There were but two or three places in Turkey where missionaries, up to this time, had had such marked success as in Diarbekir. The church, at the close of 1859, numbered sixty-one, and after the April communion, seventy-three. Rarely did a communion pass without some additions. Protestants were a recognized power among the people, and their influence was extending. Books were eagerly sought after and paid for. Illegal taxes had nearly ceased in the city itself. After a weary struggle of nine years, the assessment of the tax-roll for the Protestants was made upon a satisfactory plan, which bid fair to be permanent. The commercial standing of the Protestants was above that of any other sect, though there were no wealthy men among them. But the increase of the congregation had been retarded by the want of sufficient accommodations for public worship. The lamented removal of Mr. Holmes, the English Consul, to a more desirable consulate in European Turkey, while it was a great loss to the mission, threw his house upon the market, and it was purchased for a place of worship at less than half its cost. It required only slight alterations, and could be indefinitely enlarged. The members of the church subscribed a thousand dollars towards its purchase, and a certain amount was granted by the Board. The school for boys, and the one for girls, were both eminently a success. At Cutterbul, half the village was Protestant and the rest more than half so, and the place of prayer would not hold the congregation.
In 1860, the stations of the Assyria Mission were brought within the field of the Eastern Turkey Mission, and the Assyria Mission ceased to have a separate existence.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE NESTORIANS.
1851-1857.
The return of Mr. Stoddard, accompanied by his wife and Mr. and Mrs. Rhea, was mentioned in the first volume. He thus describes the manner of his reception: "While crossing the plain of Oroomiah, we arrived at a village twelve miles from the city, where a company of our brethren and sisters, with their little ones and many of the Nestorians, greeted us with tender emotions. A tent had been pitched, and a breakfast prepared; and we all sat down on the grass, under the grateful shade, to partake of the repast. Our hearts were full. During the three hours which we spent at this village, Nestorians of all classes, many of them our brethren in Christ, were continually arriving; and when, soon after noon, we set out for the city, our progress resembled more a triumphal procession than a caravan of weary travellers. Every mile increased our numbers. Our way was often almost blocked up by the people who came to meet us, some on horseback, some on foot; bishops, priests, deacons, village teachers, members of the seminary, with whom I had many times wept and prayed, all pressing forward in eager haste to grasp our hands, and swell the notes of welcome. Three years ago, they followed us out of the city, holding our horses by the bridle, and begging us not to leave them, while their mournful looks bespoke the sorrow of their hearts. Now I was returning to them with restored health, to identify my interests with theirs. I brought with me the salutations of many thousand Christians in our native land, and was accompanied into the harvest-field by new reapers. As I turned from thoughts of the past, and looked on the animating scene around us, the contrast almost overcome me."
This was in 1851. In October of the following year, Dr. and Mrs. Perkins, going to meet Mr. and Mrs. Crane, and Sarah Stoddard, on their way from Trebizond, experienced a severe affliction in the death of their only surviving daughter, a very interesting girl. The journey was expected to be of advantage to the health of Mrs. Perkins and to their two children, Judith and Henry; and it was due to the new-comers that some one, acquainted with the language and country, should aid them through the long and tedious route from Erzroom. After a ride of thirty miles, they were unexpectedly exposed to a pestilential atmosphere at Khoy, where they spent the night. All went well with them until they had crossed the plain of Khoy, and the mountain beyond, and passed their last resting-place, when the beloved daughter showed signs of cholera. They could not rest there under the burning sun, and there was no water near; so they were obliged to proceed three or four miles further, to the Moslem village of Zorava. The nature of the disease was now painfully certain. The Mohammedan villagers were terrified and inhospitable. They would not even allow a morsel of bread to be sold to the faithful Nestorians who accompanied the family, nor even barley for their tired, hungry horses. And when the limbs of the child were cold and stiffening under the power of the deadly disease, they would not sell one stick of wood to warm water for her; but again and again ordered the heart-stricken travellers to leave the village with their dying child. As a further aggravation, after the father had twice administered laudanum, the vial containing the medicine disappeared from their tent, and could no more be found. There were all the usual accompaniments of the cholera, and in that high region the night air was cold. Collecting dry weeds, they managed to kindle a fire, and heated a stone which they placed at her feet.
The spirit of the child was quiet, and beautifully resigned to the will of God. There had been no doubt as to her piety before her sickness, and the whole scene was all that could have been expected of an older person. At length the end came. "Breathing shorter and shorter for fifteen or twenty minutes," writes her father, "she gently slept, as we believe, in Jesus, at three o'clock on the morning of September 4, 1852, aged twelve years and twenty-six days."
The bereaved and afflicted family was now a hundred and forty miles from home; but home was the place for her burial. The mother washed the corpse with her own hands, and dressed it for the grave. As no coffin could be obtained, the loved one was sewed in a strong oriental felt of the size and form of a bed-quilt, and placed upon a bed, and two willow sticks, cut from the margin of the brook, were sewed upon the sides of the bed, and it was then bound to the back of a faithful horse; the panic-stricken villagers calling upon them all the while, "Depart, depart." With what different feelings were they received on their return, by their large circle of weeping friends! One of the Nestorians, who had accompanied the family, standing by the grave, artlessly described to the Nestorians the affecting scenes he had witnessed, and all were bathed in tears. "In all the families of the village," wrote Miss Fidelia Fiske, "Judith had taken a deep interest, and several of the middle-aged women had been taught by her in the Sabbath-school. Indeed, she had greatly endeared herself to all the scores and hundreds of Nestorians who knew her, and was a universal favorite among the people. A Nestorian of a distant village said, on hearing of her death, "There was none like her,—so beautiful, so wise, so pious. She would pray like an angel."[1]
[1] See The Persian Flower; A Memoir of Judith Grant Perkins of Oroomiah, Persia.