Bagdad,
April 2, 1830.
We begin to find that our school-room
is not large enough to contain the children, and we
have been obliged therefore to add to it another.
We have now fifty-eight boys and nine girls, and might
have many more girls had we the means for instructing
them; but we have as yet no other help than the schoolmaster’s
wife, who knows very little of any thing, and therefore
is very unfit to bring those into order who have been
educated without any order. But I have no doubt
of the Lord’s sending us, in due time, sufficient
help of all kinds.
April 3. An Armenian
merchant from Egypt and Syria, was with us to-day;
a Roman Catholic by profession, but an infidel in fact.
He said it was all one to him, whether men were Armenian,
Syrian, Mohammedan, or Jew, so that they were good.
He had left Beirout about two months, and said there
were none of the missionaries there then; but that
he knew there the Armenian Catholic bishop, and an
Armenian priest, who had left the Roman Catholic church,
and who were in Lebanon he said they were
friends of his, and very good men. We feel interested
in receiving some missionary intelligence, to know
whether or not Syria is still deserted.
We have received from Shushee a parcel
of our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount, in the vulgar
Armenian. We were very much rejoiced at this,
as it enabled us to supersede, in some little degree,
the old language; but in determining that every boy
sufficiently advanced, should learn a verse a day,
we met with some opposition from two or three of the
elder boys, and I think two will leave the school in
consequence; but the Lord will easily enable us to
triumph over all; of this I have no doubt, at all
events I see my way clear come what will. Captain
Strong has taken a letter for me to Archdeacon Parr,
to ask for some school materials, such as slates and
slate pencils for the school. I feel daily more
established in the conviction, that our Lord has led
us to this place, and that he will make our way apparent,
as we go on in faithful waiting upon him.
I cannot sufficiently thank God for
sending my dear brother Pfander with me, for had it
not been for him, I could not have attempted any thing,
so that all that has now been done, must rather be
considered his than mine, as I have only been able
to look on and approve. But if the Lord’s
work is advanced, I can praise him by whomsoever it
may be promoted.
June 12. The circumstances
of our situation are now going on so regularly, that
there is little to write about, more than that the
Lord’s mercies are new every morning. Since
Captain Strong left us, there has arrived here a Mr.
and Mrs. Mignan, and another gentleman, named Elliot,
neither of whom seem to know, at present, whether they
will remain here or go on.
The capidji or officer, who came from
Constantinople, bringing a firman to the Pasha,
is desired to take back with him a drawing of one
of the soldiers whom Major T. is organizing for the
Pasha. Major T.’s son is just arrived from
India, and he also is going to organize a body of
horse; in fact, every thing is tending to the establishment
of an European influence, and it may be the Lord’s
pleasure thus to prepare the way for his servants
to publish the tidings which the sheep will hear.
This tendency to adopt European manners and improvements,
is not only manifested in the military department,
but in others more important. The Pasha has a
great desire to introduce steam navigation on these
two beautiful rivers. A proposal has been made
from an agent of the Bristol Steam Company, to the
Pasha, through Major T., to have a steam vessel in
the first place between Bussorah and this place; and
secondly, if possible, to extend the navigation, either
by the old canal or by a new one, into the Euphrates
and up to Beer. This navigation will bring one
within three days of the Mediterranean, without
the fatigue, danger, and loss of time to which travellers
are exposed in the present journey. It will be
a most important opening for missionaries; for should
this mode of conveyance once get established, the
route by Constantinople would almost cease, and some
arrangement would soon be made for going from Scanderoon
to the different important stations in the Mediterranean.
There is a gentleman here on his return
to England, a Mr. Bywater, whom Mr. Taylor wishes
to undertake a survey of the Euphrates, from Beer
to the canal, which connects it with this place.
Till within about twenty years, heavy artillery came
to this place by that river, so there can be but little
doubt that a steam packet would be able to go; though
it might not be of the same size as the one between
this and Bussorah. The voyage between these places
backwards and forwards, it is proposed to do in eight
days, which now takes about six or seven weeks, and
during the whole of the returning voyage, which is
long, being against the current, you are at present
exposed to the attacks of the Arabs every hour, whereas
the steam packet would have nothing to fear from them.
In fact, I feel the Lord is preparing great changes
in the heart of this nation, or rather from one end
of it to the other; and the events which have taken
place in that part of the empire around Constantinople,
have tended to the hastening on of these changes.
Among the boys that come to me to
learn English, I have one, the son of a rich Roman
Catholic jeweller of this place. So important
is the commercial relation between this place and
India become, that the number who wish to learn English
of me, is much greater than I can possibly take charge
of, as this is not with me a primary object; but it
is a most important field of labour, and one that might
have, I think, very interesting results, for they
will bear opposition to their own views more easily
in another language than in their own: it does
not come to them like a book written to oppose them,
and thus truth may slide gently in. My Moolah,
who is teaching me Arabic, and whose son I teach English,
told me, that in two or three years he would send
his son to England to complete his knowledge of English.
Now to those who know nothing of the Turks, this may
not appear remarkable, but to those who do, it will
exhibit a striking breaking down of prejudice in this
individual.
There is a famous man here, a Mohammedan
by profession, but in reality an infidel, who is the
head of a pantheistic sect, who believe God to be
every thing and every thing to be God, so that he readily
admits, on this notion, the divinity of our blessed
Lord. Infidelity is extending on every side in
these countries. My Moolah said, that now a-days,
if you asked a Christian whether he were a Christian,
he would say, Yes; but if you asked him who Christ
was, or why he was attached to him, he did not know.
And in the same manner he said, if you asked a Mohammedan
a similar question, he would also say, he did not
know, but that he went as others went; but, he added,
now all the Sultans were sending out men to
teach, the Sultan of England the Sultan
of Stamboul, &c. By this I imagine his impression
is, that we are sent out by the king of England.
Our school is, on the whole, going
on very well. We have introduced classes, and
a general table of good and bad behaviour, of lessons,
of absence, and of attendance; and they all go on,
learning a portion of Scripture every day in the vulgar
dialect. This is something.
I am beginning to feel my acquaintance
with Arabic increase under the plan which I am now
pursuing with the boys who learn English. They
bring me Arabic phrases, and as far as my knowledge
extends, I give them the meaning in English; and when
that fails, I write it down for inquiry from the Moolah
next day, and then by asking words in Arabic every
day for the boys to give me the English, I at last
get the expressions so impressed on my memory, that
when I want them they arise almost without thought.
Another advantage from the boys bringing phrases and
words, is that they bring such as they use in the spoken
Arabic, which is very different from the written.
This is a plan I would recommend, whenever it can
be adopted, to every missionary; for there is a stimulus
to the memory in having the questions to ask every
day, and having only the English written down, which
nothing else gives.
We have lately had a little proof
of Turkish honesty. The man who sells us wood,
charged us seven tagar, and brought us somewhat less
than three.
Our souls are much refreshed by the
contemplation of our Lord’s coming to complete
the mystery of godliness. Oh, how long shall it
be, ere he be admired in all them that believe.
June 26. We have
heard to-day from Mrs. G.’s brother J. from
Alexander Casan Beg, mentioned in a preceding part
of my journal, and from Mr. Glen. All our various
accounts were welcome. Some of the information
contained in them enables us to rejoice in those we
love naturally, some in those we love spiritually.
In the letters of Alexander C. Beg,
and Mr. Glen, I have received the intelligence that
the former would not now be able to join us, as he
had previously received an offer from the Scottish
Missionary Society, to become a missionary of theirs
in India; for certain reasons, however, he does not
at present seem able to accept it. Concerning
this Mohammedan convert, it is impossible not to feel
the deepest interest.
We have just had some interesting
conversation with a poor Jacobite, who is come from
Merdin, with a letter from his matran or bishop, about
two churches which the Roman Catholics have taken away
from the Jacobites. His description of their
state is striking. He says, the Pasha of Merdin
cares neither for this Pasha, who is his immediate
superior, nor for the Sultan; and that he encourages
these disputes among the Christians, that he may get
money from both parties, who bribe him by turns.
He says, that the Yezidees, when they see a Syrian
priest coming, will get off their horse and salute
him, and kiss his hand, and that the Kourds are a
much worse people than they, but that Roman Catholics
are worse than either. I was surprised to
find that the Roman Catholic bishop has a school of
fifty girls learning to read Arabic, and to work at
their needle.
We have heard to-day that the Mohammedans,
inhabitants of the town, are much dissatisfied with
the Sultan and with the Pasha, for introducing European
customs. They say, they are already Christians,
and one of them asked Mr. Swoboda, if it was true that
the old missid or mosque near us, was to become again
a Christian church, and whether the beating of the
drums every evening after the European manner at the
seroy or palace, did not mean that the Pasha was becoming
a Christian. And they say, that the military
uniforms now introducing, are haram or unlawful.
Major T. has induced the Pasha to have a regiment
dressed completely in the European fashion, and is
now forming some horse regiments on the same plan.
All these things will clearly tend to one of these
two results either to the overthrow of
Mohammedanism by the introduction of European manners
and intelligence, or to a tremendous crisis in endeavouring
to throw off the burden which the great mass of the
lower and bigoted Mohammedans abhor. But still
the Lord knows, and has given his angels charge to
seal his elect before these things come to pass.
Our attention has again been directed
to the subject of steam navigation between Bombay
and England, by the arrival of Mr. James Taylor from
Bombay. This gentleman has been engaged for some
time in undertaking to effect steam communication
by the Red Sea: with the view of making final
arrangements on the subject he had just been to Bombay,
and wished to have returned by the Red Sea, but difficulties
arising, he determined to come by way of the Persian
Gulf and this city, and to cross the desert.
On his arrival here, he was made acquainted with the
previous plans for steam navigation on these rivers;
and he quickly perceived that if the river were navigable,
and no other difficulties arose, the preference must
be given to this route, as being at least ten days
shorter to Bombay, and of the thirty or thirty-five
days which remained, seven, or perhaps five, would
be spent on two beautiful rivers, with opportunities
of obtaining from its banks vegetables and fruits;
and instead of the Red Sea, which is rocky, stormy,
and little known, there would be the Persian Gulf,
which has been surveyed in every part, and is peculiarly
free from storms. From the mouth of the Persian
Gulf, the boat would go direct to Bombay instead of
going down to Columbo from the mouth of the Red Sea,
and then up the western side of the Peninsula of India.
In Egypt also they would have five days journey over
the desert, whilst from Aleppo they would only have
two to a place on the Euphrates, called Beer.
Fuel also in abundance might be obtained here, either
from wood or bitumen; in fact, Mr. Taylor feels that
if it can be accomplished, it would save expense on
the voyage. The only two difficulties that oppose
themselves to this route are, first, the Arabs, and
secondly, whether there be a sufficiency of water
in the rivers. As to the Arabs, a steamer has
nothing to fear, for by keeping mid-stream at the
rate they go, no Arab would touch them or attempt to
do it. The present vessels they have no power
over in going down, but when they are dragged up by
Arab trackers, then they are easily attacked.
As to the second objection, the want of water, there
appears no insurmountable difficulty here, as all
the heavy ordnance from Constantinople were brought
down the Euphrates from Beer, on rafts, or, as they
are called, kelecks; these, independent of their width,
being greater than that of a steamer, actually draw
more water when heavily laden. There does not
appear to be more than one place where there is a
doubt, and that is at El Dar, the ancient Thapsacus,
where we understand at one season, when the waters
are at the lowest point, a camel can hardly go over;
but still, perhaps, further information may be desirable.
The Pasha has entered very heartily into this plan,
and offered either to clear out an old canal, or to
cut a new one between this river and the Euphrates.
The mouth of the Euphrates is one extended marsh,
which forms the best rice-grounds of the country.
The distance between the two rivers at this place is
about thirty miles. Mr. James Taylor thinks that
travellers may reach England from this in twenty-three
days, and Bombay in twelve: should this ever take
place, steam boats will be passing twice a month up
and down this river with passengers from India and
England; the effects of such a change, both moral,
spiritual, and political, none can tell, but that
they must be great every one may see.
I have been this morning talking with
my Moolah about the two rivers, as to their capability
of steam navigation. He decidedly gives the preference
to the Euphrates, and says, that the average depth
is the height of two men, or ten feet even
till considerably above Beer; but that the Tigris,
above Mousul, is very shallow.
This possibility thus set before us
of seeing those we love, and many of the Lord’s
dear servants here, is most comforting and encouraging:
this place would become a frontier post of Christian
labour, from which we might daily hope to send forth
labourers to China, India, and elsewhere, and the
work of publishing the testimony of Jesus be accomplished
before the Lord come. However, we are in the Lord’s
hands, and he will bring to pass what concerns his
own honour, and we will wait and see: a much
greater opening has taken place since we came here
than we could have hoped for, and much more will yet
open upon us than we can now foresee. Things
cannot remain as they are, whether they continue to
advance as they are now doing, or whether bigotry
be allowed to make a last vain effort to regain her
ancient position; still some decided change must be
the final result of the present state of things.
From the Bible Society at Bombay,
I have received accounts of their having sent me two
English Bibles, fifty Testaments, twenty Arabic Bibles,
fifty Syriac Gospels, fifty Syriac Testaments, fifty
Armenian Bibles, one hundred Persian Psalters, seventy-five
Persian Genesis, and six Hebrew Testaments. In
this are omitted those which are most important to
us, the Chaldean, the Persian, and the Arabic Testament;
but perhaps when they receive a supply from the Parent
Society, they will then forward these likewise.
I have also received a letter from
Severndroog, from the first tutor of my little boys,
Mr. N., a true and dear person in the Lord, and he
mentions that they had, since he last wrote, admitted
to their church, four Hindoos and two Roman Catholics,
and that one Hindoo still remains, whom they hope
soon to admit.
I have recently had some conversation
with Mr. J. Taylor, who is waiting only to see the
Pasha to make final arrangements.
Another very important feature of
the above plan for steam communication with India
is, that those societies who have missionaries there,
may send out their secretaries to encourage and counsel
them, by which means they will be able not only to
enter more fully into the feelings and circumstances
of those they send, but will be able to make their
own reports, which will be more agreeable to those
engaged in the work to tell about which
must always be a difficult undertaking.
I found yesterday that one of the
gentlemen who came hither lately from India, was a
Mr. Hull, the son of Mrs. Hull, of Marpool, near Exmouth,
who, however, is not going across the desert, but round
by Mosul and Merdin, to Stamboul. He hopes to
be home in September.
Mr. Pfander learnt from some Armenians
yesterday, that they were much pleased with the children
learning the Scriptures in the vulgar dialect; that
they were so far able to understand the ancient language
still read in their churches, and they expressed a
wish that they might have a complete translation in
the vulgar tongue. Those Bibles we now have from
the Bible Society, are in the dialect of Constantinople,
which is by no means generally or well understood
here, where the Érivan dialect prevails, which they
use in the Karabagh, in the north of Persia, and in
all these countries. The missionaries at Shushee
are going on with the New Testament: Mr. Dittrich
has finished the translation of the four Gospels, and
we hope it will be printed for the Bible Society this
year, for we greatly need Armenian books in the vulgar
dialect, by which we may, step by step, supersede
the old altogether. We also greatly want Arabic
school-books; but these we shall hope to get from Malta,
through the labours of Mr. Jowett.
We find the general feeling here,
not only among Christians, but even among the Mohammedans,
is a wish that the English power might prevail here,
for although the Pasha does not directly tax them high,
yet from a bunch of grapes to a barrel of gunpowder,
he has the skimming of the cream, and leaves the milk
to his subjects to do with as they can. Once
a month at least the money is changed. When the
Pasha has a great deal of a certain base money that
he issues, he fixes the price higher by certain degrees,
on pain of mutilation, and when he has paid it all
away, or has any great sums to receive, he lowers the
value by as many degrees as he has raised it before.
And hearing, as they universally do now, of our government
in India, that it is mild and equitable, most of them
would gladly exchange their present condition, and
be subject to the British government. This conduct
on the part of the Pasha, begets an universal system
of smuggling and fraud among all classes, so that
the state of these people is indeed very, very bad.
I never felt more powerfully than now, the joy of having
nothing to do with these things; so that let men govern
as they will, I feel my path is to live in subjection
to the powers that be, and to exhort others to the
same, even though it be such oppressive despotism as
this. We have to shew them by this, that our
kingdom is not of this world, and that these are not
things about which we contend. But our life being
hid where no storms can assail, “with Christ
in God” and our wealth being where
no moth or rust doth corrupt, we leave those who are
of this world to manage its concerns as they list,
and we submit to them in every thing as far as a good
conscience will admit.
July 12. We have
heard of two Jews, who have bought two Hebrew New
Testaments, and a very respectable Jewish banker has
been here to see Mr. Pfander, with the German Jew,
whom I have mentioned before, and who is still desirous
of leaving the broad road, without heart to trust
in him who is in the heavenly path, the way, the truth,
and the life. He is now here, endeavouring to
obtain a livelihood by teaching a few boys Hebrew,
and comes to read the book of Job in German with Mr.
Pfander, without any of their explanations, one of
which, as it regards Job, is as follows. They
say that every individual of the human race actually
existed in Adam, some in his nails, some in his toes,
some in his eyes, mouth, &c. &c., and they think, in
proportion to the proximity of the position of any
person to the parts concerned in eating and digesting
the forbidden fruit, will be their degree of guilt
and measure of punishment here; so they consider that
Job had his place near the mouth. Such are the
follies which now occupy the minds of this interesting
people, instead of the Lord of life and glory.
Colonization appears to have entered
into the contemplation of those engaged in steam-navigation,
and the planting of indigo and sugar. To this
end, the Pasha has granted them thirty miles of land
on the banks of the river. Just before Mr. Taylor
was to set off to go through the desert, news came
that the Arab tribes on the road were at war among
themselves, and that it would therefore not be safe
for him to go that way, so he changed his route, and
went on the 13th, by the way of Mousul and Merdin,
nearly double the distance, and at the same time,
Mr. Bywater and Mr. Elliot set off to Beer, from whence
they intend going down the Euphrates and examining
that river as far down as Babylon.
The old Jew, who came with the German,
heartily entered into some conversation about the
coming of Christ. A school of Jewish children
might, I think, easily be obtained here, if you would
teach them English and the Old Testament only.
Our Moolah has mentioned, that he
has been reading the New Testament with another Moolah,
who wishes to have a copy of Sabat’s translation,
thinking that that might stimulate them to answer it;
but that the Propaganda edition is so vulgar, it offends
them, for like the Greeks they seek after wisdom.
Still, if they read, the testimony of God is delivered,
and the plucking a few brands from the general conflagration,
is the great work till the Lord come. They have
a most proud and obstinate hatred against the name
of Jesus, before whom all must bow.
We have been interested by some inquiries
made by our schoolmaster and his father, relative
to our morning and evening prayers; he wanted to know
what they were, and Mr. Pfander had the greatest difficulty
in making him understand, that we prayed from a sense
of our present wants. They said, they had heard
from their books, that in the time of the apostles
men were without form of prayer, and were enabled to
pray from their hearts; but that it was not so now.
They also asked some questions about the Lord’s
Supper, whether we used wine mixed with water or unmixed;
bread leavened or unleavened. They seem anxious
to know more, and may the Lord give an open door to
them!
We cannot help feeling, that the difficulties
among the Mohammedans, and apostate Christian churches
are great beyond any thing that can be imagined previous
to experience. The difficulties of absolute falsehood
are as nothing to those of perverted truth, as we see
in the confounding infant baptism with the renewing
of the Holy Ghost. In every thing it is the same,
prayer, praise, love, all is perverted, and yet the
name retained. The communications we received
from Mr. G l and others, 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 Mardin the road by the mountains
of Sinjar is safer than by the plains. Among the
Yezidees and Syrians, no Mohammedan lives. It
is impossible to consider such an immense Christian
population as that in Diarbekr, without feeling a
wish to pour in upon it the fountains of living waters,
which we are so abundantly blessed with. Oh, that
some one would come out, and settle down in such a
place as Diarbekr what an abundant field
of labour!
August 14. A young
Jew was here to-day, and bought three Arabic Bibles
of Mr. Pfander, at 25 piastres of this place each,
i.e. about 5s. sterling. This is almost
the beginning. Many might perhaps have been given
away; but as we find that those of Mr. Wolff were generally
burnt, we wish them to buy them, at least, at such
a price that they would not burn them. He took
away a Hebrew New Testament, but returned it again.
I should feel deeply interested in some one coming
to take charge of a Jewish school, in which the Old
Testament, Hebrew, and Arabic, might be the basis
of instruction. I make no doubt, that at once
a most interesting school might be established here
on a very large scale, for they have but one school
of about 150 poor boys at their synagogue, or rather
synagogues, for they have six, but all in one place,
and forming one building; they have also three rabbies,
and besides the boys which are taught at the above
school, many others are educated at home by teachers.
Now, nothing can be more distinct than their wish
for a school, and their promise of supporting it on
the basis of the Old Testament being taught as a school-book,
which certainly, as a primary step, is a most important
one to cause them, by the Lord’s blessing, to
see that the book which they now disfigure by monstrous
interpretations, has yet in itself, by the illumination
of God’s Spirit, a clear, simple, and, in all
essential points, an intelligible meaning, without
the aid of man’s exposition. But should
they finally turn round and oppose the school, which
as soon as the power of it is felt, they most assuredly
would do, still some might remain, and if none should,
there is still a most abundant field of labour in
circulating the Scriptures, and in conversation among
them in this city, and throughout Mesopotamia, where
they abound in almost every town.
We have heard from a Jew, that Sakies,
the Armenian Agent of the East India Company, had
given the Jews directions to treat Mr. Wolff when
here with attention, and to invite him to their houses.
The Jews here are closely connected with the English,
at least many of them, who are under English protection.
August 15. Sunday. The
thermometer this day has been the highest hitherto
for the year, 117 in the shade, and 155 in the sun.
This is the time when the dates ripen, and the most
oppressive in the year; but by the Lord’s great
mercy, we are all in health and strength, though sometimes
we feel a little disposed to think it is so hot, that
we may be excused from doing any thing; but my English
scholars keep me employed six hours a day, which prevents
me from thinking much about the heat, though not from
feeling it. I can truly say, it is far more tolerable
than I expected, and yet there are few places on the
face of the earth hotter. The temperature of India
is not near so high; and I question, if there is any
place, that for the year through would average so
high.
August 17. The Jew
has been here, and bought another Arabic Bible.
I showed him one of the Hebrew Psalters of the Jews’
Society. He greatly desired to have it; but I
could not spare that; but promised him that when mine
came up from Bussorah, I would let him know.
We have this day a new Moolah, the
best we could get, but not altogether such as we could
have desired.
The Jews here cannot believe that
Christians know any thing of Hebrew, and are therefore
surprised to see Hebrew books with us. Oh, should
the Lord allow us to be of any use to this holy people,
terrible from their beginning hitherto alike in the
favour and indignation of Jéhovah, we should esteem
it a very great blessing; yet surely they ought to
have here one missionary, whose whole soul might be
drawn out towards this especial work.
From some communications with a native
of Merdin, we find that the custom of avenging murder
and requiring blood for blood, exists among the independent
Chaldeans and Syrians, and keeps them in continual
warfare, where one happens to be killed by the inhabitants
of another village. The inhabitants of the village
of the person killed, feel it a necessary point of
honour to revenge it.
He also mentioned, that the Yezidees
were no longer so numerous as formerly, but were greatly
diminished by the plague, which happened a few years
ago, by which Diarbekr lost 10,000 of its inhabitants.
We had a visit from an Armenian, who
was formerly treasurer to Sir Gore Ouseley; while
speaking about Christianity, he said, it was no use
to speak to the Armenians about it, for they all say,
“How can we know any thing about such matters,
and that, except as a sect, they are too ignorant
to know or care about Christianity.” They
are indeed full of the pride of heart that appertains
to sectarians, and obstinately resist the Scriptures
being translated into the modern languages, because,
say they, the ancient language was spoken in Paradise,
and will be the language of heaven, and that, therefore,
translating the sacred book into that which is modern,
is a desecration. How wonderfully does Satan
blind men, and how by one contrivance or another does
he endeavour to keep God’s word from them, as
a real intelligible book, which the Spirit of God makes
plain, even to the most unlettered; but the more we
discover him endeavouring to pervert God’s word
from becoming intelligible, the more we should strive
to let every soul have the testimony of God concerning
his life in Christ, in a language he understands.
In this point of view I look to the schools with comfort.
August 19. Things
here seem most unsettled, and require us to live in
very simple faith as to what a day may bring forth.
It is stated, that between 20 and 30,000 Arabs are
close to the gates of the city. The Pasha has
an army about 24 miles from hence; but unable to move,
except all together, and there is another regiment
under an English officer about 12 miles distant.
The deposition of this Pasha seems to be the principal
object of these Arabs, in which it is not impossible
that they may be fully supported by the Porte.
What will be the result of all this we are not careful
to know, for we are not to fear their face, nor to
be afraid, but the Lord will be to us a hiding place
from the storm, when the blast of the terrible ones
is as a storm against a wall.
A caravan has just come across the
desert from Aleppo, with a guard of 500 men, consisting
of 300 camels. Letters brought by a Tartar from
Constantinople have all been detained by the Pasha,
except a few on mercantile concerns which have been
delivered. So many packets sent by Constantinople
have been in one way or another detained, that I have
no other hope of letters than what my most gracious
Lord’s approved love gives me; all which he
really desires me to have I shall receive, and more
I would desire not to wish for.
We have just heard, that Major T ’s
brother, and the gentlemen who left Mousul were pursued
by 500 Arabs; but all escaped except a horse of the
Capidji, an officer of the Sultan’s, which
was laden with money, collected by his master for
the government at Constantinople; he could not go
fast enough, so he fell into the hands of the Arabs.
The Roman Catholic bishop has received
accounts that Algiers is taken by the French, and
also some forts in its neighbourhood. Aleppo is
quiet, though the Arabs are in the neighbourhood.
Our new Moolah has expressed his surprise
at the contents of the New Testament, and wonders
how Mohammedans can speak against it as they do.
He intends coming to our Armenian schoolmaster on Sundays
to read it with him; may the Lord most graciously
send down his Spirit upon them, that the one who undertakes
to teach what he does not know, may, by discovering
his ignorance, be led to the fountain of all wisdom;
and may the other learn to love him whose holy, heavenly,
and divine name he has blasphemed.
The cholera is much about, but the
Lord preserves us all safe.
The Pasha has made up his differences
with the Arab tribe, and all the troops have returned,
except those under Mr. Littlejohn, which still remain
out for fear of an attack before all the harvest is
thrashed and brought in.
There are symptoms of great fear on
the part of the Pasha, that a struggle is actually
going on among those around him for superseding him
in his Pashalic, in which they have apparently much
probability of success, as the Porte has been greatly
injured by his unwillingness to meet her necessities
and afford her pecuniary help. Our security,
however, is in this, that amidst all, the Lord knoweth
them that are his, and will defend them amidst all
turmoils and in the most troublous times in
this we find peace and quietness.
The poor men who came to endeavour
to obtain from the Pasha here the re-institution of
the Syrian patriarch in those churches in Merdin,
from which he had been ejected by the Roman Catholic
bishop, are now returning without success, but carrying
back with them two boxes of Arabic and Syrian New
Testaments to the Patriarch. May the Lord water
them by his most Holy Spirit, so that they may become
the ground of living churches, instead of those of
stone which they have lost.
I have been much surprised to learn
that all the Arab tribes on these rivers, except the
Montefeiks, are Sheahs or followers of Ali, whom I
had formerly thought followers of Omar.
I have already mentioned, that on
leaving Mousul, Mr. Taylor’s party were attacked
and obliged to return to Telaafer, a village between
Mousul and Merdin, whence, after having waited for
a stronger escort, they proceeded towards Merdin,
when the event related in the following letter took
place; but the supposed death of the three gentlemen
was unfounded. They were only made prisoners
and carried to the mountains of Sinjar, among the
Yezidees. These people are declared enemies of
the Mohammedans, whom they hate; but, on the whole,
except when their cupidity is excited, they are not
unfriendly towards Christians. They seem, with
the Sabeans and some others, such as the Druzes, to
be descendants of the believers in the two principles
who have blown their pestiferous breath at different
times into every system of religion that has prevailed
in these countries, corrupting all. However,
these Yezidees, be they originally what they may, have
now these three gentlemen in custody, and require
7,500 piastres of this place about
L75, for their liberation, and Major T. has sent a
person from hence to treat about it.
“My dear Sir,
“It is, I can assure you, with
a sincere and melancholy regret at the dreadful,
I may say horrible and awful event that I have so
lately witnessed, that I sit down now to address a
few lines to you. I feel quite unable to
give you an entire relation of our misfortunes,
and shall content myself with saying, that out of
seven as happy people as could well exist on our departure
from Mousul, three only have returned. To
one so well able to look for consolation, where,
I may say, in such an event consolation is alone
to be found, fortitude and patience in suffering
might well be found. I myself have not attained
this, and I may say this event has plunged me
in the deepest melancholy. For a relation
of facts, I must refer you to Captain Cockrell’s
letter to Major Taylor: we were attacked and
compelled to fly, and in the confusion, Mr. Taylor,
his servant, Mr. Bywater, and our companion,
Mr. Aspinal, were murdered. We, that is
Captain Cockrell, Mr. Elliot, and myself escaped,
though I was, I believe, especially fired at, as on
descending the hill four or five whistled close
past me. That we were betrayed, and moreover,
our companions assassinated by our own party,
no doubt exists in my mind. All that were killed
out of 500 people that were with us were these
four. They again, out of all, happened to
be the only ones among us who carried money.
We have done every thing in our power to recover their
bodies but without effect: on our return to Telaafer,
after having been twenty-six hours on horseback
in the desert, we wrote a note, in the hope that
they might be prisoners at Sinjar, and offered
4,000 piastres for them if they were brought
in safe. The Kapidgi Bashi left for Merdin before
we could hear of our messenger; he returned after
three days, and said he had seen their clothes
and pistols, and that they were all murdered.
Mr. Taylor he mentioned as having been run through
the body with a spear. This was one out of many
reports of a similar nature, and we were fain
to give them up for dead. (They could not
possibly have been alive had they escaped, as there
was no water within twenty-four hours.) All our things
were pillaged. I lost all my papers, including
your letters, and all that was left were a few
pairs of white trowsers. This was most assuredly
done by our own party; even our own baggage man,
before my eyes, almost laid hold of my turban and pistol,
which I had laid upon the ground, and on my laying
hold on him, actually drew his dagger. I
never witnessed such villany in my life.
All our guards were laughing, as if nothing had occurred;
and, although I may be wrong, yet I do venture
it as my opinion, that there were no thieves
at all, but that it was treachery altogether.
You will be surprised to hear that Captain Cockrell
and myself start to-morrow on the same road as
before. I trust in God alone for protection, as
we have no guards at all. If I ever reach
Exeter I shall not fail to call on Miss Groves;
but after what has happened who can say, “He
shall do this.”
“We take no baggage of any description,
being fully aware of the danger and impracticability
of so doing; so that if we are again attacked,
we shall be able to gallop for our lives. Now,
adieu, my dear Sir. I will write from Constantinople
if I reach it; in the mean time excuse this hurried
scrawl, and believe me, ever
“Yours
very sincerely,
“W.
HULL.”
“Mr. A. N.
Groves.”
In consequence of the receipt of this
intelligence, Major T. sent off Aga Menas to Mousul,
to treat about the liberation of the captives, and
we are anxiously waiting the result.
My dear brother Pfander and myself
having come to the conclusion, that with so large
a school, and so many objects of one kind and the other
as there are here requiring attention, it would be
impossible for me to leave this and go with him into
the mountains; this led to the further determination
on his part to return to Shushee next year, having
first spent a few months at Ispahan, to complete his
knowledge of Persian; and I of course was prepared
to be left quite alone, but still my heart was fully
sustained with the confident hope that the Lord would
not only do what was right, but exceedingly abundant
above all I could ask. On all sides nothing but
silence prevailed: three packets of letters
had been lost between Constantinople and this, and
one between Tabreez and this, and all the letters from
India had been detained, by the Arabs on the river
being at war with the Pasha for four or five months.
Therefore I knew nothing of the movements of any of
my dear friends, and all was left to conjecture; sometimes,
when faith was in full exercise, I felt assured that
the Lord was doing all well; at others, I hardly knew
what to think. I had written to my very dear
friends in Petersburgh, Dr. W. and Miss K. to come
if possible and as soon as possible; but their having
left Petersburgh doubtless prevented their receiving
my letter. From my dear friends in England I
heard little; from Ireland not a word. Things
were in this state, when suddenly there came in three
Tartars bringing us three packets, so full of Christian
love, sympathy, and such good tidings, that it almost
overcame our hearts, weak from long abstinence from
similar entertainment, and even on this day, the third
from their arrival, they fill my heart till it runs
over. To hear and see that those one most loves,
are indeed joying and rejoicing in their holy, most
holy relation to God in Christ, the relationship
of sons and daughters, to see them anxious to walk
blameless in all the ordinances their Lord has left
them, while they glory in being free from the law of
condemnation, and desire to know no freedom from the
law of loving obedience: moreover, to see them
becoming more and more sensible to the great truth
that inestimable as knowledge is, it is what devils
may share, but that the love of Jesus, and a tenderness
of conscience as to his will, is infinitely higher
than that, and that therefore his high command to
the members of his church to love one another as he
loves them, can never be slighted by them: oh,
to see this it does indeed rejoice my heart, and I
pray among us all that it may abound more and more,
particularly among us who have been so graciously and
so kindly led into all the holy freedom of the Gospel.
Let us see we use it not as a cloak of maliciousness,
but as the servants of Christ, loving and serving
one another, not returning evil for evil, or reviling
for reviling, but contrariwise blessing. The path
God’s children have to take when they are determined
in the name of the Lord not to give the name of God’s
truth to any thing merely human, knowing that it is
a vain thing to teach for doctrines the commandments
of men, is so naturally offensive, that our zeal for
the truth should lead us to pray for such especial
graces of the Spirit as may prevent any unloveliness
in our walk, preventing the Lord’s dear children
from coming, and seeing, and drinking of that well-spring
in Christ by which we have been so refreshed and invigorated.
Whilst we profess, my very dear friends, absolute
freedom from man’s control in the things relating
to God, we only acknowledge in a tenfold degree the
absoluteness of our subjection to the whole mind and
will of Christ in all things. As he is our life
hid with him in God, so let him be our way
and our truth, both in doctrine and conversation.
How many, from neglect of this lovely union, have
almost forgotten to care about adorning the doctrine
of God their Saviour in all things. Let us, my
dear brethren and sisters, pray that we may be united
in all the will of Christ. This is a basis not
for time only but for eternity, and for that glorious
day especially, when the Lord shall come to be glorified
in all his saints, and admired in all them that believe.
But not only did my packets bring me joyful tidings
of the Lord’s doings among those whom I especially
know and love, but they also brought me intelligence
that he had prepared for me help from among those who
had been known and approved, and whom I especially
loved. How I felt reproved for every doubt; and
indeed the Lord so fully has let his goodness pass
before me, that I am overwhelmed, and feel I can only
lay my hand upon my mouth, and whilst overwhelmed with
my own vileness and unworthiness of the least of all
my most gracious Lord’s loving kindnesses to
me, yet glory in that dispensation of grace which
ministers to us, not according to our deserts, but
the unbought, unbounded love of God. My letters
tell me that my very dear brethren and friends, Mr.
P., Mr. C., his sister, and mother, and little babe,
and Mr. N., are coming to join us, with possibly a
fourth. Now this does seem altogether wonderful,
and whilst not at all more than I ought to have expected,
yet more than I had faith to expect. Yet while
I have nothing to say for myself, I desire to say all
for God: it is like him, all whose ways are wonderful,
and, towards his church, full of mercy, goodness,
and truth. Oh, how happy shall we be to await
the Lord’s coming on the banks of these rivers,
which have been the scene of all the sacred history
of the old church of God, and destined still, I believe,
to be the scene of doings of yet future and deeper
interest at the coming of the Lord; and whilst I should
not hesitate to go to the furthest corner of the habitable
earth, were my dear Lord to send me, yet I feel much
pleasure in having my post appointed here, though
the most unsettled and insecure country beneath the
sun perhaps. In every direction, without are
lawless robbers, and within unprincipled extortioners;
but it is in the midst of these, that the Almighty
arm of our Father delights to display his preserving
mercy, and while the flesh would shrink, the spirit
desires to wing its way to the very foremost ranks
of danger in the battles of the Lord. Oh that
we may more and more press on this sluggish, timid,
earthly constitution, that is always wanting its native
ease among the delights of an earthly happiness.
Oh, may my very loving, zealous brethren, stir up
my timid, languid spirit to the mild yet life-renouncing
love of my dear Lord, which, whilst it was silent,
was as strong, yea, stronger than death.
My dear friend and brother P
and his wife have been baptized too; to see this conformity
to Christ’s mind, is very delightful; and how
wonderful, too; so strong a current of prejudice
is there against this simple, intelligible, and blessed
ordinance. I learn also, that he and my dear
friend the A are preaching
the everlasting Gospel themselves, and with some others
of those we love, employing others to preach it.
