The reader need not be told, that Congregationalists and Presbyterians are neither Dissenters nor Independents; and these two large bodies of Christians founded the mission.
The object of Mr. Badger was to alienate the Patriarch from the American mission; and he appears to have succeeded. Mar Shimon, in a letter addressed to the Archbishop and Bishops of the English Church, in August, 1843, speaks thus of the missionaries, with whom he was on confidential and somewhat intimate terms before the visit of Mr. Badger.
"Such was our condition, remaining in our own country in perfect peace and security, when, about three years since, persons came to us from the new world called America, and represented themselves as true Catholic Christians; but when we became acquainted with their way, we found that they held several errors, since they deny the order of the Priesthood committed to us by our Lord, nor do they receive the oecumenical councils of the Church, nor the true traditions of the holy Fathers, nor the efficacy of the sacraments of salvation, which Christ hath bequeathed to his Church, namely, Baptism, and the holy Eucharist; on which account we must beware of their working among us. But when your messenger, the pious presbyter George, came to us, and delivered into our hands your letters, we were filled with joy when we read their contents, and learned therefrom your spiritual and temporal prosperity. And we have now given up all others, that we may be united with you, in brotherhood and true Christian love."1
1 Nestorians and their Rituals, vol. i. p. 273.
Five months before the date of this letter, and after the return of Mr. Badger to Mosul, Dr. Grant received a letter from Mar Shimon, filled with Oriental protestations of undiminished attachment, and with urgent invitations to revisit the mountains. He went, accompanied by Mr. Laurie. They were kindly received as before, and spent several weeks with him, but found the Nestorians in constant dread of attacks from the Koords.
Meanwhile the reports, which had been put in circulation with regard to Dr. Grant's operations at Asheta, in the way of building, were communicated by the Pasha of Mosul to the Pasha of Erzroom, and by him to Constantinople. It is not probable that the reports were believed anywhere; but as the government was then intent upon subjugating that portion of the empire, they were unwilling to have the mountaineers enlightened and elevated. Accordingly they refused firmans to Dr. Azariah Smith and Rev. Edwin E. Bliss, in case they were going as missionaries to the Nestorians, for these would pledge to them the protection of the government; though they would grant them passports to go where they pleased. The Turkish minister even declared to Mr. Brown, our Charge d'affaires at the Porte, that they did not wish schools to be opened in the mountains.
In June, Dr. Grant, by special invitation, visited Bader Khan Bey, the most powerful chief in Koordistan. The journey occupied him five days, by way of Zakhu and Jezireh. The castle of the chief lay sixteen or eighteen miles northeast of Jezireh, in a pass among the mountains. He found there his old friend, of Koordish sincerity, Nûrûllah Bey, who had come to engage the Buhtan chief in the subjugation of the Nestorians. The fearless missionary spent ten days with these "deceitful and bloody" men. They made no concealment of their designs upon the Nestorians, but promised safety and protection to the mission-house and property at Asheta.
The successful attack soon after made on the hitherto independent Nestorians, appears to have had its origin in the Turkish government. Only unity of action could now save the Nestorians, and that unity was wanting. The Buhtan Koords came upon them from the northwest, and the Hakary tribes from the northeast and east. On the south was a Turkish army from the Pasha of Mosul, while the Ravandooz Koords are said to have been ready for an onset from the southeast. Diss, the district in which the Patriarch resided, and Tiary were soon laid waste by the combined force of the Buhtan and Hakary Koords. Many were slain, and among them the Patriarch's mother, a brother, and a fine youth who was regarded as the probable successor to the Patriarch. The valuable patriarchal library of manuscripts was destroyed. When the work of destruction began, Dr. Grant was in the southeast part of Tiary. From thence, without returning to Asheta, where the Patriarch then was, he hastened, by way of Lezan and Amadia, to Mosul, where great fears had been entertained for his safety. He reached Mosul on the morning of July 14, 1843, much fatigued with his journey, but in tolerably good health.
In the first invasion, Asheta and three other large villages in Tiary were spared the general destruction. Previous to November, however, the Nestorians of these villages rose upon the Koordish governor, and wounded him; and this occasioned the destruction of these villages, and the massacre of their inhabitants. Nothing was spared except the house Dr. Grant had erected, and that was converted into a fortress. Of the seventy-four priests in Tiary, twenty-four were killed, whose names were known. The districts east of Diss and Tiary were not destroyed. The tribes of Tehoma, Bass, and Jelu suffered comparatively little in either of the invasions, except in the loss of their property and their independence. After the disasters of Tiary and Diss, each of the remaining tribes sent in its submission. The Patriarch fled to Mosul. Several of his brothers fled to Oroomiah, and there threw themselves on the hospitality of the mission, which in their destitute circumstances could not be refused. Many were sold into slavery. Of the fifty thousand mountain Nestorians, the estimated number before the war, one fifth part were numbered with the slain.
Mrs. Laurie was called on the 16th of December, to rest from her labors. "In her last hours," writes Dr. Grant, "she was mercifully delivered alike from bodily pain and from mental anxieties. A noble testimony of Christian devotedness had been given in her consecration to one of the most difficult and trying fields in modern missions; and death to her was but the Saviour's welcome to mansions of undisturbed repose."