SKETCH OF THE MISSION.-FIRST HOUSE-KEEPING. THRILLING INCIDENT PERSECUTION MOHAMMEDANISM AND INFIDELITY -HOPEFUL APPEARANCES DESCRIPTION OF HOUSE, AND DOMESTIC CONTRIVANCES -TRIALS OF MISSIONARY LIFE- TURKISH IMPOSITIONS. "I saw her upon nearer view, A spirit, yet a woman too! Her household motions light and free, And steps of virgin liberty; The reason firm, the temperate will, WORDSWORTH. THE mission to Constantinople was commenced by Rev. Mr. Goodell, in 1831. Schools were established among the Greeks and the Turks. But the Armenians were soon found to present the most hopeful field of labor. They were not only the most wealthy and intelligent inhabitants of the city, but were also much more susceptible of religious instruction. The prospects of the mission among them, on Mr. Hamlin's arrival, were quite cheering. But soon clouds began to gather in their sky, portending a fearful tempest. Many were the forces arrayed against this devoted band. To the two hundred thousand Armenians of the city, whose patriarch, bishops and priests, were their sworn enemies, were joined the adherents of the Greek Church. Still more implacable were the Roman Catholic Armenians, numbering about fifteen thousand, who were fully sustained by the resources and influence of Romanists throughout Europe. To this formidable array were added the Jews, who cordially hated the Protestants. Various were the means resorted to by these unscrupulous foes in order to crush the new heresy. A missionary tract, attacking Mo- ́ hammedanism, written probably by Henry Martyn, and published at Calcutta years before, was exhibited to the Sultan, as a specimen of what the Protestants were doing. Under these circumstances, Mr. Hamlin says: "Should the Sultan attempt to send us away, I think we shall contest every inch of the ground, until he arrests us by physical force. It is a subject of constant gratitude that this mission has, from the first, exercised so much caution in all its publications, that Mohammedans can find in them not a single attack upon their religion, and the Armenians nothing against theirs. They contain exhibitions of gospel truth, but are in no instance thrown into the form of an attack upon these oriental religions. This has perplexed the persecuting party exceed ingly. Indeed, when the Armenian Patriarch excommunicated the books, he made the singular confession that he could find nothing bad in them now, but that thirty years hence, if not suppressed, they would result in forming a new sect!'” Painfully exciting were the scenes in which our retiring friend now mingled. From her quiet valley she had put out upon a stormy sea. But her eye was fixed upon Him, who sitteth in the heavens, and her confidence never failed. One evening, at her favorite sunset hour, she sat with Mr. Hamlin by their window, looking down upon the Golden Horn, whose clear waters were gilded by the last beams of day. Suddenly their door was burst open, and a man, rushing in, in breathless haste, throws down a heavy bundle, exclaiming, "This is of God, Mr. Hamlin ! " "What?" cried Mr. Hamlin, in astonishment; "the bundle?" "No: our escape with 1 it is of God." He then related that Hohannes had been cast into prison; a decree of banishment secured against him; and that his correspondence with evangelical Armenians was contained in that bundle, and had just been committed to him for safe-keeping, when the constables of the Patriarch came in pursuit of them. Effecting his escape unnoticed, he fled to the house of a friend in a distant quarter of the city. Soon the constables were on his track, but a second time he succeeded in escaping; nor did he look behind, till, entering Mr. Goodell's house, he threw down his bundle. This was, indeed, "of God;" for, had these papers been seized, upon many unsuspecting families would have been poured out the Patriarch's wrath. Never, probably, before, had Mr. and Mrs. Hamlin so deeply realized the bitter trials of the primitive Christians. And when they bowed in prayer that night, it was with a new feeling of their dependence upon God. A petition was sent to Lord Ponsonby, then English ambassador, soliciting his mediation in behalf of the exiled and the persecuted; to which, in sad contrast with the subsequent noble course of Sir Stratford Canning and Lord Cowley, he returned a cold and decided negative. The death of Sultan Mahmoud, and the consequent changes in government, together with the interference of foreign powers in arranging the long-existing difficulties between the Sublime Porte and the Pasha of Egypt, for a time divided the attention of the persecutors. But, notwithstanding this partial respite, those among the Armenians who were friendly to the missionaries still feared to visit them, or even to salute them in the streets, lest they should be anathematized, and thus cut off from all means of obtaining a living. In God's own time He restrained the wrath of man. In 1840, all those who had been banished were recalled. The old Patriarch, who was friendly to the mission, and had therefore been displaced, was restored on account of the unpopularity of his successor. Soon after his reinduction, an evangelical priest called to see him. In the course of the conversation, the Patriarch remarked, "I know those missionaries are good men, and wish to do good to our nation; and one proof I have of it is, that when we persecuted them, breaking up their schools and excommunicating their books, they neither reviled us nor said anything against our nation." "Political changes (writes Mr. Hamlin) are constantly agitating this empire. Europe has now laid her hand so strongly upon Turkish politics that she will probably never withdraw it. Mohammedanism hastens to destruction. It is rushing in mad career down the precipice which divine Providence has placed before it; and I trust some of us will live to rejoice in the utter subversion of the false prophet's cruel dominion. Every politician feels that the whole Eastern world is on the eve of great events. May they be of such a nature as to lead the nations to exclaim, 'The Lord God omnipotent reigneth!' "Infidelity, rank and glaring infidelity, is rapidly bursting the bonds of superstition. There are many of the Greeks and Armenians who are, as it were, driven into it by the absurd and crafty forms of their church. They thirst for something which they cannot find. Such minds we hope to gain to the truth; but what we do must be done quickly. Let the whole church of Christ, in every land, be united in prayer and self-denying efforts for the world's conversion, and very soon we should have the Holy Spirit working with us, and in all places making the truth of God powerful to the salvation of the soul." But, notwithstanding these cheering tokens, many and mighty obstacles were still in the way. "They have enough of truth (says Mr. Hamlin) to make them feel sure of heaven; they have enough of error to sink them surely to hell. And Satan with such anxious craft has walled round and round all the avenues to the conscience, and against each pointed truth has so placed a shield to turn it from the heart, that nothing but strong faith in the presence and power of the Holy Spirit can sustain the preacher's heart against discouragement. It is far easier to convince the heathen of the truth of the gospel, than those who imagine themselves to be its only true possessors and interpreters that they are in a fatal error. "If there is such a thing in the divine government as retributive justice towards nations, as there is towards individuals, the cup which Mohammedanism must drink is filling up with fearful vengeance. Insurrections and rebellions are numerous; and, if they were only well preconcerted and simultaneous, the present Christian population of the empire would very soon blot out the name of the Turk from under heaven. 66 · England has taken the Druse population of Mount Lebanon and vicinity under her patronage, as France has the Maronite. The English are urging our missionary brethren to multiply their schools and books, and one individual is said to have pledged them twenty thousand dollars for these purposes." Letter from her mother : "Dorset, May 27th, 1839. “Dear, dear HENRIETTA: How did my heart leap for joy to hear from you, - that you were among the living and on the land! O, how good it was to hear that your wearisome tossings upon the rolling waves were ended! How good has God been to us! May we never forget to make mention of his name, nor cease to think of his loving-kindness! 66 You cannot think how much I endured after hearing of |