turns bright providences towards us. How easy, then, it is to praise!
but I feel my dearest teacher is teaching me the hardest lesson to
kiss the hand that wounds, to bless the hand that pours out sorrow,
and to submit, with all my soul, though I see not a ray of light. Oh,
thou holy and blessed Spirit, come and help thy poor wayward scholar,
who indeed would not entertain a hard thought of his dear and loving
Father. Through much tribulation we must enter into the kingdom;
therefore, blessed Lord, prepare me for thy service. I am a poor
inexperienced soldier; clothe me with the whole armour of God, that my
soul may praise in the darkest day. All but myself are quite well, and
my indisposition seems only at present a little weakness, which
perhaps the exertions of removing the things from our room to-day, and
all the painful associations connected with it, has this evening a
little increased: but the Lord is very pitiful, and says, Ask what you
will of my Father, and he will give it you. Dear Lord, fill me with
thyself, that there may be no more room for the grief of any creature.
Thou, and thy Father, and the blessed Spirit, one eternal God alone,
are eternally a satisfying portion.
I am very anxious about the poor schoolmaster: should he die, he will
be the last of our teachers; _three_ are already dead, and he alone
remains.--Oh, my Lord, my soul desires to wait on thee for light,
and to remember Mizar and Hermon--days when the sun shone upon our
path; but the frost may be as necessary to bring the cover to full
perfection as the genial sun and showers. Dear Husbandman, do thine
own will, only make us bear much fruit, that thou mayest be glorified.
_May 21._--Last night thieves endeavoured three times to force an
outer door, but did not succeed--the whole city is swarming with them.
To-day the Pasha of Mosul is come to Bagdad; what it portends we know
not; but the Lord reigneth, therefore let the Saints rejoice; they can
only accomplish his will who is our Father and our God.
I have to-day sent off a messenger to Major T. to Bussorah, may he
quickly return with good tidings of them all. To-day I have also heard
of a caravan proposing to go to Aleppo. Every account we have of the
plague confirms its almost entire disappearance. Our walking now is
altogether by faith: we see not a ray of light for the future, but the
Lord will let light spring out of darkness, so that his servants who
wait upon him shall not always mourn. Oh how different a thing faith
is in a cloudy and dark day, and when all things smile around. I had
intentionally renounced the world, yet the Lord saw that I held more
of it than I knew in the dear object he has removed. In England, where
I had many dear Christian friends, she was my constant companion; but
_here_ she was on earth all I had left--my sorrows, my hopes, my
fears, she shared and bore them all. I feel Christ my Lord has in
store for me in himself some great and special good in exchange for
all this, but my poor weak faithless heart does not yet see the way of
his going forth.
Miriam is most kind to my sweet little helpless babe.
_May 22._--Our dear Lord said to his sorrowing disciples, You have
heard how I said unto you, I go away and come again unto you. _If ye
loved me ye would rejoice because I said I go unto the Father_, that
is, if you loved me above the enjoyment of my society and help, ye
would rejoice; how hard this is: as it was true of the departing head,
so it is true of every member, and yet I feel my selfish heart
constantly forgetting that true love which under the crucifixion of
all one's own feelings can truly rejoice at the happiness of an object
beloved, even at this expense.
This has again been an anxious day. Dear Henry complained this morning
of a swelling under his ear, or rather under the angle of the jaw,
where there was on feeling it, an evidently enlarged gland; however,
to the praise of the Lord's great grace, it is evidently passing away
without any general attack on the constitution. I really believe the
Holy Ghost is making these events instrumental in working a deep sense
on the minds of the dearest boys of the importance of their souls;
there is a concern about religion, a willingness to talk about it I
have not before observed. Oh, may the Lord's blessed spirit water
these seeds till they become plants of renown, to the glory of our own
Lord's great name.
_May 23._--Oh my poor heart flutters like a bird when it contemplates
the extent of its bereavement as a husband, a father, a missionary.
