faith.

"And it is enjoined upon you not to allow them to be molested an iota in these particulars, or in any others; and that all attention and perseverance be put in requisition to maintain them in quiet and security. And, in case of necessity, they shall be free to make representations regarding their affairs through their Agent to the Sublime Porte.

"When this my imperial will shall be brought to your knowledge and appreciation, you will have this august decree registered in the necessary departments, and then give it over to remain in the hands of these my subjects. And see you to it, that its requirements be always in future performed in their full import.

"Thus know thou, and respect my sacred signet! Written in the holy month of Moharrem, 1267 (November, 1850).

"Given in the well guarded city Constantiniyeh."

At the request of Sir Stratford Canning, thirteen of the leading Protestants called upon him, on the occasion of his procuring this charter of rights; and for nearly an hour he addressed them on their duties and responsibilities, in their present position in the empire. He told them that they ought to thank God that they were the first to be relieved from the shackles of superstition, and made acquainted with the pure Gospel of Christ. He told them that many eyes were upon them, and that they ought to excel all others in the land in faithful obedience to the government, in a brotherly deportment to those of other religious opinions, and an example of uprightness in every relation. Again and again did he exhort them to act, in all things, according to the principles and doctrines of the Gospel.

Three years after this, on the 6th of December, 1853, on his return to Constantinople as Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, the same noble friend of religious freedom, wrote to the Earl of Clarendon, that he had endeavored in vain to obtain the official transmission of the firman to the Pashas throughout the empire. This was strikingly characteristic of Turkish procrastination. But he was then able to state, that the Porte, "out of consideration for his repeated representations," had officially transmitted the firman to all Pashas where a Protestant society was known to exist.

In 1854, his lordship obtained the concession from the Turkish government, that Christian evidence, in matters of criminal jurisdiction, should stand on the same footing everywhere in Turkey as the testimony of Mohammedans; thus removing a great wrong, under which the rayahs of the empire had labored for centuries.

While gratefully acknowledging our obligations to the representatives of other nations, I should also record, that our brethren, both in the Armenian and Syria missions, were under continued obligation to Mr. Carr, our Minister at the Porte, for personal protection as American citizens. He acted with decision whenever their rights were invaded. In the repeated efforts made to remove them from the country, his reply to the formal demands of the Porte was, that he had power to protect the missionaries as American citizens, but not to remove them; and furthermore, that while papal missionaries from France and Italy were permitted to reside in Turkey, Protestant missionaries from America must also have the same privilege.

Here we may properly pause, and consider what God had wrought, not alone through the agency of the churches, but with the coöperation of the great powers of the earth. Twenty years before, Messrs. Smith and Dwight did not find a single clear case of conversion in their extended travels through the Turkish empire. How many and great the subsequent changes! First came the national charter of rights, given by the Sultan in 1840; which, among its other results, destroyed the persecuting power of the Armenian aristocracy. Next came the abolition of the death penalty, in 1843, and the Sultan's pledge, that men should no more be persecuted for their religious opinions. Then, after three years, came the unthought of application of this pledge to the Armenian Protestants, when persecuted by their own hierarchy. In the next year followed the recognition of the Protestants as an independent community. Finally, in 1850, came the charter, signed by the Grand Sultan himself, placing the Protestants on the same national basis with the other Christian communities of the empire.

How wonderful this progression of events! So far as the central government was concerned, missionaries might print, gather schools, form churches, ordain pastors, and send forth other laborers, wherever they pleased. Attention had been awakened, and there was a disposition to inquire, renounce errors, and embrace gospel truths. There was a progressive change in fundamental ideas; a gradual reconstruction of the social system; a spiritual reformation. At least fifty places were known, scattered over Asiatic Turkey, in all of which souls had been converted through the truth, and where churches might be gathered. Ten churches had been formed already, and in part supplied with pastors. Aintab, scarcely known by name five years before, numbered more Protestants than even the metropolis, and was becoming one of the most interesting missionary stations in the world.

In this remarkable series of results we recognize the hand of God, who makes all earthly agencies subservient to the great work of redemption; so that secular agencies come as legitimately into the history of the republication of the Gospel in Bible lands, as do the labors of the missionaries. They were among the ordained means; and the leading agents cannot fail to command our grateful admiration.

The danger at this time was, that the reformation so auspiciously begun, would pass its grand crisis before the central lights had grown bright enough, and a knowledge of the Gospel been sufficiently diffused in the empire. There was everywhere a curiosity to know what Protestantism was, and to hear what the missionaries had to say; but this curiosity, regarded as a national feeling, was in danger of dying out. In the year 1851, the President of the National Council of the Armenians said to Mr. Dwight: "Now is the time for you to work for the Armenian people. Such an opportunity as you now enjoy may soon pass away, and never more return. You should greatly enlarge your operations. Where you have one missionary, you should have ten; and where you have one book, you should put ten in circulation." Constantinople, Smyrna, Broosa, Trebizond, Erzroom, and Aintab, were already occupied as stations. It was proposed at once to occupy Sivas, Arabkir, Diarbekir, and Aleppo. Mr. Adger, after a laborious and most useful service in the literary department of the mission, was constrained, by his health, in 1847, to retire from the field.

The statement of Lord Stratford, that three years were allowed to pass before the Sultan's firman was transmitted to the provinces, will account in part for the fact that persecution did not cease. In general, whenever evangelical views entered for the first time into a place, a battle was to be fought, and the first recipients of these views were sure to suffer more or less from the hands of their former co-religionists. But relief was almost sure to come on an appeal to the capital; and thus there was a gradual progress towards the full protection of the Protestants as a distinct community.

The accession of missionaries during the time now under review, was as follows: Joel S. Everett, in 1845; Isaac G. Bliss, in 1847; Oliver Crane, in 1849; Joseph W. Sutphen, in 1852—who died before the close of the year; Wilson A. Farnsworth, William Clark, Andrew T. Pratt, M. D.; George B. Nutting, Fayette Jewett, M. D., and Jasper N. Ball, in 1853; Albert G. Beebe, George A. Perkins, Sanford Richardson, Edwin Goodell, and Benjamin Parsons, in 1854; and Alexander R. Plumer, and Ira T. Pettibone, in 1855. All these were married men, except