GREECE AND THE GREEKS.
1824-1844.
When the missions to the Oriental Churches were commenced, Greece
was suffering under the oppression of the Turks, and the people were
glad of sympathy from any quarter. In the department of education,
they seemed even to welcome Protestant missionaries. They compared
favorably with the Roman Catholics, in their reception of the
Scriptures, and in the matter of religious toleration. But an
unfavorable change came over them after they had achieved their
national independence.
Mr. Gridley was the first missionary to labor among the Greeks of
Turkey, though he was not sent with special reference to them. He
arrived at Smyrna in December, 1826. After acquiring the modern
Greek, he visited Cesarea, four hundred miles to the eastward,
hoping for better advantages in acquiring the Greco-Turkish
language, and also to learn the condition of the Greeks in the
interior. He was accompanied by Abraham, his teacher, a
well-informed native of Cappadocia, and for two months applied
himself to his studies, until admonished of danger by the frequent
recurrence of headaches. Finding that these yielded to exercise, he
deemed it prudent to execute a purpose he had long cherished of
ascending Mount Argeus, from the top of which, according to Strabo,
the Black and Mediterranean Seas might both be discerned in a clear
day. Outstripping his attendants, Mr. Gridley mounted with great
agility till he reached an elevation within three or four hundred
feet of the highest summit, when he was prevented from advancing
farther by the steepness of the ascent. There, in the region of
perpetual snow, he remained a quarter of an hour, but could not
discover the objects he had specially in view. The height of the
mountain he estimated at thirteen thousand feet. Descending rapidly,
he was overpowered with fatigue when he reached his companions, and
they were soon after exposed to a violent storm of hail and rain.
The headache soon returned with increasing violence, and was
followed by fever, so insidious in its progress as at no time to
suggest to him his danger. His death occurred on the 27th of
September, fifteen days after the ascent, and a year after leaving
his native land.
Thus he fell at the age of thirty-one, and at the very commencement
of his career. The predominant characteristics of Mr. Gridley were
resolution, promptness, and generosity. In all the duties of a
Christian missionary, he was indefatigable in no ordinary degree,
and his early removal was very trying.
The cause of education naturally became prominent at the outset of a
mission among the Greeks. Scio was the seat of their most favored
college, and when the people of that ill-fated island fled from the
murderous sword of the Turks, some of the families sought refuge in
Malta. There were bright youths among them, and six of these, and
two from other Greek islands, so interested Messrs. Fisk and Temple,
that they obtained permission to send them home, to be educated
chiefly at the expense of the Board. This was before the results of
the Foreign Mission School at Cornwall had become manifest. Three
others arrived in 1826, and one in 1828; and nearly all received a
liberal education, either at Amherst or Yale. Evangelinos Sophocles,
from Thessaly, who came last, has long held the honorable position
of a Professor in Harvard University. Four others,--Anastatius
Karavelles, Nicholas Petrokokino, Alexander G. Paspati, and Gregory
Perdicaris, were useful to the mission at different times after
their return to the East. Several young men from the Armenian nation
were likewise educated in the United States, and one of these,
Hohannes, was until his death, a useful minister of the gospel among
his countrymen. But the conclusion on the whole, to which the Board
came, both in respect to Greeks and Armenians, was that a native
agency must be trained in the country where it is to be employed.
The return of Mr. King to Greece, in 1829, has been mentioned.
During the visit of Mr. Smith and myself to the island of Poros, in
July of that year, he was united in marriage to a young Smyrniote
lady, whose acquaintance he had formed some years before, while
detained there on his return from Syria. Though Tenos was one of the
more bigoted of the Greek islands, nearly every person of standing
in the place called upon the newly married couple. A Greek priest
sent a pair of doves, and soon followed with his blessing. It was
this marriage which, in the providence of God, kept Mr. King in
Greece until the close of his long and useful life.
Mr. King opened a school for girls in Poros, and the chief men sent
their daughters to it. The town was noted for a modern church,
called the Evangelistria, which, though built during the revolution,
was the most showy edifice in Greece. It was the annual resort of
hundreds of pilgrims, chiefly the lame, sick, and lunatic, who were
brought there to be cured. It was the centre of modern Grecian
superstition; as Delos, in full view of the church, had been in
ancient times.
