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Title: Journal of a Residence at Bagdad

Author: Anthony Groves

Editor: Alexander Scott

Release Date: August 7, 2009 [EBook #29631]

Language: English

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JOURNAL

OF A

RESIDENCE AT BAGDAD,

&c., &c.

LONDON:
DENNETT, PRINTER, LEATHER LANE.

JOURNAL

OF A

RESIDENCE AT BAGDAD,

DURING THE YEARS 1830 AND 1831,

BY

M^R. ANTHONY N. GROVES,

MISSIONARY.

LONDON:
JAMES NISBET, BERNERS STREET.
M DCCC XXXII.

INTRODUCTION.

This little work needs nothing from us to recommend it to attention. In its incidents it presents more that is keenly interesting, both to the natural and to the spiritual feelings, than it would have been easy to combine in the boldest fiction. And then it is not fiction. The manner in which the story is told leaves realities unencumbered, to produce their own impression. It might gratify the imagination, and even aid in enlarging our practical views, to consider such scenes as possible, and to fancy in what spirit a Christian might meet them; but it extends our experience, and invigorates our faith, to know that, having actually taken place, it is thus that they have been met.

The first missionaries were wont, at intervals, to return from their foreign labours, and relate to those churches whose prayers had sent them forth, “all things that God had done with them” during their absence. To the Christians at Antioch, there must have been important edification, as well as satisfaction to their affectionate concern about the individuals, and about the cause, in the narrative of Paul and Barnabas. Nor would the states of mind experienced, and the spirit manifested, by the narrators themselves be less instructive, than the various reception of their message by various hearers. In these pages, in like manner, Mr. Groves contributes to the good of the Church, an important fruit of his mission, were it to yield no other. He had cast himself upon the Lord. To Him he had left it to direct his path; to give him what things He knew he had need of, and whether outward prospects were bright or gloomy, to be the strength of his heart and his portion for ever. The publication of his former little Journal was the erection of his Eben Ezer. Hitherto, said he to us in England, the Lord hath helped me. And now, after a prolonged residence among a people with whom, in natural things, he can have no communion, and who, towards his glad tidings of salvation, are as apathetic as is compatible with the bitterest contempt; after having had, during many weeks, his individual share of the suffering, and his mind worn with the spectacle, of a city strangely visited at once with plague, and siege, and inundation, and internal tumult; widowed, and not without experience of “flesh and heart fainting and failing,” he again “blesses God for all the way he has led him,”[1] tells us that “the Lord’s great care over him in the abundant provision for all his necessities, enables him yet further to sing of his goodness;”[2] and while his situation makes him say, “what a place would this be to be alone in now” if without God, he adds, “but with Him, this is better than the garden of Eden.”[3] “The Lord is my only stay, my only support; and He is a support indeed.”[4]

It is remarkable, that at a time when the fear of pestilence has agitated the people of this country, and when the tottering fabric of society threatens to hurl down upon us as dire a confusion as that which has surrounded our brother, in a country hitherto regarded so remote from all comparison with our own; at a time when the records of the seasons at which the terrible voice of God has sounded loudest in our capital, are republished as appropriate to the contemplation of Christians at the existing crisis;[5]—this volume should have been brought before the Public, by circumstances quite unconnected with this train of God’s dealings and threatenings to our land. The Christians of Britain ought to consider, that there is a warning voice of Providence, not only in the tumults of the people, and in the terrors of the cholera around them, but even in the publication of this Journal. It is not for nothing that God has moved Mr. Groves, as it were, to an advanced post, where he might encounter the enemy before them. The alarm may have, in a measure, subsided,[6] but if the people of God are to be ever patiently waiting for the coming of their conquering King, this implies a patient preparedness for those signs of his coming, the clouds and darkness that are to go before him, in the very midst of which they must be able to lift up their heads because their redemption draweth nigh. To provide for the worst contingencies is a virtue, not a weakness, in the soldier. That Christian will not keep his garments who forgets, that in this life, he is a soldier always. No army is so orderly in peace, or so triumphant upon lesser assaults, as that which is ready always for the extremest exigencies of war.

To those who are looking for the glorious appearing of our great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ, this volume will exhibit indications of the advancement of the world towards the state in which he shall find it at his coming. The diffusion in the east of European notions and practices; the desire on the part of the rulers to possess themselves of the advantages of western intellect and skill; and on the side of the governed, the conviction of the comparative security and comfort of English domination; the vastly increased intercourse between those nations and the west, and the proposals for still further accelerating and facilitating that intercourse: all these things mark the rapid tendency, of which we have so many other signs, towards the production of one common mind throughout the human race, to issue in that combination for a common resistance of God, which, as of old, when the people were one, and had all one language, and it seemed that nothing could be restrained from them which they had imagined to do,—shall cause the Lord to come down and confound their purpose. Already has this unity of views and aims, with marvellous rapidity, prevailed in the European and American world; the press, the steam-engine by land and water, the multiplication of societies and unions, portend an advancement in it, to which nothing can set limits but the intervention of God: and now it appears that the mountain-fixedness of Asiatic prejudice and institution shall suddenly be dissolved, and absorbed into the general vortex.