Oh, what have I not lost! Dear Lord sustain my poor weak faith. Thy
gracious visits sometimes comfort my soul; yet my days move heavily
on; but the Lord who redeemeth the souls of his servants has declared,
that none of those who trust in him shall be desolate. Lord I believe,
help thou mine unbelief. I do indeed desire with my whole soul to cast
myself into the ocean of thy love, and never to let Satan have one
advantage over me, by instilling into my heart hard thoughts of thy
ways. Surely we expect trials, and if so, and thou sendest one other
than we expected, should it surprise us when we see but a point in the
circle of thy providence, and thou seest the end from the beginning.
_May 24._--To-day Kitto has been very unwell.
_May 25._--To-day the dear baby is very unwell, but Kitto better. Thus
the Lord interchanges his merciful trials and merciful reliefs. I feel
one great want, "To be filled with all the fulness of Christ," that
there may be no room for those fluctuations, which from short
intervals of sweet peace, plunge me into depths of sorrow and
astonishment: yet I know the Lord will heal, he will bind up what he
has broken. O my soul, wait patiently on him to learn all, I know he
would teach thee: let patience have her perfect work, for the trial of
our faith is much more precious than of gold that perisheth. My eyes
are daily, hourly looking unto the Lord for a little ray of light, but
as yet I see none: yet we know that they that trust on the Lord shall
not walk in darkness, but mercies shall encompass them about.
_May 26._--To-day, thank God, all our household are tolerably
well.--All accounts from without say the plague is ended. May the Lord
grant it!
_May 27._--My dear baby still very poorly. Dear Lord, I commit this
tender delicate flower to thy loving gracious keeping. Oh my God, my
soul has been much cast down within me; but thou hast enabled me to
remember thee from the land of Jordan, and the Hermonites, from the
hill Mizar. O Lord, only let thy love appear shining through the
clouds that surround me, and my soul will rejoice; it is only when the
adversary prevails so far as to say, He loves thee not, that my soul
is overwhelmed within me; for if I have not the Lord, whom have I? for
vile and worthless as all my manifestations of love have been, cold
and dead as all my worship, low and doubting as all my confidence has
been, yet Lord, all my desire is to love thee better and serve thee
more singally, who art infinitely worthy of all love and all service.
How strong our tower seems till the Lord blow upon its foundations,
and then much that looked so fair, flies like the chaff of the summer
threshing floor, and meet it is, if the immoveable parts of Christ's
own building be found to connect the poor fluttering soul with the
Rock of Ages. Oh may my soul drink daily more and more deeply into
that spirit of adoption and love, and assurance of the Lord's favour,
that gilded the last year of my dear, dear Mary's life.--Lord, I feel
I am a very child; but Lord, lead thou me by thine own right hand. Oh
my heart longs for Christian communion--some one to whom I can talk of
Jesus and his ways, and with whom I may take counsel; yet it now seems
as though many months must elapse before our dear friends can come
from Aleppo, but the Lord knows what is best, and to him we leave all
our cares, and the providing for all our necessities. I pray the Lord
to pour down his Holy Spirit upon my poor heart, and strengthen it for
trials. It was one of my dearest Mary's greatest comforts, as it has
been mine, to know so many of those who were dear to the Lord, and had
purposed wholly to follow him, were praying for our guidance and
welfare;--this used to be in our evening walks, on the roof of our
house, a theme of thanksgiving, and used daily to draw out our hearts
to the Lord for the continual dew of his blessing upon them. Oh when
they hear of all the Lord's dealing, may their spirits be stirred up
within them to pray that I may be filled with him who filleth all in
all. I long to love my Eternal God--Father, Son, and Spirit, more with
all my undivided heart; the coldness of my love--the lowness of my
desires is my abiding sorrow.
_May 28._--To-day came letters from England, but Oh, how strangely
altered; those very letters which would have animated anew all our
endeavours, and led us to praise God together, had dearest Mary been
here to share them, came winged with passages that wrung my heart. But
still the love of the saints of God, of those we love, has much
sweetness in it; and then again to hear of our dear sister's
thoughtful love towards our tender little babe in providing her
clothes, which, while they are doing, my heart heaves with the
prospect of losing the sweet little flower--so tender--so needing more
than a mother's care. But the Lord is most compassionately gracious,
and what he does not reveal, he will hereafter.