After some months, the trustees of the church became alarmed for
their craft, and made vigorous efforts to destroy the school. Some
of the scholars were withdrawn, one of the teachers was compelled to
leave, and the school-books were denounced as heretical. Through the
whole commotion Mr. King held on his way with characteristic
calmness, teaching and praying in the school as aforetime, and
freely expounding the Scriptures, every Lord's day, to more than
fifty of his pupils and a number of their friends. Two of the most
prominent inhabitants espoused his cause; and, just in the crisis of
the difficulty, he received a box of ancient Greek books from the
government, as a present to the school. Soon after, there appeared
in the government gazette a commendation of the school and of its
course of instruction. From that time, opposition from members of
the Greek Church seems to have ceased. A handsome donation of
school-books, slates, and pencils was made by the Greek School
Committee in New York, and forwarded to the President of Greece,
through the American Board. It was gratefully acknowledged by the
government.
In the autumn of 1830, Mr. King, anticipating the evacuation of
Athens by the Turks, made a visit to that city, then a ruin, and
arranged for his future residence. In April of the next year, having
resumed his connection with the American Board, he made a second
visit, and opened a Lancasterian school for both sexes; placing a
Greek, named Nikotoplos, at the head of it, who was author of an
epitome of the Gospels. The school was soon filled. He purchased
from a Turk, with private funds and at a nominal cost, the ruins of
a stone edifice with a garden, and there built himself a home, to
which he removed his family. He also purchased for a few hundred
dollars, while the city was still in Turkish hands, about an acre of
land delightfully situated, on which he subsequently erected a
building for a young ladies' school of a high order.
Capodistrias, the President, was assassinated about this time by two
men belonging to one of the first families in Greece. The protecting
powers required that his successor be a king, and a Bavarian prince
named Otho was put upon the throne of the new kingdom in 1833. The
Acropolis of Athens was soon after delivered up to its rightful
owners, and that event consummated the emancipation of Greece from
Turkish rule. A cabinet was formed, of which Tricoupis, a Greek
gentleman of patriotic and enlightened views, was the president.
Athens became the seat of government in 1834.
The Rev. Elias Riggs arrived as a missionary, with his wife, in
January, 1833, and was cordially welcomed not only by his associate,
but also by the brethren of the American Episcopal mission. Mr.
Riggs had paid much attention to the modern Greek, and was pleased
with Dr. King's manner of preaching on the Sabbath, and with his
familiar exposition of the Scriptures in his flourishing Hellenic
school.1 There were now two schools, called the "Elementary School"
and the "Gymnasium;" the latter having a well-arranged course of
study for four years, corresponding, as far as circumstances would
permit, with the studies of a New England college. The subsequent
removal of the government gymnasium from Ægina to Athens,
necessarily interfered with this, but until that removal it was a
popular institution, with sixty scholars. An examination was held in
1834 for three days in Ancient Greek, Geography, History, Geometry,
Algebra, the Philosophy of Language, and the Holy Scriptures; the
King and the bishop of the city being among the persons present.
1 Nassau College, in Princeton, N. J., had conferred the degree of
D. D. on Mr. King.
Mr. Riggs, after visiting the more important places in the
Peloponnesus, decided upon commencing a station at Argos, which he
did in 1834. The great body of the Greek people at that time, were
kindly disposed toward the missionaries and their efforts; but it
was becoming evident, that the jealousy of the clergy was on the
increase, and that the hierarchy had great facilities for exerting
an adverse influence. The Church in Greece, no longer subject to the
Greek Patriarch at Constantinople, was under the government of the
"Holy Council of the kingdom of Greece;" which was required to guard
the clergy and schools against heresy, and report to the government
any attempt at proselyting. No school could be established without
permission from the government, nor without such permission could
any teacher instruct, even in private families. No books could be
sold or given away in any place, without obtaining a license for
that place, and strong guards were thrown around the press. But
whatever the restrictions on schools and the press, the way was open
for circulating the Scriptures, and for enforcing repentance towards
God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. In the three years from 1834
to 1836, Dr. King sold and gratuitously distributed nearly nine
thousand New Testaments in modern Greek, and eighty-seven thousand
school-books and religious tracts.
The "Holy Council" now took decided ground against the version of
the Old Testament from the Hebrew, declaring that the Septuagint
alone was to be regarded as the canonical translation, to be read in
the churches and used for religious instruction. This did not forbid
nor prevent the free circulation of the Old Testament in modern
Greek among individuals for their private use.