And to those who may have suspected, that the prospect of the return of Jesus of Nazareth to our earth for vengeance and expurgation of evil first, and then for occupation of rule, under the face of the whole heaven, is but a speculative subject for curious minds, this little book presents matter of reflection. By circumstances of such urgent personal concernment, as those in which Mr. Groves and his departed wife have been placed, the merely speculative part of religion is put to flight. But we shall find them in the midst of confusion, and bereavement, and horror, clinging to this one hope for themselves and for the world, that the Lord cometh to reign, wherefore the earth shall be glad; deriving from this hope a delight in God, in the midst of all that seems adverse to such a sentiment, which, if it be not a proof of practical power in a doctrine, what is practical?

On some few points, Mr. Groves has given a somewhat detailed expression of his own sentiments. One of the most important of these is re-considered in the notes by the writer of this introduction. Another, on which the interest of many has already been strongly excited, is the recognition of those men as ministers of God, who do not utter the word of his truth, and who are admitted to speak without the Spirit of his truth. The question, encompassed as it has been with difficulties foreign to itself, is but a narrow one. The preaching of the Gospel is an ordinance of God. The preaching of what is not the Gospel is no ordinance of God; and affords me no opportunity of shewing my respect for divine ordinances by my attendance upon it. That men possessing the Holy Ghost should confer spiritual gifts by the laying on of hands on those who in faith receive it, is an ordinance of God: that men, not having the Holy Ghost, should lay hands on others for spiritual gifts, is no ordinance of God.

If the outward fact of what is named ordination, determines me to regard as now made of God a teacher, a pastor, an evangelist, a bishop, him who, to all intelligent and spiritual perception, is what he was, in error, and ignorance, and carnality; this is not respect for divine ordinances at all, but a faith in the opus operatum, a faith in transubstantiation transferred to men, denying the truth of my own perception, and clinging to the conclusion of my superstition, just as in the mass the senses are denied, and bread and wine visibly unaltered, are called flesh and blood. The arguments by which this notion is supported, are too complicated, and too contemptuous of unity or consistency, to be meddled with in our limited space. That Christ bade men observe what the Scribes and Pharisees taught on the authority of the law of Moses, is made a reason for reverencing what is taught on no divine authority: Scribes and Pharisees, who pretended to no divine ordination, but rested their claims on their knowledge, are made specimens of the respect due to ordination, in the case of such whose ignorance and unsound teaching are allowed. But were not the Scribes and Pharisees in many things ignorant and unsound? Yes, truly; but were these the things of which the Lord said expressly, these things observe and do? To tell us that we must observe and do what is according to Scripture, however bad the men who teach it, ordained or unordained alike; what has this to do with ordination? True, this is no excuse for those who prostitute the form and name of God’s ordinance, and know that it is prostituted: who say, “receive ye the Holy Ghost,” and would laugh as being supposed to confer the Holy Ghost: but there is no necessity for running from this crime, to the error of which we have spoken. Let us acknowledge our wretchedness, and misery, and poverty, and blindness, and nakedness. When the laws were transgressed, and the everlasting covenant broken; then the ordinance was changed, as Isaiah foretold it should,[7] among the causes why the earth is defiled under the inhabitants thereof.

The Apostolic Epistles contain little, if any thing, to establish the pastoral authority in a single person of each church or congregation: and the omission of all allusion to such an office is often very remarkable from the occasion seeming to assure us, that it would have been mentioned had it existed. The Epistles of the Lord to the seven churches are therefore resorted to for proof of the existence and nature of the place of a single pastor with peculiar and exclusive powers. But neither there nor elsewhere is the fact of ordination once referred to, in relation to the receiving or rejection of those who claimed to speak in the name of Christ. In these very Epistles there is a commendation for disregarding for the truth’s sake the highest titles of ecclesiastical office. “Thou canst not bear them which are evil: thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars.”[8] I believe, “not to bear them which are evil” pastors, evangelists or apostles, is as commendable in England as in Ephesus in the eye of the Head of the Churches. Is there a syllable in the Bible to lead us to suppose that these liars were detected by any other means than those which Paul had already taught the Church? “Though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.” As for the ordinance, such passages as Titus i. 9, make selection a part of that ordinance: the bishop is to be one “holding fast the word of truth as he hath been taught.” Now, on what authority shall this part of the ordinance, viz. selection, be omitted, and no flaw follow: while the presence or omission of a manual act in certain hands is to constitute the reality or absence of Divine ordination?

A. J. SCOTT.

Woolwich, Aug. 16th, 1832.

[Pg 1]

JOURNAL

OF A

RESIDENCE AT BAGDAD.

