THE NESTORIANS.
1857-1863.
The sojourn of three weeks at Tabriz had been a source of constant
anxiety to Messrs. Stoddard and Wright, and the former had
premonitory symptoms of fever on his way home. But he was not
apprehensive on that account, and finding Mr. Cochran and two of the
native teachers disabled by sickness, he devoted much time and labor
to the Seminary, and to the correspondence which had accumulated in
his absence. Yet fever was threatening, and on the 22d of December,
ten days after his return, he became decidedly ill. On the 25th he
was confined to his bed, where he lay for two and thirty days, while
the fever ran its fatal course. He died in great peace January 26,
1857, in the thirty-ninth year of his age. The public funeral
services were in Syriac, and his remains were borne to their last
resting-place by graduates of the seminary, whose conversion dated
back to the first revival.
The mind of Mr. Stoddard was cast in a fine mould. The older members
of the Board remember him at the Annual Meeting in Pittsfield in
1849. My own thought at the time was, that were an angel present in
human form, his appearance and deportment would be much like those
of Mr. Stoddard. A calm, seraphic joy shone in his face, and all
that he said and did was just what all delighted to hear and see.
His presence did much to give a character to that meeting. Mr.
Stoddard had a frail body, and an almost feminine grace of person,
like the popular impression of that disciple who leaned on the bosom
of his Lord; but, like that disciple, he had strength of principle
and inflexibility of purpose. His consecration to the missionary
work was no sudden impulse. It was the result of repeated, and
sometimes unexpected, meetings and conferences with Dr. Perkins,
whose sagacious eye had marked him for a missionary. But the
question once settled, it was settled for life. He went whole-souled
into the work, and never doubted that his call to it was of God. His
talents, which were of a high order, and his learning, which excited
the admiration of Persian nobles and princes, were unreservedly
consecrated. "He goes among the churches," said the lamented
Professor B. B. Edwards, of the Andover Seminary, "burning like a
seraph. So heavenly a spirit has hardly ever been seen in this
country."
Mr. Stoddard's daughter Harriet followed him to the grave within two
months, at the age of thirteen, a victim to the same disease. She
was sustained by the same calm trust in Christ, which lighted up the
last hours of her excellent father.
Dr. Perkins wrote in 1857, that when the mission was commenced,
twenty-four years before, hardly a score of Nestorian men were able
to read intelligently, and but a single woman, the sister of the
Patriarch. The people had no printed books, and but few copies even
of portions of the Bible in manuscript, and these were all in the
ancient Syriac, and almost unintelligible. Their spoken language,
the modern Syriac, had not been reduced to writing. Their moral
degradation was extreme. Still there was a remarkable simplicity in
their conception of religious doctrines, and a remarkable absence of
bigotry in their feelings, as compared with other oriental sects,
and they were very accessible to the missionaries. The change had
been great. Of the fifty-six in the male seminary when he wrote,
thirty were hopefully pious; and so were ninety-one of the one
hundred and fifty who had been connected with it. These were the
fruits of seven revivals. Of the one hundred and three who had been
connected with the female seminary, sixty, or more than one-half,
gave good evidence of conversion; and the same might be said of
three fourths who were then in the school. A large portion of the
young men who had left the seminary, were either preachers of the
gospel, or very competent teachers in the village school; and the
greater part of the religious graduates of the other seminary were
married to those missionary helpers. This seminary had been blessed
with eight revivals. The instruction in both institutions had been
almost wholly in the native tongue.
The entire Bible had been translated into the spoken language, which
the mission had reduced to a written form; and two thousand
intelligent readers, the result of the schools, had been supplied
with the sacred volume. Indeed, the Scriptures had been printed and
given to the people in the ancient Peschito version, as well as in
the spoken tongue. To these were added valuable works on
experimental and practical religion, for the use of the schools, and
to meet the wants of a community in the early stages of a Christian
civilization.
Though separate churches had not been organized, none but pious
Nestorians, for the last two or three years, had been admitted to
communion with the mission church. The number who had thus communed
was about two hundred, and it was thought that from one hundred and
fifty to two hundred more were worthy of a place at the Lord's
table.
The French Jesuits and their emissaries had been a sore trial, but
their success had not been great; and they had probably been useful,
by stimulating the mission and the pious Nestorians in their
Master's service.
