"You saw that Turk to-day, who pushed me aside as if I had been a dog?
That showed you the _spirit_ of the men in power here, but you little
know their practices--"
"Petroff," said I, interrupting, and looking at the man earnestly,
"forgive me if I say that we had better not discuss the subject now. I
have just arrived in your land, and know little about it yet. When I
have seen and heard and thought much, I will be better able to
understand you."
Petroff admitted with ready grace that I was right, and thrusting his
fingers through the wild clustering curls of his black hair, as if to
let the air circle more freely about his head, he turned sharp round,
and pointed to a cottage which stood at a short distance from the
high-road, at the entrance to the village.
"That is our home, sir; we shall feel happy if you will enter it."
I willingly complied, and turned with them into the by-path that led to
it.
The cottage was a mere hut, long and low, one end of which constituted
the forge, the other end, divided into three compartments, being the
dwelling-house. Here I found the hand of Marika very evident, in the
neatness and cleanliness of everything in and around the place. The
owners were very poor, but there was sufficient for comfort and health.
On a shelf in a corner lay the Bible which the family had received from
the colporteur. It was the only book in the house, and evidently a
cherished treasure.
In another corner, on a rudely-made but warm couch, lay a treasure of a
different stamp--a boy, apparently about two years of age. As I looked
at the curly black hair, the well-shaped nose, the firm, rosy lips, and
the broad brow, I turned to Petroff with a smile, and said--
"I need not ask if that boy is yours."
The man did not at once reply, but seized the child, which our entrance
had awakened, and raised it high above his head.
"Do you hear that, little Dob? The gentleman knows who you are by your
mother's eyes."
"Nay," said I, with a laugh, "by its father's nose. But now that you
mention the eyes, I do recognise the mother's plainly. How old is he?"
This was the first of a series of questions which opened the hearts of
these people to me. On the strength of these jet-black eyes and the
well-shaped nose, to say nothing of the colporteur and the Bible, Lancey
and I struck up quite an intimate friendship, insomuch that at parting,
little Dob gave me a familiar dab on the face, and Ivanka turned up her
sweet little mouth to be kissed--quite readily and of her own accord.
There is nothing on earth so captivating as a trustful child. My heart
was knit to little Ivanka on the spot, and it was plain that little Dob
and Lancey were mutually attracted.
I remained at that village several days longer than I had intended, in
order to cultivate the acquaintance of the blacksmith's family. During
that time I saw a good deal of the other villagers, and found that
Petroff was by no means a typical specimen. He was above his compeers
in all respects, except in his own opinion; one of Nature's gentlemen,
in short, who are to be found, not numerously perhaps, but certainly, in
almost every land, with unusual strength of intellect, and breadth of
thought, and power of frame, and force of will, and nobility of
aspiration. Such men in free countries, become leaders of the good and
brave. In despotic lands they become either the deliverers of their
country or the pests of society--the terror of rulers, the fomentors of
national discord. Doubtless, in many cases, where right principles are
brought to bear on them, they learn to submit, and, sometimes, become
mitigators of the evils which they cannot cure.
Most of the other inhabitants of this village, some of whom were
Mohammedans, and some Christians of the Greek Church, were sufficiently
commonplace and uninteresting. Many of them appeared to be simply lazy
and inert. Others were kindly enough, but stupid, and some were harsh,
coarse, and cruel, very much as we find the peasantry in other parts of
the world where they are ill-treated or uncared for.
While staying here I had occasion to go on shore one morning, and
witnessed a somewhat remarkable scene in a cafe.
Lancey and I, having made a longer excursion than usual and the day
being rather hot, resolved to refresh ourselves in a native
coffee-house. On entering we found it already pretty well filled with
Bulgarians, of whom a few were Moslems. They were apparently of the
poorer class. Most of them sat on low stools, smoking chibouks--long
pipes, with clay heads and amber mouth-pieces--and drinking coffee. The
Christians were all engrossed, at the moment of our arrival, with a
stranger, who from his appearance and the package of books which lay
open at his side, I at once judged to be a colporteur. Dobri Petroff, I
observed, was near him, and interested so deeply in what was going on,
that he did not at first perceive us.
Having selected some New Testaments and Bibles from his pack, the
colporteur handed them round for inspection. These, I found, were
printed in the modern Bulgarian tongue. The people greatly admired the
binding of the volumes, and began to evince considerable interest in
what the colporteur said about them. At last he proposed to read, and
as no objection was made, he read and commented on several passages.