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, [Pg 2] 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 [Pg 3] 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 [Pg 4] the Euphrates and up to Beer. This navigation will bring one within three days of the Mediterranean,[9] 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 [Pg 5] 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 [Pg 6] 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, [Pg 7] 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 [Pg 8] 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 [Pg 9] 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 [Pg 10] 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 [Pg 11] 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.[10]

This possibility thus set before us of seeing those we love, and many of the Lord’s dear servants [Pg 12] 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 [Pg 13] 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.

The following is the estimate of the time which the voyages, by the Red Sea, and by these rivers to India, would respectively occupy:

[Pg 14]

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 Erivan dialect prevails, which they use in the Karabagh, in the north of Persia, and in all these [Pg 15] 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 [Pg 16] 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 [Pg 17] 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.

[Pg 18] 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 [Pg 19] 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,[11] about the state of Christianity in these countries, is but too true, and what he states about the monks at Itch-Meeazin may be doubtless true; at least I suppose it is the seat of the Armenian Patriarch he means, for I know of no other Armenian church in these parts, where this service is kept up of reading the whole Book of Psalms every day. The office of a missionary in these countries is, to live the Gospel before them in the power of the Holy Ghost, and to drop like the dew, line upon line, and precept upon precept, here a little and there a little, till God give the increase of his labours; but it must be by patient continuance in well doing against every discouraging circumstance, from the remembrance of what we ourselves once were.

We have this day heard, that the cholera or the plague is at Tabreez, and that they are dying 4 or 5,000 a day; but this, I have no doubt, is a gross exaggeration. May the Lord watch over the seed that seems sowing there, and make the judgments that are in the earth warnings to men [Pg 20] 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 [Pg 21] 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 [Pg 22] 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 [Pg 23] 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 [Pg 24] 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. [Pg 25] 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 [Pg 26] 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.[12] 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 [Pg 27] 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 Jehovah, 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 [Pg 28] 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 [Pg 29] 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.

[Pg 30] 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,[13] 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.

[Pg 31] 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,[14] a village between Mousul [Pg 32] 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 £75, for their liberation, and Major T. has sent a person from hence to treat about it.

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, [Pg 36] 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 [Pg 37] 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 [Pg 38] 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 [Pg 39] 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 [Pg 40] my dear friend the A——[15] 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 [Pg 41] 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, [Pg 42] 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 [Pg 43] 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 [Pg 44] 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 [Pg 45] 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, Erivan, 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 [Pg 46] 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 [Pg 47] 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,

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, [Pg 49] 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,[16] 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 [Pg 50] 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 [Pg 51] 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.

Sept. 24.—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.

Sept. 27.—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.

[Pg 52] Sept. 29.—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 [Pg 53] 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.

[Pg 54] 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, [Pg 55] 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.

[Pg 56] 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.

Oct. 2.—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 [Pg 57] 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.

Oct. 7.—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 [Pg 58] 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.

Oct. 10.—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.

Oct. 14.—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 [Pg 59] 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.

Oct. 17.—The value of the English protection [Pg 60] 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 [Pg 61] 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.

Oct. 18.—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 [Pg 62] 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 [Pg 63] 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.

Oct. 21.—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 [Pg 64] 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 negociation. 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.

Oct. 22.—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.

[Pg 65] 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 [Pg 66] 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 [Pg 67] previously obtained, that the Armenian population of that city was 5,000 houses,[17] 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 [Pg 68] 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 [Pg 69] 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 [Pg 70] 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 [Pg 71] 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 (Oct. 28), 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 [Pg 72] 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 £84. sterling a year. This I was both unable and unwilling to give, [Pg 73] and therefore fixed £30. as the utmost, and the rest has been made up by the Armenians among themselves, excepting £18. 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.

[Pg 74]

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, [Pg 75] 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.

Feb. 16.—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 [Pg 76] 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.

Feb. 19.—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.

Feb. 21.—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 [Pg 77] 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.

Feb. 24.—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. [Pg 78] 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.

Feb. 28.—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 [Pg 79] 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. iii. 17. “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 [Pg 80] 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; [Pg 81] 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 [Pg 82] 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 [Pg 83] 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.

[Pg 84] 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 [Pg 85] 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, [Pg 86] 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 [Pg 87] 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.

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 [Pg 93] 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 [Pg 94] 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 Jehovah 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 [Pg 95] 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 persecutions. 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, [Pg 96] 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 [Pg 97] 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.

[Pg 98] 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, [Pg 99] 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 [Pg 100] 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 [Pg 101] 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 [Pg 102] 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 Jehovah—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 [Pg 103] 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 [Pg 104] 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 [Pg 105] 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 [Pg 106] 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 [Pg 107] 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, [Pg 108] 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,[22] 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 [Pg 109] 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,[23] 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.

