Most fortunately for them, at that time the sultan was at war with Mohammed Ali of Egypt, and he called upon all the patriarchs to provide him with recruits for his broken army. The defeat of the sultan, his death, and the succession of his son, Abdul Medjid, with the loss of the Turkish fleet, threw all into consternation and made the most violent bigots forget for the moment to persecute. A fire in Pera which destroyed between three thousand and four thousand Armenian houses tended to produce a softening of heart against the persecuted. While this condition of affairs prevailed at the capital the mission was pushing its advanced posts into the interior of the country where considerable numbers were found eager to procure copies of the Bible. Ecclesiastical warnings sent from Constantinople to the Armenians remote from the capital were given little heed. Violence had so subsided at Constantinople that the evangelical movement again began to accumulate momentum and force. A boarding-school for boys was opened in November, 1840, at Bebek upon the Bosporus, some five miles above Constantinople. This was under the superintendence of Cyrus Hamlin, against whom and his school all the fury of the papists and the Greek patriarch was directed, the Armenian patriarch refusing to join them. The demand for books increased. By 1841 it was evident that a great reform movement was in progress which was destined to spread over the empire. Some of the leading persecutors were astute enough to see that an invisible but irresistible force was moving the Armenian nation. The spirit of reform swept over the country, awakening intellects, arousing consciences, and demanding intellectual freedom. This continued for five or six years, during which time there was no separation of the “Evangelicals,” as they were called, from the old Church. The missionaries always urged them to remain, exerting their influence not against the Church but against its abuses and superstitions. For the most part they attended public services in the old Church, and were recognized as members in good standing. The missionaries had no thought of changing these conditions, had they imagined it was in their power to do so. Hitherto the movement had been one towards reform within the Armenian Church and largely led by Armenians who were themselves loyal members. In persecuting, the Church was doing violence to its own.