This also is good news.
September 10. No
accounts have been received from Sinjar regarding
our travellers. I fear this is ominous, for if
ransom is what the Yezidees want, would they not have
contrived to forward some notice to Bagdad? however,
a few days will most likely disclose the truth, as
on the 8th Meenas reached Mousul.
We have just heard that the Nabob
of Lucknow’s brother, on his return from a pilgrimage
to Mished, was taken prisoner with the whole caravan
by the Turcomans. This amiable Mohammedan came
from India on a round of pilgrimages. He has
visited Mecca and Kerbala, and was now returning again
to this place on his way home to Lucknow, after which
he purposed returning again, and going through Persia,
Russia, Germany, &c. to England. He was robbed
once before between this and Aleppo.
The Pasha has just sent to the Factory
to say, that the cholera has extended its ravages
to Kerkook, and to ask for advice, and what is to
be done should it reach this place with its epidemic
violence. Mr. M is going
therefore to write directions, and Major T
will get them translated into Arabic, for the use
of the people here. Blessed be the Lord’s
holy name, our charter runs, that in the pestilence,
“though ten thousand fall at thy right hand,
it shall not come nigh thee;” on this, therefore,
we repose our hearts. The Pasha seems perplexed
to know, in the event of its reaching Bagdad, where
he shall go with his family for safety. It is
certainly an awful thing to look at Tabreez, where
they say, that 8,000 or 9,000 have died out of 60,000;
and two years ago at Bussorah, 1,500 out of 6,000,
so that the houses were left desolate, and the boats
were floating up and down the creek without owners,
and when persons died in a house, the rest went away,
and left the bodies there locked up. But we have
in our dwellings a light in these days that they know
nothing of, who know not our God either in his power
or his love, so that the heart is enabled to cast
all, even the dearest to it, on the exceeding abundance
of his mercy.
September 10. I
fear the intelligence we have just received of poor
Mr. J. Taylor, Mr. Bywater, and Mr. Aspinal, and the
Maltese servant, leaves us little room to hope but
that they have all been treacherously murdered.
Our Moolah tells us, he received a letter from a friend
of his at Merdin, stating, that they were murdered not
by the Yezidees at all, but by the party of Arabs
sent by the Pasha of Mousul to protect them, in conjunction
with a party from Telaafer, an Arab village, where
they spent a night. It appears, that when the
attack was made, Mr. Elliot, Captain Cockrell, and
Mr. Hull galloped off after being stripped; but Mr.
Taylor, Mr. Aspinal, and Mr. Bywater got entangled
among these robbers, and Mr. A. shot one of the Arabs
with his pistol; and afterwards Mr. B. shot another.
It then became with these lawless plunderers, no longer
a matter of simple robbery, but of revenge and death.
They killed these two young men, and then pulling
Mr. Taylor from his horse, killed him. I confess,
when I saw them mounting their horses, strongly covered
with offensive weapons of warfare, I felt very little
comfort about them, for, if they were attacked, it
would only be with an overwhelming force, or they would
be given up in treachery, in both which cases almost
all the danger arises from resistance. Those
wretched plunderers seek not life, but booty; this
quietly yielded, you may go; but if you use the sword,
you perish by the sword. If you carry money,
or any thing valuable, you are exposed to be stripped,
and if you go armed, to be killed. About three
years ago, the French interpreter was going the very
same route, and near Telaafer he was attacked, and
stripped; but they let him go free. The fate
of these gentlemen has greatly affected us all.
A delay must now take place in the steamboat communication,
for it is not probable that this route can ever be
so disregarded, but that some effort, sooner or later,
will be made. Let our impatient hearts hush their
murmurings; it is the work of a loving Father, who
declares to his children, that all things shall work
together for their good; yea, the disappointment of
present hopes shall, by heavenly patience, yield the
peaceable fruits of righteousness to those who are
exercised thereby.
September 14. We
have just heard, that an order has been given out
in one of the mosques, that the Mohammedans shall receive
no printed books. Whether this watchfulness is
the result of Mr. Pfander having employed a man, a
Jew, to sell Bibles, Testaments, and Psalters, or
whether, at the suggestion from the R
C B , I know
not. How near the principles are of the beast
and the false prophet how easily they harmonize
and help each other!
We have lately heard some interesting
details of the numbers of the Jews in the places north-east
of Persia. A Jew who has travelled in these countries
states, that there are,
There are also in the villages about
some Jews, from 20 to 100 families. Their knowledge
of the Hebrew is very confined; very few understand
it at all; they have also very little knowledge of
the Talmud. We hope from time to time to collect
more particulars to correct, confirm, or cancel these,
and all other accounts of a similar nature, for in
these countries it is not one account that can stand,
and when confronted by 50 more, it can still be only
considered as an approximation to truth.
September 16. Our
long expected packet by Shushee and Tabreez has just
arrived. The messenger, on reaching Kourdistan,
found it in such a state of danger and confusion,
that he was afraid to proceed, but went back again,
and came by a longer but more quiet way. Another
cause of delay seems to have been their going to India,
and back again to Tabreez. The information contained
in this packet is most interesting. From Petersburgh
we heard from several friends, all encouraging, comforting,
and rejoicing us. The Lord seems to give them
courage still to persevere; and dear sister
intends, after recruiting a little in England, to
return again to her work there. I feel satisfied
it is a most interesting field, and that ere long
in Russia some tremendous changes will take place.
The poor are anxious for the word of God, and the
nobility despising the hierarchy, and, therefore,
that blind priestly domination under which it has
groaned, will finally fall to pieces; infidelity will
take openly its side, and the Lord’s saints
theirs.
Dear Mr. K tells
us, that some dear American brother, by name Lewis,
has sent him money to procure for his family a house
in the country during the few months of a Russian
summer. How loving and bountiful a Lord ours
is, supplying his most affectionate and waiting servant
with all he needs; it makes every little bounty so
sweet when it comes from a Father through one of his
vessels of mercy. Oh, who would not live a life
of faith in preference to one of daily, hourly satiety I
mean as to earthly things; how very many instances
of happiness should we have been deprived of, had
we not trusted to, and left it to his love to fill
us with good things as he pleased, and to spread our
table as he has done, year after year, and will do,
even here in this wilderness.
From Shushee we have also heard, that
our dear brother Z and an Armenian
had been travelling and selling Bibles and Testaments.
They went first to Teflis; from thence to Erzeroum,
Érivan, Ech-Miazin, and back again to Shushee.
What success he had in selling Bibles and Testaments
we do not know, but at Erzeroum, he was accused by
the Mohammedans before the Russian authorities, but
let go. He returned home in safety under the
hand of the Lord. There is also in the letters
of our brethren most pleasing accounts of a young Armenian,
the son-in-law of the richest Armenian merchant in
Baku, supposed to be worth half a million. This
young man, at a visit of Z and
P , was much interested by their
conversation about the New Testament, and they went
away, leaving him an interesting inquirer. He,
however, still pursued his way alone, and attained
a perfect understanding of the Armenian Testament,
which at first he was able to read but indifferently.
He then felt himself unable to proceed in mercantile
transactions as before; so that his father-in-law told
him, that much as he regretted separating from him,
if he became so pious, they must part. Well,
he said, he could not give up his convictions, and
he was sure his Lord would not allow him to want; so
he left his father-in-law, and learnt the trade of
a taylor. From the very first he began to teach
his wife, and she takes part with him; and he is now
selling Bibles and Testaments, and circulating tracts
among the Russian soldiers. This is a sight indeed!
for centuries perhaps they have not seen one of their
own body rising up, and choosing to suffer affliction
with the people of God, rather than enjoy the pleasures
of sin for a season; and the sight is as strange to
Mohammedans as to Christians. May the Lord sustain,
comfort, and bless him out of his heavenly treasures.
From Tabreez our tidings are heavy,
or rather would be, but that the Lord of love directs
and orders all, and sees the end from the beginning,
yet they have also good tidings too. I have already
mentioned, that the cholera had been raging at Tabreez;
but we learn, that not only this, but the plague is
there also, to a most frightful extent. I will
just copy here the account our dear sister Mrs.
has given us; and for whose safety we desire to bless
the Lord; she says,
“Before this reaches you, you
may have heard of the sorrow and desolation that
have befallen this city within these last two months.
Thousands around us have been cut off by the cholera
and the plague. The former raged so furiously
for the first month, that 2 or 300 died daily.
Symptoms of the plague first were discovered
in the ark among the Russian soldiers, which manifested
itself by breaking out over the body in large boils;
the person attacked, feeling himself overcome
by stupor; many died before it was thought what
it was; precautions were taken, and they were
sent out to camp at some distance from the town.
The disorder has not raged among them so much
as it has in the town. I cannot tell you
how great the fear was that was struck into the
minds of the people. Many were taken ill through
fear, of which they died. Previous to the
city being quite deserted, men, women, children,
of all denominations, collected themselves together
in large bodies, crying and beseeching God to
turn away his judgments from them: this they did
bareheaded and without shoes, humbling themselves,
they said, because they knew they were great
sinners. The air resounded with their cries
day and night, particularly the latter, and often during
the whole of it. Oh, did they but know the
truth as it is in Jesus. At length all classes
fled to the mountains, leaving the town quite
deserted. Alexander told me, on his return one
day from the city, that he had not met a person.
All the shops in the bazaar were forsaken, so
that from this you may derive some idea of the
terror that has possessed this people.”
Mrs. also tells
us, that the establishment at Tabreez is going to
be much reduced, and that therefore Mr. N
is ordered back to India. This has tried them
much, for they were just expecting two American missionaries,
a Mr. Dwight and a Mr. Smith, with whom they were
hoping to have acted happily for their common Lord.
But the Lord’s ways are not our ways, nor his
thoughts our thoughts, so these things happen otherwise
than we expected. However, wherever they go,
may they be blessed, and a blessing. They purpose
coming here on their way, which affords us much pleasure
at the prospect of seeing them again. However,
we are greatly rejoiced to think, that brethren from
America have designed Tabreez for their station.
Now between Shushee, Tabreez, and this place we have
a little frontier line. Oh, may there be daily
new ambassadors of mercy publishing the testimony of
Jesus in all the world. Oh, that the end may
quickly come.
Our Moolah is dreadfully depressed
to-day, at the prospect of the cholera and plague
coming here, and he said to me, he thought the end
of the world must be near, because of these wars, pestilences,
and plagues.
We have also heard that we shall most
likely be obliged to leave this house after the year
has expired; for the Sheahs have been complaining
to the Seyd, the owner of it, for letting it to
the infidels for such a purpose. But we are not
careful about these things; it will be as the Lord
wills.
Nothing can show the stupid carelessness
of these people more, than that, although they are
frightened out of their reason almost at the prospect
of the plague and cholera, yet they have actually allowed
a whole caravan from Tabreez to come into the city
without quarantine, or any kind of precaution.
Oh, how joyful the promises in the
Revelations are for “those written in the Lamb’s
book of life,” for “those who have not
the mark of the beast on them,” for those who
are to be sealed before the angels are allowed to
hurt the earth. Yea, he will for his great name’s
sake hide us in the secret of his pavilion, so that
he will put a song into our mouths; yea, he will encompass
us with songs of deliverance. We feel that it
now indeed especially becomes us neither to fear their
fear nor be afraid.
Sept. The weather
is now become decidedly cooler. A fortnight since
the average height of the thermometer in the shade,
during the warmest part of the day, was 117; it is
now lowered to 110. During the hottest time of
the year, which is now just over, the quicksilver was
rarely lower than 110, or higher than 118 in the shade,
except in the morning, when the general range was
from 87 to 93.
The Seyd who has let us his house,
and who we had heard intended to turn us out after
the year was expired, has got into trouble with the
Pasha, about some ground he rented, and for which he
was to pay the Pasha a certain quantity of corn; but
he says, what from the locusts, and the rain not coming
at the usual time, and when it did come, coming in
such unusual quantities, he lost his crop. He
has now come begging us to take his case to Major
T., to beg him to endeavour to settle it with the
Musruff. Thus the Lord has brought him into difficulties,
that if he were disposed to turn us out he would not
be able this year. But he denies altogether having
said any thing about turning us out, and it is not
improbable that it is as he says; his family which
is a large one, and once were opulent, feel it a great
disgrace to let out the house of one of the descendants
of the prophet to a Christian, and more especially
as one of the rooms is over the street under which
the Mohammedans have to walk, and this most especially
offends them; but that we might not give them any
unnecessary offence we have never occupied the room,
though the most airy one we have.
A Jew of Yezd has been with us, and
told us that there are 300 families of Jews in that
city, and the same number at Ispahan.
Sep. A caravan
has just arrived from Constantinople, by way of Aleppo.
We have also heard that one caravan from Damascus has
been plundered, and another from Kerkook: and
a messenger likewise who came from Captain Campbell,
from Tabreez, was also stopped, but having nothing
besides letters, was suffered to pass. I note
these events down merely that they may afford a little
criterion of the unsettled state of the whole of the
interior of this immense continent. In fact,
the Lord is, amidst these commotions, preparing a way
for his testimony to spread.
The cholera, by the Lord’s blessing,
is decreasing, but it is reported that at Kerkook
the mortality went as high as 100 a day; it has now,
however, ceased.
Sep. The intelligence
has been confirmed of the death of Mr. Taylor, Mr.
Aspinal, and Mr. Bywater, as well as of a Maltese servant,
and that the principal perpetrators were the Sheikh
of Telaafer, in conjunction with a Sheikh of the Yezidees,
who were with the caravan at the time.
The Nawaub mentioned before, has been
delivered by the Prince of Teheran sending an army
into Khorassan, and with him all the caravan.
Sep. Meenas
has just been here, and the only particulars he has
given of the unfortunate travellers, in addition to
that which we knew before is, that Mr. Aspinal made
his escape with the others, but hearing a cry from
Mr. Taylor and Mr. Bywater, he returned, and finding
them surrounded by about fifty men, he drew his pistol
and shot one man through the arm. This made them
retire for a moment, but they advanced again:
he then drew another pistol, and shot the Sheikh of
the Yezidees, by name Bella. His son then rushed
on them with the rest, and killed them all, and with
them six other Christians two on a pilgrimage
to Jerusalem, and the others on mercantile business.
The booty they then divided, half to the people of
Telaafer, who were the guards of the murdered party,
and the other half the Yezidees kept. The Yezidees
do not appear at all to have wished to kill them, knowing
their relation to the Resident here, from whom they
hoped to get a handsome ransom. Perhaps no two
events could more powerfully manifest the weakness
of the Ottoman empire internally than this event which
has happened to Mr. Taylor, and the pillage of a caravan
going to Mousul, which was stripped of every thing
but two boxes of books, which Mr. Pfander had sent;
these they left as being too heavy, and they are now
safe at Mousul. This caravan was stripped by persons
nominally the subjects of the Pasha within two days
journey of Bagdad, and the property divided with the
most perfect impunity without any attempt at recovery.
These gentlemen were robbed and killed by persons
of a village subject to the Pasha of Mousul; and he
has not the least prospect of bringing them to punishment.
When Meenas gave the Syrians in Mousul
an account of our school here, they were so much interested,
that all their principal persons have written a letter
to invite us to come there and establish schools among
them, and also to desire that we should send to them
some Arabic Testaments and Psalms. All this is
most encouraging, and I plainly see, that were there
twenty servants of Christ, faithful men, who would
be content to work for the Lord in every way, there
might soon be found abundant work for them. Mousul
seems especially open to Christian influence.
Many of those immediately connected with the Pasha
are Christians, and many even among the Mohammedans
have still Christian recollections. The letter
from Mousul, Meenas tells us, will come in about three
days; if so, Mr. Pfander proposes sending back a present
of Arabic Testaments and Psalms, with the expression
of our hope that the Lord may strengthen our hands,
as he has made willing our hearts, to extend our labours
unto them. Major T. often asks me if I think
any missionary mechanics may still come out. The
Lord does so much and so wonderfully, that I can almost
hope this, notwithstanding the host of prejudices
to be first surmounted.
Marteroos, the schoolmaster, who we
hear is on his way from Sheeraz, will, I trust, be
a great comfort to us, and a help to the school.
He taught two years in the school at Calcutta, and
though solicited, would receive no salary; and also
at Bushire. This is a trait of character so utterly
unlike these countries, that we cannot but hope he
will enter into our plans with a heartiness that we
can expect few others would. From his understanding
English, we hope he may be able to take not only the
higher Armenian classes, but also to have time to
translate such books as we need for the use of the
school, and also little tracts for circulation.
The Musruff, (or treasurer) of the
Pasha told Major T. that they had begun the canal
between the Tigris and Euphrates. This shews the
Pasha is still anxious about the steam communication.
Our Mohammedan Moolah still continues
to read the New Testament, with the Armenian schoolmaster,
who seems very sanguine that he will become a Christian.
At all events, I bless God that he sees the record
of God with his own eyes, so that if he now rejects
the testimony, it will be God’s that he rejects,
and not the solemn mockery of Christ’s most
simple and most holy truth, which they have before
seen.
We were much delighted to find that
those of the little boys who had been exercised in
translating their own language into the vulgar, had
retained such a clear knowledge of it, that though
they were called upon quite unexpectedly, they understood
it; whereas the bigger boys, who come to me for English,
and the Moolah for Arabic, and who are considered
to have finished the Armenian education, were not able
to translate one word, at which they were not a little
ashamed, though the fault was not theirs, but the
plan of education. We are greatly encouraged
by this, and led to hope, with the Lord’s blessing
we shall see, instead of a system of education, which
after immense labour, terminates in nothing but sound
without sense or instruction, a system that
will at least bring God’s word before them in
a form intelligible and clear; yea, the very truth
that God’s Spirit has promised to bless, and
which He has declared shall not return unto him void.
Our schoolmaster fully enters into these plans for
improvement, and really desires to do whatever we
wish. Our Arabic Moolah also enters much into
our wishes, and the boys are making double the progress
they did under the old system. This is all of
the Lord; and in fact, when I think of the doubts
expressed before we commenced of our being allowed
to work at all, and consider the quietness and peace
the Lord has allowed us to enjoy in the prosecution
of our work, I desire more entirely to cast my whole
soul, with all its purposes and plans on the Lord,
not to move but as he guides.
The two great objects of the church
in the latter days seem to me to be, independent of
growing herself up into the stature of fulness in
Christ, the publication of the testimony of Jesus in
all lands, and the calling out of the sheep of Christ
that may be imprisoned in all the Babylonish systems
that are in the world. In both these may the
Lord of his infinite mercy grant success. Oh,
how consoling it is, under an overwhelming sense of
powerless inefficiency, to one’s work, to know
that God has chosen to put the most precious gift in
earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power
may be of God and not of man, so that we may glory
in our very weakness and ignorance, and natural insufficiency,
knowing that the Lord’s strength is made perfect
in this very weakness. Dear and blessed Lord,
make us every one willing to be nothing, that thou
mayest in all things be glorified.
Oc. I have just
seen a sight that interests me much; the Mohammedan
Moolah sitting at one window of the school reading
the Arabic New Testament, and the Armenian vartabiet
(or schoolmaster) sitting at a table explaining to
the son of the priest of this place the New Testament.
This young man is just going to Ispahan to be ordained.
This certainly is something gained, that the word of
eternal truth is brought before them.
In speaking yesterday to my Moolah
about the fortress which the Sultan has ordered to
be built between Damascus and Aleppo, to keep the road
safe for caravans, and which is nearly finished, he
told me that the Sultan had promised the European
Sultans that he would govern and regulate his country
like theirs; thus the minds of these people seem preparing
step by step for changes.
I have heard, that after we left Petersburgh,
some of those, from whom we had experienced peculiar
kindness, had become very active in visiting the poor
in the neighbourhood of that city, and in circulating
tracts and the Scriptures, till at last they attracted
the notice of the governors of one of these villages,
who arrested and examined them. Dr. W. was ordered
to leave St. Petersburgh in twenty-four hours, and
the Russian dominions in three weeks. Dear young
Mr. , being an officer, was put
into confinement, and , whose
mother has often visited Africa, has since left her
charge, and is returned to England for her health,
but hopes with increased prospects of usefulness,
to return to her former sphere of labour. They
felt the cause of God had gained ground during their
trials, and that their own souls had greatly rejoiced
in the Lord.
Oc. We have
just heard that a German watchmaker in this place
has turned Mohammedan. This unprincipled man had
a wife and children in Germany, yet wished to marry
a Roman Catholic Armenian here; but knowing that the
Bishop here would not marry them, he then went to the
Musruff, (the chief officer of the Pasha,) and promised
him that if he would get him this woman he would become
a Mohammedan, and this he has now done, and he is
using all his endeavours to compel the young woman
he has married to follow his steps. This, at present,
she resists, but she has little principle, as she
knew before of his being married. The more I
see of this people, the more I am struck with the
necessity of our being made acquainted with the deep
wickedness and corruption of the human heart, that
we may never be hopeless as to these people, and think
them some peculiarly iniquitous race; and on the other
hand, we need a deep sense of the omnipotence of God’s
Holy Spirit, that we may never be discouraged; for
the bones are indeed very, very dry. We hear
this wretched man has been beating the woman, finding
his entreaties failed.
Oc. The Lord
has blessed us with a little girl, and every thing
has been ordered by him most happily, so that we have
wanted nothing that the luxury or wealth of England
could supply. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and
all that is within me bless his holy name; for indeed
he daily loadeth us with benefits.
Oc. The news
of the state of things in France, and of the Revolution
there, has led us to look up to our Lord to see what
the end will be of these movements. That they
will help on the coming kingdom of our Lord we know,
but how we cannot yet see. We have also heard
not only that France has taken possession of Algiers,
but is marching towards Tunis. Thus, step by step,
Turkey is being dismembered; and although by infidel
principles and by infidel hands, yet perhaps preparing
the way for the publication of the Lord’s love
to man. We have also understood that an English
force of 4,000 men, in 200 ships, are assembled at
Malta with the view of attacking Egypt; but this we
do not believe, but regard it as French news, calculated
to bring us, in the eyes of the Turks, as guilty alike
with them in attacking the Turkish dominions.
However, all these things render our situation here
very profitable, for we know not what a day may bring
forth, and are therefore obliged to look solely to
our Lord. Not that this Pasha cares much, perhaps,
about the taking of Egypt by the English, or the general
reduction of the empire, for such is the state of
this country, that the security of every little despot
depends on the weakness of the supreme power.
Yet notwithstanding this there may break out paroxysms
of popular fury, that however short are terrible.
But the Lord is our secure and sufficient refuge, and
when he has a people to save his chosen
ones he will put a fear into the hearts
of their enemies. The Revolution in France seems
to be the Infidel against the Jesuit, or ultra-Papistical
party, which may lead to the removal of the Archbishop
of Babylon from his consular authority, though his
ecclesiastical influence would not, perhaps, be lessened
by this.
Oc. The value
of the English protection is beginning here to be
so fully understood and felt, that the first merchant
in Bagdad came to Major T. begging to be taken under
it, and when Major T. declined, he requested that
his son might; and the Seyd, our landlord, in explaining
the reason of his wish for the Resident to take up
his cause, stated, that it was not so much in order
to obtain any present benefit, as that the government
might see that he interested himself about him; as
this, he said, would prevent him being subject to those
oppressions he had been exposed to before.
In fact, I do not believe, that during the late heavy
exactions that have been made from all degrees and
kinds of people, one individual under English protection
has suffered, or that an attempt has been made to oppress
one. I do not now, or on any other occasion,
mention these events as pieces of political intelligence,
but as necessary to give a view of the signs of the
times. This consideration for the English does
not arise from love, as the most intense hatred is
manifested when it may with safety, as well as the
most unconquerable and haughty contempt of Christianity
and Christians; it seems with this people of God’s
curse, as with the mystical whore, they are consuming
away in preparation for final destruction by the brightness
of his coming.
Mr. Pfander’s Persian Moolah
has altogether refused to translate Persian with him.
He says he will read and converse with him, but not
translate; so great is their contempt of Christians,
that though it is only the Gulistan of Sadi, and therefore
no religious book, they will not teach it. In
fact, the difficulty of getting teachers here is very
great. The Christians know nothing the
Mohammedans very little, and what they do know they
will not communicate to a Christian. But all
this is ceasing and must come down.
Oc. Our hearts
have been deeply affected by a conversation which
Mr. Pfander has had with the Mohammedan Moolah, who
teaches our boys Arabic. He was telling Mr. P.
that he was greatly struck by our Lord’s precept,
not when you make a feast, to invite the rich or those
who can invite you again, but the poor who cannot;
and that from these considerations he had been led
to invite to an entertainment he had provided, all
the poor persons he knew, to the surprise of his friends,
to whom he explained his reasons. He also told
Mr. Pfander he had often wished he were an animal
rather than a man. There appears altogether a
degree of uneasiness in his mind that may lead further.
Thus God is making his holy and blessed word a testimony
to the hearts of some; oh! may every success here
be such as bears only the mark of God’s workmanship
by his word and his Spirit. That there are many
souls here which will feel the power of God’s
omnipotent word, I can never doubt, when it comes
fully and clearly before them.
The German Jew, whom I have several
times before mentioned, seems determined to become
a professing Christian. His mind is convinced,
but his heart I fear little, if at all, affected.
He abhors the lying abominations of Judaism, which
he finds among his brethren. He has certainly
come thus far without being induced by any worldly
motives, for had he continued, or would he now return
to live by begging for Jerusalem and writing lying
amulets, he might easily do it. He wishes to
go to Bombay, and there become a Christian.
We have just heard that one of the
boys of the school and his mother, who took him away
from us, have both become Roman Catholics. The
inducement to these Armenians is, generally, the pecuniary
relief they obtain from the bishop here, who has the
administration of some funds entrusted to him for
religious uses, which he exclusively gives to Roman
Catholics, and with this he bribes those who can have
no other attachment to their system beyond that which
is hereditary, for in all other things, and in practice,
it would be difficult to say whether of the two were
most corrupt. But we trust, by the good hand of
our God upon us, one day to have different systems
of judgment than that of one corrupt system against
another, even the holy, pure, unadulterated word of
God against the corruptions of all men and all
nominal churches.
We have heard, to our great sorrow,
that the plague has returned again to Tabreez, and
that all have again left it; and also that the cholera
has again returned to Kerkook, and committed dreadful
ravages. Thus the Lord seems visiting the kingdoms
of the false prophet with his sore judgments and plagues.
Oc. There has
just been acting here a scene of duplicity, falsehood,
and bloodshed, which appears strange to us, but is
not uncommon in this land of misrule and cruelty.
A Capidji (or Ambassador) from the Porte to the Pasha
has been long expected, and with evident anxiety by
him and those immediately about him, which was increased
to the highest pitch, when by a messenger from Aleppo,
the Pasha received the intelligence, that this man’s
intention was to supersede him, and of course to destroy
him. It then became the object of the Pasha to
endeavour to get him into his hands, which was the
more difficult, as it is usual for the Capidji to read
publicly his firman, and proclaim the successor
at Mousul, or some place near, who, collecting the
Arabs, marches to lay siege to this place, till the
head of the Pasha is delivered to him. To prevent
this, therefore, the Pasha made the Imrahor, or Master
of the Horse, who has the whole arrangement of the
military force, to write a letter to the Capidji,
begging him to come here at once, and that he would,
without a struggle, give the head of Daoud Pasha into
his hand, whereas if he remained at Mousul, there
must be an open contention about it.
By this he was allured to approach
the city, and the Pasha sent out 700 or 800 men under
pretence of showing him honour, to meet him and secure
him in case any accounts of the true state of the case
should reach him, that he might have no possibility
of flight. Thus he was brought into the city,
and his quarters appointed in the house of the Musruff;
when, after the Pasha had obtained from him the declaration
of his object, a Divan was called, and it was determined
to put him to death. This event has thrown the
city into great consternation, and every one who can,
is buying corn in expectation of what is to follow.
For the tragedy will not end here, as a friend of the
Capidji is left behind at Mousul, and another Capidji
is at Diarbekr, waiting the result of this négociation.
So it appears that the Sultan is determined to act
at once and decidedly against this Pasha. We are
now, therefore to expect a siege, and a state of anxiety
and fear in this city for some months; but the Lord,
who sitteth in the heavens, is ordering all for his
own glory, and for our safety, and he will provide
for us.
Oc. We have
this day heard that the Syrian Patriarch of Merdin
has recovered one of his churches from the Roman Catholics,
and is, on the whole, making, in a certain sense,
a more successful stand against them; but not in the
spirit of Christ, I fear. He has two of his priests
who had turned Roman Catholics in prison.
This day our new Armenian teacher
has arrived from Sheeraz. He seems an interesting
man; but our final plans with him are not yet arranged.
We have also heard that the school
at Bushire, established by Mr. Wolff, is going on
badly. He promised to send out a teacher and money,
neither of which having arrived, the school has dwindled
to seventeen, and these are neglected.
It is the common conversation to-day
in the Bazaar that the Capidji was put to death last
night. This man was the Accountant General of
the Porte, and formerly Kiahya. Our Arabic Moolah
has been buying corn, in the expectation of the present
state of things here terminating in an open contest,
in which he thinks the Pasha, now having no hope,
will throw himself into the hands of Abbas Meerza,
and that thus Bagdad will again become subject to
Persia. Amidst all these wars and rumours of
wars, our path is to sit still and wait the Lord’s
pleasure, which he will assuredly manifest to our heart’s
content, for they that wait upon the Lord, shall not
make haste, nor be confounded, world without end.
Our schoolmaster has come to a full
understanding of the principles on which we intend
to conduct the school: to have nothing that is
contrary to God’s word admitted, and I
think he very fully and heartily enters into this
plan. But he informs us that the parents of many
of the children are dissatisfied with our superseding
the church prayers, called the Shanakirke, by the
New Testament, and ask, “Who are these people?
Are they wiser than our Bishops and ancient fathers,
that we should reject what they introduced?”
This is what we must expect. But we can, with
a quiet heart, leave all to the Lord, to order as
he will. That the schoolmaster is truly on our
side I feel very thankful, and, I hope, the hearts
of many of the children.
November 10. After
having waited now several weeks for an opportunity
to send letters and a parcel, and not having found
any, from the extreme vigilance there is here to prevent
any communications going to Constantinople, I have
determined to avail myself of the offer of an Austrian
merchant here, to enclose them in a bale of goods
going to Aleppo, and to have them forwarded thence
to Constantinople. It is a great comfort to know
that all the intelligence essential to our cause,
as being God’s, will reach, and all that is separate
from that, though it may not be against it, is of
little consequence.
We have had two Armenian priests to
converse with Mr. Pfander, one from Nisibin; and the
other from Diarbekr. The one from Nisibin said
they had no printed books among them, and that they
were very anxious to go into the Russian provinces,
but were afraid, since the death of the Russian Ambassador,
to make any attempt to go.
The Armenians seem going from all
the Mohammedan states that they can to Russia.
From Erzeroum, great numbers have gone to the Karabagh,
and thus they may people the desolate provinces of
Georgia. The other Armenian Priest, from Diarbekr,
confirmed the information we had previously obtained,
that the Armenian population of that city was 5,000
houses, about 25,000 of all ages, and that they
have two schools there, containing about 300 children,
but no one cared about them.
It is now an understood fact, that
the Capidji, or messenger of the Sultan, who was left
behind at Diarbekr, when his companion came on to
arrange the affairs of this Pashalic, is collecting
troops around Diarbekr, to attack Bagdad. This,
however, will most probably be now deferred till the
spring. So we may then expect a siege, unless
things are arranged before. The Capidji who has
been put to death appears to have been a man of great
distinction, and to have rendered great services to
the Sultan, both during the war and subsequent to it.
The priest of Diarbekr said, they
were too far off to be helped either by the Russians
or the English; but I cannot help thinking, for such
a purpose as schools, or getting through their means
a large body of persons acquainted with God’s
word, it would be a most important position.
It presents, however, many difficulties, and at all
events would require some time to be spent in some
place preparatory to settling among them, to obtain
a knowledge of the Turkish and Armenian languages,
and for these preparatory studies, should there be
no determining principle, perhaps Shushee would be
the best position, as the brethren there all know
English, and some Turkish, and some Armenian.
We are now fast approaching the termination
of our first year’s residence in Bagdad, and
the Lord’s mercies towards us have been exceeding
great. We have been surrounded by many things
that would have been dangerous, had not the Lord checked
them by bringing them to nothing, both from disease
and enemies; but, as he promised, they have not come
nigh us. We have borne the heat without any diminution
of natural strength. We are altogether standing
on a more advanced position, that on entering Bagdad
we could have hoped. Things are in preparation
for the knowledge of God’s holy word being extended,
and thus one great object of missionary labour is in
the way of attainment. But still, while I feel
assured of there being some choice fruit from here
and there a fruitful bough, I at the same time feel
no less assured, that the great harvest will be of
wickedness, and that the pestilence of infidelity
is the great spreading evil, not the spreading of
Millennial blessedness. As it was in the days
of Noah, so do I believe it will be at the coming
of the Son of Man; and as it was in the days of Lot,
the great mass of mankind will be taunting the Church
with, “Where is the sign of his coming?”
which shews plainly enough that this will be a doctrine
of the Church in the latter days, or how should it
be reviled; so that our Lord, in contemplating the
general apostacy, said, “When the Son of Man
cometh shall he find faith in the earth?” Oh,
then, how happy is it to be among those who love his
appearing, who long for the termination of that dispensation
which witnessed the humiliation of the Church under
the world, and the rise of that glorious kingdom which
shall not be dissolved, and into which no sorrow or
sighing can enter. I feel the languages to be
a great barrier. Whether the Lord will pour down
this among the other gifts of the latter days, I do
not know, but at present it is a great exercise of
a Missionary’s patience, to ask even for the
common necessaries of life; but to speak out the fulness
of a full heart, so as to be understood and felt is
very, very difficult. The difficulties in the
way of a literary acquaintance with these languages
are by no means so great, as the study may be pursued
alone, but the colloquial language can only be learned
by intercourse with men, and this is far more difficult
to attain by an European, who may have a very good
knowledge of the language of books, and still be little
understood in speaking. But still the time spent
in the learning of a language among a people, every
thought, and purpose, and habit of whose lives are
diverse from your own, has this advantage, that you
become in some measure acquainted with their peculiarities
before you are in a situation to offend against them.
We have heard that the Emperor of
Russia has conferred some honours on the family of
this Pasha, who are Armenian Christians, in Teflis.
Things are beginning to look unsettled in Persia.
Contentions have already arisen between the Prince
of Kermanshah and the Prince of Hamadan, which seems
to be but the precursor of a general state of confusion
on the death of the Shah; and doubtless amidst all
these commotions the Lord will move on his way, and
the day of his coming advance. Oh, may we all
labouring abundantly in patience, wait for that day,
that when it does come we may be found watching.
We have some anxieties about our dear
friends who are journeying towards us. Whether
the intelligence of the state of the Pashalic may
deter them, or whether they will come on, trusting
in the Lord, it is our daily prayer for them, that
he would guide and preserve them.
Our communications with Tabreez seem
almost closed. Since we received the letter from
Mrs. , relative to their leaving
Tabreez, and going by this to India, we have neither
seen them, nor heard of them. Whether, therefore,
they are gone by Shiraz, or whether they are detained,
we cannot tell; but the roads will soon become impassable
from snow in the lofty range of mountains over which
they will have to come.
I shall now conclude this portion
of our little history, with assuring those we love,
that the Lord has been better than all our fears and
all our hopes. The more we have proved him, the
more we have found him to be faithful and gracious,
and that not one of the good things he has promised
to faith has been wanting; but his love has abounded
far beyond our faith, yea, and they will yet abound
more and more. Let us then encourage one another
to prove him more, that we may have deeper experience
of his faithfulness. We find the prospect of
the approaching coming of our Lord a corrective of
the allurements of the world, and an encouragement
to a simple surrender of all we have as his stewards,
to him and his service, as their only legitimate and
worthy object, who has redeemed us from death with
his own precious blood, making us a chosen generation,
a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people,
that we might shew forth his praises. Oh! may
the Holy Spirit dwell in us more powerfully, that we
may be ever fulfilling his great and glorious purpose.
Accounts have just come to us by letters
from Tabreez, that the plague has been ravaging that
devoted city till 23,000 of its inhabitants have fallen
victims to it and the cholera, and that when this letter
came off (Oc, they were still dying eighteen
of a day, and this is not confined to the city; the
villages of the surrounding country have equally suffered;
half the inhabitants have been swept away, the corn
has never been reaped, and the cattle were wandering
about without owners. The missionaries from America
had not arrived then; most probably they are deterred
by the intelligence of the state of Tabreez.
Our dear friends the N ’s
had never enjoyed better health thus preserved
of the Lord in the midst of the general devastation:
they are also for the present, at the request of the
Prince, detained till an answer from the Indian government
is again received respecting them. A famine seems
the inevitable consequence of the plague and pestilence
at Tabreez. Surely these are among the signs
of the times; but the Lord’s command to us is,
Let not your hearts be troubled.