[Pg 110] 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 [Pg 111] 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[24] have offered to provide what is [Pg 112] 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 [Pg 113] schoolmasters[25] 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.[26] 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 [Pg 114] 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,[27] 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 [Pg 115] 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 [Pg 116] 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 [Pg 117] 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 [Pg 118] 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. [Pg 119] 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 [Pg 120] 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 [Pg 121] 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 [Pg 122] 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 [Pg 123] 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 [Pg 124] 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 [Pg 125] 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 [Pg 126] 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.[28] 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 [Pg 127] 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 [Pg 128] 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, [Pg 129] 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 £10. to £100. 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 [Pg 130] 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 [Pg 131] 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, [Pg 132] 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 [Pg 133] 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 [Pg 134] 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 [Pg 135] 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 [Pg 136] 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,[29] 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 [Pg 137] 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 [Pg 138] 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. [Pg 139] 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 [Pg 140] 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 [Pg 141] 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, [Pg 142] “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 [Pg 143] 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 [Pg 144] 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 [Pg 145] 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 [Pg 146] 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 [Pg 147] 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 [Pg 148] 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.[30] 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 [Pg 149] 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 [Pg 150] 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 [Pg 151] 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 [Pg 152] 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 [Pg 153] 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 [Pg 154] 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 1s. 3d. 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 [Pg 155] 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 [Pg 156] 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, [Pg 157] 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 [Pg 158] 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,[31] to the Pashas marching against this Pasha, to desire them to return, and that another messenger is on the way from Stamboul [Pg 159] 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, [Pg 160] 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 [Pg 161] 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 [Pg 162] 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 [Pg 163] 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 [Pg 164] 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.

[Pg 165] 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 [Pg 166] 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 [Pg 167] 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 [Pg 168] 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 [Pg 169] 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, [Pg 170] 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 [Pg 171] of our house[32] of an evening, “When will he come?” Often she would say to me, I never enjoyed such spiritual peace as since I have been in Bagdad—such an unvarying sense of nearness to Christ, and assurance of his love and care; we came out trusting only under his wing, and he will never forsake us. Her strongest assurance was certainly that the Lord would not allow the plague to enter our dwelling; but when she saw that the Lord mysteriously accepted not this confidence, but let it rest even on her, it never disturbed her peace, as I have mentioned before. She said to me, “I know not which is to me most mysterious, that the Lord should have laid his hand upon me, or, having laid it, that I should enjoy such peace as I do.” And in this peace and confidence, every subsequent moment of sensibility was passed. Her constant exclamation was, “I know he will do most graciously by me.” Yet notwithstanding all the happiness I have in contemplating her among the redeemed, thus clothed in white; and notwithstanding the triumphing conviction I have in spite of the temptations of Satan, and the darkness that envelopes my present position, that all is the offspring of infinite love; yet at times the overwhelming loss I have sustained, in every possible way that a husband, a father, a missionary, and even a man, can know, so affects me that but [Pg 172] 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 [Pg 173] 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, [Pg 174] 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 [Pg 175] 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 [Pg 176] 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, [Pg 177] however, does not arise simply from the plague, but because the rich merchants have all left the city, and the principal Jews, from the apprehension of the coming of Ali Pasha from Aleppo, and that in consequence trade is at a stand.

June 10.—Last evening the guns of the citadel fired as for some good news, and we find, on enquiring, that a messenger has come from the Sultan, confirming the Pasha in his Pashalic.[33] The Tartars, who are the bearers of this intelligence, are expected to enter to-morrow or next day. This arrangement, it is reported, has been brought about by our Ambassador at Constantinople.—Should it be the Lord’s pleasure that we now have a little peace and quietness here, it will be a great mercy, and an inconceivable relief from the disquietude of the last 18 months; however, the Lord knows what is best for us. These difficulties have led my heart many times to him, when, perhaps, but for them, it would have rested on some lower object. This prospect of peace seems to bring nearer the possibility of our dear friends joining us from Aleppo, and this would indeed be a great comfort.

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 [Pg 178] 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 [Pg 179] 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 [Pg 180] 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 [Pg 181] 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. [Pg 182] 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.

[Pg 183] 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 [Pg 184] 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.

[Pg 185] 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, [Pg 186] 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. [Pg 187] 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 [Pg 188] 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 [Pg 189] 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. [Pg 190] 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 [Pg 191] 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 [Pg 192] 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 [Pg 193] 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 [Pg 194] 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 [Pg 195] 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 [Pg 196] 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 [Pg 197] 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.[34] [Pg 198] 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 [Pg 199] 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 [Pg 200] 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 [Pg 201] 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,[35] 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, [Pg 202] (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.

[Pg 203] 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 [Pg 204] 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;[36] so those [Pg 205] 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 [Pg 206] 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 [Pg 207] 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 [Pg 208] 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 [Pg 209] 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;[37] 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 [Pg 210] 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 [Pg 211] 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 [Pg 212] 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.

[Pg 213] 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 [Pg 214] 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 [Pg 215] 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,[38] 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?

[Pg 216] 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, [Pg 217] 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 [Pg 218] 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. xvii. 2. “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. vi. 16. 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 [Pg 219] 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 [Pg 220] 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 [Pg 221] 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 [Pg 222] 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 [Pg 223] 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, [Pg 224] 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. [Pg 225] 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 [Pg 226] 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.