Dark intrigues were employed to arouse the popular feeling. A letter
against "the Americans," as all missionaries were called, purporting
to have been written from Syra, was printed in pamphlet form at
Paris and sent to Greece, where it attracted much attention. This
was followed by repeated attacks from a newspaper edited by one
Germanos. Pretended revelations and miracles at Naxos inflamed the
zeal of the ignorant and superstitious. Professed eye-witnesses
circulated absurd stories, of girls in the school at Syra being made
"Americans" by sealing them on the arm; that one of them refused to
be sealed, and two horns grew out of her head; and of a boy taken
into a dark room to catechize him, where he saw the devil, and was
frightened out of his senses. It was said, moreover, that the object
of the missionaries was to change the religion of the country, while
they hypocritically professed the contrary; though neither word nor
deed of any missionary of the Board was made the pretext for any of
these accusations. By such means mobs were raised, and the schools
of Syra were, for a time, broken up. Yet the local authorities were
generally prompt in putting down riots, and Germanos was arrested,
and sent to a distant monastery. Dr. King's congregation on the
Sabbath, gradually increased, and there was never a time when he
disposed of more New Testaments, school-books, and tracts.
In 1835, a station was commenced by the Rev. Samuel R. Houston on
the island of Scio. He found the people friendly, and the island
slowly recovering from its ruins. Professor Bambas subsequently
expressed the opinion to Dr. King, that Samos was a more desirable
place, since the better class of Sciotes would never return to Scio
to live under Turkish rule. The station was not continued. In 1837,
Mr. Houston, with the Rev. George W. Leyburn, who had been sent out
to join him, made a tour of observation in Máne, the ancient Sparta,
to see if a station ought not to be formed there, in compliance with
repeated solicitations from Petron Bey, the hereditary chief in that
region. Indeed, in view of causes beyond the control of missionary
societies, the Prudential Committee began to feel themselves
compelled to pass by the Grecian Islands in great measure, and
concentrate their efforts on the main lands.
The station at Argos was strengthened in 1836, by the arrival of
Rev. Nathan Benjamin and wife. The two girls' schools in that place
contained from seventy to one hundred pupils. In the following year,
as Argos was declining in population and intelligence in consequence
of the removal of the seat of government from Napoli, it was decided
that Mr. Benjamin should remove to Athens, and Mr. Riggs to Smyrna.
The district, which the brethren from Scio had specially in view,
was exceedingly uninviting to an observer from the sea; where it
seemed to be only a mass of rocky cliffs and mountains, gradually
rising from the sea to St. Elias, the highest peak of Taygetus. Yet
among these rocks were upwards of a hundred villages, containing
from thirty to forty thousand souls. Many of these were probably of
true Spartan descent, and they had always maintained a degree of
independence. The old Bey of Máne had prepared the way for the two
brethren by letters from Athens, where he then resided, and they
were gladly received, and soon decided on removing their families to
Ariopolis; situated on the western slope of the mountain ridge, and
the chief town of the province of Laconia. The two families arrived
in May, 1837, and were soon joined by Dr. Gallatti, who had been a
faithful friend and helper at Scio. A large house was immediately
erected for a Lancasterian school; but no teacher for such a school
could be found, since no one was allowed to teach in Greece, except
in Ancient Greek, without a diploma from the government; and all was
under the superintendent of public schools, who would allow no one
to serve the mission. Yet there were hundreds of boys playing about
in the streets, who at a moment's notice would have rushed in for
instruction, and whose parents would have rejoiced to see them
there. A teacher was not obtained until October, 1839, and then only
with the aid of Mr. Perdicaris, the American consul; but before the
end of the year, the pupils numbered one hundred and seventy,
filling the house. Among them was a youth named Kalopothakes, a
native of the place, who afterwards became the bold friend and
efficient helper of Dr. King. A school for teaching ancient Greek
with thirty scholars, had been in operation a year or more. King
Otho visited the place early in 1838, and commended the school. The
descendants of the ancient Spartans boasted that he was the first
monarch they had ever permitted to tread their soil.
Mrs. Houston being threatened with consumption, her husband took her
to Alexandria, and afterwards to Cairo, where she died peacefully,
on the 24th of November, 1839. After depositing her remains in the
Protestant burying-ground at Alexandria, the bereaved husband and
father returned, with his child, to his station in Greece, and in
the following year visited his native land.