I have also had intelligence to-day that my dear brothers and sisters
had been two months ago on the point of setting off for Aleppo; but
whether they received news of the plague and returned, or are waiting
at Anah, I know not, but I greatly need them--yet still the Lord knows
best how much I need them, and when.
When I think of my lowness in the attainments of the divine life, my
little knowledge, and less love of my dear Lord, I wonder how he has
so graciously allowed me a place in the hearts of his chosen, and that
he should allow our weak, tottering, and faithless walk, to encourage
the young and lusty eagles to take their higher flight is wonderful;
but it is that the glory might be his.
* * *
In concluding this portion of my journal, I shall just take a little
view of the last two years, as it is now within a few days of two
years since I left my dear, dear friends and native shore.
From the day my dearest Mary and myself deliberately prepared to set
out on the work in which we finally embarked, the Lord never allowed
us to doubt that it was _his_ work, and that the result on the church
of God would be greater than our remaining quietly at home. All our
subsequent intercourse with his dear children in England, and in our
journey, had a confirmatory tendency, and all the communications
from the dear circle to whom we were known, insignificant as we
were, convinced us that the cause of the Lord had suffered no
detriment--that many had been led to act with more decision, and some
to pursue measures which possibly might not otherwise have been
undertaken.
Again, the Lord's great care over us in his abundant provision for all
our necessities, although every one of those sources failed we had
calculated upon naturally when we left England, enabled us yet further
to sing of his goodness.
Then, as to our work; when we left England, schools entered not into
our plan; but when we arrived here, the Lord so completely put the
school of the Armenians into our hands, that on consultation both my
dearest Mary, myself, and Mr. Pfander thought that the Lord's children
and saints must take the work the Lord gives, particularly as there
appeared no immediate prospect of other work. We entered on it, and by
dear Mr. Pfander's most efficient help, the children were soon brought
to translate God's word with understanding, and the school increased
from 35 to near 80. My dearest Mary had long desired to undertake the
girl's school exclusively; but previous to her confinement she did not
feel able; but as soon as she got about, she undertook it heartily,
and the dear little children were so attached to their employments,
that they used to come on their holidays. She had got so far on in
Armenian, as to be able to prepare for them, in large characters, some
little pieces of Carus Wilson's, which I got translated into the
Armenian of this place, and the dear little children were so
interested by them, that they exceedingly desired to take them home,
and read them to their mothers, which in two or three days they were
to have done. For our own instruction in Arabic and Armenian, and for
the school, we had five most competent teachers. Thus things went on
up to the end of March, when the appearance of the plague obliged us
to break up the school. But now two months have passed, and Oh! how
changed. Half the children, or more, are dead; many have left the
place; the five teachers are dead, and my dear, dear Mary. When I
think on this, my heart is overwhelmed within me, and I remain in
absolute darkness as to the meaning of my Lord and Father; but shall I
therefore doubt him now, after so many proofs of love, because he acts
inscrutably to me? God forbid! That the Lord made the coming of my
dearest wife, and her multiplied trials and blessings, the instruments
of her soul's rapid preparation for his presence, I have no doubt. I
never heard a soul breathe a more simple, firm, and unostentatious
faith in God. She never had a doubt but that it was for the Lord she
left all that was naturally dear to her to expose herself to dangers
from which, with a constitutional timidity, she shrunk. Her soul was
most especially drawn out towards her Lord's coming, and this spread a
gilded halo round every trial. She constantly exclaimed, as we walked
on the roof of our house[32] of an evening, "When will he come?"