Aug. 3.—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 [Pg 227] 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 [Pg 228] 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 [Pg 229] 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 [Pg 230] 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, [Pg 231] 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.

Aug. 9.—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.

[Pg 232] 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.

Aug. 13. 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.

Aug. 14. 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 [Pg 233] 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 £10. to £20. between this and Damascus. He says, you come to fresh water every second or third day.

[Pg 234] Aug. 19. 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 [Pg 235] 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.

Aug. 23. 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 [Pg 236] 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 [Pg 237] 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.

Aug. 24. 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 [Pg 238] 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, [Pg 239] 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.

Aug. 25. 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.

Aug. 28.—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 [Pg 240] 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 [Pg 241] 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 [Pg 242] 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.

Aug. 30.—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 [Pg 243] 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 [Pg 244] 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 [Pg 245] 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 [Pg 246] 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.

Sept. 9. 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, [Pg 247] 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, [Pg 248] and seems now not far from sharing the same fate.

Sept. 10. 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 [Pg 249] 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.

Sept. 12. 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, [Pg 250] 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 [Pg 251] 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. [Pg 252] 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.

Sept. 14. 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 [Pg 253] 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 [Pg 254] 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 [Pg 255] 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 [Pg 256] 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 [Pg 257] 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.

Sept. 15. 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 [Pg 258] 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 [Pg 259] 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.

Sept. 16. 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 [Pg 260] 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.

Sept. 18. 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.

[Pg 261] 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 [Pg 262] 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[39] 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 [Pg 263] 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,[40] 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.

Sept. 21. Wednesday.—Nothing can exceed the attention and respect that is paid to Daoud [Pg 264] 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 [Pg 265] 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 [Pg 266] 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. [Pg 267] 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[41] becomes a dissenter in principle. Whereas I think many who have merely followed the line which the apostle recommends, [Pg 268] 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 [Pg 269] 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 [Pg 270] 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 [Pg 271] 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 [Pg 272] does really exist a body bound together for eternity, in all the essentials of Divine truth.

Sept. 24.—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 [Pg 273] 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 [Pg 274] 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.

Oct. 11.—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 [Pg 275] 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.

Oct. 14.—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 [Pg 276] 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 Abbé 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.

Oct. 17.—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.

[Pg 277] Oct. 18.—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 [Pg 278] 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.

Oct. 22.—I have had with me to-day a gentleman who was formerly attached to Mr. Morier’s [Pg 279] 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; [Pg 280] 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.

Oct. 26.—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 [Pg 281] 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.

Oct. 27.—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.

Oct. 28.—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 [Pg 282] tongue wherein he was born, the wonderful works of God; for want of this, in countries like this, where you are surrounded by many different languages, the heart gets overwhelmed with the difficulties that seem to spread on every side; as, for instance, with these Jews, they know little Arabic, and I do not know German, and thus we stand incapable of any such conversation as is likely to search the heart.

Nov. 1.—I have been reading with considerable attention the remarks, or rather reflections, of Jonathan Edwards, on the Life of Brainerd, wherein he endeavours to recommend to the Church of God, the disinterested and unmercenary love of God, by which he means the love of him for his abstract perfections apart from the consideration of any personal interest or happiness arising out of his especial love to his chosen. This is all very fine and very philosophical, but in my humble apprehension, most unscriptural. Does God any where in Scripture, when appealing to his chosen, or expostulating with them, argue on the ground of his abstract perfections, or of his especial love and distinguishing grace towards them? Throughout the Old Testament this is the controversy, not that they slighted his abstract perfections, but disregarded his especial favour. All the invitations to return, appeal to what Edwards would call the selfish and mercenary feelings. What! had not Moses respect unto the recompense of reward; and in all the 11th of the [Pg 283] Hebrews, where is this abstraction held up? When our dear and blessed Lord exhorts to faithfulness, watchfulness, devotion, does he represent an abstraction as a motive, or without our own everlasting participation with him with whom there is fulness of joy for evermore. Paul thought it not mercenary to think on his crown, or to encourage his converts by the consideration, that present sorrow for the Lord, works for them a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. Again, eye hath not seen nor ear heard the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. Our blessed Lord makes promises to whoever leaves father or mother for his sake,[42] and John encourages his disciples, by telling them that they were made sons of God, and that they were to be made like their Lord; he saw nothing debasing in this contemplation, but instantly adds, “he that hath this hope purifieth himself even as he is pure.” This is the promise he hath promised even eternal life. In fact, the doctrine of rewards, as an incentive to the saints, prevails from one end to the other of the sacred volume. The notion that a love which springs from a sense of being beloved, must be selfish and mercenary, is the greatest delusion imaginable. It may be, and in proportion as its power is really known and felt, is the most holy, self-denying, pure, and devoted of all affections, an affection that seeketh not her own, but the glory of the object beloved. If Edwards would set up dear D. Brainerd and his Indians in favour of the [Pg 284] abstract system, we may set up the Moravians and their Esquimaux in favour of the other. But why set up one set of worms and their conduct against another set of worms and theirs, when we have the record of God in our hands? Let us see how our Heavenly Father proposes himself to our love, confidence, and affections, and what incentives he proposes as inducements to the sinner to return, and the saint to persevere to the end, and not attempt to be wise above that which is written. That God is infinitely adorable in his abstract perfections I am sure, though I cannot fathom these abstract perfections, nor conceive of him but as revealed in his blessed word in connection with his chosen, and as personally exhibited by him who was the brightness of his Father’s glory, and the express image of his person, and this is not in abstractions or apart from our happiness.

