The Bishop of Erzroom exceeded all others in bitterness against the followers of the Gospel. He had spies in every part of the town, and often upon the roofs of houses adjacent to the dwellings of the missionaries, to observe who were their visitors. He never allowed disobedience to his orders to go unpunished. The bastinado was repeatedly applied under his own eye, merely for an expression indicating reverence for the Word of God. Twenty blows were inflicted on the bare feet of a young man, and he was thrown into prison, because he had sold a copy of the Psalms in modern Armenian, and called at the house of a missionary. A teacher of a country school was severely bastinadoed for teaching the Gospel to the villagers. A merchant, who had early embraced the truth, was cruelly beaten in the bishop's own room, and the people were commanded to spit in his face in the streets, merely because he visited the missionary. A priest, for showing so much sympathy as to call upon him, was summoned before the bishop and bastinadoed. Another, who had called once at Mr. Peabody's house and procured some books, was seized, put in irons, and thrown into prison, and his books were burnt before his eyes. In most cases these violent measures confirmed the individuals in their new ways; and the truth is said never to have made so much progress among the permanent Armenian residents of Erzroom, as during the period of these outrages. One principal reason for the determination of the ecclesiastics to uproot Bible religion from Erzroom, was the central and consequently influential position of that city in the interior of Armenia. In the district of Pasin, to the east, were nearly two hundred villages, in which Mr. Peabody found both priests and people remarkably accessible. In the nearer villages, a few were always found so much awake to the truth as to pay little regard to the injunctions of their spiritual rulers, who were opposed to Bible teachings. Not unfrequently individuals from Egin, Diarbekir, and other distant places, called on Messrs. Peabody and Smith for religious inquiry. A tour of Haritun of Nicomedia to Sivas, Erzroom, Egin, etc., brought to light many encouraging facts in those places. In every important place some inquirers were found, and only laborers seemed needful to gather in an abundant harvest. The author can bear witness to the increase of intelligence at Trebizond. The quiet preaching of the word by Messrs. Johnston and Bliss, and the distribution of the Scriptures and other evangelical books, had, by the blessing of God, moved many minds, and taught the difference between truth and error; and they gladly availed themselves of every opportunity to come together for conference and prayer. Not many, however, were willing to run much risk for the truth's sake, and few gave satisfactory evidence of being "born again."