We have received no intelligence from
Shushee, but we heard from Tartars that the plague
had been in the Karabagh, which makes us additionally
anxious to hear from thence: but doubtless since
the plague at Tabreez, all intercourse with Russia
from that side has been interdicted. Mr. Zaremba
mentioned, that he had to pass through seven quarantines
between Erzeroum and Shushee.
I may also just add, that we have
finally arranged with our new schoolmaster from Shiraz.
We had given particular directions to the person who
proposed sending for him, that if money were any object
to him, (which we heard it was not) he should write
and let us know what he would require. He however
came, and when he came, he wanted a sum equal to about
L84. sterling a year. This I was both unable and
unwilling to give, and therefore fixed L30. as the
utmost, and the rest has been made up by the Armenians
among themselves, excepting L18. which has been given
by Major T. He speaks English imperfectly, but thoroughly
understands Armenian, and will teach the elder boys
grammar and translating. He will also superintend
the girl’s school for one or two hours in the
morning, and teach Mrs. G. Armenian. We also
hope, as soon as may be, to get some tracts and little
school-books translated into vulgar Armenian, but all
this must depend on the blessing of the Lord on our
undertaking. This brother has joined the Church
of England in Calcutta: but he is himself at present
a strict Armenian, yet I hope, not a bigoted man.
But all our past experience has led us to look to
the Lord alone for all profitable help. Those
whom we think promise every thing, often occasion nothing
but anxiety, and those from whom we expect the least
we have reason abundantly to bless God for having
sent us: so wisely, so graciously, and
yet in so sovereign a way does the Lord bring to pass
his purposes, and bless his servants, that every thought
of confidence in any creature may be destroyed, and
the soul, by a thousand disappointments, when it has
reposed elsewhere, at last be compelled to learn only
to repose on the bosom of its Father, where love and
faithfulness eternally dwell, and convince the soul
of its past expectations from any other source.
February 14, 1831.
An offer has been made to us by one
of the richest Armenian merchants here, to send, at
his own expense, two camel loads of books any where
we wish, which has of course been thankfully accepted;
and we think of sending at least one load to Diarbekr.
He has also bought from our Armenian teacher, those
Bibles he had procured from the Bible Society at Calcutta,
who, with the many thus obtained, has determined to
send more Bibles from Bushire, where he has already
200, to Julfa and Ispahan, and the villages round
about, in which he says there are above twenty churches.
I have this day settled all my accounts,
and find, after every thing is paid, including the
expenses of my baggage from Bushire, and of the house
for ourselves, and school for another year, that our
little stock will last us, with the Lord’s blessing,
two months longer, and then we know not whence we
are to be supplied, but the Lord allows us not to
be anxious; he has so wonderfully provided for us hitherto,
that it would be most ungrateful to have an anxious
thought. Even for my baggage, Major T. only allowed
me to pay half the charge, and he has moreover told
me, that should I at any time want money, only to
let him know and he will lend it me. Now, really,
to find here such kind and generous friends, is more
than we could have hoped, but thus the Lord deals
with us, and takes away our fears. That we may
many times be in straits I have no doubt, but the
time of our necessity will be the time for the manifestation
of our Lord’s providential love and munificence.
There is one peculiar feature that
runs through all education in the eastern churches,
that it professes to be religious, which gives us an
opportunity of introducing such books as may be useful,
without its exciting any surprise or suspicion, or
opposition.
Fe. The Pasha
has sent Major T. word of the ravages the plague is
making in Sulemania. The government and all who
have it in their power have quitted it. This
account has spread much consternation, in addition
to which two men from Sulemania arrived here ill of
the plague, one of whom has recovered. Major
and Mrs. T., with their usual generous kindness to
us, have offered us an asylum with them should the
plague come here, where we should enjoy this great
advantage, that as the house stands close to the river,
a supply of water can be obtained without communication
with the city. But at present we do not clearly
see our way: should our school be broken up, I
see not so much difficulty; it would be a most valuable
opportunity for Mrs. G. making progress in the language;
but we wait on the Lord and he will guide us.
These do indeed seem awful times for these lands.
We cannot be too thankful for the peace and joy the
Lord allows us to feel in the assurance of his loving
care.
I was much struck by a remark of our
Moolah yesterday, when speaking of the horror he felt
at the prospect of the plague coming here. He
said, the sword he did not fear, but the plague he
did, for one was the work of man, the other of God.
I replied to him, that feeling this God who directs
the plague, to be my father, who loved me, I knew he
would not suffer it to come nigh me unless he had no
longer occasion for me, and then it would come as
a summons from a scene of labour and many trials to
one of endless joy. He said, Yes, it is very well
for you not to fear death, who believe Christ to have
atoned for you; but I fear to die.
Fe. To-day
we have heard that the above report of the plague
being at Sulemania is false; that it has been there,
but has now left it; so we know not what to believe.
Fe. The expenses
attendant on our packages from Bombay to this place,
are as great as from England to Bombay. The boxes
of books and medicine, and the press, with three boxes
of books from the Bible Society, cost twenty-five
pounds. Aleppo would certainly be the cheapest
way to send them by, and by far the most speedy.
It would be a great comfort to us, if this communication
should ever be opened, for then we might freely communicate
with, and hear from those we love. I sent a packet
across the desert the other day, which we have every
reason to think was intercepted. In fact, it is
now very doubtful if any of the many letters we have
sent, have gone safe, and none have reached us for
these six months.
Intelligence came to-day, that the
Sultan has ordered the Pasha of Mosul, and another
Pasha who is dependant on this Pasha, to discontinue
all communication with him, as the enemy of the Sultan.
A few weeks will, most probably, conclude this long-continued
struggle, and, we hope, the insecurity and confusion
attendant on it; yet, the Lord knows his purposes,
and we have only to execute his will.
Fe. We have
just heard, by a letter that came from Aleppo by way
of Merdin and Mosul, that the caravan which left this
place more than three months ago, entered Aleppo about
thirty days ago. They remained in the desert
till the Pasha of Aleppo had quitted that place on
his expedition against the Pasha of Bagdad, from the
fear, that if they entered the town he would seize
their camels for the use of his army. Much alarm
is entertained here by the inhabitants as to the result
of this attack. From past experience they are
led to expect great lawlessness, from both friends
and foes. May the Lord keep our hearts in perfect
peace, stayed on him. We now begin to feel that
it is very doubtful when we shall see our dear friends:
certainly no caravan will pass the desert till all
these disturbances are settled. It may be also
possible, that the journal and packet of letters I
sent packed in a bale of goods belonging to a merchant
here, may yet reach their destination.
Fe. This day
brought us news of the arrival of our very dear and
long expected friends and fellow-labourers safe at
Aleppo, on the 11th of January, after many delays
and many trials. We had never been allowed to
doubt our Lord’s most gracious dealings with
us, but yet this overwhelmed us with joy and praise;
and this welcome news reaches us just as our dear
brother Pfander is on the point of leaving us alone.
We received, at the same time, a packet of letters
from most of our dearest friends in England, at the
very moment when our little all was within a month
of coming to a conclusion, telling us that the Lord
had provided us with supplies for at least four months
to come, which we might draw for. Surely the
Lord has most graciously seen fit to dry up those
sources from whence we anticipated supply, that we
might know we depend on him alone, and see how he
can supply even here; we were ashamed of every little
anxious feeling we had ever had, and were much encouraged
to trust him more and more. My soul is led to
abhor, more and more, that love of independence which
still clings to it, when I see how it would shut me
out from these manifestations of my Father’s
loving care. Oh! how hard it is to persuade the
rebellious will and proud heart, that to depend on
your Father’s love for your constant support,
is more for the soul’s health, than to be clothed
in purple and fare sumptuously every day or
at least, as we would say, on bare independence; and
yet how plain it is to spiritual vision.
We met together in the evening to
bless the Lord for the past, and supplicate his continued
blessing for the future that he would accomplish
what he had begun, that our hearts may never cease
to praise and bless him. My soul was much comforted,
especially with a text to which one of our dear correspondents
called my attention, Zeph. ii. “The
Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty, he will
save, he will rejoice over thee with joy, he will rest
in his love; he will joy over thee with singing.”
All the letters amounted to twenty-six, which, after
so long an interruption of all intelligence, was an
especial source of joy. And now we can think of
our dear friends definitely as absolutely at Aleppo,
only waiting for the termination of disturbances to
join us.
To-day, a Chaldean, from near Julimerk,
came to see us, and we expect him again, with his
brother, who, he says, can read, when I hope to obtain
from him a fuller account of the state, numbers, and
disposition, of his wild countrymen.
A Mohammedan Effendi was with me to-day;
a very amiable young man, who sees many things in
the customs of his people bad, arising out of the
Mohammedan laws. He came to borrow an Arabic bible
for, he said, a poor schoolmaster, which I gladly
lent him. Whether it be really for a schoolmaster,
or for himself, I do not know.
March 4. Read this
morning, with peculiar pleasure, Hawker’s Evening
Portion: “How shall we sing the Lord’s
song in a strange land:” heightened as
it was by the localities of our situation; but above
all, by the unity of our experience with the sentiments
of the writer; for we have indeed found the love of
our Father, the pastoral care of our Elder Brother,
and the consolation and visits of our Comforter, that
which has enabled us to sing the Lord’s song
in this strange land, even the song of the redeemed.
March 13. The time
is now fast approaching when we expect the struggle
for the Pashalic to commence, at the conclusion of
the Ramazan. Yet it may all pass over, for the
government of Turkey is so utterly without principle,
that by a well timed application of money, all difficulties
may be surmounted with the Porte, and as the Pasha
seems now disposed to meet this desire, it may, especially
in the present difficulties of the Sultan with Russia,
lead, after all, to an amicable termination of one
year’s anxiety and suspense. We are now
especially anxious for the pacification of these countries,
that our dear friends may be able to pass over the
desert, as our dear and kind brother Pfander left
us last evening for Ispahan. It was a great rending
to us all, and has left a vacuum we cannot easily hope
to have filled up in all its parts; and till our dear
brothers and sisters come, we shall be very solitary,
and very much pressed; but our strength will be as
our day. Had he seen it right to remain I might
have crossed the desert to our dear friends; but this
not being the case, it is impossible for me to leave
this, and perhaps in the present state of things here,
from apprehensions of plague and war, it would have
been impracticable even if he had remained.
Caravans pass much more frequently
between this place and Damascus than between this
and Aleppo, and it appears to me the shorter and better
way of communication to Bayrout and Damascus to Bagdad
than by Aleppo. Three caravans have passed over
the desert from hence to Damascus within these few
months. With one of these an Armenian with his
wife and children went, and with another several Mohammedan
families; thereby hoping to avoid the troubles they
expected here. So at least we may venture for
our Lord what men venture for their own various interests.
In fact, it does not appear that any further danger
is incurred than that of being plundered, or perhaps
only a heavy exaction from the Arab tribes through
whom the caravan passes, whose interest it is not
to press so hard upon caravans as that they shall
be stopped coming, but to levy a tax upon them sufficiently
considerable to help to support the tribe.
An English merchant and a Consul are
about settling, if not already settled, at Damascus,
which will still further facilitate communications;
and besides the road from Beyraut to Damascus is much
better than that from Latakeea to Aleppo. This
arrangement, as well as that at Trebisand, shows that
these countries are becoming the objects of public,
or rather mercantile, interest.
A Jew came to borrow an Arabic bible
from me which I have let him have. Another Jew
was with me yesterday, who translated the Hebrew into
Arabic very tolerably; but, generally, they only learn
to read, without understanding what they read.
An Armenian Priest has just come to
ask for four or five Armenian Bibles, to send to some
villages between Hamadan and Teheran. This is
a plan we like better than sending many to one place,
not only as spreading knowledge further, but also
from the greater probability of their being read.
We have just seen another of the Chaldeans,
from the mountains. He says that they understand
the Syrian Scriptures; so that at least I hope to
send a letter to the Bishop, with a copy or two of
the Syrian Bible I have with me, that when they return
next year they may bring me an account whether they
understand them or not; and also it will serve as
a means of opening a personal communication with their
chief; as, by that time it may be possible that one
or two of us may be able to return with these men
to the mountains. As far as their personal assurances
go, they promise me a most welcome reception.
One of these people told me, if I would come to his
village, he would kill a sheep for me, and I should
have plenty, and 200 walnuts for two-pence; they said
every thing was very abundant there and very cheap.
Their pride seems much gratified by their being the
head and the Mohammedans the tail in the mountains;
so that they cannot open their mouths, or raise their
hands against them.
March 15. A packet
of letters has just arrived from Shushee, after more
than six months interruption, three days after our
dear brother had left us. However, we got the
messenger to set off immediately to overtake him,
and he having seen the caravan on the way, promised
to return in five days. In this packet I also
received one letter from our dear brother J. B. Dublin,
a note from dear Mr. R. informing me of his having
forwarded the books to the brethren at Shushee.
Surely they are worthy for whom he has done this,
and he will be happy in being thus a fellow-helper
in the truth. Mr. Knill also mentions their arrival
safe at Petersburgh, and his purpose of forwarding
them to Shushee. It has been a year of great
trial at Shushee for the mission, but of exactly what
nature and to what extent we know not, nor how things
now stand in the communications to our dear fellow-helper
who has just left us, as they are in German; but should
he not be able on the road to write us a full account,
he doubtless will when he has reached Kermanshah or
Hamadan.
We hear that the prince royal is marching
against his brother the Prince of Kerman, by way of
Ispahan, the roads, therefore, are very unsettled
in Persia, but the Lord will encamp round about our
brother and bear him safely through.
March 16. The letters
we yesterday received from Tabreez assured us of the
willingness of the Armenian Bishop to have a school
as soon as a fit person could be found; and on reading
one of the tracts from Shushee, he said he would read
it in his church to his flock. Mrs. N. also mentions
the willingness among the Mohammedans to receive the
New Testament, and that in many instances, pleasing
results have manifested themselves; but of what kind
she does not mention. She mentions also one of
the principal Mohammedan merchants asking for a Testament
to read on his road to Mecca. May the Lord stop
him by it before he gets there, at the gates of the
heavenly Jerusalem. In fact, there is room in
these parts for much preparatory work, when the time
comes that the power of the Gospel shall have taken
such root as to show by the power and individuality
it gives to the Christian character that their craft
is in danger. They will do as they have done
in Shushee; but by the Lord’s blessing it may
then be too late. What appears to me to require
the greatest patience and the most unwavering perseverance,
is the language; for, while on the one hand there
is every thing to encourage, if we only take the burthen
of the day on the day, there is such a natural tendency
in the mind of man to accumulate all the difficulties
together, and make one great impassable mountain,
that it becomes more difficult than many would imagine,
to go on successfully and happily like a little child.
That measure of knowledge of a language which so enables
one to move about in the common transactions of life,
does not seem difficult to attain; but to be able
to state clearly the power of moral distinctions, to
detect the fallacy of false systems, and put beside
them the true light of life, is another and a very
difficult thing, but yet the Lord doubtless sees in
this reasons of immense weight, or he would again
bestow upon us the gifts of the Spirit as before.
God our Father has most marvellously
eased our way, and so great has been the kindness
of our here, that he would do
any thing he could for us. He even told me the
other day, never to let our work stand still for want
of funds, for should I ever want any he would gladly
supply me, and lend me for my personal wants whatever
I might need. Now when we consider there is but
one English family now resident in Bagdad besides
our own, how like the Lord’s acting it is to
make them willing to supply to us the necessary help:
not only does the Lord supply us with means necessary
for our expense, but does not allow us when our little
fund gets low, to know the anxiety of expecting, or
thinking what we should do. And, surrounded as
we have been these many months, by the alarm of war
and the fear of plague or cholera, even our dear native
islands have not been without their anxieties; but
I have been much struck of late with the peculiar
dealings of God towards his chosen; as of old, the
pillar that was all darkness to the enemy, was light
to the church in the wilderness, so now all this dark
cloud, the darkness of which may be felt, which is
spreading from one end of the Christian and Mohammedan
world to the other, has, towards the church in her
pilgrimage, its full steady bright light surmounted
by “Behold he cometh!” Blessed assurance!
But a little day of toil, and then we shall come with
him, or rise to join his assembled saints, dressed
all anew, with our house from heaven, that spiritual
clothing meet for the new creature in Christ Jesus.
Oh, what glorious liberty we are heirs to, as children
of God, one day to love our Eternal Father, Son, and
Spirit, with unalloyed affections, when our whole
nature shall be again on the side of God, and not a
place left for the enemy to put his foot to harass
the heir of glory.
March 17. A Chaldean
Roman Catholic priest has been here to-day, and read
me the same passages of the Psalms in the Chaldean
and Syrian languages, and there appears to be no other
difference than in character, as far as he read.
The Syrians, the Chaldeans, and the Jews, might become
most valuable objects of missionary labour, not only
as being in greater numbers here, but from the great
similarity of their languages, so that the mastering
of the one would be to the mastering of the three,
with very little additional trouble. I endeavoured
to find out from him the difference between the spoken
and written languages, and as far as he produced illustrations,
the difference was only in pronunciation; the words
seemed substantially the same. But there is a
very strong prejudice to contend with in all those
among these people who know any thing of these languages,
in the contempt in which they hold their vulgar, and
the reverence and sanctity they attach to their old
language, so that I think tracts, in the shape of
paraphrases on particular parts of the Scriptures,
would be exceedingly valuable among them, as well
as tracts generally. I trust we shall be able
to turn our attention to these when we are able, from
our knowledge of the languages, to judge sufficiently
of translations or compositions.
March 18. This evening
the messenger I sent after Mr. Pfander with the letters
from Shushee, returned with a letter, which I shall
here insert, as it supplies a good deal of information
concerning the dear brethren in the Karabagh.
“In
the Desert near the Village Bakoobah,
“17th
March, 1831.
“My dear Brother,
“I am very much obliged to you,
that you sent this man after me with the letters
from Shushee. He reached us a day’s journey
and a half from Bagdad. We advance very slowly,
only from five to ten English miles a day, on
account of the spring season, when the Dschervedars
feed their horses on grass, and because they
waited for other parties which had yet been behind.
The weather is very fine; we had rain twice, but only
slightly. The remaining time of the day I
spend in reading, and conversation with the Persians
in the caravan. The first day I felt very
solitary, but the second, and since, the Lord afforded
me plenty of opportunity to give testimony of him who
is our Saviour and Lord, and to distribute several
tracts and books among my fellow travellers,
and this rejoiced my heart greatly. According
to the manner of our present travelling we shall
not be in Kermanshah till after twenty days. They
speak in the caravan from fear of the Arabs after
this; but it will be easy for the Lord to bring
me safely through. The caravan is increased
to about 500 horses and 180 persons.
“Now something out of dear Zaremba’s
letters; but I had only time to read them once
over, so that I am not able to give you any regular
extracts out of them. Should I forget any thing
I will write it from Kermanshah or Hamadan.
The letter was of December last. All had
been attacked with sickness more or less, and
dear Brother Sallett, stationed at Teflis, was called
home: he died of the cholera.
“The circumstance with the Armenians
is this: The two deacons did go on in their
spiritual life prosperously, and continued to
give testimony of the truth. This excited so much
the hatred of the Armenian clergy against them,
that soon after Zaremba’s arrival in Shushee
from Erzeroum, the Armenian Archbishop of the
Karabagh desired to have them sent as prisoners to
Etchmiazin, the seat of the Armenian Catholicos,
near Érivan. This the Russian Governor of
Shushee, after he was informed of it from Zaremba,
did not allow. So it got a little quiet:
but these young Armenians thought it impossible, at
present, to remain longer in Georgia, and so they
prepared for their departure to Germany.
But during this time the Armenian clergy got
an order from the Russian Governor of Teflis, that
the two deacons should appear before a council
in Etchmiazin. The Governor in Shushee did
again so much for them, that they should go to
Teflis, and be allowed to lay their case before the
governor. Zaremba went with them, though he was
not quite well. The one of these deacons,
he who assisted Dittrich in translation, died
there, happy in his Lord. The other went at
last, but in a very good state of mind and heart, to
Etchmiazin, putting his confidence in his Lord,
for whom he was going to suffer. The brethren
had not yet heard more of him than his arrival
there. During the time Zaremba was at Teflis,
the cholera took daily many away, and some days
before his departure, our beloved Saltett, as
mentioned before. Zaremba got worse too,
but reached Shushee again. After his arrival,
he and Hohenaker, and Dittrich had been attacked
from the cholera, but recovered again. During
this time the person from Etchmiazin arrived
in Shushee, and preached and spoke against our
brethren, and condemned all the persons who sent their
children to them. So the school was broken
up. But now the children are beginning to
collect again, and the school is again opened.
Dittrich was with his family, yet at Teflis, where
Zaremba wrote the letter. Hohenaker was gone to
the German village, where you stopped, and Haas
was kept in Moscow, in quarantine, because of
the cholera. Two Armenian tracts had been
printed in Moscow, and the copies of the first were
already in Shushee. In Shushee they are printing
the Armenian Dictionary.
“With our not going to the mountains,
they are quite contented; but they think I should
rather go to Tabreez than to Ispahan, where I
might go at any other time. I do not yet know
what I shall do. I shall see how the Lord
will lead me. But this is clear now, that
a long stay at Ispahan I must give up. Zaremba
writes further, that he has now little hope to
be able to go any more on a journey, and therefore
they rather wish that I should travel and do
the Lord’s work in the neighbourhood of Shushee,
as long as the door is yet open. I cannot reject
this, and so I must for the present give up my
plans for travelling in Persia. If the way
to Ispahan should be quite open, I would go thither,
distribute books, and see that I might be in Shushee
in July; if not, I shall go direct to Shushee.
“The case with the mission in
Shushee, is now laid before the Emperor, and
so they are waiting what decision they may receive
from thence; but they are sure that the Lord will
direct and order every thing as it will be best,
and therefore are not discouraged. The Russian
government does not yet in the least hinder them
in their work.
“My letters all arrived safely
at Shushee, and the cause of their not writing,
was their own sickness and the plague all round
about them. It does not seem that one of our letters
was lost. Boxes with Armenian and Persian
books are in Tabreez. They speak good of
the Americans. For the news in your letter I
thank you: we live certainly in a most eventful
time, and we have therefore the more to work
so long as it is yet day. May the Lord mightily
bless you, your family, and work. In him, under
every circumstance, we have every reason to be glad
and to rejoice that we have him on our side.
“Your
affectionate brother,
“C.
G. PFANDER.”
“P.S. From Alexander
Kasembeg they received a letter which
rejoiced them much. It seems to be good
with him.
“The other Armenian in Baku
came to Shushee to be employed
in distributing tracts and Bibles. He has
already made a
journey into Georgia, and preaches to Armenians
and Turks.”
The two dear and most interesting
deacons, of whom one is mentioned as having died in
the faith in his way to suffer for the truth, and the
other has gone to witness alone before his enemies
and persecutors at Etchmiazin, were both in the school
at Shushee, and in the study of and translating the
word of God, had been led step by step, to see through
the errors of the system by which they were bound.
Another proof of the progress of the
same spirit manifested itself in our infant beginnings.
The two little Armenian boys who live with us, eat
and live as we do; on being asked by the boys without,
why they did not fast as their nation did for fifty
days? without any knowledge or direction from me,
they set about selecting from the New Testament, in
conjunction with my own little boys, those passages
which bear on the question, and which shew that if
we eat not we are none the better, and if we do eat,
none the worse. Remarks of a similar kind have
many times occurred in the course of our translations
from the Testament. At all events, there is a
growing tendency in the minds of the children, to
feel that God’s word is the one rule on which
they must justify all they impose, and thence the
necessity of understanding it; and these principles
upset at once the whole system of ignorant mummery
which is now called or thought to be the religion
of Jesus here. If it be the Lord’s pleasure
to spare our lives, and grant us the ability and opportunity
to publish his truth, results will follow to rejoice
our hearts, I have no doubt: God has declared
it shall not return to him void, nor shall it.
And to the Mohammedans also these converts from among
the fallen churches become invaluable preachers, from
their vernacular facility in the language, and from
their being continually exposed to the question, why
they do not do so and so; they are called upon by
the very necessity of their position to defend with
meekness and wisdom their new position; whereas, with
us, they are satisfied with just simply making up their
minds to this, that theirs is best for them, and yours
best for you.
March 20. The Moolah
yesterday, in speaking of the contest between the
Pasha and the Sultan, said, that if the English would
guarantee both sides, both might be satisfied and
make peace; but that if not, they would never believe
one another, for says he, every Osmanli will lie.
This opinion of their own low moral condition, is universal
among Turks and Persians. This man has often
said to me, No Osmanli cares for more than his own
bread, and if that is safe, the whole empire may be
destroyed.
Two tribes of Arabs, whom the Pasha
has brought up to help him in the approaching contest,
in consequence of some feud between them, came to
blows, and all last night and this morning were firing
at one another in that quarter of the city which is
on the other side of the river, where they are stationed. It
caused much alarm, and may be but a precursor to general
confusion and greater trials; but the Lord Jéhovah
who sitteth on the everlasting hills, is our shield
and defence. The firing has since ceased, and
one of the tribes has been driven out of Bagdad.
March 21. This day
the packet of letters came by Bombay, which were sent
off about four months after we left, and therefore
have been about eighteen months on the road.
The best way is to put all letters into the post-office,
paying the postage, and they will then come generally
in about eight months by Bombay, free of all expense
but that paid in England; and it would afford us peculiar
pleasure if our dear friends would write regularly
by this route, for the opportunities by Constantinople
are either rare or expensive.
How strikingly do these letters prove
the truth of our Lord’s declaration, that those
who leave father or mother, &c. for his sake and the
gospel’s, shall find a hundred fold, fathers,
mothers, brothers, sisters, houses, lands, with persécutions.
Surely we are rich indeed, in the love of the saints
of our Lord, and in their prayers for us. These
letters prove that our weak childish faith has not
been without the Lord’s blessing on his own work.
Oh! then, what might be expected if we had been strong
in the Lord and in the power of his might? Perhaps,
however, he who has led us hitherto, insignificant
as we are, may lead us onward still to magnify his
grace in our weakness. Surely no missionaries,
with so few pretensions to the love and confidence
of the church of God, ever received more solid proofs
of deep and hearty interest than we have during these
ten months; this is no small point gained, and I think
we may go further, and add, that many have been led
by this weak effort of faith in us, to take steps
they might not otherwise have ventured upon. I
do not desire, for one moment, to set myself in opposition
to those blessed institutions whose labours roused
us from our lethargy: but only this I must say,
that I do not think their plan is the best, or the
only good one. Notwithstanding, I desire to bless
God for them, and to co-operate with them, whenever
I can. I do rejoice, with most unfeigned joy,
at any honour God bestows upon them, and I should
rejoice to see them multiplied a hundred fold; for
whosoever brings a stone to the temple of our Lord
and king, by whatever different means they may have
laboured with from ourselves, shall be our father,
mother, sister, brother. The only end we know
of existence is the manifestation of that temple,
and may the king’s blessing and favour rest
on the head of every one who labours for it, at home
or abroad, under established institutions, or in any
other way. By all, Christ is preached, and God
the Father glorified, and the power of the Holy Ghost
manifested. Unprofitable servants as we are, weak
in faith, and infirm in purpose, except as the Lord
day by day lifted us up, as it were, with one hand,
and covered us with the other, and enabled us to stagger
on our way; still, we cannot but feel that the Lord’s
goodness and care, which our weakness has elicited,
may have moved in some small degree the hearts of
the little band of six, who are coming to join us;
and I hear that their simplicity and faith has yet
further stirred up the spiritual affections of others
to go and do likewise but these are early
days; if it be of the Lord, he will bless it; if not,
we desire to be the first to lay our hands on our
lips, and our faces in the dust, saying, We were deceived;
the cause is the Lord’s, not ours; with him
we will leave its prosperity and defence.
March 28. The plague
has now absolutely, we believe, entered this unhappy
city. Major T. and all those connected with the
residency are preparing to leave for the mountains
of Kourdistan; they have most kindly invited us to
go with them and form part of their family; this is
most truly kind, and there are many things to recommend
it the opportunities it would afford M.
for learning Armenian, and me Arabic, and for observation
on the country and people, besides our being delivered
from all apparent danger either from the sword which
threatens us from without, or the pestilence within.
The absence of all these friends and so many of the
principal Christian families who are going with them,
leaves us exposed to the bigotry of the people in
any tumults that may arise all these things
presented themselves to our minds. But there
are considerations that outweigh these in our minds:
in the first place, we feel that while we have the
Lord’s work in our hands we ought not to fly
and leave it; again, if we go, it is likely that for
many months we cannot return to our work, whereas the
plague may cease in a month; opportunities of usefulness
may arise in the plague that a more unembarrassed
time may not present; and our dear friends from Aleppo
may come and find no asylum. The Lord gives great
peace and quietness of mind in resting under his most
gracious and loving care, and as the great object
of our lives is to illustrate his love to us, we believe
that in the midst of these awful circumstances, he
will fill our tongues with praise as he does fill
our hearts with peace.
I have just heard, that some Englishmen
have been circulating tracts at Julfa, an Armenian
town in the neighbourhood of Ispahan, and that the
bishop has prohibited their circulation; this shews
what we have to expect.
I believe I have many times mentioned
the deeprooted opposition which exists among the clergy
and literary men in the East, to having any thing
translated into the vulgar dialects: they are
worse than the literati of Europe used to be with
their Latin, many among whom, but lately came to see
that it was no disgrace to communicate their ideas
in a vernacular dress: as the common sense of
mankind has triumphed over the literary pride of the
learned, so we shall find that babes will one day
overthrow the literary pride of these orientals.
I obtained, the other day, a translation of one of
Carus Wilson’s little stories, into the vulgar
Armenian of this place, for the little girls.
The contrast between the effect produced by reading
this in an intelligible language, and their usual
lessons, was most striking: in the one there
is of necessity a perfect indifference; but on reading
the other, they begged and entreated they might have
it to carry home, which is promised them for next
week. Of this I had no doubt before; but the
experiment has been most gratifying and encouraging.
March 29. Yesterday
Dr. Beagrie and Mr. Montefiore went and saw several
patients they thought afflicted with the plague; but
their minds were not perfectly made up. To-day,
there is no longer any doubt. I accompanied Mr.
Montefiore, in his visits, and now there are about
twenty, and the number is increasing. Thus, then,
this long expected scourge has visited this city,
and our Father only knows when the awful visitation
may cease. We can only cast ourselves on his holy
and loving hands for safety or peace: into these
hands we do cast ourselves, with all that is dearest
to us in this world. We have proved our Jesus
to be the Captain and Author of our hopes, and always
found that in the power of his name we have obtained
the victory. Nothing but the Lord’s loving
pity can prevent the most awful extension of the disease;
not only are the people crowded together, two or three
dying in one room, but the intercourse is perfectly
unrestricted in all parts of the city, so that I fear
what is now confined to one quarter, and might possibly,
by a vigilant government be kept there, is spreading
in all directions. We have, therefore, been forced
to the most painful step of breaking up our school,
for it would have been quite impossible to collect
together eighty children from different parts of the
city, without exposing all to danger. May the
Lord enable us profitably to avail ourselves of our
retirement, to cultivate a more extended communion
with him who is our life. Dear M. is much staid
on her God, and feels that as he has been, so he will
be to us a hiding place in every storm.
April 1. The plague
is still increasing, but apparently not rapidly.
We wait the Lord’s pleasure in our own house.
The only inconvenience is want of water, which cannot
be had from without; and they say that when the plague
becomes intense all the water carriers cease to ply;
but the Lord hath said, in the time of famine ye shall
be satisfied; on this promise we rest in peace.
Two English gentlemen set off to-morrow
across the desert with a single guide to Damascus,
to examine the means of communication by water between
the Mediterranean and Aleppo. From thence, should
they be spared, they purpose going to Beer, and thence
pass down the Euphrates with the view of ascertaining
its fitness for steam navigation. Surveys have
already been completed between this and Bussorah,
of both the Tigris and Euphrates, by Mr. Ormsby, in
part assisted by Mr. Elliot, and from Ana to Felugia
by Captain Chesney of the Royal Artillery, and there
remains between Beer and Ana to be examined.
Through all that has yet been surveyed there is no
obstruction, but it is expected there will be a little
labour required in one or two points of what remains
to be surveyed, before steam communications could
proceed on the rivers. If these gentlemen thus
labour for what perishes in the using, and run such
risks, going as they are across the desert with a
guide, whose language they do not understand, ought
it to be called tempting God, in us going for such
a work as ours is, to run similar risks and encounter
similar dangers.
The deaths at present from the plague
are confined to the Mohammedans and the Jews.
To avoid it, many of the Jews have gone to Bussorah,
and the Kourds who brought it here have fled from the
city; a large caravan of Christians are now thinking
of returning to Mosul, who were driven from Mosul
three or four years ago by plague and its attendant
famine.
The poor Jews have been robbed of
every thing by the Arabs, and sent naked back, and
there seems little better prospect for those who are
going to Mosul: they have the Arabs on one side
the road, and the Kourds on the other.
It is striking how fully and simply
the Mohammedans admit the expected coming of our Lord
and the end of the world. The end of our Lord’s
coming they conceive to be to set his seal to Mohammed’s
mission, and that all Christians will become Mohammedans.
Still these fundamental errors in their views do not
prevent a clear and distinct expectation similar to
that of the heathen at the time of our Lord’s
coming. Certainly no people can have a worse
opinion of the state of the professors of their religion
than the Mohammedans have; still, with the loss of
zeal for their own, their heart seems full of a strong
delusion to believe a lie, and hate the way of life,
and above all, the Lord who is the true God and eternal
life.
How blessed the 91st Psalm feels at
such moments as these, in looking round on one’s
little family, to know that every arrow that flies,
winged with death, is no random shot, but that the
Lord who is your life, and by whom your life is hid
in God, directs them all. Call upon me, says
the Lord, in the day of trouble, and I will deliver
thee, and thou shalt glorify me.
Blessed Lord, when thou hast (as thou most assuredly
wilt do) delivered us, may we never forget to glorify
and bless thee. Oh! what a blessed feeling it
is to know that you are not under the general but
especial and particular government of Jéhovah that
he has redeemed you, and you are his that
he has engraven you on the palms of his hands; and
that day and night he is watching to preserve you.
April 3. An immense
crowd of poor Jews left the city this morning, to
escape the destruction of the plague. The Christians
also are leaving in every direction they can find
open. I fear these poor creatures in their flight
can hardly fail to carry the plague with them.
I have lately read several of Erskine’s
works, or little portions of his writings, and never
did I see the pernicious effects of system displayed
more legibly than in several of his most interesting,
but as a whole, most delusive publications. In
his view of Gospel freeness, and other places where
similar views to those contained in that little work
are promulgated, there seems, to my mind, a radical
defect, that nothing in so good a man accounts for
but the baneful effects of a system, and a secret
insurmountable repugnance to the sovereignty of God’s
government, and the individuality of God’s election
in Christ Jesus, from before the foundation of the
world. I do not mean that these doctrines are
denounced; but they evidently are not entertained
as the comfort and consolation of the soul, nor as
they are represented by the Apostles, as the most
overwhelming reasons for unlimited devotion to his
service, who has thus chosen us with our bodies, souls,
and spirits, which are his. He talks of spreading
the beauty of the Lord Jesus, and the excellency of
God’s love, not only as the pasture of their
souls, who are born again of the Spirit, of which
they undoubtedly are the legitimate, the only food
and means of their spiritual growth, but as the cause
of spiritual life in the unregenerate by being believed.
Now, this appears to me a radical and fundamental
error. Food does not give life, though it sustains
and expands it. What he says of the effects of
love, in moulding the soul to the likeness of the
object beloved, is most true; but in order to the
existence of this love, not merely faith in God’s
love seems to be necessary, nor the reality of the
things promised, but such a new creation in the soul,
as shall see a desirableness in it and them.
As we see in nature, when the heart is engaged by one
object of affection, any demonstration of affection
from another, which involves the relinquishment of
it, not only does not give pleasure, but positive
pain, though you know its reality, purity, and intensity;
the fact is, the affections are occupied, and there
is no place. So it is by nature with every man,
and while he remains in this state, no knowledge of
love, however real, intense, and devoted, when he sees
its tendency to disconnect him from the only source
of known enjoyment, by the substitution of that which
he has no senses to appreciate, will ever be found
available. It appears to me, that the spiritual
immortal generation of the second Adam, the Lord from
heaven, is in Scripture represented to be as real and
absolute as the generation from our earthly head,
and only invisible from being spiritual. It has
its proper food, its proper growth. Without being
thus begotten from above, though you could display
all the beauties of him who is the chief among ten
thousand, the altogether lovely, though you could
display all the Father’s love to the church from
the day he commanded his gathering it, till this day,
it would be as powerless as spreading the most sumptuous
banquet before the dead.
