n influence hostile to the mission had been
successfully exerted; who wrote a letter, calling upon the
ecclesiastics and people of Oroomiah to oppose the mission and its
schools. The people, as a body, had sense enough to refuse
obedience. In view of the attitude thus assumed by the patriarchal
family, and the questionable conduct of some of the bishops, a
thorough reconstruction of the school system was rendered necessary.
The seminary for boys and the village schools were accordingly
dismissed, and finally the female boarding-school under Miss Fiske.
"When this last result was announced to the pupils," writes one of
the mission, "there was a general burst of grief. Their tears and
sobs told, more expressively than language, the bitterness of their
hearts. Nor did they weep alone. And who would not weep at such a
scene? Here were those, whom we had hoped to train up for immortal
blessedness, about to be sent back to a darkness almost like that of
heathenism. The stoutest Nestorians who were standing by were
melted. After these tender lambs had been commended to the gracious
Shepherd of Israel, they began to make their preparations for
leaving us. The most trying thing was the parting, of the pupils
from each other, and from those who had been to them as parents.
They threw their arms around the neck of their teacher, and said
again and again, 'We shall never more hear the words of God.'"

Nearly all the pupils of this seminary returned of their own accord,
and after the hostility of the patriarchal family had become known
to their parents. Miss Fiske was aided in the instruction by a pious
Nestorian deacon. Besides the ordinary instruction, the pupils were
taught several useful arts, of which their less favored mothers knew
little or nothing; among which were knitting and sewing, and these
branches many of the mothers were eager to learn from their
children. Moreover they were taught industry, self-denial,
benevolence, and the preciousness of time. The boys' seminary was
reorganized in the following spring, under the superintendence of
Mr. Stoddard; who received a number of promising boys into his
family as an experiment, with the understanding that the pupils
would reside wholly on the mission premises.

There was still enough of vacillation among the bishops, and of
dissatisfaction among the Patriarch's brothers, to raise a question
which the mission submitted to the judgment of the Prudential
Committee, as to how