gone after him.1

1 _Christianity Revived_, p. 152. Authority for most of the
following statements concerning these persecutions, may be found in
the _Missionary Herald_ for 1846: pp. 193-203, 218-230, 263-273,
298-304, 397-406; and for 1847, pp. 16-22, 37-45, 75-83, 150,
193-199, 264-273, 298-301, 372-374. The account of them given by Dr.
H. G. O. Dwight, in his work entitled _Christianity Revived in the
East_, published in 1850, is so well written, that I cannot confer
upon the reader a greater favor than by a free, though much
abridged, use of his language.

At the metropolis there were restraints upon the hierarchy, that
were unfelt in the provinces. Ephrem, bishop of Erzroom, had once
acknowledged the errors of his Church, and had often strongly
expressed his desires for reform, though now among the most zealous
and persevering of the persecutors. The same was lamentably true of
Boghos, Vartabed of Trebizond. Ephrem and Boghos had actually
suffered persecution, on the charge of being Protestants. The change
in their conduct was owing to the change in their relations, and to
their loving the praise of men more than the praise of God.

The Bishop of Erzroom exceeded all others in bitterness against the
followers of the Gospel. He had spies in every part of the town, and
often upon the roofs of houses adjacent to the dwellings of the
missionaries, to observe who were their visitors. He never allowed
disobedience to his orders to go unpunished. The bastinado was
repeatedly applied under his own eye, merely for an expression
indicating reverence for the Word of God. Twenty blows were
inflicted on the bare feet of a young man, and he was thrown into
prison, because he had sold a copy of the Psalms in modern Armenian,
and called at the house of a missionary. A teacher of a country
school was severely bastinadoed for teaching the Gospel to the
villagers. A merchant, who had early embraced the truth, was cruelly
beaten in the bishop's own room, and the people were commanded to
spit in his face in the streets, merely because he visited the
missionary. A priest, for showing so much sympathy as to call upon
him, was summoned before the bishop and bastinadoed. Another, who
had called once at Mr. Peabody's house and procured some books, was
seized, put in irons, and thrown into prison, and his books were
burnt before his eyes. In most cases these violent measures
confirmed the individuals in their new ways; and the truth is