Again, when Edwards endeavours to prove it is enthusiasm in an individual to imagine that Christ, in an especial manner died for him, I think he destroys the peculiar stimulus to devotedness, which the doctrines of election in their widest latitude, contain above the doctrines of Armenianism, and he throws a coldness over all the doctrines of grace. In Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, David, Daniel, and others, with the Apostles of our Lord and Paul, it was both personal and open, but because not equally open to the rest of God’s children, I do not believe the holy and blessed Spirit allows it to be less individual and personal.

[Pg 285] If, however, his opponents were practically such men as he describes, we cannot too deeply deplore it; but he writes so much more like the advocate of a sect, than an impartial enquirer after truth, that, without a particular knowledge of the case, one cannot help suspecting his picture of those he is writing against, to be very highly coloured. In fact, on the truth of God, it seems philosophical declamation, without scriptural proof: on the subject of his opponent, it is assertion in the lump, concerning masses of individuals, without proof or discrimination.

Nov. 4.—We have here now at the head of affairs, under the Pasha, one of those extraordinary men who are capable of any thing good or bad. Under Daoud Pasha he, for a long time, cruelly oppressed the people, but more especially the Jews, till at last a conspiracy was formed against him, and by the influence of the father of the Serof Bashee of the Pasha, who is one of the serofs, or bankers,[43] of the Sultan at Constantinople, an order was procured for his being put to death. Daoud Pasha did not execute this order, but imprisoned him, and as he had been the instrument of extorting money for him, he concluded he had not failed at the same time to enrich himself. In their endeavours to extort his money from him they drew the bow-string so tight that they nearly [Pg 286] strangled him: however he recovered: he told them he had a certain sum of money, and where it was, which Daoud Pasha had previously agreed he should collect for himself. This his rapacious miserable master had the meanness to take from him. He had some friends who exerted themselves to save his life; which was spared. However, only a few days before the entrance of Ali Pasha, orders were again issued to put him to death, as he was detected holding communication with those without the city; but again intercession was made for him, and he was again spared. He was instantly taken into favour by Ali Pasha, on his entrance into the town, who has made him his treasurer and accountant-general (Musruff and Deftardar); and in fact, the whole business of the Pashalic is in his hands. He is at work night and day: till after midnight he is engaged in business, and long before dawn he is to be seen on horseback. He never sleeps at home, but each night at a different friend’s house, though the Pasha gave him the best house (taken with all its accompaniments) in Bagdad. When the Pasha heard that Major Taylor’s house, which is on the river, had suffered by the flood, he instantly gave it to him, and he now intends occupying it. This man is not only acquainted with all the internal affairs of the city, but he is connected with all the tribes of Arabs from Bussorah to Merdin; knows all their relations, enmities, friendships, and divisions, external [Pg 287] as well as internal, and has ability and tact to take advantage of them. He is also acquainted with the agriculture of the country between the two rivers, and greatly desires to advance and improve it. What two such men as Ali Pasha and he may effect, should the Lord allow them to remain, it is impossible to conceive; but certainly great changes. He has now his old enemy, the Serof Bashee, in prison, and is bastinadoing him to get money out of him. But his general carriage to the inhabitants is much changed, though he has now twice the authority, which clearly, I think, manifests the altered temper of the government. To the English, he is a most devoted friend, and especially to the Resident, to whom he feels he owes his life, for he is at once a firm friend, and, I fear, an implacable enemy: one of those men from whom if you can once extort the assurance that you are safe, you may be at ease; whereas, in general, from the Pasha downwards, the more they assured you of your safety, the more reason you felt you had to fear.

Nov. 7.—I have been to-day calling on several of the most respectable Roman Catholic merchants of this place, who have, some of them, repeatedly called on me; but, partly from want of health, and partly from want of spirits, I have not hitherto returned their visits. They received me with the greatest kindness, and the opportunities these visits afforded of bringing in God’s word as the only standard of truth, I feel to be very valuable. It seems perfectly new to them to have [Pg 288] the sentiments or conduct of themselves or others measured by this holy and blessed book; such a use they never in their lives saw made of it, so that it strikes them exceedingly; and the Lord’s spirit may make something here or there rest on their hearts. I feel that the door for my particular line of usefulness is opening, and as I advance in the practical use of the language, I have confidence the Lord will yet shew me greater things than these.

