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the Jews were the principal sufferers. They were now rapidly rebuilding; but it must require a long period before the town will recover from such a disaster. The Sultan had made some provision for the temporary relief of the houseless and pennyless inhabitants; but their wants were far enough from being fully reached by the hand of government or of charity. Messrs. Temple and Riggs are engaged in labors for the benefit of the Greeks; and Mr. Adger, for the Armenians. They are all doing much in the preparation and publication of books and a Greek and an Armenian periodical. The light of truth is advancing, in Smyrna and the region; and the influence of the books and periodicals of the missionaries, is deeply felt, through the length and breadth of the Greek and Armenian countries.

Sept. 24. Our emotions were peculiar, as we found ourselves, after all our wanderings, once more on board an American merchantman, expecting, if God should prosper us, that our next stopping-place would be on our native soil. Our vessel was the first of the fruit-vessels of the season, that cleared the harbor of Smyrna, and our captain started with a feeling of proud assurance, that his cargo would be the first in America. And if untiring exertions, anxious solicitude, and the most scrupulous fidelity and devotion to the interests of his employers could have effected it, he would have been the first to reach home. But the merchantman must still depend on the fickleness of the wind, which bloweth where and when it listeth, just as much as it did before rail-roads and steam-boats were known. Sixty-five days was the time proposed by the captain, when we started, as the maximum period of our voyage; but so far from that, we were one hundred and nine days on our way to New York.

66

We were forty-three days in reaching the Straits of Gibraltar, during which we were driven about," as was Paul," in Adria," being tempest-tossed in one instance, between Sicily and Malta, a whole week, without advancing a foot, and amid seas which the captain estimated to be fifty-five feet, from their yawning depths to their foaming summits. We encountered another storm of similar duration and violence, between Sicily and Sardinia. We then enjoyed a prosperous sail to the Western Islands, and our hopes of soon reaching home were again high raised; but a little to the westward of those islands, we encountered an almost uninterrupted storm of three weeks, during which we were unable to advance a single mile, though we were repeatedly driven back hundreds of miles, and again made our way up to the same Rubicon, which was about 37° west longitude. The wonders of the mighty deep were still more awful and terrific in the midst of the Atlantic, during this period, than those which we had witnessed in the storms of the Mediterranean. Our vessel was an old one and we should have been anxious for our safety, had not our captain been a man of courage enough to lie to, in violent gales, when attempts to sail would, in any vessel, do little more than incur peril. In one instance, we were thrown into most · imminent danger from another source. As we were lying hove to,

IMMINENT PERIL-CONTRAST-INFANT SAILOR. 491

in a violent storm, a large ship dashed by us, in the darkness of midnight, running before the wind at the rapid rate of nine or ten knots an hour, and came within a few feet of us. Had she struck our vessel, we must have been sunk in a moment, and never known the cause. I remonstrated with the captain as far as it was proper, for not keeping up lights at night, as he had done in the Mediterranean. 'There is not one chance in a thousand,' he replied, 'of running foul of a vessel on the wide ocean.' But who would wish to be in that thousandth vessel! There was an apology in his case, however, as our unexpectedly long passage was likely to make us short of oil.

Our captain had early and very properly put us on allowance of provisions and water, in prospect of a long passage. Considering the length of the period we were out, we fared comfortably to the end, though we had reached our last barrel of water, and had for some time felt anxious on this point, before we reached New York, on the 11th of Jan. 1842. Mar Yohannan, to say nothing of the rest of our party, became tired enough of the ocean, and the transition, as he left the long prison of the cabin of the Magoun and sallied forth into Broadway, ranged over the great commercial metropolis of the New World and gazed upon its wonders, was altogether indescribable. And to us who had been so long in a distant exile, where we had seen the face of but a single American besides our missionary companions, our sudden change was little less striking. It appeared to us passing strange, to hear every one around us speaking the English language and see them all dressed in our own costume. And at night, we almost fancied ourselves in a fairy land, as we saw the streets all lighted, the houses opening directly to them, and gentlemen and ladies briskly promenading the pavements, unconscious of exposure,-so different was the whole from Persia.

While this change, from the tedium and perils of our long voyage to the freedom of the shore, the greeting of friends after our long absence, and the tender delights of reaching America, were grateful to us beyond description, I must except one of our number. Judith, who was thirteen months old when we left Smyrna, earned an eulogiuni on the ocean as well as on the land, having thrived wonderfully during our whole rough passage, and seeming to enjoy life at sea far more than anywhere else. She began to walk the day we embarked, and soon became able to run about the deck, with a nimbleness that put to blush her fellow-passengers, and almost vied with the practised sailors; and she became so fond of the deck, that we found it extremely difficult to quiet her in the cabin, during her waking hours, and were obliged to allow her a free range above, even while the vessel was lying to in gales, if it did not actually storm. Without any milk on the passage, and living only on ordinary passenger's fare, she grew rapidly and was contented and happy, to the last, to an extent that astonished all on board.

One circumstance, attending our voyage, though peculiar to a

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FRUIT VESSEL-WORMS-MISSIONARY MEETING.

fruit-vessel, I should not omit to mention. Our cargo, besides raisins and some other articles, contained 15,000 drums of figs. Every fig, soon after being put up, discharges a worm, resembling in size and appearance the common worm of the apple. And during the first three weeks of our voyage, the vessel was full of those worms. The deck, and the walls and ceiling of the cabin, at all times, presented literally an animated scene,-nay, the little creatures were everywhere. They would weave their web in our ears while we were asleep at night, and work themselves into every trunk and garment and seam; and they had such power of attenuating themselves that they entered my writing-desk, which appeared to shut perfectly tight, and even worked themselves up into the interior of every goose-quill, where there was hardly a perceptible orifice. They, however, neither bite nor sting, and during the fourth week of the voyage, they wholly disappeared. Should the curious be inclined more accurately to know the number, besides the data I have given, he might perhaps estimate it, by ascertaining the number of figs in a drum. I may also add, that the Nestorian bishop, in view of the number, would often shudder and in his broken English, say of them, "Oh, plenty "-" very plenty." The reader can do as he chooses, with the facts before him, about sailing in a fruit-vessel.