With respect to the general design
of vindicating the government of God from the charge
of partiality, which I feel to be at the bottom of
Mr. Erskine’s views, I do not see that the Lord
has committed it to us, but, whenever in the Old Testament
or in the New, he pleads with his children against
their ingratitude, it is from the specialty of his
love. He does not say to the Israelites, I have
dealt with you after a common dealing with all; but,
with what nation has the Lord dealt as with Israel.
So, in the New, he says, “I have chosen you,
not you me.” In the prayer of our Lord,
in John xvii. in the Epistles of Paul and Peter in
the Revelations, and so in all the called and chosen,
and faithful, who are written in the Lamb’s book
of life, and have been from the foundation of the
world, from the beginning to the end, I see a constant
reference made, and the warmest and most enlarged
attachment of the affections demanded, on the ground
of peculiar, especial, and personal choice on the
part of God. That all this is consistent with
every perfection of God’s character, and, therefore,
with his equal justice and mercy, I have the fullest
assurance, but that we are in possession of the means
of shewing it, or that the Lord requires it at our
hands, I feel fully assured of the contrary.
And the danger Mr. E. seems to apprehend from stating
the doctrines of election as they are usually stated,
are more imaginary than real. For God, who by
his Holy Spirit begets the soul again in the likeness
of the divine nature, gives to that nature thus begotten
the power of discriminating in its food between night-shade
and sweet pasture. When he has created
in the soul of any human being the love of himself,
he gives him, with this love, the privilege to rejoice
that his name is written in heaven, and the minister
of Christ is by no means embarrassed by all these
apparent difficulties, for he has to display all the
beauty of Christ, all the love of the Father, all the
graces of the Spirit before the assembled world, knowing
that all the sheep will hear, and feed, and grow,
and that the goats will cavil and stamp down the pasture
with their feet. But, ye believe not, because
ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you, My sheep
hear my voice and I know them, and they follow me.
Again, he that is of God hath God’s words, ye
therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God.
How and why this is we are not able nor willing to
try to answer: all we can say is, hath not the
Lord right to do what he will with his own. Shall
the thing formed say to Him that formed it, “What
makest thou?” And “Shall not the Judge
of all the earth do right.” And many, many
more like it.
April 4. We were
last night alarmed by the voices of apparently thousands
of persons on the other side of the river; by degrees
the discharges of guns were mingled with the cries,
which gradually extended also to this side the river.
We concluded it must be from a tribe of Arabs having
broken into the city, the noise being exactly similar,
only much more violent, to that of the two tribes of
Arabs who were contending the other day. But
after an hour’s suspense, we heard it was a
concourse of Arabs to supplicate from God the removal
of the plague from them.
The deaths from the plague do not
seem to increase with any rapidity, these two or three
days; 150 perhaps is the highest any day. On a
preceding occasion, about 60 years ago, it amounted
to near 2000 a day. There is with us the father
of our schoolmaster, who had the plague at that time,
and says you might have walked from one gate of the
city to the other, and hardly have met a person or
heard a sound. We trust it may be the Lord’s
gracious purpose to take off the heaviness of his
judgment, and spare yet a little longer this sinful
city.
The news from Europe also how
strange how anxious; surely the Lord seems
sifting the nations, and shewing their rulers that
without the Lord’s blessing their confidences,
plans, and speculations, can never stand. That
they should have discovered also that the spiritual
and temporal character of the Pope’s government
are incompatible surely these are signs
in the times that may make the most sceptical enquire.
Oh! how joyful a thought it is that the Lord is at
hand, and our pilgrimage near ending.
April 7. We had
thought the Lord had removed the sword from us, but
we hear it is now near at hand; and the plague seems
extending, or every one is running away. Sometimes,
on looking round on our dear little circle, the old
heavy faithless flesh would seek its quiet, sheltered
retreat under the lofty elms, but the Lord never allows
the spirit for one moment to desire otherwise than
to wait and see the salvation of our God, who will
for his name’s sake do wonderfully for us, that
our hearts may rejoice in him. We hear the enemy
is within three days of the city, and the Pasha is
going out with all his Haram, whether to contend or
fly we do not know, but we think from his character,
the latter; but where shall he fly? If he flies
with gold, there are those who will plunder him:
if he flies without, he cannot stir a step. In
fact, the moment his affairs are actually sinking,
all the miserable elements of his present comparative
strength turn against him.
April 9. Stillness
still prevails over the city, like the calm which
precedes a convulsion; our neighbours are preparing
for defence, by getting armed men into their houses,
but we sit down under the shadow of the Almighty’s
wings, fully assured that in his name we shall boast
ourselves. The Pasha, however, has not gone out
as he intended yesterday.
We have just heard that the reports
of the plague has stopped for a little the approach
of the enemies of the Pasha, still every thing is
exceedingly unsettled. He is going to shut himself
up in the citadel till the answer comes from Constantinople
to his overtures, but all those about him are against
him, and wishing for the arrival of his enemies.
About fifty went out the other day, and seized on Hillah,
but they were driven out.
April 10. The Lord
has in many respects this day altered our position
here. One of Major Taylor’s seapoys has
died of the plague, and now four of the servants are
attacked. This has so alarmed Major T. and the
family, that they are immediately going off to a country
house, built by order of the Government of Bombay,
for the Resident in the neighbourhood of Bussorah,
and they may or may not return to this place.
They have kindly offered us an asylum with them, and
a passage in their boat. Having no immediate
occupation here at present, I feel quite free to accept
it, but there are considerations that prevent us. Hitherto
the Lord has kept us safe, and no symptom of plague
has appeared in our dwelling though it
is all around us. We cannot move without coming
in contact with numbers of people for many days, and
being shut up in a small boat with the Arab sailors,
and even the very plague we may leave this city to
avoid, may have reached Bussorah before we arrived
there, as thousands have already set off from hence
for that place; besides which, should it be the Lord’s
pleasure that the plague terminate soon, and we then
wish to return, it may be many months before we may
meet with an opportunity. The only advantage
seems to be, that we should thus be apparently further
removed from those troubles which seem likely to arise
in the threatened attempt to depose this Pasha; yet,
on the whole, we feel we may hold on with the Lord’s
blessing; but if we were once to leave our present
post, it might be very difficult again to regain it.
The accounts brought us of the numbers
of those who have died of the plague, on this side
of the river alone, in little more than one fortnight,
all agree in making it about 7000. The poor inhabitants
know not what to do: if they remain in the city,
they die of the plague; if they leave it, they fall
into the hands of the Arabs, who strip them, or they
are exposed to the effects of an inundation of the
river Tigris, which has now overflown the whole country
around Bagdad, and destroyed, they say, 2000 houses
on the other side of the river, but I think this must
be exaggerated; the misery of this place, however,
is now beyond expression, and may yet be expected to
be much greater. Dreadful as the outward circumstances
of this people are, their moral condition is infinitely
worse; nor does there seem to be a ray of light amidst
it all. The Mohammedans look on those who die
of the plague as martyrs, and when they die there
is no wailing made for them; so that amidst all these
desolations there is a stillness, that when one knows
the cause is very frightful. The Lord enables
us to feel the blessedness of the 91st Psalm, at least
of the portion of those to whom that Psalm pertains;
and we have, amidst all these very trying circumstances,
a peace that passeth understanding. We feel indeed
that we owe it to our Lord’s love to be careful
for nothing, neither to run or make haste as others,
but to stand still and see the salvation of our God.
There was a curious conversation going
on last night, among some Mohammedans, outside our
window, relative to the plague, which they said was
an especial judgment on them and the Jews, but from
which Christ would deliver the Nazarenes, and in all
these calamities, it is remarkable how doubly heavy,
they fall on these two classes. Feelings like
these, and others that we know exist, make us clear
to stay where we are in the midst of these judgments,
trying as they are to natural feeling. That which
comes to the ungodly as judgments, comes to
the child of God, like the chariot of fire to Elijah.
From these visitations as judgments, we have an especial
promise of protection, and we trust in the midst of
them some good may spring up; at all events, we feel
that we shall have quite met our dear Lord’s
mind in giving this people a last opportunity of hearing,
ere their house is left unto them desolate.
April 12. I have
just taken leave of the kind T.’s. The accounts
of the dead are truly terrific; they say the day before
yesterday 1200 died, and yesterday Major T.’s
man of business obtained a receipt to the amount of
1040 on this side of the river. If this statement
can be relied on, the mortality, within and without
the city, must be truly appalling, and should it not
please the Lord soon to stay the destroying Angel’s
hand, the whole country must become one wide waste.
Some very kind Armenians have offered to provide
what is necessary for our journey to Damascus, if
we will go with them. The possibility of meeting
our dear Brethren is a great temptation, but still
we do not see clearly our permission to go, and the
Lord has given us all such perfect peace in staying,
and such perfect health, that we are even unwilling
to go; we remain, therefore, and wait upon our Lord’s
love, which we feel assured will be manifested towards
us amidst this scene of death; and afterwards we shall
see why we remained, more clearly perhaps than now.
April 13. The plague
has just entered our neighbour’s dwelling, where
they have collected together nearly thirty persons,
not simply their own family. It seems as if a
spirit of infatuation had seized them, for instead
of making their number as small as possible, they
seem to congregate as many together as they can.
Oh! what a blessed portion is ours,
to have the God of Israel and his unchangeable promises
for our sure and abiding place of rest our
little sanctuary unto which we may always resort.
Yea, in the secret of his pavilion he will hide us.
April 14. This is
a day of awful visitation. The accounts of deaths
yesterday vary from between 1000 and 1500; and to-day,
they say, is worse than any, and the increase in the
numbers of deaths is exclusive of the immense multitudes
who are dying without the city. One of our schoolmasters
is gone to Damascus, and has taken with him his little
nephew who was boarding with us, so we are indeed now
quite alone. In fact, nothing prevents the entire
desertion of the city, but the dangers of the way,
and the poverty of the inhabitants.
April 15. The accounts
of the mortality yesterday still more alarming 1800
deaths in the city. There was great danger of
the bodies being left in the houses, and the inhabitants
flying and leaving them unburied, but by great exertions
on the part of some young men in one quarter of the
town to bury the dead there, others have been stimulated
in other quarters to similar exertions, and last night
all were buried. Our Moolah has just been here;
he says he has bought winding sheets for himself,
his brother, and his mother. He says that yesterday
he was in the Jew’s quarter, and only met one
person, and that was a woman, who, when she saw him,
ran in and locked the door. Meat, for some days,
or any thing else from without, we have been unable
to get. Water alone we have obtained. But,
to-day, even that we cannot get at any price; every
waterman you stop, answers he is carrying it to wash
the bodies of the dead.
April 16. The accounts
of yesterday are worse than any day, and an Armenian
girl, who has been here this morning, said she saw,
in a distance of about 600 yards, fifty dead bodies
carrying to burial. The son of Gaspar Khan, our
next neighbour, is dead. Two have been carried
out from a little passage opposite our house to-day,
where two more are ill. All you see passing have
a little bunch of herbs, or a rose, or an onion to
smell to, and yet as to real measures of precaution
there has not been one step taken; not even contact
avoided, and the most unrestrained intercourse goes
on in every direction, so that nothing but the Lord’s
arm shortening it, can prevent the entire desolation
of the whole province. The population of Bagdad
cannot exceed 80,000, and of this number more than
half have fled, so that the mortality of 2000
a-day is going on among considerably less than 40,000
people. But the Lord tells us, when we hear or
see these things, not to have our hearts troubled,
for our redemption draweth nigh; and we believe it,
and accept it as a sweet drop in the bitter cup that
is now drinking to the very dregs by so many about
us; and which, but for this expectation, would bow
down the stoutest heart.
One of Major T.’s servants has
just been here, who says the city is a perfect desert,
only peopled by the dead, the bearers of the dead,
and the water carriers. Our household are all
in perfect health, thanks be to our loving Shepherd’s
care.
April 17. To-day,
as yesterday, we have heard nothing as to numbers.
The accounts are very contradictory; some saying that
there is very little plague, others, that it is heavier
than any day; so that probably, in some parts of the
city, it is very severe, and in others lighter.
An Armenian told the schoolmaster
that almost every one you meet is carrying cotton
and things for the interment of the dead. We are
left almost alone in our own neighbourhood, all having
fled in one direction or another; we have been, however,
all preserved in health, to the praise of the Keeper
of Israel.
Surely every principle of dissolution
is operating in the midst of the Ottoman, and Persian
empires. Plagues, earthquakes, and civil wars,
all mark that the days of the Lord’s coming are
at hand, and this is our hope on this our
eyes and hearts rest as the time of repose, when all
these trials shall cease, and the saints shall possess
the kingdom.
April 18. To-day
the accounts are truly distressing. In the family
of one of our little boys, consisting of six, four
are laid down with the plague, father, mother, one
son, and one daughter only one son and
a daughter remaining. Immense numbers of families
will be altogether swept away, and many thousand of
fatherless and motherless children left when this
heavy judgment of God ceases. It is now become
useless to attempt obtaining accurate accounts about
numbers.
April 19. Still
heavy, heavy news. The Moolah has called to give
us an account of the city. He says it now stands
stationary at between 1,500 and 2,000 a-day, and has
been so for a fortnight. What a mass of mortality!
Among the Pasha’s soldiers, he says they have
lost, in some of the regiments, above 500 out of 700. And
in the towns and villages without, the report is,
that it is as bad or worse than within the city.
April 20. The plague
much the same. Among the Armenians nine were
buried yesterday, and seven to-day. There are
not left in the city more than 400, and now there
is the plague in every third or fourth house.
The water also is increasing, so that a little more
will inundate the whole city on this side the river,
as it has on the other, to the inexpressible additional
misery of the poor people. The caravan which
left for Damascus can neither advance nor return on
account of the water. Yesterday four dead were
carried out from the little passage opposite our house,
making in all 14 dead from eight houses, and there
are others now lying ill.
April 21. To-day
the accounts of the plague are rather more favourable,
though another has been carried out from the passage
opposite us, and there are some ill in three houses
adjoining ours. The river has burst into the
cellars of the Residency, and is within a foot of
inundating the whole city.
April 22. Having
had occasion to-day to go out to the Residency, to
endeavour to save some things from the water, which
has come into all the cellars, in every way I was
overwhelmed with the awful state of the city, and
at the difficulty of obtaining help of any kind at
any price. The servant of Major T ,
who is left in charge of the house, told me he had
applied in every direction, but could get no one to
help him; one had a wife dead or dying, another a mother,
another was employed in carrying water for the dead,
and on our way, we saw the Court of the Meshid or
Mosque full of graves; and no longer finding room
there, they were burying the dead in the public road.
When in want of water, I think we shall be obliged
to go to the river and fetch it for ourselves, as
a water-carrier is hardly now to be seen, except when
followed by a man forcing him to carry water to some
house where there is death. Amidst all, the Lord
lets not his destroying angels enter our dwelling;
though tens of thousands are falling around us, we
are all, by his grace and holy keeping, well.
The business of death is now come to that height,
that people seem to take their nearest relations,
and bring them for interment with as much indifference
as they would transact the most ordinary business.
April 23. The plague
not decreasing; two more were brought out to-day from
the passage opposite to us, making seventeen from eight
houses near us. The mother of the Seyd, who owns
our house, has been buried in her house, as no one
could be found to bury her. Another most affecting
instance has just occurred. A little girl of about
twelve years old was seen carrying an infant in her
arms, and being asked whose it was, she said, she
did not know, but had found it in the road, having
heard that both its parents were dead. Water now
is not to be had for money; yet even in these times
Israel’s pillar has its bright side to Israel.
These things must come to pass; but when we see these
signs, we must remember that our redemption draweth
nigh; and the Lord will be a little sanctuary for
us, let him send however sore judgments on the earth.
April 24. The plague
still raging with most destructive violence; the two
servants in our next neighbour’s house are both
dead, and two horses left, I fear, to starve.
A poor Armenian woman has just been here, to beg a
little sugar for a little infant she picked up in the
street this morning; and she says, another neighbour
of her’s picked up two more. They have
just been digging graves beside our house. Almost
all the cotton is consumed, so that persons are wandering
all over the city to find some, for burying their dead.
Water not to be had at any price, nor a water-carrier
to be seen. Oh, what heart-rending scenes sin
has introduced into the world! Oh, when will
the Lord come to put an end to these scenes of disorder,
physical as well as moral? In one short month,
not less than 30,000 souls have passed from time to
eternity in this city, and yet, even now, no diminution
apparently of deaths. Surely the judgment of the
Lord is on this land? One more taken from the
little passage opposite, making nineteen from the
eight houses.
April 25. To-day,
three more from the same passage, making twenty-one
from these houses. Such a disease I never heard
of or witnessed; certainly not more than one in twenty
recovers; every one attacked seems to die.
This has been a heart-rending day.
The accounts from the Residency, and the falling of
a wall, undermined by the water, obliged me to go
out, and I found nothing but signs of death and desolation;
hardly a soul in the streets, unless such as were
carrying the dead, or themselves affected with plague,
and at a number of doors, and in the lanes, bundles
of clothes that had been taken from the dead, and put
out. The Court of the Mosque was shut, having
no place left for burying, and graves were digging
in every direction in the roads, and in the unoccupied
stables about the city. The water also has increased
so much as to be within a few inches of inundating
the city. Should this further calamity come on
this side, as it has on the other, the height of human
misery will be near its climax, for where they will
then bury their dead I know not. There seems no
diminution in the plague yet, that we can discern.
Two of the men we had helping to take Major T ’s
things from the water are attacked; one of them is
the fourth from a house, consisting of six. The
remaining servant of Mr. T had
intelligence brought while I was there, that his aunt
was dead, which, he says, is the eighth near relation
he has lost.
Some of the Mohammedans, our neighbours,
were sitting under our windows last evening, and were
observing, that while two or three had been taken
from every house, we only had remained free. And
this is of the Lord’s marvellous love.
We consist of thirteen, including the schoolmaster’s
family, and the Lord has given his destroying angel
charge to pass over our door.
The Pasha has sent to desire, that
he might have Major T ’s yacht
drawn up near the Seroy or Palace to go into, in case
the water should increase; and when the man was sent
for, who had the charge of the vessel, he with another
had run away, three were dead, and only one remained.
These are surely the days of visitation for the pride
of Edom. The man who sold cotton for burying
the dead, the price of which he raised from 45 to
95 piastres, and who lived only two doors from
us, died yesterday. There is no more cotton left
in the city, and they now bury the dead in their clothes.
The price of soap is raised four times higher than
usual. I have been enabled, by the Lord’s
goodness, to get all our water-jars filled, though
at twenty times the usual price. The bodies of
persons of considerable wealth are now just put on
the back of a donkey, or a mule, and carried away to
be buried, accompanied by one servant. We have
also much anxiety about the people of the Damascus-caravan,
of which we can hear no tidings, whether or not they
have been swallowed up by the inundation. Whether
they have been able to retreat to some eminence, or
what is become of them we know not. The poor
women who have taken charge of the two poor little
infants have sent to us for food for them, as in these
countries they have no idea of bringing up children
by hand. It may be to be instrumental in saving
some of these poor little infants, and in helping
the orphans that remain, that the Lord has allowed
us to stay here. They are all Mohammedan children.
April 26. For many
days we have been unable to obtain any account of
the number of deaths; but the Chaoush of Major
T has been with the Pasha this
morning, who is in the greatest possible state of
alarm, wishing to go, but not knowing how. One
of his officers, whose business it is to inquire about
the number of deaths daily, reported that it had reached
5,000, but yesterday was 3,000, and to-day less.
Enormous as the mortality has been, I cannot but think
this beyond the truth; yet it must be remembered,
that the inundation kept immense masses of poor thronged
together in the city, who, but for this, would have
all fled in one direction or another.
The accounts are heart-rending of
little children left in the streets; five were left
yesterday, a poor woman told us, near the Residency,
and others in different directions. If the wrath
of God is pouring out on the mystical Babylon, as
it is on this province of the literal Babylon; the
two antichrists are beginning to draw near their end.
But for the presence of the Lord in our dwelling, as
its light and joy, what a place would this be to be
alone in now; but with Him, even this is better than
the garden of Eden. These are invaluable situations
for the experience of God’s loving distinguishing
care, and here we realize our pilgrim state much better
than in the quiet of England, with all its external
apparent security.
The utmost number of daily deaths
I heard of at Tabreez were 400, and here it is said
to be 4,000, and yet the population certainly is not
double. In going out to speak with a servant of
Major T , I saw a very decently
dressed female lying in a dying state of plague at
our door quite senseless; it is almost more than the
heart can bear. Yet, that the Lord will even
from these scenes prepare ways for the establishment
of his truth, I feel fully assured, and this supports
us. A north wind has regularly blown for these
four days past, so that we hope the water will not
again increase. Oh, may our Father of his infinite
mercy take away these heavy heavy judgments, and make
their present measure instrumental to the advancement
of his kingdom. The Soochee Bashee, an officer
of police, has just been here, and tells us, that
the Pasha proposes removing to near Coote, a village
on the Tigris, half way between this and Bussorah.
At any other time, this would tend to most fearful
convulsions within the city; but in the present state
of things, perhaps, all may remain quiet, without a
governor. When the plague, that now desolates
the city ceases, we know not what may happen; but
this we do know, that the love of our Father, and
his gracious providence, will be magnified by all events,
and that we shall yet praise him more and more.
It seems to me more than probable that the Pasha does
not intend to return. By the plague he has lost
half his soldiers, and a great number of his Georgian
slaves, who are his personal attached friends; he
may now remove without obstruction perhaps, from any
one, or the possibility of any communication being
made to his enemies to intercept him; but time only
will show; however this may be, it is certain that
should the plague cease to-morrow, the city is in
such a state, that no resistance could be made for
one moment to any enemy. How invaluable the past
proofs of the Lord’s loving kindness and tender
mercies are at such times, the remembrance of him
from the Hill Mizar of the Hermonites. In going
along the streets to-day, I saw several poor sufferers
labouring under the plague; and a number of places,
where clothes had been brought out and burnt.
Our anxieties have been greatly increased
by the illness of our dear little baby; but our unerring
Physician has restored her to us to-day, we trust
in a measure which promises amendment.
April 27. To-day
all thoughts are turned from the plague to the inundation,
which from the falling of a portion of the city wall
on the north-west side last night, let the water in
full stream into the city. The Jews’ quarter
is inundated, and 200 houses fell there last night:
we are hourly expecting to hear, that every part of
the city is overflowed. A part also of the wall
of the citadel is fallen. And, in fact, such
is the structure of the houses, that if the water remains
near the foundations long, the city must become a mass
of ruins. The mortar they use in building is
very like plaister of Paris, which sets very hard,
and does very well when all is dry; but as soon as
ever water is applied, it all crumbles to powder;
and in building walls of four or five feet thick,
they have only an outside casing of brick work thus
cemented, and within it is filled up with dust and
rubbish, so that what seems strong enough in appearance
to bear any thing, soon moulders away, and by its
own weight accelerates its ruin. It must be many
many years, if ever, before the city can recover.
But it seems to me, that this seat of Mohammedan glory,
and of its proudest recollections, has received its
death-warrant from the hand of the Lord. This
inundation has not only ruined an immense number of
houses in the city, and been the cause of tens of
thousands dying of the plague, but the whole harvest
is destroyed. The barley, which was just ready
to be reaped, is utterly gone, and every other kind
of corn must likewise be ruined, so that for 30 miles
all round Bagdad, not a grain of corn can be collected
this year, and perhaps, if all was quiet this might
be of no consequence, for from Mosul and Kourdistan
it might easily come; but this will be prevented by
the enemies of the Pasha who surround us. The
poor are beginning to feel immense difficulty in the
city, for all the shops are shut, and there is a great
scarcity of wood for firing; and should the water
now cause a general inundation of the whole city,
the heart sickens at the contemplation of the scenes
that must follow; for the houses of the poor are nothing
but mud, scarcely one of which will be left standing.
For ourselves personally, the Lord
has allowed us great peace, and assured confidence
in his loving care, and in the truth of his promise,
that our bread and our water shall be sure; but certainly
nothing but the service of such a Lord as he is would
keep me in the scenes which these countries do exhibit,
and I feel assured will, till the Lord has finished
his judgments on them, for the contempt of the name,
nature, and offices of the Son of God; yet I linger
in the hope he has a remnant even among them, for
whose return these convulsions are preparing the way.
April 28. News more
and more disastrous. The inundation has swept
away 7,000 houses from one end of the city to the other,
burying the sick, the dying, and the dead, with many
of those in health, in one common grave. Those
who have escaped, have brought their goods and the
relics of their families, to the houses the plague
has desolated, or desertion left unoccupied, and houses
are yet falling in every direction.
The Lord has stopped the water just
at the top of our street by a little ledge of high
ground, so that as yet we are dry; and all free from
the sword of the destroying angel. Scarcity of
provision is beginning to be sensibly felt, so that
very respectable persons are coming to the door to
beg a little bread, or a little butter, or some other
simple necessary of life. To-day, the number dying
in the road was much greater than I have before seen,
and the number unburied in the streets daily and hourly
increases. The Seroy of the Pasha is a heap of
ruins, and though he is most anxious to go, he cannot
collect forty men to man the yacht, for all fear of
him is now past, and love for him they have none;
his distress beggars all description, for not a single
native vessel is left in Bagdad, every one having been
employed in taking down the crowds to Bussorah at the
commencement of this dreadful calamity. I have
from day to day mentioned the dead taken from the
eight houses opposite to ours; that number has to-day
reached twenty-four; in one of these, out of nine,
one only survives; and I mention twenty-four not as
all, but as those which have been seen carried out
by some of the schoolmaster’s family, who were
however very little in that room which overlooks this
passage. Of another family near the Meidan, out
of thirteen one only remains, and I have no doubt
there are hundreds of families similarly swept away;
yet amidst all these trials to the servants of God,
my heart does not despair for the work of the Lord,
for no ordinary judgments seem necessary to break
the pride and hatred of this most proud and contemptuous
people; but the Lord will bring Edom down, and make
a way for the Kings of the East to his holy habitation.
We have taken one poor little Mohammedan baby, about
three or four years old, from the streets, and are
supplying a poor Armenian woman with pap for another;
but what is this among so many? We know not what
to do. It makes passing the streets most painful
and affecting, thus to see little children from a
month or six weeks, to two or four years, crying for
a home, hungry, and naked, and wretched, and knowing
not what to do, nor where to go. Thank God however,
to-day the water is a little abated, about a span
lower. Oh, may the Lord’s mercy spare yet
a little longer this wretched, wretched city.
Oh, how does the glory of the Chalifat lie in ashes;
she seems within a step of falling like her elder sister
Babylon, the glory of the Chaldean’s excellency,
and in how many things has her spirit towards the
church of God been as bad, yea worse, than hers.
Missionaries in these countries have need of a very
simple faith, which can glory in God’s will being
done, though all their plans come to nothing.
It was but the other day we were surrounded by as
interesting a school of boys, and a commencing one
of thirteen girls, as the heart could desire; and
now if the plague and desolation were to terminate
to-morrow, and our scattered numbers were assembled,
perhaps not more than half would remain to us.
Yet dark as all the labours of the Lord’s servants
in these countries appears, I feel assured, that prophecy
points them out as specially connected with many of
the great events of the latter days. Yet it requires
great confidence in God’s love, and much experience
of it, for the soul to remain in peace, stayed on
him, in a land of such changes, without even one of
our own nation near us, without means of escape in
any direction; surrounded with the most desolating
plague and destructive flood, with scenes of misery
forced upon the attention which harrow up the feelings,
and to which you can administer no relief. Even
in this scene however, the Lord has kept us of his
infinite mercy, in personal quiet and peace, trusting
under the shadow of his Almighty wing, and has enabled
us daily to offer up to his holy name praise, for
suffering us to assemble in undiminished numbers,
when tens of thousands have been falling around us.
Neither is this all, for he has made us know why we
staid in this place, and why we were never allowed
to feel it to be our path of duty to leave the post
we were in.
April 29. Our situation
is becoming daily still more extraordinary, and in
many respects more trying, except that our Lord is
our hiding place, who will preserve us from trouble,
and will compass us about with songs of deliverance.
The Pasha has fled, accompanied by his master of the
horse, and his immediate family. His palace is
left open, without a soul to take care of any thing.
His stud of beautiful Arab horses are running about
the streets, and are caught by those who care to take
the trouble, and offered for sale for from L10. to
L100. each; his stores also of corn are left open,
and every one takes what he wants, or what he can
carry away, which is a great relief to the poor, for
the quantities are enormous, in expectation of a siege.
The plague is working its destructive
way, apparently with no other mitigation than that
arising from decreasing numbers in the city; the inundation
however, has prevented this having its full weight,
for it has thronged the remaining population into
a compass unnaturally disproportionate. The house
next us, which belongs to a Seyd, who left it at the
beginning of the plague, in charge of two servants
who are dead, is now filled by twenty persons from
different directions. The unburied dead, and
the dying, are fearfully accumulating in the streets.
So difficult it is now to find persons to bury, that
even the priest of the Armenian church here, who died
two days since, remains yet unburied.
The water, thank God, is a little
lower, but there seems now every prospect that the
moment the waters decrease, the surrounding Arabs
will come in, and plunder the city; yet even this is
in the Lord’s hands our wisdom has
ever been to sit still, and see the salvation of our
God, and until we see his cloudy pillar arise from
off our tabernacle, where we feel it has hitherto
rested, and move forward, we shall yet judge our safety
to be to sit still. We have in several instances
seen, that there was reason to bless God for remaining
quiet. We once thought of removing to the Residency,
as a change to the dear children, and as being nearer
to the water; but still on the whole we felt it best
to remain here; and had we gone, we should have been
in the midst of the plague; or had we gone, when the
T s went to Bussorah, what a state
should we now be in, without the possibility of removing,
and in danger of our lives from the inundation and
falling of the walls, if we stayed.
We had again considered, whether it
would be right to leave this with the caravan for
Damascus and Aleppo, which seemed the only opening
there might possibly be for us, so that if we let that
pass by, we must stay whether we would or not; still
the Lord made us feel it was our path to stay looking
to him. And had we gone, what a state should
we have been in? For nearly three weeks they have
been surrounded with water, continually increasing
around them, so that now we know not what their situation
may be, whether they are swept away, or remain; but
at all events we bless God for having inclined our
minds to stay. Why we did not join our dear and
kind friends the T s, in going to
Bussorah, we do not yet so clearly see the reason of,
because we have received no accounts thence, but it
would have cut up alike our connection with our work
here, and with our dear friends at Aleppo, with whom
we feel it daily of more and more importance to have
as speedy a meeting as possible for advice and counsel.
We have just heard of the caravan
already mentioned, as going to Damascus and Aleppo.
The plague has taken off eight of the Armenians, and
four have been drowned. The head of the caravan
is dead of the plague also, besides many others; they
must therefore return to Bagdad, instead of advancing
on their journey; so in this instance at least we
see great reason to bless God for keeping us back.
Yea, the Lord will instruct us and teach us the way
in which we should go, and will guide us with his
eye; this is our confidence and comfort; and in such
a time as this of unheard of perplexity, what a source
of abiding peace is this. We feel it well to
know our God in such circumstances as ours. Among
the Armenians, thirteen died to-day, the largest number
yet in one day.
April 30. The report
of the flight of the Pasha, it appears was not true,
and arose from the two circumstances I have mentioned,
of his horses having been seen running about the streets,
and his supplies being open to the people. He
has been for several days endeavouring to get away,
and had drawn up for that purpose some boats under
the Seroy. All his stables were levelled to the
ground, and the place flooded with water. When
the distress of the people was mentioned to him, he
ordered one of his corn stores to be opened to them.
However, to-day, blessed be God’s Holy Name,
the waters have sunk more than a yard, so we
trust the great danger is over.
To-day, one more was brought out dead
from the eight opposite houses, making twenty-five,
and we know there are four more lying ill there.
Our poor schoolmaster, who went in the caravan, is
dead, and was buried in his tent.
May 1. The Lord
has brought us all in safety to the beginning of another
month, through the most trying period of my life; yet
the Lord has every day filled our mouth with praise,
and enabled us to see his preserving hand.
To-day, as I passed along the street,
I saw numbers of dead bodies lying unburied, and the
dogs eating with avidity the loathsome food.
Oh! it made my very heart sink. The numbers of
the dead can now be no longer ascertained, for most
of the bodies are buried either in the houses or in
the roads; yet amidst all this, the Lord suffers not
the destroying angel to enter our dwelling; but we
feel the Lord has commanded the man with the ink-horn
to write us down to be spared, as this is one of the
vials of God’s wrath on his enemies.
May 2. We have heard
nothing to-day to vary the general scene of our calamities;
the intensity of this most desolating disease surpasses
all thought. Numbers of families are altogether
swept away; in numerous others, out of ten or twelve,
only one, two, or three remain; but I hear of none,
save our own, where death has not entered. Yet,
while I bless and praise the Holy Name of our Lord,
under whose wing alone we came here, and under whose
wing alone we have trusted, the things my eyes have
seen, and my ears heard, press upon my heart, and
make me at times very sad; neither can I chase them
from my mind. I can only look forward for comfort
to that day, when the Lord himself will come to put
an end to this dispensation of desolation, and introduce
his own peace. Yea, come Lord Jesus, come quickly.
We have just heard melancholy tidings
of another caravan, which endeavoured to escape into
Persia from the plague, but has been forced back again
by the Arabs, the floods, and the scarcity of provisions,
and besides numbers among them have died daily of the
plague, so still we can bless God we did not leave
our present position by this last opportunity.
Let us then again bless him for not allowing us to
make haste.
May 3. To-day we
trust the Lord has a little alleviated the virulence
of the plague; many attacked yesterday, and the day
before, have been rapidly recovering, and fewer deaths
have taken place to-day a great deal so
far as we can ascertain. May God’s holy
name be praised, who is a hiding place from every
storm. We had our water jars filled again to-day,
when many, even of the rich, who have connections
in every direction, find the greatest difficulty.
“Your water shall be sure.” We who
are alone, and without a friend within hundreds of
miles in any direction, have been supplied by our Lord’s
gracious ordering; thus he puts a new song into our
mouths, even a song of thanksgiving. To-day all
are well, even our dear little baby is quite recovered.
May 4. The weather
has for these two or three days past been beautifully
fine, and clear, and hot, by which our God seems to
have mitigated the symptoms of the plague. All
accounts to-day are encouraging; the number of new
cases few, and the number of those recovering many.
Our eyes have also been rejoiced by the sight of three
or four water-carriers passing again, after an interval
of ten days; many more people have also been passing
and repassing than before; so we trust the Lord is
now taking away this desolating judgment, which, in
less than two months, has carried away more than half
the population of this city; for, allowing that it
had been silently making its deadly course three weeks
before it was discovered, it does not exceed eight
weeks, and by far the greatest portion of deaths have
been within the last four weeks.
May 5. In my journal
yesterday, I mention more than half the population
as having been swept away in the inconceivably short
space of two months, but every account I have received,
convinces me that this is within the number; certainly
not less than two thirds have been swept away, and
this seems to have arisen from a complication of causes.
At the time when the great mass of the population would
have fled, and thus have thinned the city, the waters
rose so high, that they could move only with great
difficulty; they waited in the hopes of the water
subsiding, instead of which, it so increased, that
those who had left the town and could get back, were
compelled to return; those who could not, were driven
to seek some high ground where they might remain safe
from the water, but in all cases they were crowded
together without the power of moving their position. Again,
in the city, when by the death of immense multitudes
the population became greatly thinned, the inundation
of the water laid more than half the town level with
the ground, and drove the remaining people to congregate
together wherever they could find a dry place or an
open house, so that often twenty or thirty came to
reside together in the same house, as was the case
next door to us; thus again the deaths became awfully
great. Inquire where you will, the answer is,
The city is desolate: around the Pasha four Georgians
alone remain alive out of more than one hundred.
The son of our Moolah, who is dead, told me to-day,
that in the quarter where he lives, not one human being
is left they are all dead. Out of
about eighteen servants and seapoys that Major T.
left, fourteen are dead, two have now the plague,
and two remain well. Among the Armenians, more
than half are dead. An Armenian who was with
us to-day, tells us, there are not more than twenty-seven
men left in one hundred and thirty houses. I,
however, think that this is exaggerated.
At Hillah, the modern Babylon, (population
10,000), there is, Seyd Ibrahim told me to-day, scarce
a soul left, and the dogs and the wild beasts alone
are there feeding on the dead bodies. This Seyd
Ibrahim is one of the surviving servants of Major
T.; and is the only one of a family of fourteen who
remains alive. His four brothers, their
wives, his own wife, their children, and his own,
are all dead. If mystical Babylon is suffering,
as the seat of this Archbishopric of the literal Babylon,
the times are not far off when the river Euphrates
shall be dried up for the kings of the east to pass
over.
For digging a grave they ask a sum
that equals in England three pounds, in consequence
of which numbers have remained unburied about the
streets, so that the Pasha has been obliged to engage
men, paying them at the same rate for each body they
will throw into the river.