Mrs. Rhea had been two years a member of the mission as Miss Harris,
and three as Mrs. Rhea. Her active and useful life closed on the 7th
of December, 1857, at the age of twenty-nine years and five months.
"Her sick room," says Dr. Wright, "was a hallowed place, where the
Sun of Righteousness shone with wonderful brightness."
Another revival of religion occurred in both the seminaries, at the
opening of the year 1858, which was extended to Geog Tapa and other
villages. Miss Fiske, in charge of the female seminary, relates a
fact of much significance. She writes: "Some of the girls' pious
friends came to pray with them yesterday, and I was led to inquire
how many of them have a pious father or mother (or both), or older
brother or sister; and I was surprised to find, as I think you will
be to know, that about two thirds of them have such praying friends.
I contrast this with the facts respecting their friends in 1846, and
feel that we ought to be thankful and humble before our God, for
what he has done for them."
Mr. Rhea spent the winter of 1857 and 1858 on the western side of
the Koordish mountains, and everywhere found an open door for
preaching to the rude dwellers among the rocks. In Shermin, Usgan,
and Argin, Nestorian villages southwest of Amadiah, he was cordially
welcomed to their houses and churches, and had large congregations
that gave earnest attention to his preaching. Snow fell eleven out
of fifteen days, and when ready to return to Amadiah, he found the
way entirely blocked up. Mr. Marsh having joined him from Mosul,
they spent a number of days among large papal villages in that
region, where they found ample opportunity for preaching the Gospel;
and several individuals seemed earnest inquirers after the way of
salvation from the power of sin. With reference to Mosul and
vicinity, Mr. Rhea writes: "I am deeply impressed with the evidence,
that the labors of the mission here have not been in vain, and that
their results are not to be measured by the number of names on the
church roll. The Jacobite Church here is now shaken to its
foundations; and it cannot be doubted, that whatever of feeling
after something better exists among many of its members is owing to
the steady light of the Protestant church streaming in upon its
darkness." He was absent six months, and for one third of this time
was in Mosul. He regarded the proper field of the mountain branch of
the Nestorian Mission as extending from Amadiah on the north to
Mosul on the south, and from Akra on the east to Bootan on the west;
including the mountain districts between Gawar and Amadiah. The
Christian population was one in respect to nationality and language,
and was a remnant of the once great Syrian Church. The language was
the same substantially as that spoken in the eastern districts.
As the result of these explorations, Mr. Rhea made an eloquent
appeal for more effective labor in Western Koordistan, which was
published in the "Missionary Herald," but cannot be sufficiently
condensed for these pages.[1] His health had suffered in his
mountain tours, which resembled those performed by his eminent
predecessor, Dr. Grant. This rendered it necessary for him to spend
a year for recovery in his native land, where his missionary
addresses were well received. Two other members of the mission,
second to none in the field,--the venerable Dr. Perkins, and Miss
Fidelia Fiske,--were obliged to visit the United States in 1858; the
former to care for the health of Mrs. Perkins, who, after burying
six of her children, had accompanied Mrs. Crane to America, taking
her only surviving child; and the latter, in consequence of a
disease, which proved fatal after a few years. Dr. Perkins was also
accompanied by Mrs. Stoddard, and three children of the mission.
[1] See _Missionary Herald_, 1858, pp. 317, 318.
Mr. Rhea's appeal had not been without effect. The Rev. Thomas L.
Ambrose joined the mission near the close of 1858, the Rev. John H.
Shedd and wife in 1859, and the Rev. Henry N. Cobb and wife in 1860,
with direct reference to the mountain field; and the Rev. Amherst L.
Thompson and Rev. Benjamin Labaree, with their wives, and Frank N.
H. Young, M. D., in 1860, to strengthen the force on the plains,
together with Misses Aura Jeannette Beach and Harriet N. Crawford.
Mr. Thompson had given much promise of usefulness, but died at Seir,
August 25, 1860, only fifty-four days after his arrival. Miss Beach
was to be associated with Miss Rice, who had rendered efficient
service in the girls' Seminary as the associate of Miss Fiske, but
was then alone and overburdened.
