href="@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@29631@[email protected]#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor pginternal" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">[11] about the state of Christianity in these countries, is but too true, and what he states about the monks at Itch-Meeazin may be doubtless true; at least I suppose it is the seat of the Armenian Patriarch he means, for I know of no other Armenian church in these parts, where this service is kept up of reading the whole Book of Psalms every day. The office of a missionary in these countries is, to live the Gospel before them in the power of the Holy Ghost, and to drop like the dew, line upon line, and precept upon precept, here a little and there a little, till God give the increase of his labours; but it must be by patient continuance in well doing against every discouraging circumstance, from the remembrance of what we ourselves once were.

We have this day heard, that the cholera or the plague is at Tabreez, and that they are dying 4 or 5,000 a day; but this, I have no doubt, is a gross exaggeration. May the Lord watch over the seed that seems sowing there, and make the judgments that are in the earth warnings to men to return to God. We also have the cholera here; but I trust not severely.

The last Tartar who took our letters with the head of the ex-Khiahya was plundered, so that our letters were lost which we sent by him.

We have been to-day in hopes of obtaining another Moolah, for teaching the children in the school to read and write Arabic. For two months we have been trying, without success, to obtain one, so great is their prejudice against teaching Christians at all, but especially themselves to read the New Testament; but as our Lord does every thing for us, we doubt not he will do this also if it be best.

I am much led to think on those of my dear missionary brethren, who look for the kingdom of Christ to come in by a gradual extension of the exertions now making. This view seems to me very discouraging; for surely after labouring for years, and so little having been done, we may all naturally be led to doubt if we are in our places; but to those who feel their place to be to preach Jesus, and publish the Testament in his blood, whether men will hear or whether they will forbear, they have nothing to discourage them, knowing they are a sweet savour of Christ. I daily feel more and more, that till the Lord come our service will be chiefly to gather out the few grapes that belong to the Lord’s vine, and publish his testimony in all nations; there may be here and there a fruitful field on some pleasant hill, but as a whole, the cry will be, “Who hath believed our report, and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed.”

It is the constant practice here among the Jews, when they hear our blessed Lord’s name mentioned, or mention it themselves, to curse him; so awful is their present state of opposition, Mohammedans will not hear, and Christians do not care for any of those things—such is the present state here; but if the Lord prosper our labour, we shall see what the end will be, when the Almighty word of God becomes understood. The poor German Jew still holds on; he has too much honesty to live by writing lying amulets, and too little faith to cast himself on the Lord; but his constant cry is, What shall I do to live? The insight he gives us into the state of the Jews here is most awful, but notwithstanding, there appears to me a most abundant field of labour among the 10,000 who are here. Yesterday he called me suddenly while at breakfast, to see a poor young Jewess who had been married but two months, and had fallen over the bridge with her little brother in her arms. The scene was awfully interesting. Not less perhaps than 300 Jews, with their wives, were in the house, but tumultuous as the waves of the sea, without hope and without God in the world. There was no hope of recovering her. She had been in the water an hour and a half, and had there been life, they were acting so as to extinguish every spark. She was lying in a close room crowded to suffocation, with the windows shut; and they were burning under her nose charcoal and wool.

The Armenian boys, who are learning English, go on with great zeal, and may in the course of time become very interesting.

We have at length received information, that all our things are arrived at Bussorah, and among the rest, the lithographic press, which we hope to find most useful to us in our present position; every thing happens rightly and well; they have been delayed for some time in coming up the river, in consequence of a quarrel between the Pasha and the Arab tribe, the Beni-Laam, in consequence of the plunder of Dr. Beaky’s boat, but we expect it will be settled, as the Pasha has acceded to the terms the Sheikh offered, and has sent him down a dress of honour.

I am sometimes led, in contemplating the gentlemanly and imposing aspect which our present missionary institutions bear, and contrasting them with the early days of the church, when apostolic fishermen and tent-makers published the testimony, to think that much will not be done till we go back again to primitive principles, and let the nameless poor, and their unrecorded and unsung labours be those on which our hopes, under God, are fixed.

We have just heard an interesting case. The gardener of the Pasha is a Greek, who was lately sent to him at his request from Constantinople, and yesterday (August 6), he became a Mohammedan. He had two daughters of thirteen and fourteen, whom he also wished to become Mohammedans; but they would not consent, and ran away to the factory, where they might have remained under English protection; but they would not stay, unless their brother, and his wife, and their servants could remain with them; so they left, as Major T—— had not room for them all, having already the family of one of the servants of the Pasha, who is imprisoned for some delinquency in connection with the revenue accruing to the Pasha from the bazaar.

There has been with Mr. Pfander to-day one of the writers of the Pasha, and he read some parts of the Turkish New Testament, which he very well understood, and expressed much pleasure in the reading of; but when, on his being about to leave, Mr. P. asked him to accept of a Turkish Testament, he very politely declined it.

There is another person come from Merdin, with the view of settling the affair between the Syrians and the Roman Catholics at Merdin. He is a weaver of Diarbekr; and from him Mr. Pfander learns, that in the last census taken by the Pasha, the Syrians were 700 families, and the Armenians 6,700: this certainly opens a most interesting field for Christian inquiry: he also said, that the Syrians in the mountains were perfectly independent of the Mohammedans, and among themselves are divided into little clans under their respective Bishops. He also stated, that reading and writing were much more cultivated among the independent Syrians than those in the plains.

He also said there would be no difficulty whatever in going among the Yezidees with a Syrian guide. The language which the independent Syrians speak is Syriac, which is near the ancient Syriac, and that they understand fully the Syrian Scriptures when read in their churches. We hope, therefore, should the Lord spare our lives, to have an opportunity of circulating some of the many copies of the Scriptures in Syriac, which Mr. Pfander has brought from Shushee, and some that I expect will come from Bombay for me.

The Gerba tribe of Arabs are come almost close to Bagdad, to check whom the Pasha intends sending out the troops that have been under the discipline of the English.

We have also heard from the Syrian, that from Mousul to