In all the villages the desolation
seems as complete as it is here. When day by
day I rise and see our numbers complete, and all in
health, my soul is indeed made to feel what cannot
the Lord do? though ten thousand shall fall at thy
right hand it shall not come nigh thee. I
do not yet see what effect all this is likely to have
on our labours here whether it will break
down or build up barriers; yet we expect it will break
down, for the Lord seems thus breaking to pieces the
power if not the pride of this haughty people.
I have been struck two or three times lately, in going
out, with the intense hatred that lurks at the bottom
of the hearts of this people against Christians; my
dress manifested me to be one, and some Arabs I met,
particularly the women, cursed me with the most savage
ferocity as I passed, two or three calling out at
me as though I were the cause of all their calamities;
and the people who are come to live next door to us,
are bitter against us, especially one man among them,
who seems to have his heart quite corroded, because
they are dying and we are preserved by our Lord’s
love; he sits and talks under our window, saying, “These
Christians and Jews alone remain, but in the whole
of Bagdad you will hardly find one hundred Mohammedans.”
This is altogether false, for though in proportion
as many Christians may not have died as Mohammedans
and Jews, yet the deaths among them have been enormous,
as the preceding accounts will have shewn.
Medicine I have found of no use.
If you attack the fever, they die of prostration of
strength; if you endeavour to support the constitution,
they die of oppression on the brain. Those cases
which first affected the head with delirium, have
been the most fatal; next those with carbuncles, which
did not appear, however, for a fortnight after the
commencement of the disease. Among those who have
recovered, almost the whole have had large glandular
swellings, speedily separating and thus relieving
the constitution.
This night, the first time for three
weeks, I have heard again the Muezzin’s call
to prayers, from the minarets of the Mosques.
May 6. The water
to-day is much decreased. I saw a man also with
fresh meat in his hand. I likewise saw many recovering
from the plague walking about, leaning on sticks,
and sitting by the way-side. The number of deaths,
among the Armenians, to-day, amounted to 11, which,
considering that their whole remaining numbers cannot
exceed 300 at present, is an enormous mortality, and
has a little damped our hopes of a speedy conclusion
to this awful visitation.
May 7. Of the plague
nothing satisfactory to-day. Thieves are multiplying
in every direction; and news has come from Mosul that
a new Pasha has arrived there, who only waited for
the cessation of the plague to advance against Bagdad.
Great part of his work of destruction is already done
for him, as hardly a Georgian is left, and he will
find money enough left without owners, to supply his
own utmost rapacity, or the demands of the Sultan.
The Lord is our only secure resting place, and we
know that he who delivers us out of six troubles,
can and will deliver us out of seven.
The water is decreasing most rapidly,
so that rice is beginning to be brought from the other
side of the river; and as all those who monopolized
the sale of wood, and not only asked enormous prices,
but cheated in the weight, are all dead, every one
now that needs wood takes it, so that the situation
of the poor seems in this respect a little improved.
There has not been among all the circumstances
of this scene of complicated suffering, any one that
has more painfully affected my own mind than the increasing
number of infants and little children that have been
left exposed in the streets, and the absolute impossibility
of meeting such a state of things. We greatly
desired to take one or two; but our own little baby
was ill, so that by night Mary had hardly any rest,
and at best, not being strong in such a climate, we
came reluctantly to the decision that we were not
able to undertake such an additional charge.
This is an anxious evening. Dear
Mary is taken ill nothing that would at
any other time alarm me, but now very little creates
anxiety; yet her heart is reposing on her Lord with
perfect peace, and waiting his will. A few hours,
perhaps, may show us that it is but a little trial
of our faith to draw us nearer the fountain of our
life. To nature it seems fearful to think of
the plague entering our dwelling; in our present situation,
nothing but the Lord’s especial love could sustain
the soul in the contemplation of a young family, left
in such a land, at such a time, and in such circumstances;
but we feel we came out under the shadow of the Almighty’s
wing, and we know that his pavilion will be our sanctuary,
let his gracious providence prescribe what it may.
On his love, therefore, we cast ourselves with all
our personal interests.
May 8. The Lord
has this day manifested that the attack of my dear
dear wife, is the plague, and of a very dangerous and
malignant kind, so that our hearts are prostrate in
the Lord’s hand. As I think the infection
can have only come through me, I have little hope of
escaping, unless by the Lord’s special intervention.
It is indeed an awful moment, the prospect of having
a little family in such a country at such a time.
Yet, my dearest wife’s faith triumphs over these
circumstances, and as she sweetly said to me to day,
“The difference between a child of God and the
worldling is not in death, but in the hope the one
has in Jesus, while the other is without hope and without
God in the world.” She says, “I marvel
at the Lord’s dealings, but not more than at
my own peace in such circumstances.” She
is now continually sleeping, and when roused feels
it difficult to keep her dear mind fixed on any subject
for a minute. These are indeed the floods of
deep waters, but in the midst of them the Lord is working
his mysterious way, yet that way, however bitter to
nature, is for the everlasting consolation of his
chosen ones. She said to me, a few minutes since,
“What does the Lord say concerning me.”
I said, that you are a dear child of his. “Yes,”
she said, “of that I have no doubt.”
May the Lord of his infinite mercy sustain my poor
weak soul amidst these heavy visitations, that at
least we may magnify him, whether by life or by death;
what a relief it is now to my mind to think that her’s
was so much set against moving, whenever I proposed
it, and she often said in reply, “The Lord has
given me no desire nor sense of the desirableness
of moving, which I feel assured he would have done
had he seen it best.”
May 9. My dearest,
dearest wife still alive, and not apparently worse
than yesterday. Oh! if it were the Lord’s
holy blessed will to spare her, it would indeed rejoice
my poor foolish heart, but the Lord has enabled me
to cast my wife, myself, and my dear dear children
on his holy love, and to await the issue. Oh!
what wrath there must be against these lands, if not
only the inhabitants are swept away, but the Lord
transplants also his own, who would teach them, to
his own garden of peace. My soul has just been
refreshed by these two verses of Psalm 116. “Return
unto thy rest, O my soul, for the Lord hath dealt
bountifully with thee. He has taken one of thy
olive branches to glory, and is now perhaps about
to take another, for precious in the sight of the
Lord is the death of his saints, for he only takes
them from the evil to come.” Oh, but for
Jesus, the never setting star of our heavenly way,
amidst the wilderness what would our situation now
be. Jesus is the same yesterday, to-day, and for
ever, and our heavenly Father’s love we have
too often proved to doubt it now. But, poor nature
is bowed very very low, when I look at my dear boys
and little babe, and see only poor little Kitto to
be left for their care for hundreds of miles around;
it needs all those consolations of God’s spirit
to keep the soul from sinking also with the body; but
the Lord has said, “Leave your fatherless children
unto me,” and to him we desire to leave them.
We did feel assured that the Lord
would spare our dear little united happy family; but
his ways are not our ways, nor his thoughts our thoughts.
Dear little Kitto, I feel for his situation also from
my heart.
All the conversation of my dear dying
wife, for these twelve months past, but especially
as our difficulties and trials increased, was on the
peace she enjoyed in the Lord. Often and often
she has said to me, notwithstanding the disparity
of every thing external, I never in England enjoyed
that sweet sense of my Lord’s loving care that
I have enjoyed in Bagdad. And her assurance of
her Lord’s love never forsook her, even after
she felt herself attacked by the plague. While
contemplating the mysteriousness of the Providence,
her mind was overwhelmed; but when she thought on
her Lord’s love, she was confident in his graciousness.
From almost the first, her brain has been so oppressed,
that with difficulty she opens her eyes, and though
she can answer a question of two or three words, Yes,
or No; yet, if it involves the slightest exercise
of thought, she always replies, “I do not know
what you say.” When I consider all I and
the dear children lose, should we survive her, it
is almost more than my heart can contemplate.
On any essential point, for some years, we have never
had divided judgment on any material point; in every
work of faith, or labour of love, her desire was to
animate, not to hinder. Such simple truth of
purpose, and unaffected love, and confidence in her
Lord, as dwelt in her dear departing spirit, I have
seldom seen, and those who knew her intimately will
not think I say too much. She has been to me
in the relation of Christian wife, and Missionary wife,
just what I felt I so much, so very much needed.
And yet the Lord sees fit to take her to himself,
and add one more from my little family to the chosen,
faithful, and true company that surrounds his throne.
Lord, then, though it cuts nature to the quick, makes
me feel its deepest suffering, and meets me under
the most complicated forms of trial, yet if it be
for thy glory, and her glory, do, dear Lord, thine
Almighty will, and we know thou wilt to thy chosen,
make light spring up out of darkness.
May 10. Last evening
my dearest wife was more herself than she had been,
till within a few hours of her being taken ill, which
was manifested by her asking to see dear little baby,
the first thing she had voluntarily asked for, since
her illness, without being spoken to. She again
mentioned the subject of her confidence in her Lord,
and acquiescence in his will. She asked me what
I thought of her situation. I said I had committed
her to the Lord, who, I knew, would deal graciously
by her. She replied, “Yes, that he will.”
She continued in this state of improvement till to-day
at about nine o’clock, when her mind again began
to wander. When I quoted to her, that to the
Lord’s servants light should spring up in darkness,
she said, “Yes, that it shall.” She
said, “I feel much better than yesterday don’t
you see that I am.” In fact, my hopes of
her being really improving would have been complete,
but from that peculiar look of the eyes, which authors
who have written on this subject, all denote as most
fatal; from this, therefore, my hopes never were very
high, yet though I had yesterday been enabled, through
the Lord’s grace, to lie in his hands like a
weaned child, to-day the disappointment of the dear
hope, slight as it was, of having her restored to
us, has brought my soul again into very deep waters.
She also this morning expressed her anxiety about
the dear children, and her fear, least in attending
her, I should take the plague, and they be left orphans
here.
In every respect, certainly the Lord
has been most gracious to her. She is about to
be transplanted to her native soil, where tears and
sorrows shall never enter, and in the way of her removal,
since the Lord’s time is come, nothing can be
more compassionate to her peculiar weakness of heart
than not allowing her anxiety to dwell on the dear
children, and their probable situation here. To
have been happy in quitting them, amidst such a scene
as now surrounds us, and in such a country, perhaps
no mortal faith could have been equal to; the Lord,
therefore, suffered not her mind to possess its usual
sensibilities; but took them from her, and left her
only to return to his bosom in peace.
I feel the Holy Ghost again sustaining
my poor weak heart in the prospect of losing such
a wife, and remaining solitary here with three dear
motherless children; but I know the Lord in whom I
have believed, and he will not fail his chosen in
one of all those good things he has promised.
Our trials are indeed very very great; but the Lord,
the comforter, is greater even than they. My
dearest wife now (two o’clock,) is quite delirious.
Dear spirit! I have attended her night and day
since the evening of the 7th, on which she was taken
ill, and I allow no one else to approach her.
The Lord is my only stay, my only support, and he
is a support indeed.
May 11. This night
has been the most trying of my life. How hard
for the soul to see the object of its longest and best
grounded earthly affections suffering without the
power of affording relief, knowing too that a heavenly
Father who has sent it, can relieve it, and yet seems
to turn a deaf ear to one’s cries; at the same
time, I felt, in the depths of my soul’s affections,
that notwithstanding all, he is a God of infinite
love. Satan has sorely tried me, but the Lord
has shewn me, in the 22d Psalm, a more wonderful cry
apparently unheeded, and the Holy Ghost has
given me the victory, and enabled me to acquiesce
in my Father’s will, though I now see not the
end of his holy and blessed ways. Dear, dear
spirit! she will soon wing her way to where her heart
has long been; and, if I am spared, I shall perhaps
have reason to bless God for having removed her thus
early.
The plague has attacked two more of
our household the schoolmaster’s
wife and our maid-servant, and how far it will go now,
no one knows but he who guides it by his sovereign
will. My dearest Mary’s sufferings for
four or five hours last night were great; she was quite
delirious, and her dear voice was so affected, that
I could not make out two words connectedly. How
mysterious are God’s ways! Oh my soul,
learn the lesson of patient submission to his holy
will. I have cast myself upon him and he will
guide me. Dear Mary, to-day has been quite insensible.
It has indeed been a very painful day, but it is the
condition of this world. Dear spirit! her heart
has been so set on her Lord’s coming of late,
that it seemed quite to absorb her thoughts and heart.
And now she will quickly join the holy assembly that
are waiting to come with him. Surely such times
as these, when the Lord is taking a ripe shock of
corn from your field, are seasons to rejoice that
your prayer for the quick accomplishment of the number
of God’s elect has been heard, and yet how hard
it is for nature not to feel deep sorrow that a message
has come for one of yours.
Poor dear Kitto and the little boys
are now become the sole nurses of the dear baby by
night and by day. Oh, may the Lord watch over
them and bless them. My last night’s attendance
on my dear wife, leaves me little hope of escaping
the plague, unless it be our Father’s special
will to preserve me, for in her delirium she required
so many times to be lifted from place to place, and
to have all her clothes changed, that I can now only
cry to the Lord to preserve me, if it may be a little
while, for the dear children’s sake.
The Lord has most graciously provided
us with a servant of Mrs. T’s. to come and attend
my dear Mary. Oh may my soul bless him for this
timely help, just when our own servant was taken ill.
This woman has been in the midst of all the contagion,
and has never taken it; so it may be the Lord’s
will to shew how he can work even in the midst of
the darkest trials. She sits down beside the dear
sufferer, keeps the flies from her face, and does
every thing for her the fondest heart could desire.
She came out with us from England, having gone there
with Mrs. T.; is a native of these countries, knows
all that is required in sickness, and how to perform
the duties of a nurse, with the most unwearied patience,
tenderness, and watchfulness. She also knows
something of English, and having been with dear Mrs.
T. in England, is acquainted with English customs.
Surely the Lord heard my cry in the day of my deep
distress, for such a person perhaps could not be got
again within a thousand miles. That she should
have been left too when all the rest went away.
She has made dear Mary look so comfortable; she washes
her and changes her, who though insensible, lies so
quiet, and looks so composed. She said she knew
the Lord would be very gracious, and he has been so
indeed he sees it right to take his sheep
home to his fold; but he has so overwhelmed me by this
proof of his loving kindness, this ray of light arising
in the midst of my darkness, that it seems to have
led my heart yet more and more to love him and to
confide in him, that he may yet stay his rough wind
in the day of his east wind. This kind friend,
Mrs. T.’s servant, proposes to remain with us
until all our family are either well or dead.
May 12. Up to this
day I am well, thank God, but seeing the ways of the
Lord are so marvellous, I have arranged all my little
concerns, and put them into the hands of dear Kitto,
for the little boys and our dear little baby, till
they arrive at some of those places where there may
be some one to take care of them, and carry them to
their guardians or my trustees. But as poor Kitto
is so little able to provide even for himself, much
less for the little boys, I shall now endeavour, the
Lord enabling me, to arrange with this woman, Mariam
by name, to undertake every thing for them till she
can give them over to Major T., to whose family she
is going, unless they return here. This woman
was an old servant of dear Mrs. R. She has consented
to undertake this charge, and is to remain with the
dear, dear children. She knows enough of English
to make herself understood by the dear children, and
she thoroughly understands the language, manners, and
habits of this people. Whether it may ever
be the Lord’s will to call into exercise the
arrangements of this plan or not, I trust I never
shall forget the Lord’s unspeakable mercy in
shewing me, that when I saw no earthly protector for
my poor children, his holy, loving, and fatherly hand
could provide one if it were necessary. Oh, may
my faith in him in the darkest day never fail, for
it is a light that springeth up in darkness.
Dearest Mary is gradually sinking
into the bosom of the Lord, and to join in the society
her soul has so long and so truly loved, of the lovers
of the Lamb of God. Though the Lord has taken
away the desire of my eyes, as it were with a stroke,
and left me a few hours to cry unto him in the midst
of my deep, deep waters; yet these visions of his
love have so revived my soul, that my whole soul is
brought to acquiesce in his holy and fatherly arrangements,
with respect to her who was once the joy, the help,
and companion of all in which I was engaged.
I sit down now to wait, and see the salvation of my
God, for doubtless he will reveal, in his own good
time, the reason why he has acted so contrary, not
only to mine, but especially my dear wife’s
strongest convictions, which were, that he would preserve
us all safe through this calamity.
When I now contemplate the spiritual
state of dear Mary’s mind for the last twelve
months, I am not at all surprised that the Lord has
taken her as a ripe shock of corn, but my expectation
while watching her spiritual progress was so different.
I saw her daily growing in the simple assurance of
her Lord’s love, and desiring under heaven neither
to know nor serve any other than him. Her heart
was panting for the Lord’s coming, that the
mystery of iniquity might be finished, and the mystery
of godliness be fully established; but I thought not
of all this being preparatory to her joining her Lord,
but for the strengthening of my poor weak hands here.
It never entered my heart that I was to be left alone,
as far as earth is concerned, most alone. Those
friends for whom this journal is alone designed, know
how much she was to me, and how deservedly so:
this, however, the Lord saw had its great, great dangers
too, and may in his infinite mercy to us both have
ripened her so rapidly for glory, and left me here
to serve and praise; for I have felt it was very,
very hard to be as the Apostle says, having a wife
as though I had none. Now, when I go and look
upon her having reached within one short step, the
habitation of all her hopes; I have not a spiritual
affection within my soul that would call her back;
but poor nature bows reluctantly its head.
The dear little baby also is but poorly.
Her dear little cry of mamma, mamma, cuts my poor
heart like a knife, to think, that from to-day or
probably to-morrow, she must cease to know that endearing
name, and such a mother too! However, the Lord
tells his children to leave their fatherless, and
doubtless motherless ones to him. Lord, I desire
so to do; for he is a dear and kind father, though
nature cannot always see it, and indeed how
could this be? for that which is natural in
us is, not only in its will opposed to God, but even
in its best affections tainted from the fall.
Were it not that the Lord whom we love and serve,
is as infinite in his compassions, as he is mysterious
in his ways, the days that must come when the excitement
of present suffering will be past, and my soul begins
to look round and see the extent of its desolations,
in a country, too, where there is nothing to comfort
or cheer me, would appear to me too dark to be borne,
did I not know the Lord hath said, I will not leave
you orphans, but I will come unto you; so if he does
come and dwell more sensibly within me, even my poor
dull and slow-growing spirit may soon be ripened and
gathered into his kingdom, there to join my dear departing
spirit in the realms of light.
May 13. My dearest
wife has reached the light of another day, still quietly
sinking without a sigh and without a groan. This
my prayer for her in the night of my darkness the
Lord has mercifully heard. At present all the
remaining ones of the family are well. I have
separated the dear little boys and Kitto, and allow
them to hold intercourse with none. The dear
baby, and myself, and the maid, and the little boy
of our sick servant, are also much separated, and this
nurse, whom the Lord sent us, alone attends the sick;
but yet so contagious is this fearful disease, that
when it has once entered your dwelling, you can know
no other safety than in your Lord’s preserving
care. These are indeed days of trial, but doubtless
they will have their precious fruit in all God’s
children; for the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous,
and his ears are open unto their cry for
the Lord redeemeth the soul of his servants, therefore
none of them that trust in him shall be desolate no,
not even I, poor and worthless as I am, I shall yet
praise him who is the Lord of my life, and my God.
The dear boys also keep up their spirits
much better than the first two or three days after
their dear mamma was taken ill. The magnitude
of present danger to themselves, and to all, in some
measure divides their thoughts, and prevents them
from resting alone on that deeply affecting prospect
before them, for they loved her most truly, and, Oh!
how much reason had they to love her.
I have just heard that the streets
begin again to be crowded, shops here and there to
be opened, and the gardeners are bringing things from
without into the city. To think that so near the
end we should have been thus visited, how mysterious!
Yet my soul says, What thou seest not, thou shalt
see. If it does but lead to my Lord’s glory,
I am sure it will lead to my dear sufferer’s;
then why should I repine?
Water is also reduced to 1d. the
skin, the price it was at before. For these proofs
of mercy to the people, we will bless God in the midst
of our own personal sorrows.
May 14. This day
dearest Mary’s ransomed spirit took its seat
among those dressed in white, and her body was consigned
to the earth that gave it birth a dark,
heavy day to poor nature, but still the Lord was the
light and stay of it.
I cannot help exceedingly blessing
my heavenly Father, however these calamities (for
to nature they are such, though not to the heirs of
glory) may end that he has allowed me to continue in
health so long as to see every thing done I could
have desired, and so infinitely more than I could
have expected, for her whom I have so much reason to
love.
May 15, 16. I have
heard to-day that the French Roman Catholic Archbishop
of Babylon has been dead a long time, and two of his
priests, and the remaining two fled. The poor
schoolmaster’s wife is dying, and our servant
I trust, recovering: the rest of our household
within and without, thank God, all continue in good
health even dear little baby, though rather
cross from want of amusement, and from her teeth.
They say new cases of plague have
almost entirely disappeared; may the Lord grant its
speedy disappearance altogether. We have had no
intelligence from the Taylors since their departure,
which makes us very anxious. As the waters are
decreasing, the relics of those families which fled
are returning; and, in numberless cases, out of eighteen
in a family who left, only one or two return.
The others died in the greatest misery and destitution
of all things, distressed by the plague, the water,
and scarcity, and the air in all the roads was tainted
from the immense number of dead bodies lying by the
way.
I feel to-day many symptoms similar
to those with which my dearest Mary’s illness
commenced pains in the head and heaviness,
pains in the back, and shooting pains through the
glands and the arms. At another time I should
think only of them as the result of a common cold;
but now I know not how to discriminate, the beginnings
are so similar. Should these be my last lines
in this journal, I desire to ascribe all praise to
the sovereign grace and unspeakable love of my heavenly
Father, who, from before the foundation of the world,
set his eye of redeeming love on me in the person
of his dear and well-beloved Son. I bless God
for all the way he has led me; and vile and wretched
sinner as I feel I am, unworthily as I have in all
my life served him, yet I feel he has translated the
affections of my inmost soul from earth to heaven,
from the creature to himself. As to the dear,
dear helpless children, I have committed them to his
love, with the full assurance that if he transplants
me from hence to himself, to join the partner of my
earthly history, he will provide them much, yea, very
much better than I, or ten thousand fathers could do.
To his love and promises, then, in Christ Jesus, I
leave them; and strange and wonderful as his dealings
appear, he has made my soul to acquiesce in them.
To all the family of the redeemed of the Lord, especially
those I know, I entreat you let your conversation be
as it becometh the gospel of Christ; always abound
in his most holy work, for you know your labour is
not in vain in the Lord. Be as those who wait
for their Lord with your lamp trimmed, for shortly
he who shall come will come, and will not tarry.
My soul embraces those I especially knew with all
its powers, and desires for them that Christ may exceedingly
be glorified in them, and by them, amen, and amen.
May 17. To-day the
fever has almost entirely left me, so that I feel
a very little, except weakness, but never can I sufficiently
praise God for the experience of yesterday. I
certainly never expected again to have written in
this journal, and few circumstances could have apparently
presented themselves more trying to the heart, to have
the prospect of soon leaving in a city like Bagdad,
at this time, three helpless children, and the impossibility
of making those provisions for them, which at another
time might have been comparatively easy, seemed altogether
more than the heart could support; yet so abundantly
did the Lord allow his love to pass before me, so
fully did he assure me of his loving care, that I felt
no doubt for them and, for myself, the
prospect of soon joining him was specially exhilarating.
He allowed me to see my free and full forgiveness
and acceptance, and I never felt more the preciousness
of such a salvation as the Gospel of Jesus provides
for the sinner, than when I was as I thought, just
entering eternity, to plead it as the ground of my
hope before God. There seemed such simplicity
in having only to believe you were redeemed by his
love, and should be eternally preserved by the same,
instead of having to do with weighing the sum of your
beggarly services, all of which one hates now, and
oh, how shall we hate them when we see him face to
face. May our dear Lord make the promise he made
to his disciples, good to my poor bereaved heart,
and come himself and fill it with his fulness, that
having him I may indeed feel I have all things.
May 18. Our poor
servant died last night, notwithstanding our hopes
of her recovery, and has left one little orphan boy
of seven years old with us. Oh that I could think
of her transition from hence to eternity, and contemplate
her, as the Lord to my unspeakable comfort allows
me to contemplate my dear, dear wife, dwelling in the
light of her Lord’s countenance, where there
is fulness of joy for evermore.
The schoolmaster has just told me,
that out of forty relations, he has now only four the
rest have all been swept away. The accounts we
have of the misery, in which many of these died who
endeavoured to fly, is truly heart-rending; with the
water nearly half a yard high in their tents, without
victuals or the means of seeking or buying any, they
suffered every privation and misery that can be imagined,
and one poor family which has returned, described
the intense desire they had to return and die quietly
in their houses. But return they could not, for
the waters had so risen that there was no road, and
no boats could be obtained, but at an immense price,
which a few only could pay, and very few obtain even
at any price.
Oh! how many alleviations to the trials
of parting with those we loved, the Lord allowed us
in permitting us to see them surrounded by every comfort
they could want, and with every attendance that could
alleviate a moment’s uneasiness.
From the Taylors at Bussorah we have
yet heard no accounts, and are therefore most anxious
to know how the Lord has been moving among them.
I have just heard that orders have come from Stamboul,
to the Pashas marching against this Pasha, to desire
them to return, and that another messenger is on the
way from Stamboul to bring his annual dress of investiture.
Should it be really thus, our dear friends may soon
be here from Aleppo; it would indeed be a great comfort;
but the Lord regards, in this dispensation, our real
advantage more than our sensible comfort, we therefore
desire to leave all to his Holy, gracious ordering,
who, though he orders all things after the counsel
of his own free will, has no will towards us, but
that we should be filled with the fulness of Christ,
and be conformed to his image.
May 19. The water
to-day has again fallen considerably in price, and
as far as we can judge, God has mercifully nearly extinguished
this desolating plague. I now feel quite satisfied
the attack I had the other day was an attack of the
plague, though very slight. The schoolmaster,
yesterday, was attacked in the same way with a pain
in his back and head, and a pain in his glands, one
of which is decidedly enlarged, but still it is very
slight, and I trust to-morrow, with the Lord’s
blessing, to see him, with the exception of weakness,
well again. We are, thank God, all well; the
only thing I now suffer from is weakness and pain
in the glands and under the arm, but there is no enlargement,
and I trust in a day or two it will go entirely away.
I heard, to-day, the Pasha had been ill of the plague
this week; it is now reported he is dead; but we know
nothing certain. One of his sons is also dead.
This has been a heavy day with my
poor heart, so slow a scholar am I under my dear Master’s
teaching. Yet I feel he will fill me with his
own most blessed presence, and then I shall be able
to bear easily all other bereavements. How strange
it is that feeling should rule with so much more power
than principle, over the happiness of the soul, even
when the spirit still imparts strength to direct the
conduct aright. The feelings seize on the slightest
recollection; and oh, what fuel have they when every
thing in the minutest daily occurrences, every thing
in the events passing around us, at once come directly
on the heart and press upon it; and when there is
not a soul near, not only not to supply all that is
lost, but not even a portion of it, and yet notwithstanding
all this, that now weighs on me, I feel the Lord himself
will be yet more to me than all I have lost. I
feel I have been skimming too much on the surface
of Christianity instead of being clothed with Christ.
Oh! what a child am I in the life of faith, but I
feel the Lord has my poor soul in his training, and
though the discipline may seem severe, it is only
the severity of uncompromising love.
May 20. This has
been a day of mercies at the hand of the Most High.
For a day or two past, I had observed a little dust
falling through a creak in the wall, and although
on any other occasion, it would have excited no anxiety;
yet, knowing the cellars were full of water, I thought
it better this morning early to take out all our things
from this room; it was our own, mine and dear Mary’s,
and therefore contained all we had of clothing, &c.;
the dear little boys and the servant were helping
me, and we had not finished taking out the last things
above ten minutes, when the whole arch on which the
room was built gave way our little stock
of things and ourselves being all safe. Oh! my
soul, bless the Lord who watcheth over the ways of
his children.
Oh! how easy it is to kiss our dear
and loving Father’s hand when he 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 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.
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.
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.
June 11. This day
has made manifest that more judgments are coming upon
the city, and instead of a Firman in favour
Daoud Pasha, bringing peace, we can hear the sound
of the cannon of the new Pasha. He will little
regard the Firman that has come from the Sultan,
if it has really come, and which being here universally
believed to have been procured through the instrumentality
of our Ambassador, places the English in no very acceptable
position; but the Lord is our tower, yea, our high
tower, and into him we run. The enemy is
now about six miles off, and the whole city is in
a state of commotion that cannot be described, every
one armed with swords, pistols, and guns, preparing
for the expected contest. O Lord, we commend ourselves
to thy holy keeping, for thou neither slumberest nor
sleepest. When all the difficulties of these
countries follow upon one another as rapidly as they
have of late done here, it seems very difficult to
see how the word of life is to go forth as a testimony.
Yet it will; for the Lord hath said it; therefore
let not our hearts fail, or our hands hang down, for
the Lord of all circumstances, who governs the most
disastrous as well as the most prosperous, is our own
Lord, the only begotten of the Father, full of grace
and truth. All the bazaars are closed, and we
are taking in water again at an advanced price.
Oh! Lord, when will thy holy and blessed kingdom
of peace come, when the nations shall learn war no
more, but love and light shall flourish in the Lord!
Wherever the blasting influence of Mohammedanism extends,
how iron bound all appears against the truth:
yet even this the Lord will soften by his love, or
break by his power. May my soul be daily more
and more sensible of their misery and pride. Poor
Mr. Goodell says, in a letter, that after all the
labours the American missionaries have bestowed in
Syria, they scarcely know an individual to whom their
message has been peace, saving in the case of two or
three Armenians of whom they hoped well. No one
can imagine the disheartening feelings that often
try the missionary’s heart in the countries
where Mohammedanism is professed and dominant, and
where your mouth is sealed. Among heathens, and
especially in India, you can publish your testimony,
and this is a great comfort to the heart that knows
what a testimony it is, and what promises are connected
with its publication.
Shortly after we ascended to the roof
for our evening walk, we heard the cannon and small
arms begin to fire, which informed us that the contest
was begun within the city. About eight o’clock
we heard multitudes crying out and shouting before
the seroy, or palace, and the account was soon brought
us that the inhabitants had broken in and seized the
Pasha. After this all became quiet, except the
firing of guns from the tops of the houses, to frighten
off the thieves, and the cry of the watchmen, whom
all, who can afford it in these trying occasions,
keep to protect them. The Lord has hitherto extended
his sheltering wing over us, though without sword,
pistol, gun, or powder in the house; and the only
men besides myself, are Kitto, who is deaf, and the
schoolmaster’s father, who is blind: but
the Lord is our hope and our exceeding great reward.
June 12. Lord’s day. The
wretched Pasha has just passed our house under a guard
to the residence of Saleh Beg, almost the only male
relation he suffered to live of the family he supplanted.
The Lord is now visiting on him his cruelty and blood;
so that what with the plague and now the sword, there
will hardly be one of the apostate Georgians left.
The day dawned quietly; but our house
has just been attacked by a band of lawless depredators,
asking for powder and offensive weapons. I told
them I had none; but seeing a carpenter whom I knew,
I told him I would let him and three others in, if
they would promise me that no more should come in,
which they did. So they entered, and were very
civil, though they searched the house: I gave
them some money, and they went away, promising that
nothing more should be done to my house; but my only
confidence is in the Lord. They wanted to go from
the roof of my house to that of a rich neighbour’s
of mine, but I told them I could not allow that they
should make my house a passage to his, and they were
very civil and did not press it.
A Frenchman who was teaching the Pasha’s
soldiers European discipline, has had his house stripped,
and when they were on the point of killing him he
turned Mohammedan. Before he was professedly a
Roman Catholic, but really an infidel.
Oh, my dear Mary, what a contrast
to your kingdom of peace and love! Lord Jesus
come quickly. For this I can now truly bless God
that she is freed from this season of trouble and
anxiety. The dear children bear it better than
I could have hoped; but the Lord sustains and comforts
us in the hope that as the new Pasha is near, this
state of inquietude may not continue long. The
Pasha of Mosul and an Arab chief have entered the
city, and are now at the palace, so thank God, the
state of anarchy is likely to be immediately put an
end to. The crier has been publishing the determination
of those now acting for the new Pasha, till he enters
to punish all who commit any depredations, and desiring
that the bazaars may be opened, and every one go about
his own work. Should this be the end, we cannot
but bless God that so great a storm has passed over
so lightly. But the fact was, that the plague
had destroyed all the powers of resistance. All
Daoud Pasha’s soldiers were dead all
his public servants were dead and he, though
recovering from the plague, unable to take any active
part for himself. When he passed our house this
morning, he was supported on his horse by six men.
He is not yet killed, and on his expressing a wish
to have his son brought to him, he was sent for immediately.
Should they spare his life, it may augur that even
the Turks are coming to a sense of their barbarism.
It has been a great comfort to me to-day, to think
on Noah’s case, that God did not forget him amidst
a condemned world.
June 14. The people
at the head of affairs have now begun to quarrel among
themselves: some are for killing Daoud Pasha,
some are for saving him, and the opposite parties
are fighting in all directions; so when these troubles
will terminate, or how, we have little knowledge.
Our only resting place is in him who is the Shepherd
of the fold of Israel.
The Pasha of Mosul has been made prisoner,
and part of the palace has been burnt and plundered:
they have killed or put to flight the soldiers of
the Pasha of Mosul, who came here as the agent of Ali
Pasha, of Aleppo, the successor to Daoud Pasha, said
to have been appointed by the Porte. The crier
has again proclaimed Daoud as Pasha, and Saleh Beg
his kaimacam or representative, till he recovers.
Some say the Pasha of Aleppo is dead of the plague;
some, that he is not coming, and that this entrance
of the Pasha of Mosul and a famous Arab chief, was
only a plot of theirs to get Bagdad into their own
hands. What is true, what is false, it is now
utterly impossible to tell, or what the result will
be; but should Ali Pasha, if he is alive, be now sufficiently
powerful to advance and attempt to dispossess this
man, we may expect dreadful scenes. Last night
the contest ended in plundering the poor Jews.
Amidst this turmoil and interminable
contention, a missionary with a family has much to
try his faith, particularly in the early years of
his missionary course, when he has no power in the
language to take advantage of those opportunities
which accidentally present themselves; for I am daily
more and more convinced of the difficulty of speaking
so as to be felt; at least in the first Eastern language
one learns. The association of ideas, the images
of illustration, are almost entirely different in
many cases. The organs of pronunciation require
a perfect new modelling, and perhaps not the least
difficulty is to prevent one’s heart from sinking
at the little apparent progress made in understanding,
and being understood, out of the common routine of
daily life: the feeling will often arise, Surely
I never shall learn. The difficulty is not, however,
merely in words; you have to converse in the East
generally with persons who have either no ideas on
subjects of the deepest interest, or have attached
some entirely different meaning to the terms you use
to express those ideas; and which of the two occasions
the most trouble, it is difficult to say. Notwithstanding,
however, all difficulties, and all discouragements,
and we seem now in the very centre of all, my soul
was never more assured of the value of missionary
labours among any people, it matters not whom, than
now. There is, I am sure, what our blessed Lord
declares, a testimony, in whatever measure we
can proclaim his truth, or manifest his spirit, that
is felt by those even who will not embrace it savingly.
In reading Mrs. Judson’s journal of the trials
of the Burman mission, how deeply I now enter into
them how truly I can sympathize with them.
It is wonderful how the Lord does sustain the heart
when the time of trial comes. When I heard the
struggle at the palace, last night, then saw it on
fire, and heard the balls whizzing over our heads,
and shortly after the screams of the poor Jews, whom
they were plundering, a little way from the end of
our street, my heart felt a repose in God that I cannot
describe, and a peace that nothing but confidence
in his loving care could give me, I feel assured.
At times I feel so utterly useless, so devoid of every
aptitude for the work in which I am engaged, that I
wonder the Lord called me to it, yet the Lord may
allow me to fill a place, though it be the lowest
in missionary service. My greatest earthly treasure
is the love of those who love the Lord, and in this
I do feel rich, unworthy as I am of it. My heart
longs for Christian communion; but such is the state
of things here, that I feel almost as far from the
prospect as when the first letter arrived from England,
telling me so many were purposing to come. But
what an inducement it is to patience to know, that
all our trials and disappointments are the orderings
of him who loved us, and gave himself for us.
The day is passing quietly over, thank
God; and they are removing the barricades from the
streets.
June 15. The account
has just reached us, that the Pasha of Mosul was put
to death last night. The reason assigned is, that
he attacked Bagdad without any warrant, and had detained
at Mosul the Tartars who were bringing the firman
for Daoud Pasha. Oh! what a country, and what
a government! Should the reinstatement of Daoud
Pasha not be a truth, these circumstances will tend
greatly to embitter the contest, and make the occupying
of the city by the new Pasha a much more destructive
and trying scene, than if these events had not occurred;
but I feel that the Lord is disciplining, by these
trials, the poor weak faith of his servant to lay
hold on his strength, and not to rest on his own.