The Greek mission was always affected more or less by the changes of
political parties. The missionaries carefully refrained from
intermeddling with politics, but every political party had more or
less of a religious basis, having something to do with the question,
whether a religious reform should be permitted. Early in 1840 the
government discovered the existence of a secret association, called
the "Philorthodox," one object of which was to preserve unchanged
all the formality and superstition which had crept into the Greek
Church. It had both a civil and a military head, and was believed to
be hostile to the existing government, and on the eve of attempting
a religious revolution, by which all reform should be excluded.
Several of the leaders were arrested; and the Russian Ambassador and
Russian Secretary of Legation were both recalled, because of their
connection with it. The leaders were brought to trial, but the
society had influence enough to procure their acquittal. Its civil
head was banished, and its military head was sent to Ægina for a
military trial. The king then changed most of the members of the
Synod, and more liberal ideas seemed to be gaining the ascendency.1
1 Tracy's _History_, p. 414.
This reform was only partial and temporary. An order was issued by
the government in the next year, requiring the Catechism of the
Greek Church to be taught in all the Hellenic schools, and Mr.
Leyburn was informed that this order applied to his school. The
catechism inculcates the worship of pictures and similar practices,
and the missionary decided, that he could not teach it himself, nor
allow others to teach it in his school. A long negotiation followed,
principally conducted by Dr. King. It was proposed that the
government employ catechists to teach the catechism to the pupils in
the church. The government assented on condition, that no religious
instruction should be given in the school, meaning thereby to
exclude even the reading of the New Testament; but the missionaries
would neither consent to teach what they did not believe, nor to
maintain a school from which religious instruction must be excluded.
The school was therefore closed, and the station abandoned. It
should be noted, that the school was not supported by the
government, but by the friends of Greece in the United States, and
that no impropriety was alleged on the part of the resident
missionary.
As Mr. Leyburn must now leave Greece, and had not health to learn
one of the languages of Western Asia, he returned home, with the
consent of the Prudential Committee. His former associate, Mr.
Houston, was then preparing to join the mission to the Nestorians in
Persia, but the sudden failure of his wife's health prevented, and
the two brethren afterwards became successful ministers of the
Gospel in the Southern States, from which they had gone forth.
A station was commenced among the Greeks on the island of Cyprus in
1834, a year earlier than that on Scio. The Greek population of the
island was reckoned at sixty thousand, and the pioneer missionary
was the Rev. Lorenzo W. Pease, who arrived, with his wife, in the
last month of the year. As it was proposed to make this a branch of
the Syrian mission, Mr. Thomson came over from Beirût, and with Mr.
Pease explored the island. They found no serious obstacles in the
way of distributing the Scriptures and diffusing a knowledge of the
Gospel, except in the unhealthiness of the climate. The most
healthful location seemed to be Lapithos, a large village on the
northwestern shore, two days' journey from Larnica. The village had
a charming location, rising from the base of the mountain, and
ascending the steep declivity a thousand feet. From thence
perpendicular precipices arose, which sheltered it from the hot
south winds. The coast of Caramania was in full view on the north,
and refreshing breezes crossed the narrow channel which separated
Cyprus from the main land. A magnificent fountain burst from the
precipices above, the stream from which foamed through the village,
and found its way across the narrow but fertile plain to the sea.
This stream turned a number of mills in its descent, and a portion
of it was distributed through the gardens, and there, tumbling from
terrace to terrace, formed numerous beautiful and refreshing
cascades.1
1 For the extended journal of Messrs. Thomson and Pease, see
_Missionary Herald_ for 1835, pp. 398-408, 446-452.
The Archbishop of Cyprus being independent of the Patriarch of
Constantinople, the encyclical letter against Protestant missions
known to have been received from the metropolis, produced no decided
hostility. The mission was reinforced in 1836 by the arrival of Rev.
Daniel Ladd and wife, and Rev. James L. Thompson. A Lancasterian
school had been opened at Larnica with seventy pupils, and a school
for educating teachers with fourteen. There was very great need of
schools, it being ascertained that, in thirty-six villages between
Larnica and Limasol, containing more than a thousand families and a
population of more than five thousand, only sixty-seven, besides the
priests, could read at all, and the priests not fluently. Among the
reasons assigned for this were the burdensome taxes imposed upon the
people, and especially on boys at the early age of twelve years, and
the general poverty of the parents, constraining them to employ
their sons on their farms, or in their oil-mills or wine-presses.
