ar 1844, the author made an official visit to Athens,
accompanied by Dr. Joel Hawes, and a week was spent by them in free
conference with Messrs. King and Benjamin. The conclusion was
reached, that Mr. Benjamin should seek a wider sphere of usefulness
among the Armenians of Turkey.

As the result of subsequent discussions with the missionaries
residing at Smyrna, Broosa, and Constantinople, it was decided to
cease in great measure from labor among the Greeks; but that Dr.
King ought to remain at Athens, his position and relations being
peculiar, as will appear in the subsequent history. From that time,
Dr. King was the only missionary of the Board in Greece, until his
lamented death in the year 1869.1 Messrs. Temple, Riggs, and Calhoun
at Smyrna, and Messrs. Schneider and Ladd at Broosa, had made the
Greek language their principal medium of intercourse with the
people. Mr. Riggs having a rare aptitude for acquiring languages,
had begun to edit works in the Bulgarian, Armenian, and Turkish
languages.

1 During nearly the whole of Dr. King's life in Athens, Dr. Hill, an
American Episcopal missionary, was resident there.

The American Baptist Missionary Union placed two missionaries at
Patras, on the Gulf of Corinth, in 1838. That station was
discontinued in 1845, when Mr. Buel removed to the Piraeus, the port
of Athens, where he labored, in the most friendly relations with Dr.
King, until 1855 or 1856, when the unsatisfactory results of the
mission led to its discontinuance.

A like result had been practically reached by both the London and
Church Missionary Societies of England. A deplorable change had come
over the Greeks, both in Greece and Turkey, since the freedom of
Greece from Turkish rule; and money, time, and labor could be more
profitably expended on other equally needy populations in that part
of the world. The old ambition for the recovery of Constantinople
and the restoration of the Eastern Empire, had been quickened into
life; and the unity of the Greek Church as a means to this end, was
craftily kept before the minds of the people by Russian agency, and
had a wonderful influence, especially among the higher classes. The
national pride of the Greeks had also created an aversion to
foreigners, and made it difficult for such to gain their confidence,
or awaken their gratitude by acts of benevolence. Then there were
the arrogant assumptions of the Greek Church, more exclusive than
the Roman, claiming for