I now give up all hope of seeing the dear brethren
from Aleppo till the autumn. These scenes of
anxiety and trouble strongly urge the heart forward
to desire the day of the Lord to come, so wretched,
so comfortless does all appear. I have quite given
up the little we have to plunder, so that I feel quite
at ease on that point, should it be the Lord’s
will to allow these scenes to continue, and us thus
to be served. For the moment a season of lawlessness
commences, you see the Mohammedan feeling relative
to Christians. Now, for instance, that meat is
scarce, if they see a butcher disposed to give a Christian
some before them, they instantly put themselves into
an attitude of hostility, and say, “What! will
you give it to these infidels before us?” The
other day, during the time of the disturbances in
the city, the son of one of the most respectable Armenians
here, went out, armed with pistol, sword, and gun to
the coffee-house. They immediately began with
saying, “What does this infidel with arms?
Will he kill Moslems?” and they stripped him
of all. The governing powers are beginning to
recognize and feel the strength of those people called
Christians; but this is never the thought of an Arab
populace, who care for none of these things, and only
think of present plunder.
I have finished reading the account
of the Burmese mission, and sympathize much more fully
with the sufferers, than when I last read it, and
I greatly admire and bless God for their steady and
persevering devotedness to his holy service, amidst
so many trials and so many discouragements. Such
manifestations of the grace of Christ, tend much to
encourage and strengthen the hands and hearts of those
who are in any trials, whether similar or different.
Whoever proves God to be among his dear children,
becomes necessarily a light to the Church, for the
Lord surely will be faithful to his promise and to
his children’s confidence; and the manifestation
of this his faithfulness becomes the light of others.
June 16. (Friday.) To-day
all quiet within the city.
June 17. For some
weeks past hope and fear have alternated for my sweet
little baby; but to-day hope finds not a place for
her foot to rest on. I see the Lord has sent
his message for her also; this comes very, very heavy;
for from some days previous to dear Mary’s death
till now, I have been her constant nurse, and solicitude
about her has in some measure served to distract my
attention from the undivided dwelling on my heavier
loss, till she has become so accustomed to my nursing,
that as soon as ever she sees me, she stretches out
her little supplicating hands for me to take her.
All this has served to beguile my heart, and keep
it in some degree occupied. But when the Lord
takes from me this sweet little flower, I shall indeed
be desolate. Why the Lord thus strips me, I do
not now see; yet he does not allow me to doubt his
love, amidst all my sorrows, and I know that light
is sown for me, though it does not yet spring up.
Oh! may my soul never cease to feel assured of my
heavenly Father’s unchangeable love; for with
a doubt on this head now, what would my circumstances
be? We know that tribulation worketh patience,
and patience experience, and experience hope, and
hope maketh not ashamed. Oh! may such a result
spring from all my suffering!
June 26. For some
days I have had nothing to write about from without.
All has been, on the whole, quiet, and we now wait
for communications from Constantinople to see how
things are likely to end. It appears now that
Daoud Pasha has retired in favour of Saleh Beg, whether
willingly or from necessity, is not known. The
treasury and every thing else is given up into his
hand; and he knows as well how to spend it as his
predecessor did to collect it; he is therefore popular,
but not esteemed by those of more understanding as
a man of abilities. He, however, goes to the
old Pasha Daoud every day for instructions.
How all these events will operate
upon our future labours, I cannot at all conceive;
whether they will close up the little opening we had,
or make a wider one, the Lord, on whom we wait, alone
knows. I have been reading much lately of missionary
labours, and am surprised to find how uniformly trials,
and difficulties, and threatened destruction have
hung over them for years, yet many of them the Lord
has since singally blessed. We are, however,
in the Lord’s hands.
I have just read through a second
time Mr. Wolff’s journal, and Mr. Jowett’s
second volume, and I confess that if my little experience
entitles me to give my opinion, I think Mr. Jowett’s
judgment much the soundest as to the nature of the
operations to be carried on in these countries; that
the missionary corps should be as unencumbered as
possible, and ready to remove at a moment’s notice.
I mean those engaged in the simple evangelist’s
office, disconnected from all secular callings; but
should there be a band of enlightened saints, willing
to take the handicraft departments of life, as their
means of support, and unobserved access to the people,
they might remain and carry on their work, when other
and more ostensible teachers were obliged to fly:
and this is doubtless the way the primitive churches
were nourished, when their professed teachers fled.
As to those colleges and large establishments
contemplated by Mr. Wolff, even could they be established
on the comprehensive principle proposed by his zealous
and ardent mind, I fear it would lead much more to
the diffusion of universal scepticism than the eternal
excellency of the truth of God; if, I say, it could
be attained, but for many reasons I feel it cannot
be attained. The liberality of the Christian
public is not up to such undertakings, even though
they saw the utility to be clear. One cannot
help being struck with Mr. Wolff’s judging of
others from himself; because he felt he was willing
to make sacrifices, he promised for others as freely
as for himself: but what has been the result
even of the two schools he did establish, and promise
to support from the funds of his patron and others?
The burthen has rested on those who were persuaded
through him of the willingness of others to co-operate.
One is given up, and the other has dwindled down to
about nineteen pupils, and these are educated on the
native plan, so that, as far as divine light is concerned,
it is in statu quo. The two colleges that
were to be established at Aleppo and Tabreez, and
towards which a beginning was made in promises and
plans nothing now is heard of them; nor
do I think it is to be regretted. The object
was too mixed for much of spiritual prosperity.
The difficulty is not in getting houses and firmans:
it is when you begin to wish to sit down and attack
the strong holds of the enemy. The same with
the letters of patriarchs and bishops: when the
thing is new and they see not its bearings on their
system, they are all friendliness as among
the heads of the Armenians, the Catholics, and other
Bishops. But when they have seen the life-giving
power of the divine word in the souls of two or three
of their followers, under the instruction of such
clear brethren as at Shushee, or the American brethren,
all is changed, and when dear Zaremba was at Ech-Miazin
the other day, and endeavoured to get the consent
of the Armenian patriarch to the translation of the
Scriptures, by Dittrich, his reception was every thing
but kind; and they have actually dragged away one
of their deacons from the dear brethren at Shushee,
to try him at Ech-Miazin for heresy. I have also
heard that the bishop of Ispahan, who superintends
all these countries, even as far as India, has prohibited
the reception of any tracts by his people, and would
not let them have a school till the Roman Catholics
appeared there and established one, taking away some
of his flock, when he granted it. In fact, wherever
the hierarchical spirit exists, there a spirit of
domination and pride there a spirit of Antichrist
exists whether in the Brahmin, the Mufti,
or the Patriarch, there is a body of men who will
not go in themselves, nor let others go in; it must
be so, as Mr. Jowett justly observes, wherever the
distinction between laity and clergy is kept up in
opposition to the right and duty of each man to judge
for himself. Mr. Jowett’s words are, I think,
“The principal religious characteristic of Syria
and the Holy Land, (and he might have added, of all
the ancient churches, and too many of the modern,)
that which is common to all its professors and sects,
is that system of distinction between priesthood
and laity, felt even when not avowed; according
to which, it seems to be the interest of a few professed
teachers to hold the rest of their fellow-creatures
in darkness.” Those men, therefore, who,
in a hasty visit, welcome you, and if you are well
introduced, flatter you, no sooner see or feel your
real design, than they become your enemies, and the
missionary who should begin with any other expectation
from present prospects, must be disappointed.
For instance, had we been where there was a powerful
clergy, we should have met with the greatest opposition
in our school, because of our casting out of it the
book which they so highly prize, called the Shammakirke.
Yet no Christian teacher could conscientiously allow
it it was full of prayers to the Virgin,
the Cross, &c. &c.; we therefore here succeeded, under
God’s blessing, because the laity were strong
and the priesthood weak, without any serious struggle;
but their progress has been very different at Shushee.
The morals of the monks at Ech-Miazin
are such that no parent in the country thinks himself
justified in sending his child there to be educated.
From such men, what can you expect? With them
what can you do? I have for a long time been
persuaded that the path for a child of God to pursue,
is to follow his Lord, and not to ask the Sanhedrim’s
leave to preach the truth; and never to take any notice
of them till they take notice of us. Dark as
the cloud seems to be now around these lands, and
difficult as it seems even to live in them, much more
to labour in them; yet I do not at all think, to one
having patiently attained a thorough knowledge of
the colloquial Arabic, and the other colloquial languages
in use, that the door is barred to a travelling unsettled
missionary, or even to one resident many months in
a place: neither do I think he should be discouraged
from attempting schools, for although they may not
stand above a year or two, you may by the Lord’s
blessing be the instrument of stirring up their minds
to think and examine for themselves, and without violence
lead them to question the truth of some of their dogmas;
and when you have once dislodged the principle of
implicit faith, you have at last opened the door for
truth. I think it is much to be regretted that
Mr. Wolff’s wishes about Bussorah and Bushire
did not succeed. In the one there is a permanent
British Resident, and in the other a permanent British
influence, that would have much favoured a school,
and even perhaps finally more extensive operations;
and I do still hope he may yet find some of his friends,
who are as able as willing to take the necessary charge
of these places, for they are now more disheartened
than when nothing had been promised them. At Tabreez
also, I think a most interesting school might be established;
but let it be as comprehensive as it can with a safe
conscience be, without pretending to a principle that
includes all. If, upon such terms Mohammedans
come, your conscience is not entangled, and you can
go on steadily with your work. If they go, they
go; if they stay, they stay; but take care how you
take any of the gentiles by solicitation; it will tie
your hands, and hamper all your proceedings. It
looks promising to see the names of Princes and great
men connected with our work; but I am persuaded that
it is utterly spiritual weakness. Better do ever
so little work with the whole soul, than ever so much,
trimming between the world and the Church, and all
very comprehensive plans must involve this: besides,
from the outset, the feeling of duplicity that always
must result from inducing men to contribute to support
institutions under certain partial representations,
which they would not embrace if you stated your real
design, and the full truth.
Besides these difficulties of money
and principle, the unsettled state of these countries
is such that learned orientalists would never come,
even if they were in abundance; but the fact is, that
even Europe is very scantily supplied with men who
could direct such an institution, and if they could
be found, unless the love of Christ were the spring
of their actions were they mere literary
orientalists, their influence as it regards the kingdom
of Christ would be worse than nugatory. For though
you might hope to correct this evil by having others
connected with the institution who might have the more
immediate spiritual direction of the students, this
would soon lead to strifes and divisions between the
heads of the institution. That the spread of
literature in the East will sap and finally overthrow
Mohammedanism, I have little doubt; but this
is the work of the men of the world, and the result,
as it regards Christianity, very doubtful; but the
missionary’s object is one and indivisible:
if Christ be not glorified, he gains nothing; but
if he be but exalted, he has his rich reward.
June 28. Thursday. There
seems just sufficient strength in this wretched country
to destroy itself: it has long lost the power
of attacking its enemies with success, it has also
lost the power of resistance against their attacks,
neither can it longer stand without external support:
there seems just sufficient power left to commit suicide.
In this pashalic, though the Sultan cannot without
extreme difficulty remove the Pasha, yet he effectually
destroys its prosperity; he ruins the merchant,
he encourages every species of robbery, so that frequently,
as at present, not a shop dare be opened but for the
simplest necessaries. Nor does it operate against
the prosperity of this city only, but all the trade
of which this was a sort of intermediate place of
transit between India, Mosul, Merdin, Damascus, and
Aleppo, as well as on the other side from Europe, is
so far interrupted, for not a merchant will now venture
his goods across the desert. All attachment too
seems entirely destroyed between the head and the
members of the empire. was with
me to-day, who, speaking on the state of the Pashalic
said, If the Sultan will let us have Daoud Pasha well,
we neither want the Sultan nor a stranger; but we
would rather put ourselves under the English, and let
them govern as they do in Hindoostan. This feeling
is exceedingly general, and in looking forward to
the downfall of the empire, they seem quite to consider
this country as the portion which will fall to England,
and speak of it openly as a thing they desire.
This arises from their hearing so much of our government
in India.
June 29. My dear
little baby has had an attack of purulent ophthalmia,
which gives me much anxiety; for three or four days
she had been recovering a little, when this trying
attack seized her dear little eyes; she was quite
unable to open either of them.
My mind has been much exercised these
two days by reflections on the ease with which the
soul is taken off from living in Christ. In prosperity,
we are occupied with plans; in adversity, with our
sorrows; in missionary labour, in preparation for what
we intend to do for the Lord, and even in our very
times of danger we are constantly exposed to the temptation
of looking for relief to circumstances, rather than
to the Lord of circumstances to the love
of the Lord of life. May the Lord of his great
goodness grant that my soul may reap a full harvest
from these reflections, and determine not only in words
to know nothing but Jesus Christ and him crucified,
as the subject of preaching, but as the object on
which my soul constantly dwells, so that growing up
into his fulness in understanding and love, may be
the business of my future life, and much, yea, very
much more, the simple purpose of my heart than it
has ever yet been. Nothing can be to me clearer
than that the work of the Lord will really prosper
in the hands of his servants, in proportion as these
servants prosper in their nearness to him. May
his love, his life, his words, his wishes be the abiding
incentives in my soul to simply living to him and for
him, and for his creatures through him. How easy
it is for one person to make one class of sacrifices,
and another, another; but how hard to slay the darling
idol, and to tear away the cherished indulgence: how
easy it is to exercise those graces which accord with
our natural constitutions, how difficult those which
mortify and run counter to them.
May it be the labour and delight of
my future life to see each cherished idol one by one
fall prostrate, slain before my Lord’s love.
July 1. There has
just been a transaction passing which illustrates,
in a striking manner, the very loose connections which
bind the parts of this empire together. I have
already mentioned the death of the Pashas of Mosul
and Merdin. Ali Pasha, in support of whom they
had professedly marched against Bagdad, sent his treasurer
to Saleh Beg, to commend him for what he had done
in thus preserving the city by killing these two Pashas,
requiring at the same time for himself, the payment
of his expenses, as well as a sum of money for the
Sultan, and promising that if this were given him he
would return to Aleppo. Thus, after nearly two
years confusion, all parties will be worse off than
they were before. My reason for thinking it probable
this will be the case is, that the Khaznadar or treasurer
of Daoud Pasha, has accompanied the Khaznadar of Ali
Pasha to his camp, who evidently doubts the result
of his attempt. Indeed, it seems very doubtful
if in any case he can succeed; for if he obtains the
Pashalic, I think it very probable from the history
of former Pashas, who, as strangers to the Pashalic,
have been forced into it, that he will not be allowed
to retain it. The fact is, that almost all his
opposing force consists of Arabs, who become in a moment
the servants of the highest bidder. It was only
two days ago the Pasha detached one tribe from them;
and I have little doubt that if he does not spare
money he may soon break up all the confederacy.
Yesterday the soldiers of the late Pasha of Mosul
came to the gates of the town, but were driven back
into their encampment with loss; and one hundred of
their mercenary troops (Arnaoots) came over to this
Pasha, changing a pay of forty-eight piasters a month
to one hundred, or about a pound sterling a month.
Every kind of provision is becoming
extremely dear, from double to ten times its usual
price; and I confess I see no present prospect of
improvement, for the inundation swept away the harvest,
and the plague has extended so far, that there have
been no hands to cut down even that grain which remained,
and the things which they might have sown, and which
might in some measure have supplied the place of grain
they were prevented from sowing by the Arabs, who
were at enmity with the Pasha, and therefore laid
waste the country. In contemplating the perplexity
and uncertainty of events, according to all human
calculation, that surrounds us, the knowledge that
our own Lord is ordering all things not only for his
own glory but also for ours, comes home continually
to my soul with inexpressible comfort; and notwithstanding
the anxious thoughts that sometimes arise, I am generally
enabled at last to roll my burdens on his holy head,
and this I know will sustain them.
The dead weight about a missionary’s
neck in the first years of his labour is the language.
So difficult is it to hear so as to understand, or
to speak so as to be understood; for not only is it
necessary to use right words, but with right accents,
or you may often convey the very reverse of what you
mean. Certainly, if I were quite alone, the plan
I should pursue, would be to go into some family or
place where the language I wish to learn alone is spoken,
as brother King did in Syria to learn Arabic: this
being attained, a missionary is certainly not without
the most interesting opportunities of usefulness.
July 2. Saturday. Dear
baby has suffered so much from her eyes to-day, that
it tried my heart to the very bottom. And in addition
to all this, the state of things here is assuming
an alarming aspect. Without the city walls, the
numbers of those who wish to plunder the city are
increasing; and within, the same tendency is manifested
among those who are intended for its protection, so
that my heart has been at times very much pressed
down; yet the Lord has sustained me. In the evening,
as I was looking out, I saw the man come into the court
yard, who brings and collects letters for Aleppo,
and in his hand a letter for me. With what eagerness
did I seize it, and anticipate its contents.
Yet though good tidings, because tidings of the Lord’s
blessing them, and being in the midst of them, it contained
tidings peculiarly heavy for me to receive at this
moment, as it not only led me to anticipate no present
prospect of seeing my dear brethren from Aleppo, but
that it seemed very doubtful if it would be their path
to come at all; at least if they did, it would be
purely to join me, and this surely would not be the
path of duty. I, however, receive this last trying
providence at my loving Father’s hands, adoring
his love whilst I know not the modes of his going
forth. It has not weighed me down so much as
I thought it would; and the Lord allows me to feel
assured he will yet do something for me. They
seem to wish me to join them, but I do not yet see
my way clear to leave this place to which the Lord
has brought me. I feel daily more and more that
my place in the church is very low, and it matters
very little where I am for any good that is in me:
yet by remaining, I keep the way open for those who
are more able, and whose establishment is more important.
I know my Lord will not cut me off from personal improvement
by all his darkly gracious dealing, and perhaps I
am now learning another part of that hard lesson,
neither to glory in or trust in man. But still
I bless God he is giving my dear brethren a door of
utterance and prospects of usefulness where they are,
and may my joy ever be in proportion to the glory
that is brought to his blessed name, and the prosperity
of his kingdom. Until the Lord, therefore, raises
his fiery cloudy pillar, and bids me forth, I shall
pursue my plan of endeavouring to converse in Arabic
till the Lord is pleased to open my mouth by degrees,
or as he please, to publish his whole truth. Should
he send me some dear brother to help and comfort me,
may he give me grace to praise him; if not, to hope
in him and find in himself all I need. To the
dear boys it has been a great disappointment, for it
was the constant theme of their conversation, and
a cheering expectation to see friends from England.
However, our dear Father will order all things well;
and I bless him exceedingly for sending out to Aleppo,
our dear brethren and sisters. The Lord may make
this event, which now seems so awakening and trying,
yet for the furthering of the gospel in these lands:
in fact, I should be almost sorry for all of
the brethren to leave Aleppo.
July 5. Tuesday. I
have had some interesting conversation with three
poor people from Karakoosh, a town about
five hours from Mosul, composed of Roman Catholic
Syrians. Every information I receive from that
quarter, convinces me that Erzeroum, Diarbekr, and
Mosul, would be most interesting head quarters for
a missionary. The man told me that the Nestorians
of the mountains, (like the Scotch) go once a year
to receive the sacrament, whether upon their erroneous
principle, or that from living scattered among the
mountains they cannot make it convenient to meet often,
I know not. The Syrians of the villages near
Mosul speak among themselves Syriac, but in asking
them if they understood the old Syriac, which is read,
they reply, imperfectly; so that I have no doubt,
for any instructive purpose, it is perfectly unintelligible,
what with the mode of reading, and the difference of
language. These are deeply interesting countries
to those who can be happy in bestowing all their strength
in planting under the prospect that others will reap
the fruits. The Lord will water their way with
little streams of comfort, and manifestations of the
prospect of the future; but the preparatory work in
these countries must occupy at least many, many years
of missionary life. I shall never feel a missionary
till I can deliver my message clearly and intelligibly;
till then, I endeavour to drop a word, as it may be
offered, and to instil a principle as an occasion
may occur, or by seeking an occasion. The difficulty
of this first step I daily feel to be increasing I
mean only that my sense of the difficulty is increasing;
but the Lord daily comforts me, amidst the delays and
trials of faith, by the clearest conviction of the
large sphere of usefulness there is when once this
is attained.
All things in the city continue in
the most unsettled state.
Some of the lawless depredators came
again to our house the day before yesterday, and wanted
arrack; but they went away quietly, and they only
talked about cutting off my head; but all this in mere
bravado. The Lord thus graciously takes care
of us. They look on me as a sort of dervish,
because I do not drink arrack, nor use weapons of war,
nor take men to guard my house.
July 9. The camp
of those without the city is moving down to-day towards
us; and we hear a continued firing of cannon.
It is reported they are come within half an hour’s
march of the city. The issue is in the Lord’s
hand. Nothing can exceed the fear and want of
confidence that prevails throughout the city, every
man’s heart failing him for fear of those things
which may be coming on us. Oh! what a resting
place is the Lord’s experienced love, and the
assurance that all shall work together for good to
those that love him; yet living thus in the midst
of constant alarm, makes my heart sometimes long for
that sweet, quiet Christian communion which I left
behind in England.
July 10. Sunday. In
conversation to-day on the subject of invoking the
Virgin Mary, with some Armenians and a Jacobite, I
was struck with the readiness with which they all
submit to Scripture; and this seems universal among
all those who are not ecclesiastics by profession,
or Roman Catholics. The curse of obstinate blindness
seems to be left to those who join this apostate church,
for truly it may be said of them, they come not to
the light, because their deeds are evil not
their deeds as members of society, but as professed
members of the mystical body of Christ.
Our Lord’s days are solitary none
to tune Zion’s harps. Oh! how it makes
the soul long for the courts of the Lord, where we
may go up with the crowds to keep holiday; how precious
now would appear some of those seasons of Christian
communion which we enjoyed in dear England and Ireland.
When dear Mary was with me, we had an unceasing source
of happiness in conversing on our common hopes in
our common Lord. Our communion also with our
dear friends was thus rendered vivid, aided as it
was and encouraged by the help of correspondence and
conversation; but now letters have almost ceased to
come, and I have no one to commune with. In addition
to all this we are besieged, and every necessary of
life is nearly three times its usual price, very bad,
and to be got with difficulty. All night we hear
nothing but firing and drums beating, and men shouting all
this, too, at present, without any prospect of termination,
for those who are come against the city, are not strong
enough to enforce the change they design, and those
within have little to fear, so long as they have money
and provisions to give the soldiers, which they say
they have for two years; so those who suffer are
the poor people, who cannot help themselves. The
Pasha of Aleppo is about an hour’s distance;
it does not seem to be his wish to act offensively
against the city, but only to get into his power those
few whom he wishes to displace and behead. Yet
how much have I to bless God for, in that he keeps
the little boys so free from alarm. Blessed Lord!
these are indeed scenes and times that lead the soul
to desire thy peaceful happy reign. Sometimes
the sense of my dear, dear Mary’s peace, safety,
and joys, makes me feel my burthens lighter than though
she had been with me; for to have those you love in
such scenes is trying in proportion to this very love,
which so sweetens times of mere labour or peace.
I am sure the Lord has dealt lovingly, and
will.
July 14. Since the
ninth we have had little occurring but firing of guns
from the citadel, and the noise and confusion at night
occasioned by the soldiers.
A circumstance has occurred to-day
which a little tries me. The Armenian Priests
are both dead; and the Armenian servant of Mrs. T.
has asked if she might receive the communion with us,
the next time we received it. Now, while I feel
in my own soul that she knows nothing of the power
of the divine life, yet how far I have authority from
God’s word to set up this, my private feeling,
in the absence of any thing palpable to fix on as
an objection, I do not see. I feel so utterly
unworthy to place myself in the situation of a judge
in such a case. I feel so exceedingly low in
the divine life I experience so little
of the power of that life which was in Christ, subduing
all things to the obedience of the Father’s will that
I feel she may object more to my being accepted than
I could to her. Yet, notwithstanding all this,
I am conscious there is a difference though
I am only on the lowest step of Jacob’s ladder,
yet I do desire to ascend higher into the unsearchable
riches of Christ, and to descend lower in my own esteem,
so to be able to say without the pollution of affected
humility, I feel myself less than the least of all
saints. The divine life appears to me daily more
and more a deep internal personal work, without which
all external exertions and exercises will come to
nothing; however fair, it will be at best but a fruitless
blossom, that withers as soon as blown. Oh! how
difficult it is not to deceive oneself with the appearance
of Christian graces instead of the substance; how
difficult not to substitute the act for the
spirit; that monster pride, how hard it is
to kill, how chameleon like it changes its colour
and seems to live on air, yea, on very vanity.
July 18. Lord’s Day. The
warlike sounds of the cannon and mortars have abated
within these three days. Oh that the Lord would
quickly terminate this hateful civil strife.
Yet at present there seems no prospect.
How hard I feel it to-day to rise
above the loss of my dear, dear Mary it
seems like a new wound just opened. It is so hard
to feel the great honour and great proof of love the
Lord has manifested towards me, in removing her I
loved from the trials and sorrows of this earth to
the ease and joy of his own Paradise, to join our dear
little Mary, and sing there together his praise who
washed them in his own blood, prepared them as vessels
of honour, and then took them to himself. Sometimes
I think I ought not to have gone out of our house during
the plague, about Major T.’s affairs, but that
I should have left them to their own fate; yet, at
other times, I think, after all the kindness I had
received from him, I ought not to have declined the
dangerous service. Then again, I think that when
I did go, I should have taken more precautions, and
not have joined my dear family immediately, but remained
apart; yet at last my heart comes round to the full
assurance, that my dear and loving Lord would not have
visited undesigned neglect, which sprang mainly from
confidence in his loving care, with such a privation,
had he not designed by it her speedy glory and my
final good: now I shall go to her, but she shall
not return to me.
The dear little boys are very anxious
to leave Bagdad, yet they do not complain, nor appear
on the whole otherwise than happy, which is indeed
a great mercy. My poor dear little nursling, the
object of ceaseless care, seems rather gaining than
losing ground, yet is still so frail, that a blast
of wind seems enough to extinguish the little fire
that burns; but if the Lord will, even this little
fire shall yet burn brighter and brighter, and defy
in his name the rudest blasts.
Sometimes when I think on the complete
stop the Lord has in his infinite wisdom seen fit
to put to my little work here, I am astonished.
Among those who are dead, is one who was translating
the New Testament into the vulgar Armenian of this
place, and had gone as far as Luke; and another gentleman,
who was educated in Bombay, who was writing for me
an English and Armenian Dictionary, in which he had
proceeded about half way (10,000 words). In this
dictionary there were not only the ancient and modern
parallel words, but an explanation in vulgar Armenian,
with examples. The probability of my meeting with
one similarly qualified, able and willing again, is
very small indeed; but with this, as with all the
rest, it is the Lord, let him do what seemeth to him
good. I wait to see his future pleasure manifested,
and though I am now under a cloud of sorrow and separation
from his service, may he sanctify it, and advance
his glory by whomsoever he pleases, only giving me
a heart to rejoice in their labours, and to love my
Lord fervently, and then I hope I shall not complain.
I never felt fit for much, and I daily now feel fit
for less than I once thought I was, yet the Lord will
not deny me a place in the body, and oh, may he give
me a heart willing to take the lowest that
of washing the disciples’ feet. Oh, for
the spirit of our dear humble Lord in that wonderful
transaction so calculated to stain human pride with
the name of madness, but especially the pride of those
who call themselves his.
The weather is now getting intensely
hot, and our cellars, which were our retreating places
last year, are not habitable, the water being in them
at least three feet high, and this, with the overflowing
of the river, brought such swarms of mosquitos, that
for several weeks it was almost impossible to sleep,
and although now they are far less numerous, they
are still very troublesome, so that if not on your
guard every moment, you get stung by them.
July 20. The weather
is intensely hot, and we now begin seriously to miss
the Serdaubs; but I feel it most for dear little
baby, to whom the heat is very, very trying.
I also feel it very difficult to do any thing that
requires the least exertion, and for the next six
weeks we have no hope, of any mitigation, but rather
an increase. The prospect too of affairs around
us, leaves no resting place but in the love and favour
of our Lord. The city is full of prophecies of
the sorrows and desolations that are to come on this
land; from the Pasha downward, this people seem devoted
to astrology, believing lies, while they refuse to
hear the truth; yet all their visions are of sorrow,
lamentation, and woe.
I feel sometimes very much tried with
respect to my future pursuit of missionary labours;
for I have not only lost the encouragement and comfort
of a sweet society that made every place a home; but
all these domestic cares, which she so willingly and
so entirely bore, have fallen on me, and I hardly
seem, at least during the weakness of my dear little
baby, to have time for any thing but to attend to them.
Had I been joined by our dear brothers and sisters
from Aleppo, it would have been comparatively light;
but now, I can take no step, and before I may be able,
the Lord may graciously afford me new light; for this
I will therefore, with his grace and help, patiently
wait.
July 21. In some
conversation I have just had with the old father of
our late schoolmaster, I have been encouraged to feel
that it is almost impossible for a missionary, even
of the humblest pretensions, and in the lowest degree
qualified for his calling, which I can I think with
unaffected truth say, I feel to be my own case to
live among these people, and not to lead them to some
most important principles. This old man is not
only theoretically persuaded of the sufficiency of
the Scriptures, but in his understanding fully convinced.
His acquaintance with Scripture is very extensive and
accurate, and on my servant coming to ask him the explanation
of words in the translation lately set forth by the
Bible Society, it led to a conversation on the importance
of having a translation that every woman and child
can understand. He said, “Yes, and it is
only the pride of the learned and of the bishops which
prevents it: if books once became published in
the dialects of the people, the old language would
cease to be cultivated.” This would doubtless
be an infinite benefit, not only to the Armenians
but to the Syrians and Chaldeans, and every Church
of the East, among the people; a few learned men may,
and most likely will, be found to extract what is valuable
from the old language, if they have only enlightened
judgment enough to leave the mass of rubbish behind.
He mentioned the sermon on the Mount, which we received
from Shushee, and said, that it opened the eyes of
the children yet even this dialect is very
different from the one used here. I think this
aged man understands and feels there is but one Church
in the world; and he quoted that interesting passage,
“Paul may plant and Apollos water, but
God giveth the increase,” to prove it.
July 22. I have
to-day received letters from London and Aleppo, and
I have reason to bless God for all; yet they all come
armed with sorrow; for they are full of her of whom
the Lord has emptied me. In my strength I thought
I could so entirely give her up to him, did he desire
it, since he had made her so strong in himself, and
filled her so full of his blessings; well, and even
now, my soul doth magnify the Lord, though in so many
ways, I still feel my great and trying loss.
Perhaps the Lord has meant to teach me that the 91st
Psalm, as dear brother Cronin writes, relates only
to Christ’s humanity, specially shewing how,
from his cradle to his grave, his father watched over
him, so that at last he laid down his life, but none
took it from him; and he, in this great act, has made
it over spiritually to us: he has left the natural
plague because of sin, but destroyed the spiritual
because of righteousness, even that righteousness which
is by his own most precious blood.
The Pasha of Aleppo, hearing of dear
Edward Cronin, as an English physician, wishing to
come to Bagdad, wished to engage him to come with
him as his physician, and offered him 1500 piasters
a month; but, anxious as they were to come, the circumstances
of their party did not, on mature deliberation, allow
them to separate, and Ali Pasha was unwilling to undertake
the responsibility of the females with his camp.
And, oh, how my soul blesses the Lord, now I think
on it, that these obstacles were so graciously interposed;
disease, delay, and trouble would have accompanied
them, and, till now, they would have been detained
in the desert, with little prospect of speedy admission
into the city, which is firing against the camp, and
the camp firing against the city, and they would have
been exposed to the full power of a sun, which no
one can tell how to estimate, but by actual exposure
to it.
I have also received a letter from
Bussorah, stating that on the drying up of the inundations
there, a fever has been spreading, and carrying off
numbers. Major T.’s family had most of them
been ill, but they were recovering. Mr. Bathie
was very weak, and his wife dead. Dr. Beagry,
the new surgeon of this station, also died, and immense
numbers of those who had fled from the plague.
Bussorah is still besieged, but expected soon to fall
into the hands of the Motezellim.
A letter has also reached me to-day
by the same conveyance, from the Bible Society, dated
27th July last year, mentioning the sending of three
cases of Arabic and Persian Scriptures to my dear brother
Pfander. When I consider how God, in his infinite
and unsearchable providence, has seen it fit to bring
to nought all our plans by the disorganization of
this at all times lawless land, I cannot but feel
it a strong call to form very few plans for the future,
and just to work by the day. Our hope was, when
we came to Bagdad, to have been able to travel pretty
extensively both in the mountains of Kourdistan and
in Persia; but the state of the country, and other
considerations, brought all these plans to nothing,
so my dear friend and kind brother left me for Shushee,
having been able to obtain much of the information
he desired, without the journey. And I, instead
of having a large present field of useful employment,
and one prospectively increasing, am now without employment
or prospect, and if it were not that I feel getting
on a little in the colloquial language of the country,
I should be almost without hope of remaining with advantage
here; but while I feel this, my heart does not sink.
The Lord will yet let his light shine out of the darkness,
and will one day enable me to speak of his promises;
for I daily feel more assured this is the great gift
after which an evangelist is to press it
is the very instrument of his labour. And let
such a missionary feel infinitely happier to hear
it said he speaks very low Arabic, but that every body
understands him; than very pure, but which is unintelligible,
except to the Mollahs. If he speaks not in a
very mixed dialect of Turkish, Persian, and Arabic,
he will not be understood here; there is, however,
still an immense preponderance of Arabic over the others.
The British and Foreign School Society
have also very kindly offered to afford what assistance
their limited means will allow to the furtherance
of Scripture instruction in the East. I shall
endeavour to repay this free kindness by obtaining
the best information I can, before I call on their
aid, for nothing is so discouraging as failures from
precipitate attempts; but so variable is the state
of affairs in these countries, that previous to your
judgment being matured by experience, you may be led,
with the best intentions possible, to undertake, on
a bright day, plans which, before they can be executed,
prove as baseless as a vision, and which will leave
nothing behind but the remembrance of useless expense
and unproductive labour.
July 22. I had with
me to-day, for the last time as a patient, an officer
of the Pasha’s household who had the plague,
and a large wound from a carbuncle, but is now quite
well, and he was talking of the state of the city
and country, and said, “Why do we wish to give
our country into the hands of the Ghiaours, and
not to the Persians? It is because we know they
will neither take our wives or daughters from us,
nor rob us of our money, nor cut off our heads, but
in Islam there is no mercy, no pity.” He
added, “Did you ever see me before I came about
my leg?” I said, “No.” “Yet,”
he said “you had mercy upon me, and cured me
and my daughter (who also had had the plague), and
why? It was from your heart there was
mercy there.” I took this opportunity to
explain the reason, as emanating from the command of
Christ, and not the goodness of my heart, and how truly
could I say it; for the Lord knows how, but for this,
it would be a weariness unto me. Now this impatience
of their own government is not the feeling of a few
discontented men, but I am persuaded it is very general how
can such a kingdom stand?
The government, if government it can
be called, is now sending the soldiers round to every
house to seek for wheat and rice. From some they
take half, from others a third of their little store,
while they have enough for two years in their own
corn cellars, and this too when the necessaries of
life are raised to between four and five times their
usual price; and as for fruit and vegetables, which
constitute in eastern countries, during summer, so
large a portion of the food of all classes, not a
particle is to be seen.
Yesterday and to-day I have had two
Roman Catholic merchants with me, and in quoting Scripture
to them, I found them ready with the context; but
the deadly evil is the separation of religion and its
principles from the government and rule of every day
and every moment. In these countries, where religious
expressions are in every one’s mouth, a missionary
has most valuable employment, as he is able to bring
their minds back to their own expressions, to their
own import and power, as we are desired to do to those
who heartlessly use that beautiful form of dedication
in the communion service of the Church of England,
“We here present unto thee our bodies, souls,
and spirits to be a reasonable, holy, and lively sacrifice
unto thee.” Oh! that all who use these
blessed words felt their power, and lived under it.
Christ’s name would soon be magnified from land
to land.
July 23. The Pasha
has just sent me a fish, with his compliments, and
a request that I will dress it for him: this is
the way he collects the daily provisions for his household;
one person sends him a dish of rice, another a dish
of kebaub, another bread; at other times all this
takes place because of custom, but now from necessity,
for he has no servants scarcely to attend to him.
This is the first time I have been so honoured, and
when the fish was cooked and sent, he desired the
servant to come back, and bring him a few kustawee
dates to eat with it; that, however, you may not think
these any very extravagant luxury, I may add, their
value is somewhat less than a penny a pound.
I note this as a little trait of manners that one would
hardly credit, had not the fact come under his own
observation.
July 24. Lord’s Day. Nothing
among the perverted use of scriptural terms has ever
struck me as more remarkable than the use the Church
now makes of the expression, tempting God. In
God’s word it is uniformly placed among the
sins of unbelief; but the Church now, by universal
consent, places it among the sins of presumption, to
which it is the very antipodes. For instance,
it is one of the great crimes of Israel, their tempting
God in the desert, and limiting the Holy One of Israel.
