and ten
others speedily joined the institution. About half of the ten were
young men of good intellectual capacity and mature faith, who had
fallen under the anathema of the Patriarch. Shutting up their shops
had sent them to the seminary, where their minds would be
disciplined, and where, studying the history of the Church, and
comparing the past and present with God's Word, they would be
prepared to comprehend the Oriental Apostasy. Of the other five,
three were from anathematized families, and two were without
relatives. A lad, who had been expelled from his father's house
because he was a Protestant, was about to enter the seminary,
through the influence of a young man who had left it because of the
failure of his eyes. His father carried both to the patriarchate;
and the Patriarch, who had declared himself no persecutor, condemned
them to imprisonment, with hard labor and the wearing of a heavy
chain day and night. The father repented of his cruelty and implored
their release, but in vain. It was only when the Patriarch
understood that the father was carrying the case before the English
Ambassador, that he released the son. The other youth remained in
irons; and the reply of the Turkish authorities to repeated
petitions was, that he had been committed for crime. The
missionaries believed him entirely innocent, and truly pious. We are
obliged to leave this youth, after six weeks of labor begirt with a
chain, in the midst of ferocious and beastly criminals, refusing to
accept deliverance on condition of subscribing the Patriarch's
creed.

This persecution changed the seminary into a theological school.
More instruction was given in ecclesiastical history, especially, in
regard to the introduction of doctrinal errors, and more attention
was paid to the exposition of the written Word. A select class was
formed for the study of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, and care was taken
to have the pastors of the reformed churches men of faith and
prayer, strong in the Scriptures, and able to expose the
antichristian character of the nominal Churches round about them.

A seminary for young ladies had been opened in Pera, in the autumn
of 1845. Eight were then admitted, and five more some months later.
As the pupils came from evangelical families, most of them had
received some instruction at their homes. They could read in the New
Testament with more or less readiness when they entered, and they
made good proficiency in their stu