Considering that not a place had yet been found, which was
salubrious all the year round, and that the people were scattered in
eight or nine villages, the missionaries began to despair of a
vigorous concentration of their labors, and came to the conclusion,
in the year 1837, that it was expedient to go to some more
manageable field. The opposition from Constantinople made it
expedient to disconnect the schools from the mission. There was,
however, from the beginning, a friendly intercourse between the
people, including the ecclesiastics, and the missionaries and books
and tracts were received without hesitation. This with other
considerations induced the missionaries to delay their departure.
The funeral of a child of Mr. Pease was attended in one of the Greek
churches, and the Greek priests led the way in the procession,
chanting the funeral dirge, in which there was nothing exceptionable;
leaving at home, out of deference to the father, the cross, the
cherubim, and the incense.
In August, 1839, in consequence of remaining too long at Larnica,
Mr. Pease was suddenly prostrated by fever, and soon closed his
earthly career, at the early age of twenty-nine. He had made great
proficiency in the modern Greek language, and looked forward with
delight to its use in proclaiming the Gospel to the Greek people.
Every month had raised him in the estimation of his brethren, and
given new promise of his usefulness. Mrs. Pease returned to the
United States, with her two children, in the spring of 1841. Mr.
Thompson also returned at the close of the same year. Mr. and Mrs.
Ladd were transferred to Broosa, in Turkey, where a large number of
people spoke the Greek language.
Dr. King and Mr. Benjamin were the only remaining members of the
mission in Greece in 1842, and they were residing at Athens. Though
for some time without schools, the missionaries were usefully
employed. The former preached regularly to a congregation of from
thirty to one hundred attentive hearers, with a ready command of the
Greek language, and in the manner of the most effective preaching in
this country. He preached, also, by the wayside, at the same time
distributing books and tracts. Writing in 1843, after stating that
fifteen hundred young men, from all parts of Greece and Turkey, were
in the schools and university of Athens, Dr. King adds: "And yet
God, in his wonderful providence, has permitted me to stand here,
and preach in the plainest manner, even to the present hour, without
let or hindrance, and that, too, in the midst of a dreadful strife
of tongues. I have heard it remarked by Greeks, how truly wonderful
it is that my preaching should never have been attacked. I see many
students and others, and converse with the greatest plainness, and I
think some are persuaded of the truth." Mr. Benjamin was also doing
much good in the department of Christian literature. The books
prepared by himself and Dr. King were printed at Athens, and were
more acceptable and influential for that reason, than if printed
elsewhere and by mission presses. The number of copies printed
previous to 1843, was 118,465, and of pages, 6,525,500.
The relinquishment of the station at Ariopolis was regarded by the
Greeks as a public testimony against the errors of the Greek Church,
and as an honest and consistent movement. Mr. Benjamin took the
place of Dr. King in his absence, as a preacher, and found
unexpected facility in so doing. It was a tribute to the Greek mind,
that Mr. Benjamin commenced translating Butler's "Analogy" into the
modern language.
In Turkey, Mr. Temple, Mr. Schneider, Mr. Riggs, and Mr. Ladd
continued to labor mainly in the modern Greek language. Mr. Temple
had charge of the press, with the efficient aid of Mr. Riggs in the
Greek and Greco-Turkish. Mr. Van Lennep divided his time between the
Greek and the Turkish. Mr. Temple edited the Greek "Monthly
Magazine," aided by Mr. Petrokokino, one of the young men educated
by the Board, to whose taste, talent, and zeal much of its
popularity and usefulness were to be attributed. The periodical
nearly paid for itself. The amount of printing in modern Greek will
be fully stated at the close of these histories. In 1843, it was one
million five hundred and fifty-six thousand pages. Several of the
schools in Western Turkey were more or less open to Greek youth of
both sexes. Mr. Schneider was able to preach with great facility and
propriety in the modern language.
In the year 1844, the author made an official visit to Athens,
accompanied by Dr. Joel Hawes, and a week was spent by them in free
conference with Messrs. King and Benjamin. The conclusion was
reached, that Mr. Benjamin should seek a wider sphere of usefulness
among the Armenians of Turkey.
As the result of subsequent discussions with the missionaries
residing at Smyrna, Broosa, and Constantinople, it was decided to
cease in great measure from labor among the Greeks; but that Dr.