Although a German, he spoke Bulgarian fluently, and ere long had aroused
considerable interest, for the people had little or no knowledge of the
Bible; the only one to which they had access being that which lay on the
pulpit of the Greek Church of the village, and which, being written in
the ancient Slavic language, was incomprehensible by them.
The priests in the Greek Church there are generally uneducated men, and
their intoned services and "unknown tongue" do not avail much in the way
of enlightenment. The schoolmasters, I was told by those who had good
opportunity of judging, are much better educated than the priests. I
observed that one of these, who had on a former visit been pointed out
to me by my friend Dobri, sat not far from the colporteur smoking his
chibouk with a grave critical expression of countenance.
At last the colporteur turned to the 115th Psalm, and I now began to
perceive that the man had a purpose, and was gradually leading the
people on.
It is well known that the Greek Church, although destitute of images in
its religious buildings, accords the same reverence, or homage, to
pictures which the Romish Church does to the former. At first, as the
colporteur read, the people listened with grave attention; but when he
came to the verses that describe the idols of the heathen as being made
of, "silver and gold, the work of men's hands," with mouths that could
not speak, and eyes that could not see, and ears that could not hear,
several of the more earnest listeners began to frown, and it was evident
that they regarded the language of the colporteur's book as applicable
to their sacred pictures, and resented the implied censure. When he
came to the eighth verse, and read, "They that make them are like unto
them, so is every one that trusteth in them," there were indignant
murmurs; for these untutored peasants, whatever their church might teach
about such subtleties as worshipping God _through_ pictures, accepted
the condemnatory words in simplicity.
"Why are you angry?" asked the colporteur, looking round.
"Because," answered a stern old man who sat, close to me, "your words
condemn _us_ as well as the heathen. They make out the pictures of our
saints to be idols--images and pictures being one and the same thing."
"But these are not _my_ words," said the colporteur, "they are the words
of God."
"If these words are true," returned the old man, with increasing
sternness, "then _we_ are all wrong; but these words are not true--they
are only the words of _your_ Bible, about which we know nothing."
"My friends," returned the colporteur, holding up the volume from which
he had been reading, "this is not only my Bible, it is also yours, the
same that is read in your own churches, only rendered into your own
modern tongue."
At this point Dobri Petroff, who, I observed, had been listening keenly
to what was said, started up with vehemence, and exclaimed--
"If this be true, we can prove it. Our Bible lies in the neighbouring
church, and here sits our schoolmaster who reads the ancient Slavic like
his mother-tongue. Come, let us clear up the matter at once."
This proposal was heartily agreed to. The Bulgarians in the cafe rose
_en masse_, and, headed by the village schoolmaster, went to the church,
where they found the Bible that the priests were in the habit of
reading, or rather intoning, and turned up the 115th Psalm. It was
found to correspond exactly with that of the colporteur!
The result was at first received in dead silence, and with looks of
surprise by the majority. This was followed by murmuring comments and
some disputes. It was evident that the seeds of an inquiring spirit had
been sown that day, which would bear fruit in the future. The
colporteur, wisely forbearing to press his victory at that time, left
the truth to simmer. [See note 1.]
I joined him as he went out of the church, and, during a brief
conversation, learned from him that an extensive work is being quietly
carried on in Turkey, which, although not attracting much attention, is
nevertheless surely undermining the huge edifice of Error by means of
the lever of Truth.
Among other things, he said that in the year 1876 so many as
twenty-eight thousand Bibles, translated into the modern native tongue,
had been circulated in the Turkish Empire and in Greece by the British
and Foreign Bible Society, while the Americans, who are busily engaged
in the blessed work in Armenia, had distributed twenty thousand copies.
Leaving the village of Yenilik and my Bulgarian friends with much
regret, I continued the voyage up the Danube, landing here and there for
a day or two and revelling in the bright weather, the rich prospects and
the peaceful scenes of industry apparent everywhere, as man and beast
rejoiced in the opening year.
Time passed rapidly as well as pleasantly. Sometimes I left the yacht
in charge of Mr Whitlaw, and in company with my trusty servant
travelled about the country, conversing with Turks wherever I met them,
thus becoming more and more versed in their language, and doing my best,
without much success, to improve Lancey in the same.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note 1. The facts on which the above is founded were given to the
author by the Reverend Doctor Thomson, who has resided in Turkey as the
agent of the British and Foreign Bible Society for upwards of thirty
years.