class of boys under his instruction, to be trained for the priest's office, and eight were thus set apart. Before the end of the year both of these teachers gave hopeful evidence of piety.
Very interesting cases of conversion occurred at Nicodemia, at the head of the gulf bearing that name. Mr. Goodell, when passing through this place in 1832, gave several tracts to some Armenian boys. One of these, a translation of the "Dairyman's Daughter," came into the hands of a priest, whom Mr. Goodell did not see. This led him to study the Word of God. A brother priest, on intimate terms with him, was induced to join in the study, and the result was the hopeful conversion of both. Their united efforts were now directed to the conversion of their flock, and a spirit of inquiry was awakened. In the spring of 1838, Mr. Dwight found sixteen at Nicomedia, who appeared to be truly converted men. He was surprised at the seriousness and intelligence with which they conversed on the great truths of the Gospel. The Holy Spirit had evidently been their teacher, and the doctrine of justification by grace through faith alone, was the foundation of their hopes. The joy with which they greeted the missionary of the cross for the first time, was most gratifying to him, as was the earnest attention they gave to his instructions. Compared with their countrymen in the same place, they might be called intelligent men, and some of them were in very easy circumstances. The two converted priests, Der Vertanes and Der Haritûn, became afterwards well known in the mission. Of their own accord they removed to Constantinople, and were placed together in charge of a village church on the Bosphorus; and the Patriarch Stepan, being an old acquaintance, spent several weeks with them, and generally assented to the views advanced by them in their free conversations.
We now enter the year 1839, which was a year of severe persecution. Of this persecution, in which the Porte itself became a party, I am now to give a brief account.
The missionary force at Constantinople had become unusually small. Mr. Dwight was absent until September, on a visit to the United States. Mr. Schauffler left in May for Vienna, to superintend the printing of the Hebrew Spanish Old Testament. He went by way of Odessa, and both there, and among the German churches in that part of Russia, he did much to sustain a religious revival that had been long in progress. Mr. Homes left in the spring to join Dr. Grant in exploring Kurdistan. Mr. Hamlin arrived early in the year, but was occupied in the study of the language. Mr. Goodell was, therefore, almost alone in this trying season.
The extent and violence of the persecution were convincing proof of the progress of the reformation. A corrupt priesthood dreaded its tendency to deprive them of their sinful gains. Certain persons no longer enjoyed a monopoly of Armenian printing. Education ceased to be exclusively in the hands of a few bankers. And the popularity of Hohannes and Boghos Fizika was thought to operate against the great Armenian college at Scutari. Nor were the members of the Romish Church idle.