The chieftain recovered, and, in token of his gratitude, made his benefactor the present of a horse. Dr. Grant describes him as a man of noble bearing, fine open countenance, and about thirty years of age. This important journey was completed on the 7th of December, 1839.
The Rev. Willard Jones and wife arrived in the month previous; and the Rev. Austin H. Wright, M. D., and wife, in the following July, to take Dr. Grant's place as missionary physician; and Mr. Edward Breath, a printer, in November. A press, made for the mission, to be taken to pieces and so rendered portable, came with the printer, much to the satisfaction of the people. A font of Syro-Chaldaic type had previously been received from London, through the kindness of the Rev. Joseph Jowett, editorial superintendent of the British and Foreign Bible Society's publications. The press was the more seasonable, because the Jesuits had commenced their characteristic and determined efforts to get possession of the field. The vain young bishop, Mar Gabriel, imagining himself to have been slighted by his clerical brethren, and being strongly assailed with flatteries and offers of money, had, in an evil hour, encouraged them to come among his people. On reflection he repented of his rashness, called in the aid of his Protestant friends, and wrote to Boré, the French Jesuit, warning him to keep aloof from his people. Boré was enraged, and replied that, having a firman from the King of Persia permitting him to open schools, he should open one at Ardishai. But Gabriel and the mission had already opened a school under one of the best teachers from the Seminary, and soon opened another,—the two containing sixty scholars; while the Jesuit's school, commencing with nine scholars, dwindled to four or five. One of the first works of the press was to print a tract in the Syriac language, entitled "Twenty-two Plain Reasons for not being a Roman Catholic." The Nestorians were exceedingly interested by the array of Scripture texts against the corrupt doctrines and practices of that sect. This was followed by a thousand copies of the Psalms.
The gradual revival of preaching in this ancient Church, became now apparent. At the earnest request of the people, a circuit was formed of seven preaching stations, at all of which the missionaries were aided by ecclesiastics, three of them bishops.
Thus, with the hearty approval of both bishops and priests, the missionaries began to preach in the churches, and so great was the demand for preaching that Mr. Stocking was ordained. The ordination took place in one of the Nestorian churches. Mr. Perkins felt that spiritual death, rather than theological error, was the calamity of the Nestorians. Their liturgy was composed, in general, of unexceptionable and excellent matter, and the charge of heresy on the subject of Christ's character, he pronounces unjust. The Nicene Creed, which they always repeat at the close of their worship, accords very nearly with that venerable document, as it has been handed down to us.1
1 Annual Report of the Board for 1841, p. 114.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE MOUNTAIN NESTORIANS.
1840-1844.
We paused in the history of the Nestorian mission at the return of Dr. Grant to Oroomiah, after a successful exploration of the mountains of Koordistan. He remained there till the 7th of May, 1840. During this time, two brothers of the Patriarch visited the mission, and urged its extension into the mountains. Mar Shimon also wrote, renewing his request for a visit in the spring. Dr. Grant had but little prospect of recovering his health on the plain; and the welfare of his two sons in the United States, children of his first marriage, and the three children then with him at Oroomiah, seemed to require that he revisit his native land. Two of these last mentioned sickened and died in January. Having then only one son to take with him, four years of age, he decided to return through the mountains, and revisit the Patriarch on his way. It was a perilous journey so early in the season, especially with so tender a companion; but the brave little fellow appears to have endured the snows and precipices of Koordistan as well as the father. The boy was everywhere a favorite, both with Koords and Nestorians. One night the snow was so deep near the summit of a mountain that they were obliged to sleep under the open sky, with the thermometer below zero; but the Patriarch's brothers had carpets enough to keep them warm until three in the morning, when the light of the moon enabled them to resume their journey. Mar Shimon was then a guest of Suleiman Bey, in the castle of Julamerk, and with him they spent ten days. Nûrûllah Bey had gone to Erzroom to negotiate for the subjugation of the Independent Nestorians to the Turkish rule, having already relinquished his own personal independence, and become a Pasha of the empire. Suleiman Bey was a relative of the Emir, and had been the leader of the party that murdered Mr. Schultz. He showed special kindness to Dr. Grant. His mother and sister, as also the sister and mother of the Patriarch, with womanly forethought, loaded the Doctor with supplies for the inhospitable road before them. He found the Emir at Van on his return home, and discovered what had been the object of his journey to Erzroom. When Dr. Grant arrived there, with clothes worn and ragged from the roughness of the journey, he had the happiness of meeting Dr. Wright, then on his way to Oroomiah. The two brethren called on the gentlemen of the Persian embassy, then at Erzroom, and one of them, observing Dr. Grant's erect and commanding person, remarked that a good soldier was spoiled when that man became a missionary. At Trebizond he gladly exchanged the saddle for the quiet of the steamer, which took him to Constantinople, and he arrived at Boston on the 3d of October.
Having embraced the theory, that the Nestorians are descendants of the lost Ten Tribes of Israel, Dr. Grant, with characteristic industry, employed such time as he could command during his missionary travels and his homeward voyage, in preparing a volume in support of these views. It was published both in this country and in England, and attracted considerable attention. The celebrated Dr. Edward Robinson deemed it deserving of an elaborate discussion in the "American Biblical Repository," in which he makes a strong argument against the theory.1