How? By presumptuous confidence? No but
by saying he hath given bread, but can he give
meat also? This is the only sense I know
in scripture given to tempting God, and that famous
passage from which the erroneous impression has mainly
sprung, in the interview of Satan with our Lord, is
quite kindred. The object of Satan was to get
our Lord’s mind into a condition of doubting
God, by leading him to argue, God has certainly said
so, but will he do it? for our blessed Lord was manifestly
as much tempting God by attempting to walk upon the
water, as to cast himself into the air. What proves
this to be the meaning is our Lord’s quotation,
“It is written, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord
thy God.” Now, where is this written?
Why, in the Old Testament, where it uniformly implies
doubt and distrust; in Exod. xvi. “Therefore
the people did chide with Moses, and said, Give us
water that we may drink. And Moses said unto them,
Why chide ye with me? Wherefore do ye tempt the
Lord? And he called the name of the place Massah
and Meribah, because of the chiding of the children
of Israel; and because they tempted the Lord, saying,
Is the Lord among us, or not?” (verse
7.) And it is in reference to this very passage, that
in Deut. v. it is said “Thou shalt
not tempt the Lord thy God, as ye tempted him in Massah.”
And that we may not have a doubt of the meaning, see
the application of the word tempting, as applied to
our dear and blessed Lord. Is it ever in the sense
of presumptuous confidence? Never; but always
of scepticism and doubt. I do not mean to say
there is not such a sin as presumptuous confidence;
I am sure there is; but that is never called tempting
God. The Israelites were guilty of this sin,
when they went up contrary to the command of God to
fight their enemies, after he had pronounced upon them
the forty years wandering in the wilderness.
I think that rightly understanding
this is a matter of no small moment; for many are
affrighted, and made sad in the ways of the Lord by
the erroneous application of this Scripture; for to
whom does the Church and the world alike now apply
this term? Why, if they hear of a man selling
his property, and becoming poor, like Barnabas, according
to the exhortation of the apostles, and the example
of our Lord, he is considered as tempting God
by all according to the degree in which they wish
to keep all or part of their own property. Again,
if he exposes himself to dangers he might avoid, troubles
he might escape, for what he believes the Lord’s
service, far from receiving any comfort or encouragement,
he is again accused of tempting God. But tempting
God is the deadly sin of an unregenerate mind, and
is never charged on any saint, either in the Old or
New Testament, that I recollect. Certainly, Peter
did not tempt Christ, when he said, “If thou
be he, bid me come unto thee on the water;” for
he did not doubt our Lord’s power; yet there
was a measure of false confidence in himself, as well
as of unbelief; but these are compatible with the
holiest affections as a state. Tempting God belongs
to the family of the tempter, and is a part of no
child of God at any time. After his conversion,
Peter asked a miracle of Christ; but it was in faith,
however weak. When the sceptical Sadducees and
the Pharisees, sought a sign it was to try him, can
he do it? Therefore he said, Why tempt ye me,
ye hypocrites? shewing it was a sin to tempt him as
well as it was a sin to tempt his Father.
I feel now that I had been led to
expect a greater measure of freedom from the troubles
which fall on the people, in the midst of which I
find myself, than the dispensation under which I live
warranted; I do not mean from those which spring directly
out of the Lord’s service, but those natural
and national evils which God sends as judgments on
the ungodly. This error arose from considering
the temporal promises of the 91st Psalm, and other
similar ones in multitudes of places, as the legitimate
objects of faith: whereas I have been now led
to see that they, like the curses, are but typical
representations of that kingdom in which the saints
of the Lord shall rejoice and be safe when his enemies
are swept away as the chaff of the summer threshing
floor. Yet even now, spiritually they are all
ours. Not a hair of our head shall fall to the
ground without our heavenly Father’s permission.
Therefore I feel these thoughts ought neither to trouble
us, nor any more prevent our hand undertaking for
Christ any service, than if a greater exemption was
promised; for we know that whatever is allowed to
befall us, whether natural or spiritual, if Christ
is ours and we are his, they shall only so operate
as to work out for us a far more exceeding and eternal
weight of glory; for these sufferings and trials must
be among all the things that work together for good
to those who love Christ.
July 28. Thursday. Up
to this time the shells and balls of the besiegers
have done us no harm. Two shells have passed just
over us. The one fell on the roof of the house
of an Arab family at a little distance from us, who
were all asleep, and on bursting killed three:
one cannon ball has just passed over us, besides musket
balls innumerable, only two of which, however, I have
felt so near as to endanger us. The one just
passed by me and struck the wall, the other, by bending
my head, passed just over me: yet dangerous as
it seems in such circumstances to sleep on the roof,
the suffocating heat of the rooms is insupportable.
I recollect Mr. Wolff, when here, mentions it as so
hot that he could not write his journal, and indeed
such is the heat, that one unaccustomed to it feels
almost perfectly unfitted for any laborious service
either of mind or body, but particularly the former,
for at least my own experience is, that the body is
much less affected by it than the mind.
Famine is making its destructive way
here among the poor. All the necessaries of life
are raised from four to six times their usual price,
and often are not to be obtained at all, and in addition
there is no labour going on in the city: every
shop is closed, and every one’s concern is to
take care of his life or property. They are constantly
killing persons in the streets, without the least inquiry
being made after the perpetrators; nay, they are publicly
and notoriously known, and no one regards it.
Nothing can exceed the misery and fear that pervades
the city. Yet amidst all these perplexities and
troubles, the Lord reigns, and without him they can
do nothing.
July 31. Lord’s day. A
day that always dawns with sweet peace on my soul:
I seem more especially to bring before my mind those
with whom I think I took sweet counsel, and went to
the house of God in company; and though now deprived
of all that the heart can desire from holy fellowship
on earth, there is something that brings me near those
I love, when I think on their places of assembly, and
their times of prayer. Though my dear Lord has
broken my heart in pieces, and his hand is still resting
on me in the person of my dear little dying baby,
whose love and preference for the little care I know
how to show, renders it one of those exquisitely painful
trials, that the feelings know not how to obey the
Lord in, when the spiritual judgment is brought quite
down. Yet I can never help feeling it to be a
mercy eternally to be thankful for, that the sense
of my Father’s love and Saviour’s sympathy
has never been taken from me amidst all my trials;
nay, I do feel that the Lord is fitting me, by suffering
and separation, for the work to which he has called
me; he leaves me without a home, or the desire of
one, and in that way prepares me for situations, which,
during the life-time of my dearest Mary, would have
been deeply trying. I bless God for the fourteen
years uninterrupted domestic happiness we enjoyed
together, above all, for the seven years spiritual
communion in a common gracious Lord, who led us in
unity of faith and spirit to that work from which
he has taken her so early to himself, and from which,
when the Lord dismisses me, I trust to ascend and
sing the song of Moses and the Lamb with her for ever
and ever. My great want is, more of Christ, more
of his whole character; this I purpose, by the Spirit’s
help, more to meditate on, that all that hateful concern
about self, that pollutes all I do, may be absorbed
in one only thought of how he may be glorified.
What I feel I want, is more holiness of spirit.
I know the Lord is fitting me for his holy presence,
and that he is the chief desire of my soul; yet, oh!
the weakness of faith, the coldness of communion,
the reserves of dedication. Oh, Lord, I believe;
help thou mine unbelief!
A Mohammedan has been with me to-day,
who is much alarmed at the state of the city, and
wants to fly, but sees not now any opening. He
told me, it was not this or that Pasha he cared about;
but his property, his life, and the females of his
family. Oh, what a relief to know, that my dear
Mary is with her Lord; how light this makes my present
trials. Yesterday they were fighting from before
sun-rise till the afternoon, but could not effect
an entrance into the city. The Lord preserves
us all in simple dependence on himself.
August 2. Wednesday. Accounts
have arrived from the Hajjaj (Mecca and Medina, &c.)
stating the mortality from plague and cholera to be
most tremendous; many families that left this place
on pilgrimage to escape the troubles, in the midst
of which we have so long been, have, as we hear, suffered
dreadfully. Thus God seems in wrath, making bare
his holy arm against this wretched nation in all its
length and breadth. My heart sometimes trembles
for the dear brethren at Aleppo, lest at the conclusion
of the hot season it should break out there. My
only resource is God. The poor people here are
beginning to sell their little all to buy bread, and
in consequence of the badness and scarcity of provisions,
dysentery is spreading its ravages in every direction,
as well as fever.
I have had with me to-day the translator
to the late French Bishop, and two or three Roman
Catholic merchants, all overwhelmed with fear.
They say, the Sultan, on hearing of the death of the
Pasha of Mosul, and the Vaivode of Merdin, has written
to the Pasha of Aleppo, to spare neither man, woman,
nor child in the city; but to let the very name of
Bagdad be swept from his dominions. Though this
is not altogether unlike the Sultan, I rather think
it the report of those within the city, to make the
inhabitants dread delivering it up into the hands
of those without. How blessed a portion is ours,
in the midst of all these perplexities, to stay ourselves
on our God, and to confide in the sympathizing love
of our Lord, who, worthless and vile as we are, will
not overlook us; but for his name’s sake, will
take care of the very hairs of our heads, either in
life or death. Amidst it all, what chiefly troubles
me is, that I love my Father and my Lord so little,
and that although there is not an object in the world,
but his service and glory, for which I would desire
to live; yet that, notwithstanding this I live so
little for it. Three months have now passed since
my dearest Mary has entered into her rest, which I
have spent mostly in the sorrowful nursing of my poor
dear sinking babe, and though her love and preference
repays a hundred-fold all the trial, yet it pierces,
while it pleases the heart, to see that connection
so soon must cease. I often wonder at my strange
indifference to my situation, which, but for my dear
children, I think would be greater. I am afraid
to think it is the fruit of faith I feel, in every
other respect so weak; it seems more like the physical
insensibility of one who is without a stake in what
is passing. Oh, may my dear Lord, in every earthly
tie he breaks, bind my poor soul doubly strong to
himself for eternity, and to his service while here.
Au. Some of
the principal Christian families sent to me to-day,
to request me to subscribe for guards to our quarter
of the city, so that every night we might have about
40 on guard. This I saw my way clear in declining,
believing that for Christ’s servants the sword
is not a lawful defence; whatever it may be the Lord’s
holy will I suffer, let it not be in acting against
my convictions of his holy and blessed will, for though
I feel as a sheep in the midst of wolves, the Lord
does not allow my heart to be disturbed with any sense
of personal insecurity. How beautifully all our
blessed Lord’s precepts hang together, and fit
the one the other; if your consent to follow him in
his poverty as he has commanded, you have little to
fear in following his other commands of non-resistance:
if you accept not the first, you will not accept the
second, except in such circumstances as expose you
to perhaps little comparative danger. May the
Lord make me willing, whatever it costs, to learn
all his will, and give me grace to love it. I
have heard such instances to-day of hateful and abominable
oppression and wickedness against the poor Christians,
by the followers of those who have the name of rulers
within the city, that my heart aches, and my soul
loathes the place. But what can we expect, when
these very persons robbed last night the house of Saleh
Beg, himself from whom they receive their pay.
A little butter and some sheep have
been brought into the city; but they ask so enormous
a price, that they have not yet been bought.
I was struck with the quickness with
which the mind apprehends the simple truth of God
when unprejudiced by interest. I have, without
even speaking contemptuously to the Christians of their
fasting, taken various opportunities of expressing
the liberty of a Christian to fast in such a way,
and at such times, as he believes most conducive to
his soul’s advantage; and have pointed out to
them, that to lay the stress on it they do, was quite
perverting the very end and design of fasting; for
that they are manifestly less afraid of violating
Christ’s commands than their own regulations,
which, as they used them, were purely human.
To-day, a question arose between two of them in my
presence, about their fasts; and the one stated as
clearly as could be wished, the uselessness of burthening
their consciences about eating a little butter instead
of oil, or such like, instead of seeking to flee from
their lies, and drunkenness, and robbery, and cheating.
There seems to me such a glorious moral power in God’s
word, that my heart never doubts of its producing
marked effects, where it can be clearly and fully
delivered; but, oh, the language, what a mountainous
barrier!
Last night, whilst lying on my bed,
on the roof of my house, five balls passed over my
head in about as many seconds, so close, that I threw
myself off in expectation that the next might hit it
or me; at times I almost determined to go down, but
the danger of being shot did not appear so dreadful
as the suffocating heat down stairs.
August 4. Thursday. We
have received accounts to-day of another messenger
from Bussorah, with letters for us, having been stripped.
How trying these dispensations are how necessary
for our peace that our eye should only rest on God,
ordering in love every event concerning us, even to
the arrival of a letter, so that he will allow nothing
to fail us that is for our good. I have to-day
finished reading through again Martyn’s Memoir,
by Sargent. How my soul admires and loves his
zeal, self-denial, and devotion; how brilliant, how
transient his career; what spiritual and mental power
amidst bodily weakness and disease. Oh, may I
be encouraged by his example to press on to a higher
mark. When I think of my own spiritual weakness,
contrasted with his spiritual power, it brings a striking
warning home to my heart to seek a fuller and more
abiding union with Jesus, from whom alone flows the
living waters that make the branches fruitful; I am
not now troubled about that intellectual difference
between us, which might seem to make it impossible
for me to do what he did: the Lord has made me,
blessed be His holy name, contented in this respect
with any difference I may feel between myself and his
more exalted members; but my sorrow is caused by my
want of that likeness to him, who is my Lord and King,
which is alike the common inheritance of all the members
of his mystical body. May I, however, henceforth
make the most of my talent, that I be not numbered
among the slothful servants at my dear Lord’s
most glorious and blessed appearing. The mild
seriousness that pervades dear H. M.’s soul has
for my heart a great charm. There is not a trait
of eccentricity all is like his Lord in
its measure he was solemn and serious as
became his work, yet full of zeal and affection, which
shewed itself, however, rather in the steady power
of a course of action than in expression. It is
astonishing what the world will endure from a child
of God, whose manner gives them excuse for calling
him an interesting eccentric madman; because then
all he says they feel at liberty to laugh at; whereas,
if the very same truths were declared to them in the
calm seriousness of our Lord’s manner, it would
make them gnash on him with their teeth.
August 7. Lord’s day. This
has been a day of trials and tears. The visions
of the night were filled with her I have lost, and
the day has been spent in weeping over her, I am soon,
very soon, to lose; but this is only nature, my soul
rests happily in my Lord. I had given up a little
for his dear service! but he knew where the heart’s
reserves were, and has put his hand on them; yet, blessed
hope, that gilds these darkest days the
day of the Lord is at hand, when we shall meet to
part no more. Oh, may my heart live with this
blessed vision ever before it, and labour each day
for the Lord, as though it were to be the waking vision
of the morning’s dawn. My heart is very
sad to think how profitless a servant I have been;
but I do purpose, the Lord enabling me, to be more
diligent, more devoted in the future.
My mind has been much exercised with
the question of the desirableness of keeping a journal
of the soul’s inmost workings; but after reading
and thanking God for those of others, I feel I never
could write one without the fear of its publication,
and this would keep my soul in a continual struggle,
either by tempting me to say too much or too little,
more or less than the truth; for, if any but my most
gracious and loving Lord knew me as I am, I should
hide myself for ever from the face of man. Yet
I pray the Lord, that he will by his Spirit write
a journal on my soul, that I may truly feel how very
meek and lowly it becomes me to be when I think of
all his forgiveness, notwithstanding my transgressions
against him. I feel there was something peculiarly
gracious in my Lord’s not sending me away to
my sufferings and trials, till he had given me a cordial,
in the assurance of his unchanging love. Oh,
but for this, what would my past trials have been,
had I not felt assured my Lord’s love did not
fluctuate with my feelings, nor depend upon my worthiness.
Oh, what a blessed passage is that in Rom. v.
“If, when we were enemies, we were reconciled
to God by the death of his Son, much more being
reconciled we shall be saved by his life.”
Yet the more I feel of this assurance of such unmerited
love, the more hateful sin appears in all its shapes,
and the more my soul desires entire devotedness to
the whole will of God, and conformity to my gracious
Lord.
Au. A contest
has sprung up between the troops and the inhabitants
of the city, in which, from the continued firing, I
should fear there has been much slaughter. Our
neighbours are also again making barricades across
the street, near our door. I sometimes think
I am too impatient under these trials, instead of being
thankful for the mercies I enjoy, and waiting without
anxiety upon the Lord to work as seemeth good to Him
in his own time. I hope to strive more and more
after this childlike confidence, which his experienced
love so richly deserves.
I did not expect my sweet little baby
would have survived yesterday, yet she has this morning
a little revived.
In the hourly expectation of being
plundered, I have put such things as I should be sorry
to lose in a hole made in the wall, by the falling
of a room. Yet I trust I am quite content the
Lord should do as he sees best, even with respect
to these. I sometimes sigh to join my dear Mary
in the kingdom of peace and joy, and be ever with the
Lord. Oh, may the Lord fully and quickly make
me meet for the inheritance of the saints in light.
Au. Saturday. The
Arabs made an attack on the other side of the town
to-day, but were repulsed. Another messenger from
Bussorah is arrived, but stripped and plundered of
our letters, and detained four days a prisoner by
the Arabs. He has been near a month on his way.
Bussorah, like Bagdad, is still besieged.
Au. Sunday. My
dear little baby and some others of my patients have
occupied much of my time to-day; for though I give
the people generally to understand, that unless in
cases of necessity, I would rather see them on any
other day; yet, there are many whom I have felt it
to be my duty to see. The remainder of the day,
however, was rendered profitless by extreme weariness,
I having had to walk about with my poor little withering
flower several hours through the night. I feel
these trials all arise in what appears to me my present
plain path of duty, so they do not greatly trouble
me; though the progress in the language is almost
altogether in abeyance; but, if I confine myself to
my Lord’s will, I feel he will manage all for
me.
I have had with me to-day an Armenian
gunsmith, who has resided some years in Damascus;
he says, the Christians there are treated very well,
for though they will not allow them to ride on horseback
in the city, yet, as inhabitants, they are well treated.
He says, they are also very numerous, inhabiting not
less than 15,000 houses; but, if from this we deduct
10,000, we shall probably be nearer the truth.
The Jews are not so well treated. From Shaum
(Damascus) to Beyraut, on the coast, is four days
journey, to Acre four, to Tripoli six, to Aleppo ten,
and the roads quite safe. From Damascus to Jerusalem
is seven days journey, but through an unsafe country.
On the journey from this place to Damascus, the only
dangerous part of the road is between this and Hit,
on the Euphrates, four days journey hence; after that
a certain sum is paid to the Arab tribes, you may
pass through. From Persian travellers, whom they
hate, they extort, when they know them, a much greater
sum, amounting sometimes to from L10. to L20. between
this and Damascus. He says, you come to fresh
water every second or third day.
Au. Friday. Every
thing seems darkening in this wretched city.
Numbers of poor people are crying at the gates to be
let out, that they may not be starved in the city;
but they will not let them go. All the necessaries
of life have risen to five times their usual price,
and the pressure of this is increased tenfold by the
time at which it has occurred. The bricklayers,
carpenters, every trade has entirely ceased its occupations
in the city since the commencement of the plague;
so that all day-labourers, such as weavers and others,
are thrown out of their employments, and without means
of gaining their bread. In addition to this,
the Arabs are breaking into every house where they
expect to find a little corn or rice, so that it is
a difficult choice either to be without provisions
in danger of starving, or of being broken in upon
by such ruffians, and stripped. We intend to
bury a little box, containing some rice, and flour,
and dates, under ground, that in the event of their
breaking in, we may yet secure food for a few days,
which may give us time to look about. The Lord,
however, is very gracious, and will not try us above
our strength, but will magnify his grace even in these
scenes of trial and distress. The care of my
dear little dying baby has taken my mind much off
from dwelling on the distressing position in which
we are, and, for aught I at present see, are likely
to continue in, for those within the town feel it
is their heads for which they are contending, and
will therefore hold out to the very last. Yet
in this whirlwind the Lord rides and reigns, and no
part of the mystical body of Christ, however humble
the member, will ever be forgotten: on this we
rest and wait for light and deliverance.
Au. Tuesday. Saturday
last they made a sally from the city against a tribe
of Arabs, friends of Ali Pasha, and after putting them
to flight, and killing 100, they cut off the heads
of 150 in cold blood afterwards. It appears that
the obnoxious parties within the city are anxious
to place the whole inhabitants of the city on such
terms with the assailants that they shall fear the
consequences of their entering the town as much as
themselves. They have allowed about 5000 of the
very poorest to leave the city, but the enemy without
will allow no more to pass. A letter came yesterday
to Mr. Swoboda from a Bohemian, who is physician to
Ali Pasha, in which he desired to communicate to all
the Franks, that Ali Pasha had given the strictest
orders to his soldiers not to molest one of them.
To a certain extent this manifests good intentions;
but we have had too much experience of the powerlessness
of governors at such times to restrain their soldiers,
to have much confidence in man: our confidence
is in Him who will and does watch over us for good.
From the daily increase in the price of provisions,
and the daily coining new lies to feed the people
with hopes instead of bread, I think things cannot
remain long in their present position; yet the Lord
knows. It is certain Bagdad is altogether ruined;
and if those who belong to the neighbouring villages,
and those who would leave it, were there ever so small
an opening, were gone, the city would be a desert.
I had a patient with me to-day, who
told me that, out of a family of sixteen, he alone
remains from the plague. Persons he added, who
before these troubles were not worth a para, are seen
riding about on fine horses and trappings, covered
with gold and pearls, &c.; and, on the other hand,
many who before were in very good circumstances, are,
by the robbery of those who should protect them, reduced
to beggary. It appears that Ali Pasha is in want
of nothing but money and ammunition; and those within
the town want every thing but these. This wretched
city has suffered to an almost unparalleled extent
the judgments of God within the last six months:
the plague swept away more than two-thirds of its
inhabitants the flood has thrown down nearly
two-thirds of its houses; and property and provisions
of corn, dates, sugar, &c. &c. beyond all calculation,
have been destroyed, and we are now suffering under
daily increasing famine, and we have yet hanging over
our heads the revengeful sword of resisted authority,
and the unprincipled plunder of a lawless soldiery
to complete the devastation. This Pashalic was
just about to fall an easy prey into the hands of
the Persians, who long to possess it, from their famous
place of pilgrimage, Kerbala, being in the neighbourhood,
and perhaps also to make up for their losses on their
Russian frontier. Thus the Lord seems preparing
these two great Mohammedan powers for their final
overthrow, partly by the hands of each other, and partly
by the hands of the Christian power. In the province
of Kourdistan, the Persians have encroached much on
the territory of this Pashalic already.
Oh! how delightful it is to turn from
these scenes of present and prospective strife to
that happy approaching day, when the Lord shall come
with ten thousand of his saints to establish his kingdom
of peace and glory. Oh! may our cry never cease
to be, “Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly;”
and when he does come, may he find us in his service
among the faithful, chosen, and true.
Au. Thursday. Three
months and ten days have now passed since the Lord
took from me her who was on earth the supreme consolation
of my life; and now, this day, he has taken from me
my sweet little baby without a sigh, without the expression
of pain during the whole of her illness; for this
my heart can, even at this moment, bless the Lord;
but it has left a void that has more than ever made
the world appear a waste. The incessantly returning
wants made even these times appear to wing a rapid
flight; but now all is still as death, except the
weeping of the poor nurse, who truly loved her, and
watched over her night and day with unremitting care.
Oh! what a time would these three months have been
for dear Mary, had she lived, and what a day would
this have been; but the Lord took her from the evil
to come, and has now taken the dear little object of
her love to her, to join her little sainted sister
and dear little brother; four of us are gone, and
three are left. May the Lord quickly prepare us
all, and hasten his coming kingdom, that we may meet
to part no more. And, Oh! may he make and accept
the remnant of the worthless life he grants me, as
a living sacrifice to his service. Notwithstanding
I acquiesce, I trust, in the Lord’s will from
the bottom of my heart, yet I feel a desolation and
loneliness of heart, on this last dispensation, that
surpasses all I have felt in my last six months of
trial. My sweet little baby remained an object
for those affections to seize upon, which will exist
while life lasts, however disciplined, and however
the power of grace may prevail; but in one so weak
in faith, so earthly as I am, they have had much,
too much power, and therefore the Lord, in mercy to
my soul, has swept them all away, that I may have
nothing in this world left but his service. If
this be his holy purpose, may my whole soul second
so gracious an intention; and I pray the spiritual
family which the Lord, according to his promise, has
given me, fathers, mothers, sisters, and brothers,
that their love and patience towards me may abound,
that my spirit may be refreshed thereby, and my weakness
encouraged to proceed though faint, yet
pursuing.
Au. Friday. This
day has taught me, that if I would not be entirely
miserable, I must give up my whole time, and soul,
and thoughts to my Lord; for if I look off him, I
feel bordering on a gulf, the depth of which I cannot
fathom. Oh! may the Holy blessed Spirit give
me such views of the graciousness and exceeding riches
of my Lord, that I may really feel, that in having
him, I have all things. He alone is the same,
yesterday, to-day, and for ever. All created
things, the nearest, the dearest, the most beloved
in the moment of greatest need and greatest felicity,
elude the grasp, and flee away; but he abides always.
I desire, therefore, the Lord enabling me, to give
myself altogether to the preparation for my future
labours more diligently than I have ever yet done;
that though desolate on earth, I may hold the freest
and sweetest communion with heaven; for of all preparation
I feel the greatest, the most needful to be, that
of the heart; in order to the constant sensible entertainment
of Christ, from whose nearness all the spiritual faculties
derive the sap and the fruit bearing strength.
Au. To-day
I feel the Lord has given me a victory, by turning
my thoughts off my miserable self and temporary circumstances,
to the contemplation of the happiness of those who
are gone before me, and by enabling me to feel set
off on my journey to meet them, and drawing every
day one day’s journey nearer, while I endeavour
to forget I had ever been happy in domestic life,
or ever possessed those dear objects; but nature was
often too strong for me, as I dwelt on their felicity,
and my journeying towards them daily, whether the Lord
brings them with him, or I go before he comes.
This hope does comfort me, for it is a real abiding
truth, whether I drink the sweets of the consolation
from it or not. I therefore now purpose, the Lord
enabling me, after nearly six months interruption,
to return to the studies preparatory to my future
duties as an itinerating missionary. To this
service I ever thought the Lord had called me, and
for this I now see all his trials have been fitting
me, for I am without a home and without a tie in the
world, but my dear Lord’s service. These
trials have made me ready for entering on my work
to any extent; as my dear little boys will no longer
confine me to one place, but will soon be of an age
to move about with me; or should their choice render
other arrangements necessary, the Lord will open a
way for them likewise.
For an itinerating missionary on this
side the desert, three languages are essentially important;
Arabic, Turkish, and Persian: and this I feel,
unless the Lord very especially helps me, will be to
me no ordinary labour; but, as I am surrounded
by men who every day learn them for purposes of gain,
I trust the Lord will not allow me to faint, or be
discouraged till, for his own service I have attained
them.
The internal state of the city is
daily becoming more and more critical: all the
necessaries of life are risen to ten times their common
price, and are even then with difficulty obtained.
The abominations that are now committed in the face
of day, makes the city appear ripe for the judgment
of the cities of the plain; and the poor Christians
principally suffer in the persons of their children
in these abominable acts of violence; but to seek
a remedy now is utterly useless, for all the power
in the city is in the hands of the lawless mob, who
are the perpetrators of all the wickedness. It
makes one’s heart ache to hear them weeping
and telling of their sufferings.
August 29. Last
night some of the depredators broke into our house,
and have taken away to the amount of about ten pounds
from Kitto and myself, while we were all asleep upon
the roof of the house, so there was nothing to hinder
them from clearing the house; yet the Lord some how
or other disturbed them, for though they took my clothes
out of a box, they dropped them in their way to the
window through which they entered, and a box containing
my money in my room they never opened in
fact, it altogether appears they went away without
accomplishing the purpose for which they came, and
it so happened that from the constant expectation
of the general plunder of the city, we had put away
every thing of any particular value. Should we
be plundered by the soldiers of Ali Pasha, we may
possibly, if our lives be spared, obtain, as Mr. Goodell
did, remuneration; but about this I do not feel anxious:
the Lord will provide.
From daylight this morning till near
noon there was a pretty sharp contest between those
within the city and those without, in which the latter
got the advantage. My feeling is, that we are
very fast approaching to a crisis, and in that crisis
our eyes are unto the everlasting hills to
him who says, ’I will never leave thee nor forsake
thee,’ but who will be with us always even unto
the end of the world. Oh! what a relief would
a little time of peace and free communication with
our dear friends be. The latest letters from
England are dated nine months ago; and from many, nay
all my dear friends at Exeter, the latest is nearly
eleven months; so that all our trials come together.
For five months the dear little boys have not set
their foot without the door of our house, and I cannot
but feel it is a great mercy of the Lord, that they
are so happy and contented. I have never heard,
during all this time, one word of complaint from them.
Au. The inhabitants
are building up gates in all the principal streets,
both against the swarms of thieves who plunder by night,
and in anticipation of the entrance of the opposing
party, when a general pillage seems now fully expected
by all. It often seems to me, on looking around
and seeing all without God, and trusting to their puny
efforts to avert impending evils, what a blessed portion
we have who know him, believe in him, and love him,
and know and feel, that without his permission, not
one hair of our heads shall fall. Those within
the city have also again been out and attacked another
tribe of Arabs that were on Ali Pasha’s side,
pillaged and set fire to their camp, and brought the
plunder into the city, among which was a great quantity
of silk, which these Arabs had taken from a caravan
coming to Bagdad from Persia in the time of the plague.
September 2. I was
sent for to-day to see the Pasha, who has, from the
effects of a carbuncle on his toe lost one of the joints,
and they have so treated it, that he will, I think,
now certainly lose another. He was particularly
kind and civil, and without any comparison, the most
gentlemanly person I have met with in the East.
There is an unaffected simplicity of manners, and
a benevolence of countenance, which makes one wonder
how all the accounts of his actions, which we may,
I think, say we know to be true, could possibly be
so. He made me a present of three small cucumbers,
at this time the greatest rarity; and this may convey
some idea to what extent the privations of the poor
have gone, when the Pasha can hardly command a cucumber,
which, with legumenous fruits of a similar kind, constitute
a great portion of the food of the poor in ordinary
times. As I returned from the Pasha a man levelled
a gun at me, not with any intention to fire I believe,
but just to show that independent boldness which fears
no one, but dares to do what it chooses.
September 6. There
is nothing new; but the uninterrupted stream of misery
is still swelling with its bitter waters: depredation
and scarcity increasing and advancing with pretty
equal steps. There seems to be signs of money
beginning to fail from the treasury of the Pasha,
as his kanjaar (a dagger), richly studded with diamonds,
was offered for sale the other day. The palace
of the Pasha, or rather its ruins, are filled with
Arnaouts, a mercenary band of soldiers, who employ
their time in making and drinking arrack, and knocking
down the walls of the palace, wherever they yield
a hollow sound, in search of the hidden treasures
of the Pasha. In these countries it is a universal
custom to bury or build up in the walls of houses their
treasures, from the insecurity in which they always
live.
Mr. Swoboda has received a letter
from a friend of his in the Pasha’s camp, stating
that there was a large pile of letters and parcels
for Europeans within the city, in the possession of
the Pasha. This is trying to us, but still it
brings the hope that we may yet soon receive intelligence
of our friends.
It seems as if the angel of destruction
was resting on this city as on Babylon, to sweep it
from the earth. They are actually pulling down
the roofs of the bazaars to sell and burn the wood,
destroying buildings for fuel, that a hundred times
the worth of the wood will not replace, and filling
up the roads with rubbish so as to render them scarcely
passable. The state of anarchy which prevails
must be witnessed to be understood. If it were
not that the soul feels it is the Lord’s province
to bring order out of confusion and good out of evil,
it would utterly despair in such a scene, where every
element at work seems wickedness; but amidst all,
our eyes are unto him.
September 7. Weak
in body and mind, I could sometimes almost impatiently
wish for a change. Yet the Lord is very gracious,
and suffers us to have quite enough for our health
and strength; and as for money, a Roman Catholic merchant
was with me yesterday, begging that if I wanted any
more, I would take it from him, for they seem all
to have that kind of confidence even in our national
character, that they will generally without hesitation,
let you have money. For myself, I know not if
my mind preys on my body, or my body on my mind, or
whether they mutually act and re-act one on the other;
yet I feel on the whole thus much, that if it appeared
the Lord’s most gracious pleasure to direct
my steps away from this place for a season, I should
be thankful. Nevertheless, I desire to say from
my heart, not my will, O Lord, but thine be done.
In Arabic, I think I make daily progress, and I feel
fully assured, should the Lord spare my life for this
blessed work, that I shall one day be able to preach
the unsearchable riches of Christ intelligibly, perhaps
even fluently. Yet from the natural badness of
my memory, considerable time will be requisite, unless
the Lord vouchsafe to me his especial help to this
end, for which I daily pray, for I want not opportunity
but language to preach Christ.
Sep. Friday. Every
thing continues still increasing in price, and in
an increased ratio the sufferings of the poor:
if they leave the city they are stripped and driven
back; if they remain they are starved; and even the
dates are just come to an end, upon which for near
three weeks, both the people and the cattle have been
feeding. The Pasha has this day taken the jewels
of his wives to sell, from which and some other signs,
I am led to think his course is nearly run, and that
ere long he will follow the fate of his predecessor.
Ali Pasha told the Suffian-Effendi, who went out to
him to endeavour to accommodate matters, that he had
come for one head only, but that after the way in
which he had been treated, he would not be satisfied
with less than ten; and if, at that time, which
was nearly a month ago, he had determined to take
ten, I fear a hundred would not now satisfy him.
A poor Roman Catholic priest was with
me to-day, telling me of his distress, while one of
his opulent flock was sitting by him. He said
the Jews would not allow their poor to beg from others;
by which I thought he meant to give a pretty intelligible
hint that his flock ought to be ashamed. But
his rich hearer only said, “The Lord is merciful,
and he will provide.” On this side the desert,
the professing Christians are not certainly priest-ridden
as they are in most Roman Catholic countries, or even
on the other side of the desert, in consequence of
there being no powerful and wealthy communities like
the monasteries in Mount Lebanon, to bring down the
heavy arm of the Turks upon them; for without the Turks
they can do little, and these petty governments joyfully
interfere in their strifes to extort money from both
parties, though in this respect, Bagdad has been better
off than most Pashalics for nearly sixty years past,
since the time of Suliman Pasha, whose slave the present
Pasha was, but liberated on his death. Since
him there have been Ali Pasha, Suliman Pasha the younger,
Abdallah Pasha, and Seyd Pasha, all of whom have been
murdered after a longer or shorter period. Daoud
Pasha has now been fourteen years in possession of
the power he obtained by the murder of his predecessor,
and seems now not far from sharing the same fate.
Sep. Saturday. The
evening before last the thieves broke into the house
of one of the sons of the Pasha, and killed three of
the servants: if they serve the Pasha so what
have others to expect? Instead of being surprised
that things are so bad, my surprise is that they are
not worse, seeing the city is entirely at the mercy
of those who are capable of every abomination and
cruelty; and there is no other restraint upon them
than what God puts into their hearts by the undefined
fear of possible retribution. The most valuable
articles known to belong to the Pasha, from whom they
had been stolen, were sold openly in the streets,
without the least notice being taken, and thus also
they shoot individuals when they please, in the open
day and in the public thoroughfares, and no one stops
to see who it is or why it is, but every one hastens
off as fast as he can lest he should share the same
fate. And the passengers in the streets are not
only exposed to be shot at by those prompted by deliberate
enmity, but this armed rabble is continually drunk,
and, without the least provocation, fire at men or
women. I seem to think, if it did please the Lord
to put an end to these scenes of sorrow and trial,
my heart would be very thankful; yet perhaps in this
I deceive myself, and all my gratitude would be as
a morning cloud. However, this I know, the Lord
will not suffer me to be tried above what he will
enable me to bear, and on this assurance, in the darkest
day, may the blessed Spirit enable my heart to repose.
This is my daily comfort.
Sep. Monday. The
poor are again permitted to leave the city, and it
is reported, that when Ali Pasha heard that those had
been robbed who came out before, he threw some of
the supposed plunderers into the river, and cut off
the heads of others. However this may be, 5 or
600 now daily go out and suffer no molestation.
This is a great mercy, for within the city every article
of food has disappeared except buffaloes’ and
camels’ flesh, and this at about twenty times
its usual price. Should this state of things continue,
it seems to me from present appearances, that a general
plunder will be the consequence. To-day they
have pillaged the houses of some Jews. Yesterday
they broke open the house of Major Taylor’s chaoush.
They are very slow to interfere with those under English
protection; but when their natural thievish propensities
are stimulated by want and opportunity, from what
may they be expected to withhold themselves?
Things within the city are now come
to that pass, that I heard from the Meidan to-day
(the place where the principal Turks reside) that
they have determined to wait five days more, and if
Ajeel, the Sheikh of the Montefeik Arabs, or some
other efficient aid, does not arrive, they will cut
off the heads of Daoud Pasha and Saleh Beg, who is
his Kaimacam, or Lieutenant Governor, and send them
to Ali Pasha, for the city can bear no more.