Often she would say to me, I never enjoyed such spiritual peace as
since I have been in Bagdad--such an unvarying sense of nearness to
Christ, and assurance of his love and care; we came out trusting only
under his wing, and he will never forsake us. Her strongest assurance
was certainly that the Lord would not allow the plague to enter our
dwelling; but when she saw that the Lord mysteriously accepted not
this confidence, but let it rest even on her, it never disturbed her
peace, as I have mentioned before. She said to me, "I know not which
is to me most mysterious, that the Lord should have laid his hand upon
me, or, having laid it, that I should enjoy such peace as I do." And
in this peace and confidence, every subsequent moment of sensibility
was passed. Her constant exclamation was, "I know he will do most
graciously by me." Yet notwithstanding all the happiness I have in
contemplating her among the redeemed, thus clothed in white; and
notwithstanding the triumphing conviction I have in spite of the
temptations of Satan, and the darkness that envelopes my present
position, that all is the offspring of infinite love; yet at times the
overwhelming loss I have sustained, in every possible way that a
husband, a father, a missionary, and even a man, can know, so affects
me that but for my Lord's loving presence, I should be overwhelmed.
[32] It is on account of the great heat in the summer that
the houses in Bagdad are built with flat roofs, to which the
inhabitants all move up at sunset, to dine and spend the night.
I now wait till the arrival of my dear friends to consult with them as
to our future plans. May the Lord, if it be his pleasure, quickly send
them hither, and direct us in all our plans and purposes, so that we
may be led to fulfil his will.
_May 30._--A messenger has arrived from Bussorah, bringing
intelligence of the kind Taylors; but the letters he brought were all
taken from him, and he stripped to his shirt, a few miles from Bagdad.
However, by word of mouth, he brings, on the whole, good accounts. All
their immediate family are well; some have died, among those that
accompanied them, and nearly all the Arab sailors, but as the letters
are lost, we know not the particulars.
_May 31._--I have had another proof of my heavenly Father's care. An
Armenian merchant has sent his servant to me to say, he proposes
sending him every day to buy for me what I want from the bazaar, and
also to offer me any money I may want. The latter I had no occasion to
accept, for when the Jew left the city who was to supply me, and the
man died who was to obtain it for me, and I seemed left without
remedy, an Armenian offered to supply whatever I might want, without
any application on my part, and from him I have had what I needed.
Whether or not the affairs of the Pasha are likely to be quietly
settled, I know not; but I think there are some indications that the
present Pasha will remain. So intensely ruined does the city appear,
that the Pasha of Aleppo, who was to have come and dispossessed him,
seems to have no desire for the exchange; and besides, the present
Pasha has offered so large a sum of money, that there appears little
doubt it will be accepted. Dispatches have arrived for him, the
contents of which are not yet known; but the Pasha says, he has
received the most satisfactory letters. He is, I believe, recovering
daily his strength.
Thus I finish this melancholy portion of my journal--one of those dark
pages in the history of one's life, that whenever the thoughts stray
towards it, chills to the very centre of one's being; and when we
trace all its sources, and see they terminate in sin, Oh! how hateful
must that thing be, which is fraught with such deadly consequences.
Oh! what a blessedness it is, amidst all these lights and shades of
life, to know that the Rock on which we rest is the same, and does not
vary; and that whether he administers to us the bitter portion or the
sweet, his banner over us is love.
* * *
_June 5._--Reports are again spreading that the Pasha of Aleppo is
within a few days of this place. But we sit down and patiently wait
the event.