King ought to remain at Athens, his position and relations being
peculiar, as will appear in the subsequent history. From that time,
Dr. King was the only missionary of the Board in Greece, until his
lamented death in the year 1869.1 Messrs. Temple, Riggs, and Calhoun
at Smyrna, and Messrs. Schneider and Ladd at Broosa, had made the
Greek language their principal medium of intercourse with the
people. Mr. Riggs having a rare aptitude for acquiring languages,
had begun to edit works in the Bulgarian, Armenian, and Turkish
languages.
1 During nearly the whole of Dr. King's life in Athens, Dr. Hill, an
American Episcopal missionary, was resident there.
The American Baptist Missionary Union placed two missionaries at
Patras, on the Gulf of Corinth, in 1838. That station was
discontinued in 1845, when Mr. Buel removed to the Piræus, the port
of Athens, where he labored, in the most friendly relations with Dr.
King, until 1855 or 1856, when the unsatisfactory results of the
mission led to its discontinuance.
A like result had been practically reached by both the London and
Church Missionary Societies of England. A deplorable change had come
over the Greeks, both in Greece and Turkey, since the freedom of
Greece from Turkish rule; and money, time, and labor could be more
profitably expended on other equally needy populations in that part
of the world. The old ambition for the recovery of Constantinople
and the restoration of the Eastern Empire, had been quickened into
life; and the unity of the Greek Church as a means to this end, was
craftily kept before the minds of the people by Russian agency, and
had a wonderful influence, especially among the higher classes. The
national pride of the Greeks had also created an aversion to
foreigners, and made it difficult for such to gain their confidence,
or awaken their gratitude by acts of benevolence. Then there were
the arrogant assumptions of the Greek Church, more exclusive than
the Roman, claiming for her clergy the only apostolical succession,
and that her trine immersion, performed by her clergy, was the only
baptism, while all not thus baptized were beyond the hope of
salvation. Of course all Protestant preachers, whether episcopal or
non-episcopal, were regarded by the Greeks as unbaptized heretics.
The Greek Church held the worst errors of Popery, such as
transubstantiation, worshipping the Virgin Mary, praying to saints,
baptismal regeneration, and the inherent efficacy of ordinances to
save the soul. The power of excommunication in the hands of the
priests, was regarded by the people with extreme dread, as sealing
the soul over to perdition; and believing, as they did, that
salvation is certain in the Church, and nowhere else, they regarded
every attempt at innovation as an attack upon their dearest
interests, and resisted it with persecution, or turned away with
disgust and scorn. There were persons both among the ecclesiastics
and laymen, to whom this would not apply; but the inflexible
opposition of the hierarchy, as a body, to all efforts for
propagating the evangelical religion, was matter for profound
lamentation.
Yet labors in Greece had not been expended in vain. There had been
very few hopeful conversions; but as many as two hundred thousand
copies of the New Testament and parts of the Old had been put in
circulation in the modern Greek language; a million copies of books
and tracts had been scattered, by different missionary societies,
broad-cast over the Greek community; perhaps a score of Greek young
men had been liberally educated by benevolent societies and
individuals in America and England; and more than ten thousand Greek
youths had received instruction in Greece and Turkey, at the schools
of various missions. Of the good seed thus sown, though not often on
good ground, there may yet be a harvest to gladden future
generations. The labor had not been fruitless. The Greek government
was not what it would have been, and the same may be said of the
social state. Nor were the same old ideas prevalent among the people
as to the authority of councils and of the ancient fathers, and the
authority of God's Word stood higher than before. The same low
estimate was no longer put upon knowledge and education, nor upon
religious tolerance, nor were there the same impressions concerning
Protestantism, and Protestant nations, and the Christian world at
large. In all these respects, there had been progress. Infidelity
had received a check, and so had its influence on surrounding
peoples. The Word of God, printed in the spoken language, was in
very many habitations of the people; and the elements of their
intellectual, moral, and social being were not, and can never again
be, as if missionaries had not been among them.
The efforts made by Dr. King in Greece, for nearly a quarter of a
century after this time, to secure freedom in the worship of God and
in the preaching of the Gospel, will form the subject of future
chapters. And in the histories of the Syrian and Armenian missions,
the reader will occasionally notice hopeful outbreaks of the spirit
of religious inquiry among the people bearing the Grecian name.