Stocking.

The scarcity of copies of the Holy Scriptures among the Nestorian
people would be remarkable, in view of their receiving them as their
rule of faith and practice, if we did not remember how sorely they
had been persecuted in the past, and how much they still suffered
from Moslem oppression. Excepting the Psalms, which entered largely
into the prescribed form of worship, they had but one copy of the
Old Testament, and that was in a number of volumes, the property of
several individuals. The British and Foreign Bible Society had
printed the Gospels in the Nestorian character; but they had
scarcely more than a single copy of the Acts of the Apostles and the
Epistles, and none of the Book of Revelation, in their own
character. Of course all was in the ancient language.

Dr. Grant had been suffering for some time before the death of his
wife, from the climate of the plain; and he was now instructed by
his Committee to commence a station, if possible, among the
Nestorians on the western side of the Koordish mountains. Incapable
of fear, he had vainly sought the consent of his brethren to
penetrate the mountains directly from the plain. It was the belief
of the Committee that, with his medical skill and his courage and
address, he could do this with safety; but the brethren of the
mission had been so impressed by the murder of Mr. Schultz, on that
route, that they could not consent; and the opinions of brethren on
the ground were not to be disregarded. He was, however, authorized
to enter the mountains from the west, in the belief that, once
established there, he would soon find his way opened on every side.

On the first of April, 1839, Dr. Grant left Oroomiah, expecting to
meet Mr. Homes at Erzroom, who had been appointed to accompany him.
An unusually late fall of snow made the journey perilous. For more
than two hundred miles, it was from two to four feet deep; and for
twenty miles, in the mountains beyond Ararat, there was not a single
human habitation. In descending, the only way he could know when he
was out of the path, was by the depth to which he sank in the snow.
In the pass of Dahar, near the sources of the Euphrates, where
Messrs. Smith and Dwight had well-nigh perished, the guide lost the
path in a snow-storm, and declared it impossible to go on. The snow
was too deep for the horses. Turning back was out of the question,
as their tracks were obliterated by the wind, which would then be in
their fa