The book depository was removed from Pera across the Golden Horn into the old city of Constantinople, and the Moslems made no objection. More than twenty boxes of books were sent to a single place in the interior within the space of a year and a half. At one time two boxes were ready for Diarbekir, one for Cesarea, one for Aintab, and another for Jerusalem.
In this work the mission was liberally aided by the American, and the British and Foreign Bible Societies, by the London Religious Tract Society, the American Tract Society, and more recently by the Turkish Missions Aid Society. Mr. Barker, agent of the British and Foreign Bible Society, and the Rev. C. N. Righter, of the American Bible Society (who died not long after at Diarbekir), did much to promote the work of Bible distribution in the countries around the Mediterranean and Black Seas; and the Constantinople Bible Society employed a French and English colporter among the soldiers of the allied powers. More Bibles and religious books went into the hands of Mohammedans from the depository of the mission during the years 1854 and 1855, than in all the previous years of its existence. Twenty thousand copies of the Bible were scattered through Turkey in that space of time.
The transfer of Dr. Riggs to the department of the Press made it necessary to suspend the Greek department in the Seminary at Bebek, and four of the six Greek pupils were sent to Dr. King at Athens.[1] Another became a teacher in Demirdesh, and another went to the United States to complete his professional studies.
[1] The author regrets being obliged to say, that these all disappointed the expectations of their benefactors.
Five Armenian students had been licensed to preach, and sent to Adrianople, Cesarea, Sivas, Diarbekir, and Kessab. Another, having the ministry in prospect, was a teacher in the new training-school at Tocat, under Mr. Van Lennep. A similar school existed at Aintab.
The accession of missionaries from 1855 to 1860 was as follows: In 1855, Orson P. Allen; in 1856, George A. Pollard, Tillman C. Trowbridge, and Misses Mary E. Tenney and Sarah E. West; in 1857, Crosby H. Wheeler, Charles F. Morse, Oliver W. Winchester, Jackson G. Coffing, George H. White, and Julius Y. Leonard; in 1858, Theodore Byington, George Washburn, and William Hutchinson; and Herman N. Barnum, who, being at Constantinople as a traveller, made an offer of his services, which was accepted in this year; in 1859, William W. Meriam, Joseph K. Greene, James F. Clarke, George F. Herrick, and Henry S. West, M. D., and Miss Myra A. Proctor; in 1860, Alvan B. Goodale, M. D., William F. Arms, Zenas Goss, William W. Livingston, and Lysander T. Burbank. Messrs. Washburn, Trowbridge, Pettibone, Barnum, Herrick, and Goss came to the mission unmarried; Mr. Washburn afterwards married a daughter of Dr. Hamlin, Mr. Barnum a daughter of Dr. Goodell, and Mr. Trowbridge a daughter of Dr. Riggs.
Mr. Everett, a devoted servant of Christ, was called to his rest on the 5th of March, 1856, after a sickness of a few days. His orphan children returned to the United States in charge of Miss Haynes, the sister of their mother. Messrs. Isaac G. Bliss and Edwin Goodell, in consequence of the failure of health, were released from their connection with the Board. The former afterwards recovered his health, and returned to Turkey as agent of the American Bible Society, in which capacity he has rendered very valuable service. Antioch and Aleppo were transferred from the Syrian to the Armenian Mission. At Erzroom the war drove away, not only the church-members, but most of those who were interested in the truth. Mr. Richardson removed to Arabkir to supply the place of Mr. Clark, who had been called to the seminary at Bebek; left without a teacher by the death of Mr. Everett and the temporary absence of Dr. Hamlin. At Marash, in consequence of the war and the proximity of the rough mountaineers of Zeitoon, the missionaries were at one time in no small danger.
The beheading of a young Armenian, who had rashly declared himself a Mohammedan, and then repented of his rashness, and the consequent successful efforts of Sir Stratford Canning, in procuring a pledge from the Sultan that no person should be persecuted in Turkey for his religious opinions, were described in the first volume.[1] This was in 1843 and 1844. Ten or eleven years later, there was another beheading at Adrianople for a like cause, and another at Aleppo; and the same high-minded statesman was again aroused to effort, not only for a more effectual abrogation of the death penalty itself, but to obtain for the Protestant Christians freedom from persecution, and for the Christians generally the privileges that were enjoyed by their fellow-subjects of the Moslem religion. The eighty folio pages of documents on the subject, which were presented to both Houses of Parliament in 1856, form an important and interesting chapter in the history of those times. The principal writers, in addition to Lord Stratford de Redcliffe and the Earl of Clarendon, were the Earl of Shaftesbury, Lord Cowley, Sir Culling Eardley Eardley, President of the Turkish Missions Aid Society, the Rev. Cuthbert G. Young, its Secretary, and Mehemet Fuad.
[1] Vol. i. p. 135.
As the result of all, a Hatti Humaïoun, or Imperial Firman, was issued by the Sultan in February, 1856. When read in public, the Sheik el Islam, the highest Moslem ecclesiastic, invoked the divine blessing on the Imperial Edict; but probably without an apprehension, either by himself or by his government, of the full significance of the instrument. By many of the Mohammedans it was regarded us opening the door for them to become Christians. Not a few of the Armenians and Greeks were displeased with it as favoring Protestantism; and this fact did not escape the sagacity of Mohammedans.