There is a new Roman Catholic priest here, formerly an Armenian. He has been trying to see if he can get my school boys to come to him if he opens a school: they have all refused; and this strengthens me in my purpose of not delaying the re-opening of mine longer than I am obliged. Should I not be able to get a master from Bussorah, for whom I have written, there has been an Armenian with me, who offers to come, a most respectable man; him, therefore, I may consider, as ready, should the other fail. Thus, the Lord provides. With my English class, I purpose, the Lord willing, to begin after another fortnight. My greatest difficulty will be I fear, to obtain an Arabic teacher; the mortality among the Mollahs has been enormous. Here then I shall end for the present, I fear this too long, and, in many respects, tedious, journal of the last five months, as the messenger goes to-morrow or the day after.

[Pg 289]

NOTES.

Mr. Groves having so strongly expressed his condemnation of Mr. Erskine’s view of Divine Truth, in pages 102, 103, and 104 of his Journal, the Editor, who believes Mr. Groves to be in error regarding the extent of the Atonement, has felt it to be a duty not to allow his statements to pass unaccompanied with a plain declaration of the truth. The following Notes on some of the principal points touched upon by Mr. Groves, have been contributed by a brother who bears him much love, the Rev. A. J. Scott, of Woolwich, not so much with any view of detailed discussions of Mr. Groves’s positions, as simply to exhibit truth, as the best antidote to error.

NOTE A, page 102.

Mr. Groves has referred to the effects of system. One of the most important of these is, that opposite systems lead men to take such opposite views of the evidence itself by which the truth of the conflicting opinions must be tried. Of this he here furnishes an instance, in saying so strongly that the “sovereignty of God’s government, and the individuality of God’s election,” are “represented by the Apostles as the most overwhelming reasons for unlimited devotion to his service, who has thus chosen us.” [Pg 290] Many of the very passages, doubtless, to which he would turn for the establishment of this assertion, would be enjoyed by others, as proofs how available is the general “kindness of God our Saviour towards man,” as an argument for loving and serving him. When Paul persuades the Ephesians to “walk in love as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us;”[44] when Peter recommends to his brethren patient meekness in suffering, by the consideration that “Christ also suffered for us, the just for the unjust,”[45] the power of this over the mind of one man depends on his understanding by “us” the fallen world; and of another, on its reminding him only of distinguishing personal obligations to sovereign election. Now, suasives to holiness, or what are felt as such, as they continually recur in Scripture, produce on a devout mind a much deeper conviction of the truth of the doctrines from which they are derived, than a formal assertion can. When, by the same expressions, one man is habitually carried to this, another to that, view of the Divine character, and each experiences, that in what he sees, there is a practical tendency towards the state of the heart and form of life at which he aims as good: this becomes to each, as instances accumulate, a far stronger reason than bare propositions, could be for growing in confidence, that the belief which thus impresses him is indeed the truth of God.

And one accustomed to observe the effects of system will not wonder that expressions like those above cited, still less that those in which Christ is spoken of as having “loved the church and given himself for it,” should thus come to be regarded as containing an argument for a selective atonement. It is by such a doctrine being perceived in them, that they practically impress the feelings of many. And yet, in truth, how are they inconsistent with the universal love of God and propitiation of Christ? Of course, where a common benefit is received, its efficacy, as a motive [Pg 291] to grateful returns, is limited to those who recognize and value it. A patriot has delivered millions of ignorant, suspicious, ungrateful countrymen. His services are to be used as an argument for joining in some effort for his honour; and those who acknowledge and bless his exertions are especially addressed, and reminded that “he loved you, laboured for you, achieved happiness for you.” Would this contain even an insinuation, that they were the exclusive objects of his disinterested ardour? In such an address not only would the common benefit be mentioned peculiarly as a good bestowed on themselves; but their acknowledgment of it, and their distinguishing susceptibility to the feeling of its worth, would be referred and appealed to, as reasons why that was looked for and demanded of them, which from others might be as justly asked, but not so naturally expected. Such appeals are the apostolic epistles to the churches, as contrasted with their proclamation of Christ to the world.

NOTE B, page 103.

The moral condition of man, his seeing no desirableness in the object presented to him by the Gospel, Mr. Erskine shews, at great length, to be the grand obstacle to his enjoying it. The capacity to know and believe, he indeed conceives to bring with it the capacity to enjoy. But if a change in the moral state is necessary in receiving the truth, this surely obviates the objection that such truth would be unpalatable and uninfluential to those whose moral state is unchanged.

Our business, however, is not with Mr. E. but with the truth of the matter. Mr. Groves’ remarks refer to the nature of regeneration, and to the necessity of a change in the affections, in order to man’s appreciating the object presented to him in the Gospel: these he considers as objections to the doctrine that the simple knowledge and [Pg 292] belief of that object are “the cause of spiritual life in the unregenerate;” and he uses the analogy of food, which he says, is not the cause of life, although it be the support of it. Certainly the contemplation of Jesus is not the cause, but it is the commencement and exercise of spiritual life, which needs no commencement of a distinct kind from its subsequent functions. As to the analogy of food, it will be seen whether the language of Scripture bears us out in making the same distinction between the source and the sustenance of spiritual, as of natural life.