_June 7._--To-day a letter has reached me from Major Taylor, being the
first I have received since he removed his family from this place to
Bussorah, on the breaking out of the plague here. In every one of the
boats going down the river deaths occurred, but especially in theirs,
they losing seven of their party. The plague broke out among the Arab
sailors, who secreted a corpse in the boat several days, and from
them it spread among his African servants, and seized Mrs. Taylor's
brother-in-law, so that I cannot see my early conclusions were wrong
as to not moving at that time. And, moreover, the Pasha, or rather
Motezellim of Bussorah, has been driven out by a party of Arabs, and
he is now come against the town with another large body of Turks, to
endeavour to recover it; so that even this evil of the sword we should
not have escaped. The Lord, therefore, leaves me nothing to regret,
unless it be that I ought perhaps to have kept myself quite apart from
the rest of the family, after I had been obliged by a sense of duty to
go out during the time the plague was raging. It is easy to be wise
after the events are past. The more I contemplate the circumstances in
which I have of late been placed, the more I see of the trials and
anxieties of the missionary life, and of the mysteriousness of God's
dealings; I feel the more overwhelmed with the importance of the soul
having a deep sense of the love of God in Christ, before it ventures
upon such an undertaking. Our dear Father very often, in love,
explains to us his reasons; at other times, he gives no account of his
matters; in the one case to excite love and confidence, in the other,
to exercise faith. It does seem to me, that no doctrines but those of
the sovereign grace of God, and his love entertained towards the soul,
before the foundation of the world, and the revelation by the Holy
Ghost of the love and fellowship with Christ, and through him with the
Father, so that we have thereby our life hid with him where no evil
can reach us, can happily sustain the soul. There is something so
filthy, so worthless in all our services, when events render it
probable to the soul that soon it will appear before God, that the new
creature cannot endure the deformity and defilement, and turns away
its distressed sight to the love of the Lord, and the garment he has
provided without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing. The experience of
my dear dear Mary on this head was most striking. She often said to
me, "They often talked to me, and I often read of the happiness of
religion--but I can truly say I never knew what misery was till I was
concerned about religion, and endeavoured to frame my life according
to its rules--the manifest powerless inadequacy of my efforts to
attain my standard, left me always further removed from hope and peace
than when I never knew or thought of the likeness of Christ, as a
thing to be aimed after; and it was not till the Holy Ghost was
pleased of his infinite mercy to reveal the love of my Heavenly Father
in Christ, as existing in _himself_ before all ages, contemplating me
with pity, and purposing to save me by his grace, and to conform me
to the image of Him whom my soul loves, that I really had peace, or
confidence, or strength. And if in any measure I have been able to
walk on with joy in the ways of the Lord, it has been from the
manifestation of _his_ love, and not from the abstract sense of what
is right, nor from the fear of punishment." This was the theme of her
daily praise--the love and graciousness of her Lord; and I can set my
seal, though with a comparatively feeble impression, to the same
truths, that the sense of the love of Christ is the high road to walk
in according to the law of Christ.
_June 9._--I have heard from a German merchant, Mr. Swoboda, that
above 15,000 persons, many sick with the plague, and others, were
buried under the ruins of the houses that fell in the night the water
burst into the city. Nothing can give a more awful impression of the
mass of misery then in the city, than that such an event, which at
another time, would have called forth every exertion to remove the
sufferers, and have been the universal conversation and lamentation of
the city, passed by without any effort to relieve them, and almost
without a word of remark, but from those immediately connected with
the sufferers. I hear that those who have closed their houses intend
opening them on the 18th inst. I bless God for the intelligence; and
trust the plague has quite left us. Mr. Swoboda tells me he does not
expect to open his khan again for 12 months;--this, however, does not
arise simply from the plague, but because the rich merchants have all
left the city, and the principal Jews, from the apprehension of the
coming of Ali Pasha from Aleppo, and that in consequence trade is at a
stand.
_June 10._--Last evening the guns of the citadel fired as for some
good news, and we find, on enquiring, that a messenger has come from
the Sultan, confirming the Pasha in his Pashalic.[33] The Tartars, who
are the bearers of this intelligence, are expected to enter to-morrow
or next day. This arrangement, it is reported, has been brought about
by our Ambassador at Constantinople.--Should it be the Lord's pleasure
that we now have a little peace and quietness here, it will be a great
mercy, and an inconceivable relief from the disquietude of the last
18 months; however, the Lord knows what is best for us. These
difficulties have led my heart many times to him, when, perhaps, but
for them, it would have rested on some lower object. This prospect of
peace seems to bring nearer the possibility of our dear friends
joining us from Aleppo, and this would indeed be a great comfort.
[33] All these reports were mere fables, got up for the
purpose of deceiving the people.