The unexpected but providential withdrawal of so many older
laborers, at this juncture, was not favorable to a more enlarged
occupation of the field; and the plan of forming a station on the
western side of the mountains, was not carried out. The height of
Amadiah above the plain of Mesopotamia, and its salubrity in summer
were found to have been overestimated; and further researches made
it evident, that the demands of so trying a mountain field were more
than the average health of missionaries would be able to endure at
any season of the year. Indeed, impaired health obliged Mr. and Mrs.
Cobb, who had been specially designated to the mountain district, to
return home within two years; and, to their own great regret and
that of their associates, they have never been able to rejoin the
mission.
The Nestorian helpers, as a class, were pronounced able and faithful
men, remarkably so for Orientals. But they could not fully take the
place of missionaries. "They do nobly," wrote Mr. Coan, "if properly
directed and watched over, better perhaps, in some circumstances,
than we can; but it is not the work of a day, nor a year, thoroughly
to eradicate the habits of life of those who are brought up in gross
superstition."
Early in the year 1859, the seminary for young men was blessed with
its tenth revival, in which a third of its pupils were hopefully
converted. There had then been eleven such spiritual refreshings in
the seminary for girls. In most of these outpourings of the Spirit,
as now, the villages were more or less favored. The effects of these
revivals were by no means limited to the souls converted. An
enlightening, softening, elevating influence affected the masses.
The young men from the seminary were generally of good abilities,
having been selected from a large number of candidates, and many of
them were distinguished for piety; and quite as much might be said
of the other seminary.
More than fourteen millions of printed pages had been distributed
among the Nestorians. The Old Testament with references formed a
part of this literary treasure; and the New Testament was about
being issued in that form.
Among the novelties to be recorded was the marriage of Mar Yohanan,
in violation of the canons of the Nestorian Church. The bishop had
been connected with the labors of the mission from the beginning. He
pleaded the example of Luther and the Apostles. The step was one of
his own choosing, and taken in the face of many threats, as well as
the imputation of unworthy motives; but the "evangelicals" almost
universally approved his course. The excitement was much less than
had been apprehended; and another of the bishops, after some time,
followed his example.
In 1860 the observance of the Lord's Supper, instead of being
confined to the missionary stations; was held, once in four months,
in the various villages where the converts resided, and about a
score of virtually reformed churches were thus planted and watered
in as many different places. The native pastor was held responsible
for the persons whose names were presented to the missionary, as
suitable to be admitted to the Lord's table. Mr. Coan speaks of
those little churches, as being such in fact, "scattered in the
different villages, as so many moral light-houses in the surrounding
darkness."
Mar Shimon, the Nestorian Patriarch, died near the close of 1860, at
the age of fifty-nine, and after having been thirty-five years in
office. His successor was a nephew, eighteen years old, and a youth
of amiable disposition. The patriarch had stood variously affected
towards the mission, but was, for the most part, unfriendly. The
effect of the Gospel in diminishing the superstitious reverence of
the people for him, was one of the causes of his hostility.
About this time, a spirit of unlooked-for liberality was manifested
among the Nestorians. It should be borne in mind that the people are
poor, that the man worth five hundred dollars is counted rich, and
that probably no Nestorian is worth two thousand dollars. The
indications in our own country were at that time very unpromising;
and when the prospective embarrassments of the Board were stated at
the monthly concert in Geog Tapa, John, the pastor, urged the people
to support their own missionary in the mountains, and one of the
audience rose and pledged nearly a month's support. Others
contributed unwonted amounts, and soon the whole congregation was in
a blaze of enthusiasm. Those who could command money gave money,
others contributed wheat, or other produce, and even women took off
their ornaments and gave them. At the monthly concert the next day
in the city, the people were more aglow than at Geog Tapa, and gave
on a larger scale, though frequently reminded that they were poor,
and urged not to give more than their cooler judgments would
approve. The amount contributed was five hundred dollars. They
seized upon the figure of "a bride"-- more forcible in Persia than
in America,--which Mr. Coan had used in his address; and one and
another contributed for her "shoes," "dress," and other things,
until the "church," the "Lamb's wife," had a very comfortable
outfit.
This outburst of benevolent effort was too sudden and excessive to
last in the same measure. The advantage gained by the elevation thus
reached, was the practicability of keeping the converts up to giving
according to their ability, which is the Gospel standard. Dr.
Perkins, writing two years later, thought there was a real gain by
this effort, though it had reacted somewhat. Most of the pledges
were redeemed after the next harvest and vintage.