What, indeed, is meant to be asserted? Is it, that men have life in them first, to capacitate them to eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of Man? This seems to be said: but Himself hath said, “Except ye eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of Man, ye have no life in you.” Not life then without the food, or before the food, but by the food. This banquet is to be spread before the dead. Thus only shall any live. Is spirit and life in men first from another source, and then do they take and profit by his words? But “the entrance of his words giveth light,” and that light is life. “The words that I speak unto you,” says the Lord, “they are spirit, and they are life”: and that spirit, the spirit of his words, he tells us it is that “quickeneth” or produceth life. Is there, then, no need for regeneration? Surely there is: but it does not follow that the principle of regeneration is one, and that of faith another to be superadded to it. “We are born,” says Peter, “not of corruptible seed, but of the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever;” adding, in very remarkable language, “This is the word which by the Gospel is preached unto you.” An explanation which removes all doubt as to the meaning of James, when he says, “Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth,” that is, according to Peter, with the Gospel preached. John, in like manner, tells us, that “whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world,” and if we ask, what is born of God? Is it a principle antecedent [Pg 293] and necessary to faith? He answers, It is faith itself. “This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.”

NOTE C, page 104.

The question is not whether the scheme of salvation is merely reconcilable with divine love and justice, but how it constitutes the grand proof and manifestation of these attributes, and in general, of the perfections of God. In it he undertakes to shew himself worthy of love, and thus to win our love to himself. Any other means to that end than such as should prove his own worthiness, He could not use. One may confer a benefit on an individual from a thousand various motives, of which one only may be morally right. In event of any of the others having prompted the action, the benefactor may be regarded with gratitude, but then it is either because the motive is mistaken for the nobler one, or the gratitude is a mere reflected selfishness. As an example of the latter sort, the Jews, in the days of the Son of Man upon earth, had a love to God, a zeal for God, founded on their conviction of his partiality for their people. They regarded him as the God of the Jews only, and not also of the Gentiles. Its fruits were, their carrying the Lord to the brow of the hill to destroy him, because he reminded them of Naaman and the widow of Sarepta, as preferred to objects of bounty among their own people; and their endeavouring to tear Paul in pieces when he spake of a commission given him by Jesus to the Gentiles. They were indeed zealous, the apostle bears them witness in the Holy Ghost, and fully believed in God’s sovereign election of their nation. There is yet a zeal like their’s—let us beware of it.

It will not do to represent the Gospel scheme of salvation as not only leaving, but involving, the moral character of God in difficulty; and then to say we can still believe [Pg 294] him holy, just, and good notwithstanding. The atonement was designed to prove and establish these attributes: to be the ground of our confidence in them, and of our love to God because of them. We are not to believe in them in spite of the plan of redemption; but, because of the plan of redemption. The words of John, “we love him because he first loved us,” and “herein is the love of God manifested towards us, because he sent his Son into the world that we might live through him,” imply that the believer’s delight in the essential excellence of God (which delight alone is divine love) springs out of the display of that excellence in the cross of Christ. An atonement for all, arising out of love to all, proves that it is indeed justice that inflicts vengeance on the impenitent; not partial, personal hatred, not indifference, not cruelty. A limited atonement, just because it gives no proof that they are beloved—gives no proof that nothing else than justice could have punished them. It gives, on the other hand, no proof that forgiving love has been that which saved the elect, as it is to an arbitrary distinction it teaches them to look as the ultimate cause of their hope. I care not to be told that they acknowledge love in their salvation notwithstanding. I repeat, the redemption is to prove the divine character, not merely to leave us the possibility of believing it.

Finally, This scheme obliges to believe that Jesus has broken the law, and transgression of the law is sin. This he assuredly did, if he loved not all mankind as himself. It is an ignorant answer to say, that for him to break the law was not sin. To break the moral law, and to be a sinner, are not things arbitrarily put together; they are two names for the same thing. It is worse to say he need not keep the law because he was God. The law is the transcript of the character of God: opposition to it is opposition to that character. Made of woman, besides, he was made under the law. All praises of his goodness and moral perfection are so many varied expressions for the [Pg 295] completeness with which he kept the law. And oh! indeed, what part of it so peculiarly his own, as to love his neighbour as himself?

I say, therefore, again, to limit the divine love, to limit the atonement, the grand expression of that love, is to limit the love of Christ, and thus to make Christ a sinner. He that hath seen him hath seen the Father. No moral difference surely is so great as that between a breaker and a keeper of the law of love. What a moral difference, then, between the character of a God manifested in the one form and in the other.

[Pg 297]

APPENDIX.

The following letters are added, because they contain some interesting details of the Lord’s dealings with this our dear brother, which are not contained in the Journal. And the reader will observe, that the last letter is of a later date than the conclusion of the Journal.

THE END.

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