. Laurie and Dr. Smith, the surviving brethren at Mosul, entered
the mountains in the summer of 1844, explored the district of Tiary,
and visited Nurullah Bey at Birchullah above Julamerk. Wherever they
went among the Nestorians, they found a painful scene of desolation.
On their return to Mosul, they forwarded their journal and a summary
view of the facts, and asked the Committee to decide whether to
continue the effort to approach the Nestorians from the west, and
the Committee now forwarded definite instructions to discontinue
this branch of the mission.1 They proceeded to Beirut in Syria,
accompanied by Mrs. Hinsdale, who had been bereaved of her only
child. Mr. Laurie became a member of the Syrian mission, and Dr.
Smith of the Armenian; and Mrs. Hinsdale was for some time employed
in the instruction of missionary children at Constantinople.

1 _Missionary Herald_, 1845, pp. 116-125.

CHAPTER XIV.

SYRIA.

1830-1838.

Syria was not in a condition for a return of the missionaries until
after two years. Messrs. Bird and Whiting left Malta for Beirut on
the 1st of May, 1830. Mr. Abbott, the English Consul, had already
returned, and gave them a cordial welcome. The members of the Greek
Church greeted them in a friendly manner, and were ready to read the
Scriptures with them; but the Maronite priests, faithful to the
Church of Rome, forbad their people all intercourse with the "Bible
men," whom they described as "followers of the devil." Among those
who received them gladly were a few young men, over whom the
missionaries had rejoiced in former years, and who had remained
steadfast in the faith, and had honored the Gospel by their lives.

Gregory Wortabet, one of the two Armenian ecclesiastics who early
became connected with the mission, is already somewhat known to the
reader. He belonged to the monastic priesthood in the Armenian
Church, and there is an interesting autobiography of him in the
"Missionary Herald" for 1828. His career up to that time, as
described by himself, shows him to have been an uncommon character;
and his personal sufferings, both for good and evil doing, prepared
him to receive benefit from his converse with the missionaries at
Beirut, which began in 1826, when he was twenty-six years of age. He
was then ignorant of the Gospel, with his mind in great darkness and
confusion. His first ray of light was from the good example of his
missionary friends. Comparing their lives with t