Dr. Dwight was eighteen days at Oroomiah during his Eastern tour in
1860 and 1861. Mr. Wheeler had accompanied him from Harpoot. Some
important changes in the practical working of the mission, made at
the Annual Meeting, threw a greater responsibility on the native
pastors. They were to have the responsibility, not only of
administering baptism, but of the Lord's Supper; and the children of
none except communicants were to be baptized. The relation of pastor
and people was thus made more prominent and distinct. Dr. Dwight
declares himself satisfied by what he saw at Oroomiah, that nothing
more than this was needed to complete the organization of the
reformed church. He had had the impression, for years, that sooner
or later the converts among the Nestorians, like the same class of
persons among the Armenians, would be organized into separate
churches, wholly distinct from the Nestorian Church. The
excommunications and persecutions that had led to that result among
the Armenians, he seemed to think would not occur among the
Nestorians; and it was evident to him that the old ceremonies of the
Church were silently vanishing away, and that reformed services were
taking their place, as the result of a fundamental change in the
minds of the people. A distinct theological class was to be formed
in the seminary of promising young converts, and no more men were to
be educated in that school than could afterwards be profitably
employed. The conclusion was also reached, in view of past
experience, that the mountain regions should not be occupied by
American families; reserving them as the peculiar field of the
reformed church of the plain; as a training-school for their
missionary spirit, and a necessary outlet for their pious zeal.
The native preachers and helpers held a two days' meeting at
Oroomiah while Dr. Dwight was there, in which several important
subjects were discussed. He liked their appearance, admired the
spirit of many of them, and was greatly moved by the extraordinary
fire of their eloquence, though he understood them only through an
interpreter. He was specially impressed by the childlike piety of
the venerable Mar Elias.
Mr. Breath, the ingenious and efficient missionary printer, died of
cholera on the 10th of November, 1861. He had so far succeeded in
training native printers and book-binders, that there was no further
call for such workmen from the United States. Mrs. Breath returned
home, with her three children, in the following year.
Some uneasiness was created about this time by rumors, that priests
of the Russian Church were coming to Oroomiah to proselyte
Nestorians. They did not come; but emissaries were sent by them
secretly, who made large promises, that deceived many; yet the
evangelical party, with two or three exceptions, kept aloof from the
affair. The proposal was that the Nestorians should renounce their
religion, and receive the seven sacraments of the Greek Church; the
inducements held out being such as the payment of their taxes for
some years, and salaries to all ecclesiastics and head men of the
villages. The Persian government at length became somewhat alarmed
by these proceedings, and the English Consul, Mr. Abbott, having
demanded the official interference of the authorities at Tabriz,
measures were adopted promising some degree of relief to the
oppressed and therefore discontented Nestorians.
I have passed in silence, for the most part, the long series of
efforts by the Persian government to embarrass the mission, since
they appear to have been generally prompted by bribes from
emissaries of the Papal Church, and proved strangely inoperative.
Another interesting revival of religion occurred in the two
seminaries in February, 1862. It seems to have been marked rather by
an increase of grace in the church-members, than by the number of
converts. The first months of 1863 and 1864 were also distinguished
by special religious interest, extending to many of the villages on
the plain.
On Sabbath morning, December 6, 1863, the good old Mar Elias died,
more than four score years of age. Until within a week of his death,
he was accustomed to walk to town to attend the monthly concert, a
distance of five miles, and for many years he had visited the
villages of his diocese on foot. He was sick only three days, and
his mind was clear. When asked by the young men about him for his
dying charge, it was, "See that ye hold fast to God's Word." An
immense concourse gathered from the surrounding country to do honor
to his memory; and Dr. Perkins preached from the text: "My father,
my father! The chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof."
