a half our
travellers spent in Shoosha. They gave an interesting account of the
German colonies in Georgia, which had their origin in extravagant
views concerning the millennium. "Previous to 1817, several popular
and ardent ministers in the kingdom of Wuertemberg maintained, in
commentaries on the Apocalypse and other publications, that the
wished-for period would commence in 1836, and would be preceded by a
dreadful apostasy and great persecutions. These views, in addition
to the fascinating interest always connected with prophetical
theories, being enforced with much pious feeling, acquired so great
credit as to be adopted by nearly all the religious people in the
kingdom, and by many others. At the same time, the advocates of the
neological system, being the predominant party in the clergy,
succeeded in effecting some alterations in the prayers and hymns of
the Church in accommodation to their errors. This grieved
exceedingly all who were attached to evangelical principles, and was
taken to be the apostasy they expected. Their prophetical teachers
had intimated that, as in the destruction of Jerusalem the
Christians found a place of refuge, so would there be one now, and
that, somewhere in the vicinity of the Caspian Sea. Many, therefore,
of the common people determined to seek the wished-for asylum, that
they and their children (for whom the better sort were particularly
anxious) might escape the impending storm, and also be able to form
an independent ecclesiastical establishment according to their own
notions. To these were joined others desirous of change, or in
straitened circumstances, who though not at heart pious, professed
for the time to be influenced by the same principles and motives. In
fact the latter became the most numerous. The company, when it left
Wuertemberg, consisted of fifteen hundred families. But no adequate
arrangement having been made for the journey, and the sinister
motives of the majority contributing to create disorder, they
suffered exceedingly on the way, and before they reached Odessa, two
thirds had died."1 The number of the colonists, in 1832, was about
two thousand, but their enterprise had not been successful.

1 _Missionary Researches in Armenia_, vol. i. p. 264.

On the way from Echmiadzin to Tabriz, a distance of nearly two
hundred and fifty miles, Mr. Smith suffered greatly from illness.
When seventy miles from that city, his strength gave out entirely,
so that he could