ism. A strongly fanatical party was at that time in the ascendant, so the Armenian was sentenced to suffer death by decapitation.

This sentence caused great excitement, for it was then the fashion to believe that Turkey had entered on a course of enlightened reform; and the subsidized French newspapers, more especially, had made us believe that Turkey was rapidly attaining that state of Utopian excellence which the very best of governments only see in distant perspective. Diplomatists were seen hurrying to the Porte, and waiting anxiously on Ministers to prevail on them to save the civilized world from so great a scandal. The Grand Vizier received the remonstrances of the Foreign Representatives with the utmost courtesy, and promised them solemnly that the sentence should not be carried into effect. The apostate was beheaded the next day in the fish-market, and his head, with the hat on, placed between his legs.

I have heard many sad details concerning this execution; and, occurring as it did in the capital in so public a manner, it excited a great deal of attention at the time, and was the theme of much newspaper comment. Shortly afterwards another similar execution took place in Broussa, but it was scarcely heard of; and many others have doubtless been perpetrated in different parts of the empire, of which the world knows nothing. Only a few months ago I heard of a mollah being put to death for expressing his disbelief in the mission of Mahomed; but this was done quietly. The Turks will have their revenge on apostates, but they have learned to do these things secretly.

The above execution of the Armenian had no small influence on the destinies of the infant Protestantism struggling into life. The representatives of the most powerful foreign states made a great effort, and procured the issue of a firman ordaining that for the future no one should suffer on account of his religious opinions. This firman was intended to protect those who seceded from Islamism-a measure scarcely necessary, since cases of the kind are but seldom heard of; it served, however, as a shield for the persecuted Protestants, of which they were not slow to avail themselves.

In June, 1846, the Patriarch, taking advantage of a solemn feast-day, thundered forth from the metropolitan church, amidst circumstances of great pomp and solemnity, the most terrible anathema and excommunication against the Protestants that priestly rage had ever conceived. The reformers had but one course to pursue; rendered safe from stripes and imprisonment by the new firman, they were nevertheless outlaws from society, so, taking counsel from the missionaries, they at once proceeded to form a church of their own. Shortly after this, Lord Cowley, her Majesty's representative, procured from the Sultan an imperial decree or firman recognizing the existence of the new church, and appointing a Patriarch; thus placing the Protestants on a footing with the other recognized religions protected by the laws of the country.

This struggling infant church has had other enemies to contend with than the Armenian bishops and priests. In the interior I have heard, on undoubted authority, of Russian agents managing to spirit away converts to dis

K

tant parts of the Czar's dominions. Romish authorities have ever lent a ready hand in opposing this new sect of Bible-readers, who are growing up on ground hitherto peculiarly the field of their own propagandism; too often the gold of the Armenian banker and wealthy archbishop has procured stripes and imprisonment from the corrupt Turkish rulers; nay, even Protestants of the Oxford School have spoken in words of encouragement to what they termed the wholesome discipline of the bishops and priests. I was much struck by a remark made to me by a Turk who did not know that he was speaking to a Protestant: "Wallah," said he, "these Protestants are strange people! they never lie; every one else does, but they never lie."

The whole history of the rise and early struggles of this still feeble church is in a high degree interesting. To those who wish to have a detailed account of it I would recommend a book entitled 'Christianity revived in the East,' from which I have gathered most of the above facts. Mr. Dwight, the author, thus eloquently concludes his account of the struggles that attended the rise of Protestantism in Turkey :—

"The record now made of the struggles of spirituality against formalism in Turkey is only a repetition in substance of what has occurred in this world hundreds of times before. And, as in the present instance, the many have usually been arrayed against the few, wealth against poverty, strength against weakness. On the side of the assailants are age, experience, and cunning; on the side of the assailed, youth, ignorance, and simplicity. With the former have been all the advantages of an awe-inspiring

antiquity, covering with its sacred mantle, which it were the most daring profaneness to remove, its symbols of faith, its rites and ceremonies, and its religious and priestly order; while the latter could boast of neither priesthood nor church, altar nor gorgeous rites,-in short, of nothing external calculated to inspire terror, or even to attract notice. That this, weak in the conflict, should almost uniformly prove victorious is easily explained to the satisfaction of all who believe in the Bible. On the one side all is human; on the other all is divine. And God works by instruments of his own, choosing 'the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and the weak things of the world to confound the things that are mighty; and base things of the world, and things which are despised, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are, that no flesh should glory in his presence." "

THERE are as yet no Protestant Armenians in Kars, but at Erzeroom there has been for years past an American missionary, there are now two stationed there; there are also several Armenian Protestant congregations scattered over the country, and these people always look up to the English as their protectors, and to English consuls as their natural refuge in time of trouble.

The Armenians, besides being sharp traders and money-lenders in the towns, are in their own province the principal agriculturists. The land at present cultivated more than suffices for the wants of the population; there is abundance of bread, and barley is grown sufficient to feed the horses of the province and thousands of mules that pass through it in the Persian caravans. The want of roads would render the labour of the peasant vain, were more land brought under the plough. It occasionally happens, in consequence of unseasonable frosts or flights of locusts farther south, that a famine exists over a tract of country, separated by some rocky ridges from fields of plenty. On these occasions the high price of grain tempts the agriculturist to send over his spare horses and