It should be gratefully acknowledged, that violence towards missionaries has almost everywhere been the exception, and not the rule. It has been so even in Koordistan. But Mr. Cochran, while travelling with several Nestorians through Nochea, was assailed by five robbers in the employ of a Koordish chief, named Seyed Khan Bey. As Moslems the assailants were of course reckless of the life of Christians; and, for a time, the party were apprehensive of being murdered. But at last, while the freebooters were intent on their prey, the company fled up the steep mountain side, leaving their effects. Their horses were afterwards recovered.
The year 1854 opened with a revival in both the seminaries. At the commencement of it, scarcely half the students in either of the institutions gave evidence of piety, which was an unusually small proportion. The thought of this, and especially that several of the senior class were about going forth into the world without Christ, led to earnest prayer, and to efforts which were followed by an immediate blessing. The special religious interest continued several weeks, and extended to the large village of Geog Tapa, but the results appear not to have been distinctly reported.
The eighteen young men who graduated in 1854, were of higher promise than any previous class. Several of the performances at their graduation were very gratifying, particularly the valedictory addresses, pronounced by a young man of eighteen, which would not suffer in matter or manner, Dr. Perkins thought, by the side of similar addresses at any American college. Nearly all were hopefully pious, and were returning to homes widely distant from each other.
In some parts of the field there was much enthusiasm. In Geog Tapa, for example, about seventy adults had commenced learning to read. The mode pursued there and elsewhere, was to induce teachers, scholars in the village schools, and other readers to teach adults, by the promise of a Bible, Testament, or other book, if they were successful. At an examination, the forenoon was devoted to the girls' school, taught by two graduates of the female seminary, and the afternoon to the Sabbath-school. Such a crowd of Nestorians was present, that it was necessary in the afternoon, to meet in a grove. The first class examined in the Sabbath-school consisted of men from twenty to seventy years of age, headed by the chief man of the village. Then followed a class of women, fifty or sixty in number, from forty to fifty years of age. These classes, not being able to read, had been taught orally. Next came a class of men, about twenty in number, and a class of twenty-three women, who had recently learned to read. These had been taught individually by boys connected with the village schools, each of whom received a copy of the Old Testament as a reward. On the plain of Oroomiah seventy-three free schools were reported, with more than a thousand boys, and one hundred and fifty girls and women as pupils.
In Gawar, two schools embraced fourteen boarding and thirty-two day scholars. Fourteen of these were from Jeloo, Bass, and Tekhoma districts. Among them were four deacons, four from the family of the bishop of Jeloo, and nearly all were from prominent families. They were wild mountaineers, and in some thing's difficult to manage, but they acquired knowledge rapidly and with delight; and the constant study of the Bible wrought a perceptible change in them. In the Bootan districts, hitherto inaccessible to missionary influence, there was now a strong desire for schools, and for the labors of evangelical teachers.
The New Testament in the modern language was beginning to be circulated among the people; a much enlarged edition of the hymn book had been issued, and a volume, entitled "Scripture Facts," had a wide circulation. Mr. Perkins had completed a translation of Doddridge's "Rise and Progress," and was engaged in translating Barth's "Church History."
Mr. Crane died at Gawar on the 27th of August, 1854, at the commencement of a career of bright promise. So ardently was he beloved by the people there, that at the funeral service the whole assembly repeatedly broke forth into weeping. The afflicted widow was called, within a week of her husband's death, to mourn also the loss of a beloved son, and removed to Mount Seir, where she was a valued helper in the mission. She returned home in 1857. Mr. Rhea and Miss Harris were united in marriage in October, and spent the winter at Gawar.
The audacity of the papal missionaries, backed by the French embassy, was marvelous. The American mission having been importuned to open a school in the large village of Khosrova, in Salmas, where popery predominated, two young men, graduates of the seminary, were successively sent thither. The first was several times driven away, through the instigation of the Lazarists, and those who were friendly to the mission also became objects of persecution. The second was assailed by the mob, headed, by the French chief of the Lazarists, and by a bishop. These two men, with their own hands, threw him into a canal, and called on the people to drown or kill him. He was mercifully delivered, but narrowly escaped with his life. The matter being reported to Mr. Abbott, the English Consul at Tabriz, the chief of the Lazarists, with some fifteen of his satellites, went thither, and apprehending a cool reception from the Consul, whose protection the Lazarists enjoyed in common with the American missionaries, he applied for assistance to the Russian Consul, proposing to transfer his passports to his hands. Mr. Khanikoff refused, and severely rebuked them for their conduct. Mr. Abbott obtained an order from the Governor of Azerbijan to lay heavy fines on the Mussulman deputies of Khosrova for withholding protection, and on the principal papists for their acts of violence, with the requirement of bonds for future good behavior.
Messrs. Abbott and Stevens, English consuls at Tabriz and Teheran, kindly exerted their protecting influence, and Mr. Cochran subsequently spent a week at Khosrova, and had his house thronged every evening with from fifty to a hundred and fifty people, eager to listen to the preaching of the Word. The ecclesiastics raged, and stirred up the agent of the master of the village (who lives in Tabriz) to endeavor to drive our brother away; but the attempt failed. Sixty houses gave their names and seals, wishing to become Protestants. They were exceedingly desirous of having a missionary, and even threatened, good-naturedly, to take one by force to live among them.
The reader may remember what Dr. Lobdell said of the course of this mission in respect to the forming of distinct churches.[1] Dr. Perkins, writing in May, 1855, gives the following account of the progress of the reformation towards that result: "Our communion occurred about two weeks ago, and nearly one hundred communicants sat down to the table of the Lord, including our mission. It was a solemn and delightful season. Among the native brethren present were Mar Yohannan and Mar Elias; and most of the others, of both sexes, were educated and quite intelligent; but, what is of far greater importance, they were, as we trust, true Christians. It would be easy at once to triple the number from those who, in the judgment of charity, are the children of God; but we think it better to introduce them somewhat gradually and cautiously to the ordinance; while, at the same time, we would not too long allow any of the sheep and lambs of Christ's flock to suffer for want of this important means of grace. It is exerting a powerful influence on those who participate in it, and on many others; and it cannot fail ultimately to produce the effect either of redeeming the ordinance from abuses, as administered in Nestorian churches, or drawing off the pious part of the people to a separate observance of it. We are quite willing that the scriptural administration of the ordinance to the pious Nestorians should work out either of these results, in the legitimate time and way, or both of them, as the Lord shall direct."