As a most cheering illustration of what Nestorians may yet become,
through the grace of God in the Gospel, I quote largely from an
account of the venerable man, by Mr. Rhea.[1] "While our good old
bishop was not an educated man,--his knowledge in books extending
little beyond the Word of God,--and had but ordinary intellectual
ability, he was still one of the most interesting characters among
the Nestorians. There is no name among them that will be more
fragrant; none that deserves a more honored place in the annals of
his Church. The singularity of his position here, thirty years
ago,--devout, spiritual, God-fearing, and active, when a deep night
hung over his whole people,--like a mountain beacon, whose summit
had caught the first beams of the sun, which was soon to flood all
below with its glory; his prophetic anticipation of the coming of
missionaries; his joy in welcoming them; his peculiar attachment to
them and their families; his true-hearted devotion to them as God's
ministers, and to their work, through all kinds of vicissitudes; the
charming guilelessness of his character, ingenuous as a child; his
wonderful love for the Word of God, making it his meditation by day
and by night,--not able to pass two or three hours consecutively,
without drinking from this well-spring of life; the child-like
gentleness of his character,--though, when stirred in God's behalf,
he showed a lion-hearted courage, tearing down the pictures and
images which Papal hands had stealthily hung on the walls of his
church, and pitching them indignantly from the door; his love of
sound doctrine, holding forth the word of life in his humble way,
always and everywhere, his face never so full of spiritual light as
when rehearsing a conversation he had just had with some Mussulman
friend, to whom he had opened the Scriptures, and talked of the
kingdom yet to fill the whole earth,--the brotherhood of all
races,--the one flock and the one shepherd; his silent patience, in
a land of cruel wrong, under heavy burdens, borne uncomplainingly
for many years; his wonderful spirituality, all things earthly being
but the types of the heavenly,--the one, by resemblance or contrast,
constantly suggesting the other, so that he could not be reminded
that he was late to tea without the quick reply, 'May I not be late
at the marriage supper of the Lamb,' or 'Jesus will gather us all
in, in season;' all these traits of Christ-like beauty combined to
make a character which, in this weary land, was a constant rest to
the toil-worn missionary,--an influence for good, continually
streaming forth into the darkness of spiritual death around him.
God, who accurately weighs all men, only knows how much his kingdom
in Persia has been advanced by Mar Elias, than whom the Nestorian
Church never had a more spiritual and evangelical bishop."
[1] See _Missionary Herald_, 1864, pp. 146, 147.
Almost five thousand Armenians inhabit the plain of Oroomiah, and
the attention of the mission was gradually turned towards their
spiritual enlightenment, with a prospect of ultimate success.
At a general meeting of native helpers, in March, 1863, a Church
Manual, or Directory was adopted; "in the observance of which," Mr.
Cochran writes, "we have all that is essential to a reformed church,
with reformed pastors; and in the possession of the substance, we
can afford to dispense with the shadow of new organizations.....The
prospect, we believe, was never brighter than at present for the
ultimate evangelization of the old Church."
During the thirty years from the arrival of Dr. Perkins, five of the
twenty men and seven of the twenty-four women, who had joined the
mission, had died; and five men and nine women had for various
causes been obliged to retire from the field, leaving in the mission
seven male and nine female laborers. In this time, the vast unknown
of men and things where dwelt the primeval race, had become well
known. A great work of exploration had been performed. So far as
knowledge of the field was concerned, many a valley had been
exalted, many a hill brought low. This was indeed preliminary work,
but it was indispensable, and was no small share of what is involved
in the conquest of the country for Christ. The seven missionaries
then in the field had more than fifty Nestorian fellow-laborers in
the gospel ministry, graduates of their seminary, and the nine
female missionaries rejoiced in scores of pious young women from
their seminary, abroad as wives, mothers, and teachers, doing a work
perhaps not second in importance to that of the pious graduates of
the other school. Nor should we overlook the reduction of the spoken
language to writing, the translation of the Holy Scriptures into it,
and the multiplication of books to the extent of seventy-nine
thousand three hundred volumes, and more than sixteen millions of
pages. Of the half a score and more of revivals in the seminaries,
Dr. Perkins affirms that they would compare with the purest revivals
he had ever witnessed in America.
The return of Miss Beach to the United States threw the whole care
of the female seminary on Miss Rice. She was afterwards materially
aided by Mrs. Rhea, and from time to time by other members of the
mission.
The interest taken by the English government in the oppressed
Nestorians, should be gratefully acknowledged. Mr. Taylor, English
Consul at Diarbekir, was sent early in 1864 through the Nestorian
districts of Koordistan, to ascertain their grievances, and report
to the Ambassador at Constantinople; and Mr. Glen, a pious attaché
to the British Embassy in Persia, spent several months on the plain
of Oroomiah for a similar purpose.