Our friends at home, after the arrival of several ships from Smyrna, which left that port later than our own, looked anxiously for us and were at length constrained to give us up as lost. A reason finally appeared, wherefore we were detained. One of the first items of intelligence that reached me after going on shore was, that a special meeting of the A. B. C. F. M. was to take place in New York the next week. How did the news thrill our bosoms, indicating, as the measure did, not more an exigency, in the financial affairs of that Board, than a deepened, quickened and extended interest in the great cause, in which it is engaged. Mar Yohannan's arrival just at that juncture, and his novel and striking appearance at the meetings, naturally and necessarily gave a thrilling interest to the occasion, an interest, perhaps important enough, in the estimation of the great Head of missions, for Him to have charged the winds and the waves concerning us, to keep us back unharmed, until the eve of that important occasion. And how did our hearts melt and overflow within us, as we came from the deep darkness of benighted Persia, to be thus ushered directly into the great congregation of the wise and the good, convened from different and distant places, to consult and to pray for the prosperity of Zion in heathen lands.

THE AGENCY OF GOD IN MISSIONS.

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CHAPTER XXX.

CONCLUSION.

In the form of a concluding chapter, I may briefly and informally recall the attention of the reader, to some of the general impressions which he may have received in the perusal of the foregoing pages, to aid in fixing them the more distinctly in his mind, as well as throw together a few miscellaneous topics, not elsewhere introduced.

One such impression naturally remarked is, the reality and constancy of the presence and agency of God, in all that pertains to his missionary servants. He sustains them under their toils and trials, and protects them in their exposures. Not a tear starts in their eyes without his sympathy. Not a hair falls from their heads without his notice. And not a stroke of violence is inflicted on their persons without his permission. Nor less real and constant is his agency in whatever of success attends their labors. However signally the word of the Lord has free course and is glorified through their instrumentality, their part of the work is only instrumentality. All the efficiency is of God.

From the commencement of our mission to the present time, we have had fresh occasion, at every step, to rear an "Ebenezer" and thankfully inscribe upon it, "Hitherto hath the Lord helped us." This cannot fail to appear, if we call to mind our unobstructed access to the people from the first-our oft repeated restoration from distressing sickness-the long preservation of our lives, amid the deadly influences of a pestilential climate, and of our work, amid the threatening prospects of hostile commotion-our manifold deliverances from perplexities and difficulties, from the subtle designs of artful and formidable Papal adversaries, from personal danger and from death-the favor and protection which we have enjoyed from Muhammedan rulers-the uninterrupted general prosperity that has attended our various and extensive missionary labors, and above all, the influences of the Holy Spirit, vouchsafed to crown with a measure of saving success our unworthy instrumentality. It is one of the richest sources of encouragement and support to the missionary, and should not be less so to his patrons, to be able thus to recognize the hand of God, as working with them and through them; thus and thus alone is the ultimate success of the cause made to rest upon the foundation of a blessed certainty; for, "except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that would build it;" and if He build it, it will be reared, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

The enterprise of missions, is, from beginning to end, a work of

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sacrifices; but this should not impair its interest nor load it with objections. It commenced with the great atoning Sacrifice, for a fallen world; and sacrifices must characterize it, till the world is brought back to its allegiance to God. As the Lord Jesus, though being in the form of God, divested himself of the radiant splendors of the divine glory, made himself of no reputation, took upon him the form of a servant, was made in the likeness of men, became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross, so his followers are enjoined by an apostle, to let this mind be in them, which was also in Christ Jesus. The disciple is not above his Master nor the servant above his Lord. Because, then, the work of diffusing the knowledge of that great salvation, which He, by his infinite condescension-his life of sufferings and death of agony, has provided, requires sacrifices on the part of his children, shall they demur, and regretfully ask, as did the grudging disciples when the precious ointment was poured upon his head, "to what purpose is this waste ?" Is the object of such sacrifices and the reward for them not an ample compensation? Ask an apostle. For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ. I count all things but loss, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings. For to you it is given-[an exalted privilege]—in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake.' O how inadequately do those believers prize their spiritual birth-right, and estimate the salvation of a perishing world, who make their sad lamentation over the sacrifices, involved in the work of missions!

Female consecration to the work is, by many, regarded, not only as a sacrifice, but a gratuitous one-not called for-thrown away. Little do such know the value of female influence in the foreign field. If the wife, by her sustaining power, can render the missionary, who, as a single man, might sink into the grave, under the burden of his work and the solitude of his situation, within five years after reaching his post, an efficient laborer, twice, thrice or four times five years, the probability of which it would not be difficult to show, to say nothing of the many other inestimable benefits of her example and labors, is the life of that female thrown away? It is matter of unfeigned gratitude to God, that there are not wanting devoted females, to earn and to receive, in the missionary service, that plaudit, so much more enviable than the marble of the Cæsars, of which, not alone a mercenary Judas, but many a faithful disciple, unwittingly, would rob them, "She hath done what she could." The churches may spare their regret for the sacrifice of such females, or at least, exchange it for prayer and thanksgiving, on their account. Says another, "Sometimes, brethren, when I have thought of them, [missionaries,] as far off, surrounded only by the darkness and degradation of heathenism, suffering every privation, toiling from year to year under every outward discouragement, with no friendly voice to animate them, and no sympathizing bosom on which to repose