e with which they conversed on the
great truths of the Gospel. The Holy Spirit had evidently been their
teacher, and the doctrine of justification by grace through faith
alone, was the foundation of their hopes. The joy with which they
greeted the missionary of the cross for the first time, was most
gratifying to him, as was the earnest attention they gave to his
instructions. Compared with their countrymen in the same place, they
might be called intelligent men, and some of them were in very easy
circumstances. The two converted priests, Der Vertanes and Der
Haritun, became afterwards well known in the mission. Of their own
accord they removed to Constantinople, and were placed together in
charge of a village church on the Bosphorus; and the Patriarch
Stepan, being an old acquaintance, spent several weeks with them,
and generally assented to the views advanced by them in their free
conversations.

We now enter the year 1839, which was a year of severe persecution.
Of this persecution, in which the Porte itself became a party, I am
now to give a brief account.

The missionary force at Constantinople had become unusually small.
Mr. Dwight was absent until September, on a visit to the United
States. Mr. Schauffler left in May for Vienna, to superintend the
printing of the Hebrew Spanish Old Testament. He went by way of
Odessa, and both there, and among the German churches in that part
of Russia, he did much to sustain a religious revival that had been
long in progress. Mr. Homes left in the spring to join Dr. Grant in
exploring Kurdistan. Mr. Hamlin arrived early in the year, but was
occupied in the study of the language. Mr. Goodell was, therefore,
almost alone in this trying season.

The extent and violence of the persecution were convincing proof of
the progress of the reformation. A corrupt priesthood dreaded its
tendency to deprive them of their sinful gains. Certain persons no
longer enjoyed a monopoly of Armenian printing. Education ceased to
be exclusively in the hands of a few bankers. And the popularity of
Hohannes and Boghos Fizika was thought to operate against the great
Armenian college at Scutari. Nor were the members of the Romish
Church idle.

The patriarchs were elected by the primates, who were chiefly
bankers, and were in an important sense their creatures. The bankers
were divested of much of their power in 1839, by the rise of three
men of the artisan class, who suddenly stood before the nation