History of the missions of the American board of commissioners for foreign missions to the oriental churches, Volume I.Anderson, Rufus
Religion
History of the missions of the American board of commissioners for foreign missions to the oriental churches, Volume I.
Anderson, Rufus
American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions; Missions -- Eastern churches
The reflections of Mr. Smith on the death of the persecuting
Patriarch, are just and impressive. "What a lesson," he says, "does
that event, in such circumstances, teach us! After having martyred
that faithful witness Asaad Shidiak, caused the Bible often to be
burned, had missionaries insulted and stoned, and boasted that he
had at last left no spot open for them to enter the mountains, he
finds himself stripped of all his power; missionaries established
permanently in the midst of his flock, and his own favorite bishop
constrained to give orders for their protection; his people once and
again ravaged and ruined in wars, which his own measures have
hastened, if they have not originated; and finally he sinks himself
under his disappointment and dies. How signally has the blood of the
martyred Asaad been avenged upon him even in this life."
The war broke up the schools in the mountains; but in the following
year there were ten schools in charge of the station at Abeih, with
four hundred and thirty-six pupils. One hundred and forty-four of
these were girls, and one hundred and ninety-seven Druzes. Connected
with the Beirut station, were four schools for boys and girls, and
one for girls alone. In Suk el-Ghurb, a village four miles from
Abeih, a Protestant secession from the Greek Church was in progress,
embracing fourteen families, and religious services were held with
them every Sabbath. At Bhamdun, the summer residence for the
brethren of the Beirut station, there were a number of decided
Protestants, who declared that they found persons to sympathize with
them wherever they went. Even in Zahleh, the hot-bed of fanaticism,
there were men who openly argued from the Gospel against the
prevailing errors. Mr. Smith wrote of a village on Mount Hermon,
that sixty men were known to be standing ready to follow the example
of Hasbeiya, as soon as the Protestants in that place had made good
their position. He also declared the movement in Hasbeiya the
beginning of what would doubtless have been a great revolution, had
persecution been delayed.
Mr. Lanneau's health constrained him to retire from the field in
1846. In the same year, Dr. Van Dyck, having acquired an
extraordinary facility in the use of the Arabic language, was
ordained to the work of the Gospel ministry.
CHAPTER XVII.
GREECE.
DR. JONAS KING AND THE GREEK HIERARCHY.
1845-1847.
The struggle of Dr. Jonas King with the Greek Hierarchy, deserves a
permanent record. The point at issue between them was, freedom to
worship God and to preach the Gospel in Greece. The conflict was not
waged by Dr. King as a Greek citizen, for such he never claimed to
be, though he was a property-owner in Athens, and married to a Greek
lady, who retained her nominal connection with the Greek Church.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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