merely wanted
their signatures as a matter of form, and that they should be left
at liberty to believe and act as they pleased. But they lost all
peace of mind from that moment, until they had abjured their
recantation, and publicly declared their determination to abide by
the doctrines of the Gospel, even unto death. This was in March,
1846. They were all soon after excommunicated.

At Adabazar, there was much suffering. Four of the brethren were
seized for debt, and thrown into prison. The Protestants were
assailed with hootings and curses. Fresh outrages were of daily
occurrence. A native brother, named Hagop, on his way from Adabazar
to a village an hour distant, was passed by one of the persecutors
on horseback, who turned upon him and cruelly beat him. Returning
home with eyes and forehead swollen and blackened, and his limbs
bloody from the blows he had received, he was taken by his friends
to the Turkish governor, and two Turks came in as witnesses; but the
governor refused to give him a hearing. Soon after, the houses of
the brethren were stoned, and some of them were imprisoned on false
pretenses, while the governor and judge, though perfectly aware of
these things, cared not for them. Emboldened thus, the chief ruler
of the Armenians headed a band of about fifty desperate fellows, and
went in the evening to the house of Hagop, who had been beaten a few
days before, broke down the door, rushed up-stairs, and, in the
presence of his family, beat him on his nose and mouth, and wherever
else the blows happened to fall, and threw him down stairs. They
there beat him again, pushed him into the street, and dragged him to
a place of confinement. Other brethren were subjected to similar
violence, until the mob became so outrageous that the governor and
judge were obliged to interfere.1

1 _Missionary Herald_, 1846, p. 270.

At Trebizond, a young man, refusing to sign the recantation, was
beaten on the soles of his feet, the vartabed aiding with his own
hands in inflicting the blows. He was afterwards thrown into a
miserable stable as a prison; water was plentifully poured upon the
cold, damp ground on which he stood with mangled feet; his hands
were tied behind him by the two thumbs; a rope was passed under his
shoulders and fastened to a beam over his head; and in this
torturing condition he was left to stand during the night. Orders
were also issued that no one should give him food. After being kept
here nearly