When I consider all the misery in
the city, and the privations not only among the poor,
but the rich, and consider how we have been provided
for, it does seem to me most marvellous, strangers
as we were, and without a friend. Before the
plague, in our ignorance of the probable time of its
continuance, and with the certain knowledge that in
the midst of the greatest want, there was not a soul
that could help us, we took in enough of wheat, rice,
soap, and candles, to last till within a very few
weeks. When dear Mr. Pfander left us, we made
him some sausages, called in this country pastourma:
he, however, took but a few, and the rest remained
with us, and served us both during the plague, and
now in the famine to vary our food a little, though
somewhat dry and as hard as wood, and still of them
one or two remains. The dear boys also had some
pigeons: these also served us for many days.
We then had two goats for my poor dear little baby,
and to give us milk; but provisions became so dear
that we were obliged to kill one; this we divided
among the poor: the second at last we also killed,
and potted in its fat. This by little and little
we are consuming. We have also got four or five
hens, which lay two or three eggs a-day. Thus
the Lord has provided for us till now; and if we have
not had abundance, we have never suffered from want.
And now, when wheat and rice is not to be bought,
and if possessed in quantities would expose the possessors
to inevitable pillage, the Lord has so graciously
supplied us, that we avoid both want and the danger
of possessing provisions in the house, for before
the kind Taylors left this, they gave me permission
to take from the Residency whatever I might want,
and this I now take by little and little as I need,
and the house of the Resident is so far respected
in public opinion, that openly disorganized as things
are, I do not think they will commit any violence
upon it.
I am sure there are many who, in reading
this, will bless God for his goodness to us, so utterly
unworthy as we are; but, oh! if they could be witnesses
of the misery that others suffer, and from which his
mercies have freed us, they would indeed praise him.
For, even when provisions were to be had, had we been
obliged to purchase at the price things then were
and are now, we must inevitably have run in debt;
but as it is we have enough of money for more than
a month to come. Therefore, bereaved and incapable
as I yet feel of all enjoyment, I desire to bless
the Lord for all his great goodness and care over
us, of the least of whose mercies I feel infinitely
unworthy. And though my faith does not enable
me fully now to feel, in unison with my soul’s
judgment, on my heavenly Father’s dealings
toward me, when time has removed the bitter cup farther
distant, it may not possess all its present intensity
of bitterness, to which also so many circumstances
have tended to add additional pungency not
a friend near, not a communication from any of those
far away. I have ever felt one abiding source
of comfort, in that I knew I enjoyed the prayers of
many whose prayers I truly value, and through these
I believe I shall yet stand complete in all the will
of God, to remove or to remain, to live or to die.
The Lord will quickly come, and then his power and
great glory will be manifested to the joy of his chosen
and the confusion of his enemies.
Sep. Wednesday. While
I feel more convinced every day that a missionary
in these countries, who really would cast himself upon
his Lord, and share in its revolutions and national
judgments, has more to prepare his mind for them previously
to his entering upon it than he can well conceive:
yet on the other hand, I feel more confirmed in the
opinion, that amidst this disjointed disorganized state
of society, there are more doors of irregular missionary
service open than he can possibly occupy. For
though he can perhaps find few opportunities of publicly
preaching Christ; yet in conversation, and the preparation
and circulation of tracts, I think there are immense
opportunities afforded. Yet for conversation
much time will be required in acquiring a facility
in the language by most, till the Lord is pleased to
pour down from on high, his gifts of the Spirit and
as to tracts, at present we have none. The Turkish
Armenian tracts, printed at Malta, are not clearly
understood here; neither do I think the Arabic or
Turkish spoken on the other side of the desert would
be so either, if I may judge from the translations
into Turkish and Arabic. In fact, it would appear
desirable if the object of a missionary be to labour
in the east, that he should study on this side the
desert if possible; though the difficulties of a family
are great here amidst the constant succeeding commotion
of this disturbed country. There is no retiring
place within at least some hundred miles, at all times
by a dangerous journey, but in such times as these
almost impassable. And the elements of disorder
do not arise only from the state of the Ottoman empire,
but from the vicinity of Persia, daily encroaching
on this side, as I have mentioned before, both from
religious and political motives, and this spirit is
encouraged by the constant weakening of the pashalic.
About fifty or sixty years ago, commenced the government
of Suliman Pasha the elder, who continued twenty-three
years in his situation and died in his bed. This
Pasha raised Bagdad from a place of little mercantile
consideration to be one of the most important places
of traffic in the east, and he allured merchants from
all parts by the equity and firmness of his government.
From that to the present time, this pre-eminence has
been enjoyed by Bagdad, and it has been the central
place of trade between the east and the west; and for
these purposes, if improved, a more desirable situation
could not be imagined under a firm and wise administration.
This Suliman Pasha strengthened the Georgian interest
in this pashalic prodigiously by the purchasing of
an immense number of Georgian slaves whom he manumitted
at his death. One of these, Ali Pasha, who married
his daughter, succeeded him, and was murdered at prayers
after about five years reign. Suliman Pasha who
succeeded him, also married a daughter of the former
Suliman, he governed about three years, and was then
put to death. He was succeeded by Abdallah Pasha,
who was the treasurer of Ali Pasha; he continued about
three years, and was put to death. To him succeeded
Seyd Pasha, son of Suliman Pasha the elder, who, at
the end of about three years, was also put to death.
To these last who had thus succeeded and murdered
one another, succeeded Daoud, the present Pasha, who
to avoid a like fate with his predecessors, cut off
every man about him who could possibly afford him
any umbrage; but while on the one hand he secured
himself, on the other he so weakened the Georgian
interest, that when his affairs became involved in
difficulty, there was none to help but creatures who
had ministered to his avarice which he had gratified
at the expence of every loyal feeling (if such an
expression can be used by a Turk.) But still, though
previous to the plague, the Georgians had been thus
diminishing in numbers, and more so in intellectual
and moral character, still they were a strong body;
but the plague swept them nearly all away. All
this taking place at this peculiar juncture when there
is no recruiting their strength from Georgia, which
is now in the hands of the Russians, and when the
heart of the Sultan is peculiarly set against the
whole mameluke rule seems to indicate the period
of their downfall to be near at hand. Should
Ali Pasha now succeed in getting possession of the
city, the Georgian government of these renegade slaves
will be ended as that of their brethren in apostacy
was in Egypt. But, however things may terminate,
there are no elements of recovery, fall they must;
for the curse of God is upon them from the hands of
one tyrant after another, till some powerful nominal
Christian government will accept the government of
them, for which they are daily ripening, which they
are daily expecting, and which will finally happen,
unless they fully adopt a European policy and plan,
and this by another road, will lead to the same end,
the overthrow of Mohammedanism and the establishment
of infidelity. I have just thus cursorily made
these remarks, that no missionary may deceive himself
by expecting any long period of peace and quietness.
If it comes, he may bless God; but if it be withheld,
he must calculate upon it. And I think those
who are lightly armed for their work who
can run, and fly, and hide, and at all events have
only their own lives to care about, will be happiest
amidst all their privations and trials between Bagdad
and China. But for those who have known the endearment
of domestic life, or who are by nature peculiarly
susceptible of its happiness it may truly be said,
this is a living martyrdom. It is: but it
is for Christ, who will soon come and wipe
away all tears from our eyes. I desire daily to
feel it is a world in which my gracious Lord was an
outcast, and where it would be to my loss if I made
me a home. May the Lord make me willing to serve
him on these or any other terms he may manifest at
his pleasure.
This morning some persons who were
employed for the purpose, set at liberty two of the
principal Georgians who were imprisoned in the camp
of Ali Pasha.
The Armenian servant to whom I lent
an Armenian Testament, with the translation into the
modern Constantinople dialect, came to me to say how
much better he understood it than he did before in
the old language, and his countenance seemed quite
to brighten up at the sense of his attainment.
Among the Armenians I think there is an open door,
especially among the young, their ears are open and
thirsting for information on every subject.
The father of the Armenian schoolmaster
was to-day speaking with me on the difficulty of that
passage, “Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I
hated.” He said he felt just in that state
as though God had said to him, I will not receive
you. I longed to preach to him fully so far as
I am able, Him who saith, Whosoever cometh to me I
will in no wise cast out; but I have many difficulties:
he is very deaf, and Armenian and Turkish, not Arabic,
are the languages he understands. The languages
greatly try me, for though I feel by the Lord’s
mercy making daily progress, yet still I feel four
or five years must pass before I am fully prepared
even in this department of my labour, and happy shall
I be if in that time it be accomplished.
Sep. Thursday. After
a night of anxious suspense, the day has dawned in
comparative peace; the cry that Ali Pasha’s troops
were entering the city, began soon after we had retired
to rest, and continued till near morning. Now
we hear that Daoud Pasha had fled from the house of
Saleh Beg during the night and endeavoured to enter
the citadel, but the soldiers would not admit him.
He is now in the hands of the people of the Meidan.
The Chaoush Kiahya of Ali Pasha has entered the city,
and every one is in an awful state of suspense as to
the future fate of the inhabitants, at least of the
higher classes. I have just set up the English
flag that they may know the inhabitant of the house
is a stranger here, who has nothing to do with the
strife of the city. If, after this, the Lord
allows them to enter our habitation, may his holy
and blessed will be done. I think the Lord has
allowed my mind to be in perfect peace as to the result.
The poor wives of the Pasha are kissing
the hands of passers by, begging that they will give
them an asylum. Poor sufferers! all are afraid
to interfere so as to afford them that which they want.
At present, words and appearances are peaceable.
May the Lord of his mercy grant that they may continue
so.
To-day we killed two fowls to have
a little fresh meat. Thus the Lord has kept us
through all this time of trial, and we have enough
remaining for five or six days, blessed be his holy
name. This day has ended in perfect peace, not
a disturbance or an individual molested. The
principal thieves, who, at the head of various gangs,
were robbing the city in every direction, are now
doing all they can to escape, for they are perfectly
known. Thus the gracious hand of the Lord has
removed in one day the siege and famine, and fear and
terror, from the lawless within, and the undefined
terrors from those who are without, so that all seems
joy and gladness to the poor inhabitants. In the
conclusion of this affair Ali Pasha has conducted himself
amidst numberless provocations with a moderation and
prudence that does him the highest honour; bless the
Lord for all his mercies. This will be the first
night for months that we shall retire to rest without
the hateful sounds of civil strife saluting our ears,
or disturbing our rest.
Sep. Friday. Another
peaceful day. Ali Pasha has collected all the
principal Georgians together in his camp. When
the late Pasha went out to his camp, he rose from
his seat and embraced him, and told him not to fear;
that the Sultan had ordered his life to be spared;
to Saleh Beg also assurances of safety were given,
and in fact up to this time not one individual has
been put to death. It remains yet to be seen
whether this be a cloak or real moderation. However,
from the great body of the citizens all fear is removed,
and both animals and inhabitants alike rejoice in
returning abundance. The wheat that was sold
on Wednesday, for 250 piasters, was sold on Thursday
for 40, and other things in proportion, besides which,
vegetables have re-appeared, which, for five months,
were not to be procured, at any price.
I sent out to-day the chaoush of Major
Taylor to Ali Pasha, to enquire if there were any
letters or packets for the Residency or for me; but
I found there were none to my great disappointment.
However, Ali Pasha was very civil; enquired after
the Resident, hoped there would be perpetual and increasing
affection between them, &c. &c. We have now to
wait to see how these fair beginnings will end.
I have just seen the Hakeem Bashee or chief Physician
of Ali Pasha, who is an Italian, and to my great joy
found he had locked up in his box for me many letters
and newspapers, which he from time to time collected
in the camp; whenever any messenger was brought in,
and his packets examined, all that were for Europeans
he took out, and put in his box; to-morrow he promises
to let me have those that were addressed to me.
He tells me that Ali Pasha has two interpreters, natives
of Cyprus, who speak Turkish, Italian, and Romaic.
It appears that a great change is contemplated in
the government of this Pashalic.
One of the two gentlemen whom Major
Taylor sent to examine the Euphrates from Beles to
Anah, has arrived at Aleppo on his way to Beles.
From Anah to Bussorah there is no insurmountable impediment
in the way of steam navigation. The part that
now remains to be examined is from Beer to Anah.
Sep. Lord’s day. To-day
I have received a long missing letter from the dear
Taylors, in which Major Taylor most kindly and generously
offers, should any thing happen to me, to consider
my dear boys as his own, till he has an opportunity
of sending them safely to the hands of their friends
in England. Thus the Lord provides, thus he orders
for us. This kind offer of Major T. was quite
unsolicited, for, though when I felt attacked by the
plague, I had written a letter making this request,
yet, on my recovery, I destroyed it.
I also received a letter from Dr.
Morrison, in China, in which he expresses his conviction
of the importance of missionaries learning to earn
their subsistence by some occupation, however humble,
rather than be dependant as they now are, on societies.
I confess my mind so far entirely agrees with him,
that, if I had to prepare for a missionary course,
I would not go to a college or an institution, but
learn medicine, or go to a blacksmith’s, watchmaker’s,
or carpenter’s shop, and there pursue my preparatory
studies. I do not mean to say, that this should
be to the exclusion of preparatory studies in language,
and the deepest preparatory Scripture studies, but,
in conjunction with them, for I am satisfied it is
a much greater blessing to missionaries to lead those
down who either by birth or other circumstances may
have been a little removed from the lower orders of
society than to raise those of humble birth to the
rank of gentlemen in the world, who neither by education,
habits, nor intercourse are enabled happily or profitably
to fill such a station but it is that yoke
of mere human ordination, the necessity of a title
from man to preach and administer as it
is called the sacraments, of which not so much as
a hint is contained in the New Testament, it is that
awful distinction between laity and clergy which are
the things that tie up all hands, and put bodies of
men into situations of trial, who, but for this delusion,
would be without any comparative difficulties.
Without these we should learn to judge of men’s
fitness for their work, not by their being ordained
or unordained by this or that denomination of men,
but according to the rule of the apostles, by their
doctrine and walking as they had them for “ensamples;”
if they came otherwise, though apostles or angels,
let them, says the apostle, be accursed. Oh,
if this principle of the apostles were set up in proving
all things and holding fast that which is good, we
should not hear so good a man, and one so much to
be loved, as Mr. Bickersteth, misleading his readers
by telling them to adhere to an unsound authorised
teacher, rather than go to a sound and unauthorised
one; to one who is authorised by the head of the church,
though not by the head of the state. So said
not Paul, but, “if I or an angel come preaching
any other doctrine, let him be accursed.”
In all the Apostle Paul’s trials with the false
teachers, and in all the directions given respecting
them to the various churches, he never once alludes
to their appointment by the apostles or any other
human being, or bodies of human beings, as even a
collateral ground of consideration and preference,
but always to the truth, the truth, the truth; if they
preach that, well; if they do not, it matters not who
they are, nor whence they came, from heaven or earth,
they are to be rejected. God grant the day may
quickly come when the church of God may care as little
about the opinions of bishops and presbyteries or any
other association of men, apart from their piety
and truth, as the Lord and his Apostles cared
about the opinions of the Sanhedrim. So far as
their estate or authority is temporal, let us obey
them, but let us keep our souls free.
It is said that all these provinces,
from Bussorah to Bagdad, Sulemania, Mosul, Diarbekr,
Merdin, Orfa, and Aleppo, are to be under the government
of Ali Pasha; at all events there seems to be such
a change contemplated, that at present I do not see
it right to remove, especially as the Lord has provided
an asylum in the event of any thing happening to me,
in the bosom of Mr. Taylor’s family, for my
dear boys.
Under Daoud Pasha the people were
oppressed by monopolies in every article of consumption.
Ali Pasha seems determined to put an end to the system.
The cryer yesterday proclaimed that meat was to be
sold for no more than two piasters an oke, and
that if any man took more he should be hanged on the
spot to his own crooks. One of the butchers,
near the Meidan, who was detected yesterday, selling
meat for three piasters, was instantly hanged.
After which, the butchers went to the officer who
superintends their affairs, and offered him considerable
sums of money as a bribe, but he would pay no attention
to them.
Sep. Wednesday. Nothing
can exceed the attention and respect that is paid
to Daoud by Ali Pasha; for his life, he said, he had
nothing to fear; the Sultan had pardoned him, and a
firman had come to that effect, but that the
Sultan wished him to go to Constantinople on the morrow
or the day after. Therefore he leaves this, and
his wives go with him, and his eldest son, Hassan
Beg, who has had all his property made him a present
of by Ali Pasha, and every thing they choose to select
for the convenience of the journey, is to be provided
for them. There is something in this treatment
so utterly unlike any thing that has been ever witnessed
before, that people know not what to make of it; the
Turks cannot be brought to believe but that there
must be some treachery under it; for my own part, I
do believe that so far as Ali Pasha is concerned,
this is not true.
The Turks here are also much startled
at seeing their long robes and turbans thrown away
for an European military uniform, with epaulets and
other decorations; and they say that Ali Pasha himself
has quite adopted the European dress, so what changes
we may expect I know not, but certainly great ones
are contemplated; any change approximating to this
has not been introduced from the days of the Patriarchs
till now. Drinking is no longer a covert offence
that they practice in secret; but wine and spirits
are brought in their trays as regular articles of
consumption. The fact is, that Mohammedanism and
Popery have received, and are receiving, such hard
knocks that their power will certainly sink, even
though the name may remain, and I do expect that this
state of powerlessness in these two bodies will open
ways for God’s elect among them to come out.
I had yesterday a long and most interesting
conversation with a very respectable Armenian Roman
Catholic merchant of this place, most timidly fearful
of having his faith touched; yet the Lord opened the
way to the introduction of the conversation on some
very interesting topics on the duty of
reading God’s word for ourselves, and on the
worship of the Virgin, on all of which, little by little,
he conversed freely. He seemed well acquainted
with the Scriptures I quoted, but had never thought
about the questions, and this is the great preparatory
work in this country, to get men to think on the things
of the soul’s everlasting interests, and to
feel that these things have to do with the various
relations of life. In all countries custom has
much power; but in the East it is despotic.
I have been much struck in reading
some letters in the Record, on the Church and Dissent,
which has made me feel the necessity and value of
that word of our blessed Lord. “If
thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full
of light.” Surely if the Scripture be sufficient
to decide any question, it is sufficient to decide
the question of what a child of God ought to do when
a man, calling himself a minister of Christ, propagates
errors among any section of Christ’s church.
Does not Paul say, Who is Paul or Apollos, but
ministers by whom ye believe? What, then, is
the Church of England, or Scotland, or the Dissenters,
but various ministries, by which we believe? And
the same apostle the exalter of the Lord
of life, and the abaser of every high thought of man,
says, “If I or an angel from heaven preach any
other gospel than that you have received, let him
be accursed.” Does Paul set up the principle
that men are to be received not according to the truth
or error of their doctrine, but according to the sect
to which they belong, or the mode or circumstance
of ordination? Never: but the very reverse.
With the apostle it is always the truth the
truth the truth; let those judge who wish
to see.
Now, I will just state a strong case,
but a fact. I was one day travelling in the mail,
and a certain person in one corner began a most obscene
conversation, with a gentleman who came to see him
at the door of the mail, while it was changing horses.
Opposite him, in the other corner, was his own son.
When the mail arrived at the place to which we were
going, on getting out, I asked the people at the coach
office, who that person was. I had previously
considered him as an officer in the army, but, to
my amazement, was told he was the Rev. .
This individual has since been made a dignitary of
the Church of England, and has had other preferment
bestowed upon him; and this is but part of what might
be said. You will say this is an extreme case.
But it is a matter of fact. Am I to remain under
the ministry of such a teacher? It not only shocks
the affections of a child of God, but the very common
sense of the world, and, if our eyes were single,
it would, in proportion strike us till we should come
down to the apostle’s rule, about receiving teachers those
who preach the truth, and walk as ye have us for an
ensample.
As to example on which so much stress
is laid, what example does a man give to his children
or neighbourhood, when he continues to sit under the
ministry of one whom he believes to be not a preacher
but a perverter of the truth? Why, that the Church
of England and its forms, even in the midst of our
unfaithful ministry, is dearer to him than Christ’s
Church and his truth, under less agreeable external
circumstances. On the other hand, what example
does he give if he quit this, which may be granted
on all hands to be an unsound ministry, for a sound
one? Why, that he loves Christ’s Church
and truth so much better than any circumstances, that
though it may cost him pain and sorrow he leaves the
one for the other.
There seems an idea prevalent, and
kept up in all these letters, which is in fact most
untrue that a man, by leaving the church
becomes a dissenter in principle. Whereas I think
many who have merely followed the line which the apostle
recommends, of turning away from false teachers, are
not at all thereby rendered in love with dissent as
one system set up against another system. It appears
to me, that a sectarian Church of England-man, and
a sectarian Dissenter, whose only desire is to see
augmented the respective members of those who follow
them, are equally removed from the mind of Christ.
The thing devoutly to be prayed for, for them all
is, that when they respectively approach the nearest
to the meaning of the divine word and the mind of
Christ, they might be respectively strengthened and
made willing in those things to borrow from each other,
and all sides to remember that that love which covereth
many faults is more valuable a thousand times than
that sectarian zeal that magnifies every weakness and
infirmity into a mortal sin, and which delights in
evil surmisings and evil speakings.
The term which passes current with
so many who are attached to the Church of England
exclusively of “our apostolic church,”
it may not be amiss for a moment to dwell on.
Where then does this apostolic similarity dwell, and
in what does it consist?
Is it in the mode of appointment of
Bishops? Formerly it was the work of the church,
with which the state had nothing to do. Now,
it may be the work of an infidel ministry, for infidel
purposes.
Is it the state and pomp of the episcopacy,
the titles “Your Grace,” “Your
Lordship,” your palaces, your carriages, and
fame, and hosts of idle livery servants?
Is it in the mode of appointment to
the cure of souls? Then it was in the choice
of the church; or, if of new churches, the appointment
of those who had gathered them. Now, this cure
is publicly sold like cattle in the market to the
highest bidder, and a large proportion of the remainder
may be in the hands of an infidel Lord Chancellor,
to give as he pleases.
Is it the Liturgy? However valuable
it may be, no one will pretend to say the apostles
used one.
And even in the places of public worship,
their grandeur, or their neatness, or their convenience
are equally unlike the places of meeting of the apostles,
who were happy to assemble in an upper loft.
Instead, therefore, of saying the Church of England
is Apostolic, it is infinitely more true to
say she is Romish, in all those things on the
distinction of which she prides herself and becomes
distinguished. And the broad line of distinction
between her and the apostate mother of harlots, commences
when she comes to those points, whereon all the churches
of Christ agree the doctrines she professes,
and which are to a very great extent scriptural and
pure; and may the Lord water her truth while he sweeps
away her dross and tin. Believing, as I do, her
connection with the state to be an unmitigated evil
as it relates to her spiritual power, I cannot but
rejoice that this false ground of confidence and support
which has made toryism stand too often in the place
of truth and piety, as a recommendation to her highest
places of trust, is crumbling underneath her, only
her bonds will be burnt in the fire. May she
have the holy wisdom to strengthen what remains, that
when the times of her dominion shall pass by, the time
of her spiritual splendour may return. In short,
though there be much that is intolerable in the Church
of England, much may be modified, and may yet, possibly,
remain; but this is clear, that that swelling of the
bosom which distinguishes a true son of the Church
of England, considered as a sectarian, when he enunciates
the term of “Our Apostolic Church,” if
it refers to discipline as well as doctrine, and external
circumstances as well as internal principles, is the
merest delusion that ever was published, and the most
unsubstantial vision that ever formed the basis of
pride, and one that will now remain unmasked no longer.
May the Lord grant her grace in her day of trial,
to run into her real ark of strength the
truth of God. What is contrary to God’s
will in her, may he make her ready, nay, anxious to
throw off, as an incubus that oppresses her. What
is not contrary, yet not essential, may she hold with
that degree of tenacity only which such things deserve,
and remain alone valiant for the truth on the earth.
Many will say this is written by the
hand of an enemy. But I protest before Him whom
I love and serve, however unworthily, that I love the
Church of Christ in the midst of her, fervently desiring
their spiritual pre-eminence, and praying for her
prosperity.
The detestable association between
the Dissenters, considered as a body, and the calumniators
and degraders of the Lord of life, for the beggarly
purposes of this world’s power, sufficiently
prove to my mind, that a spirit, which is not of God’s
children, rests among them too extensively somewhere,
as I have before mentioned; and even the true children
among them, who have been drawn into such an ungodly
coalition, show great spiritual weakness. In the
word of God I see Christ exalted and his truth; and
not churches, apostles, or prophets; all things are
to be proved, and that which is good to be kept.
Apostles are to be tried, and if found liars,
to be rejected. Think you, when the church of
Ephesus, in the Apocalypse is commended by our Lord,
for trying those who said they were apostles and were
not, and when she had found them liars, that her members
for example, still sat under their ministry.
What a strange perversity of judgment prejudice casts
over the mind. I cannot imagine any holier more
acceptable service to our dear and blessed Lord and
master, than that of endeavouring to unite in true
and holy union, all the real members of his now (as
to external circumstances) painfully divided body,
for the Lord enables me to feel and to know, that
amidst all the divisions and hard names that prevail
among the members, there does really exist a body
bound together for eternity, in all the essentials
of Divine truth.
Sep. Nothing
of any striking moment relative to our situation has
occurred since the last date: all is quiet.
Yet circumstances have taken place of the deepest
interest, which makes my soul rejoice in God.
In a packet of letters, I received the other day from
India and Bussorah, was one from a person whom I met
here, a gay thoughtless officer in the army, who seems
now really seeking for light and life. Of this
I am sure, that with that soul, it never can be again
as in times past; the name of Christ will either be
a savour of life unto life, or of death unto death.
Oh! how strange a thing here does a consciousness
of divine life in the soul appear, and how affecting
is it to receive that news fresh from the heart of
one who has seen, in spiritual things, men as trees
walking. May the Lord complete what he has begun,
and make his recovered child a burning and a shining
light in that land of darkness, where he sojourns.
This intelligence comes too at a very acceptable time,
for I have had a slight attack of fever for these
last ten days, which, though it is not worth mentioning,
has, like all fevers, left me weak, and with a tendency
to depression. Nor is this all the good the Lord
has done me. The Roman Catholic merchant whom
I mentioned before, has been again with me. He
told me, that when I came from England I brought a
letter for him, which is true, from a very dear friend,
in which he was requested to come every day to see
me, and talk with me, for I was neither a Roman Catholic,
a Greek, an Armenian, nor belonging to any other denomination,
but a Christian. He, however, never came.
Shortly after my arrival I met him at the house of
another merchant, and as I could not talk with him,
my dear brother Pfander did; but nothing could exceed
the timid reserve and coldness with which he answered
all questions respecting religion. But yesterday
he told me, “Now I do not fear to converse with
you.” Surely here is something gained.
May the Lord grant me grace to pour in the sincere
milk of the word. At present I see nothing more
than a willingness to hear and consider; but this
is almost like finding a spring in the desert, when
you are parched with thirst.
I have also received from Mr. Brandram,
the Secretary of the Bible Society, a kind and generous
letter from that noble institution, which enables
me to enter on their work with all my heart, leaving
the question of money free, and only seeking the soul’s
profit of those on whom their benefits are bestowed:
if I obtain money, well if not, I am only
to seek a fair guarantee that the people will read
and take care of the books I have without money full
liberty to give. These books are arrived at Bussorah,
so that when they reach me, what with those I already
have, and those coming from Constantinople or Smyrna,
I shall have quite a depository. All these circumstances
at present make me determine to stay here, the Lord
enabling me, though we again hear that the Persians
are at Sulemania. I was lately informed that
Capt. Chesney, with a gentleman from Bombay, and
his wife, had endeavoured to pass on to Shiraz from
Bushire; but that they were not allowed to enter that
place. They next tried by Shuster, but from hence
likewise they were obliged to turn back. They
appear to have made a third trial with more success;
but an Armenian, who was with me the other day, said
he saw them at Ispahan stripped of every thing they
had, and obliged to borrow money for their journey,
which, as I have before observed, the English always
obtain without the least difficulty.
October 9. Lord’s
Day. It is just one fortnight since
the Lord has laid me on the bed of sickness and suffering;
for nearly a fortnight previous an attack of typhus
fever had been making its steady advances. I
had lost all appetite, strength, and ability to sleep,
accompanied by that strange overwhelming depression
of mind that inclines one to weep one knows not why.
But this day fortnight I was completely laid by, and
this is the first day I have had my clothes on since.
Oc. The Lord
still allows me to feel convalescent, and I cannot
but think of his mercies to me in my solitary and lonely
situation, with all these tendencies to depression,
which are concomitants of the disease. He sent
me from time to time such cheering intelligence, as
enabled me to hope his cause would prosper, and that
all these turmoils were only the more speedily preparing
the way for it. I certainly now close this journal
with more of hope than I have been led to entertain
for many months, yet not without some fears.
The few Georgians that remained from
the plague have been nearly all put to death, so that
the Georgian government of Bagdad is, as I anticipated,
now extinguished. The elements of disorder and
weakness are so interwoven in this wretched government,
that it will require a measure of energy and wisdom
not often found united, to establish a better order
of things; but I desire to leave all in the Lord’s
hands. I shall here then conclude my journal
for the present, and most humbly and heartily pray,
that all the trials, public and private, recorded
in it, may redound to the glory of him who is the Lord
of lords, and King of kings; and that my soul may
not lose its portion of profit.
I had thought of finishing my journal
for the present, but as it has been delayed going
for want of an opportunity, I add the following.
Oc. All in
the city is quiet yet. There is no apparent confidence:
men seem waiting to see how things will turn out.
Every thing is very dear, as it must necessarily be
for some time. The greatest part of the inhabitants
are dead, and many of the survivors have become rich,
either by the death of relations or by robbery, and
no one will do any thing without an exorbitant remuneration.
I have just had a quantity of rice cleaned, for doing
which, previously to the plague I gave a piastre and
a half, and now I have given six piastres.
We have an Armenian bishop coming
here in the room of the priests who are dead.
I know not what his plan of operation will be; but
the Lord is on our side.
I had a visit yesterday from the Abbe
Troche, who has the superintendence of the Catholic
mission here; he was very pleasant; but nothing particular
passed, as many others were present. My conversations
with the Roman Catholic merchant I have before mentioned,
are still very open and free. Oh! may the Lord
water and bless them.
Oc. Several
of the elder boys, who had fled from the plague with
their parents, have been with me since their return.
My heart feels deeply interested about them; yet I
see not plainly my way. I certainly never felt
teaching in a school to be my proper work, and now
much less than ever; yet they need instruction and
desire it, and I think they are attached to me.
May the Lord give me a wise and understanding heart,
that I may rightly see the service he requires of
me. I much wish for the counsel of my dear brethren
at Aleppo; and perhaps the Lord may soon send some
of them to me.
Oc. I have
heard to-day we are to have no other Roman Catholic
bishop in the room of him who is dead; nor any French
Consul, but only an agent; this may take off many
restraints; for the late bishop had given out we were
worse than either the Mohammedans or Jews, and this
had made a great impression on his flock; for he was
a very liberal man, and therefore influential among
them. However, I very much question if things
will now be kept under the same restraint; so that
should the Lord lead me to open the school again, I
should not be surprised if many Roman Catholics came;
for they all acknowledge that our boys learned more
in three months than theirs in two years. The
new Pasha is likewise exceedingly desirous of cultivating
the closest friendship with our Resident, who has
most kindly offered me any aid he can possibly lend
me; and besides all this, the letters I have this
day received from England and Ireland, shew me that
my very dear friends have been making provision for
my school; so that altogether, it seems to me the
Lord’s will I should try again; and in due time,
when I am fit for other service, he may raise up help
that will take this out of my hands. I desire
to be ready to do any work, however humble and contrary
to my nature, that I think the Lord appoints for me.
I hear also, that at Aleppo, the French intend only
having an Agent instead of a Consul; whereas, our
government has just sent a Consul out to Damascus
with an English merchant, and one to Aleppo, and last
year we had a Consul established at Trebizond.
I think Ali Pasha will do all in his power to promote
the steam navigation of these rivers; and he is evidently
a man of a very different character from the Georgians
who preceded him. They cherished most of all the
pride and pomp of Turkish power, with all its inveterate
prejudices, ignorance, and narrowness of mind, so
that if you had any business of the least difficulty,
you could never get them to attend five minutes to
it. But not so Ali Pasha: he apprehends with
facility; and you at least have the satisfaction of
knowing you are understood. He has been at Trieste,
and in Hungary, and seems acquainted, to a limited
extent, with several of the public journals of Europe.
He dresses nearly as an European, and his brother-in-law
quite so, with the exception of the hat; which is
as yet very trying to the genuine Asiatics, who look
on their own dress as that which it would be a sin
to change. The Pasha also seems perfectly indifferent
to hoarding money.
Things in the city are still very
dear, arising from the harvest of last year not having
been reaped, and various other causes. We have
to pay three times the usual price for most things;
but after such tremendous visitations as we have suffered,
we cannot expect that things can return to their usual
course in a day.
Oc. I have
had with me to-day a gentleman who was formerly attached
to Mr. Morier’s mission in Persia. He fled
from the plague at Tabreez, and arrived at Kermanshah
four days after dear brother Pfander left it, who,
by his conversations in the caravan, had left so distinct
an impression, that he thought Mohammed a liar, that
when he reached Kermanshah, he found his situation
very difficult, nay dangerous, and he was obliged
hastily to quit it. He went to Hamadan, and remained
there three days in the house of a priest, from whence
he proceeded to Ispahan. All the villages between
Hamadan and Ispahan are Armenian. The journey
takes about ten days. When he arrived at Ispahan,
Abbas Meerza being at Yezd, he went there, was treated
with great honour and respect, and a firman given
him to go where he liked: he returned to Ispahan,
and from thence went to Tabreez, which place he reached
before the plague broke out the second time. This
account makes me long to hear from his own pen the
course of the Lord’s dealings with him.
The same gentleman told me that the plague in Tabreez
was much worse the second than the first time.
Kermanshah is absolutely destroyed, and the governor,
a grandson of the king, is reported to have collected
from the property of the dead five lacs of piasters.
In Kourdistan, also, they say it has been dreadful.
In Saggas, Banah, and Sulemania, he says the desolation
is shocking. How wonderful God’s visitations
on these nations are; it makes the soul that the Lord
has appointed to be in the midst of them often say,
Lord, let thy kingdom come; yea, speedily, that thy
people may know peace and safety.
I have sent to see the number of the
poor little boys of my school that remain, and I find
that they amount to 25 out of 80, and that I may expect
near 30, should I get a master for them. I shall,
therefore, endeavour to accomplish this, the Lord enabling
me, and when I feel strong enough to begin again.
I am very anxious about the dear N ’s
at Tabreez, from whom I have not received a line.
Abbas Meerza ordered large pits to be dug for those
who died of the plague, and when they were full to
have them covered in. The Ambassador, and the
English, Russian, and other public functionaries,
had fled, and from a packet that came from Capt.
Campbell, who has now the charge of the mission since
the death of Sir John Macdonald, we know that he was
safe up to a late date.
Oc. I was much
struck with an account which Mr. Swoboda, an Austrian
merchant, gave me to-day, of a conversation he had
with the brother-in-law of Ali Pasha. He said
that now, in Stamboul, the Christians went to the
mosque, and the Mohammedans to the Church; there was
no difference. How strikingly this shows the rapid
progress of that infidel spirit in these countries,
which is spreading in Europe; surely these then are
such signs as should keep us on the watch for our
Lord.
Accounts have just come that the struggle
has commenced at Damascus, that supreme seat of bigotry,
between the new and the old regime, and it remains
to be seen how it will terminate. I already hear
of one or two Roman Catholic boys, who will now come
to the school, who before, during the life of the
bishop, were afraid. My health I also feel daily
establishing; and that I shall soon be able to enter
on real labour again, with the Lord’s blessing,
I sincerely trust.
Oc. The affairs
of the city appear daily more and more settling again;
provisions are coming in in abundance, and the price
gradually lowering. The roads also are becoming
more open and safe: for all these signs of tranquility
we bless the Lord and take courage, and trust we may
yet serve him in this land of our pilgrimage.
Also across the desert we hear the road is tranquil.
Oc. To-day
the Jew called whom I mentioned in my journal of last
year, as having come to Mr. Pfander: he is a Jewish
Rabbi, who disbelieving Judaism, and possibly preferring
Christianity, seems to be in both without heart or
principle. He brought with him a Polish Jew,
who is the tailor of Ali Pasha. He saw Mr. Wolff
at Jerusalem, and speaks of him with high admiration.
The Rabbi told me he was reading with him the German
New Testament. May the Lord send his holy fire
on the altar of their hearts, that they may really,
heartily, and zealously enter into his truth.
If there is any gift my soul longs for, it is to be
able to speak to every one in his own tongue wherein
he was born, the wonderful works of God; for