The Syria and Nestorian missions passed under the direction of the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions in the year 1870, and our history of them closes at that time. Up to that date, the Congregational and New School Presbyterian Churches (the Old School Presbyterians also up to the year 1837, and the Reformed Dutch Church for many years) sustained an equal relation to all these missions. The mission to the Jews in Turkey was relinquished in 1856, out of regard to Scotch and English brethren, who had undertaken to cultivate that field. The communities in Turkey among whom our missionaries now labor, are the Armenians, Greeks, Bulgarians, Mohammedans, and the Arabic-speaking Christians of Eastern Turkey. The Board has ever acted on the belief, that its labors should not be restricted to pagan nations.1 The word "heathen" in the preamble of its charter, is descriptive and not restrictive. It is not in the Constitution of the Board, which was adopted at its first meeting only a few weeks after its organization. The second article of the Constitution declares it to be the object of the Board, "to devise, adopt, and prosecute ways and means for propagating the Gospel among those who are destitute of the knowledge of Christianity." This of course includes Mohammedans and Jews; and those who carefully consider the statements embodied in the Introduction to the History, will see that it embraces, also, the Oriental Churches, as they were fifty years ago. 1 These remarks were suggested by a speech at the Annual Meeting of the Board in Salem, by the Rev. S. B. Treat, Home Secretary of the Board. In November, 1812, the year in which the first missionaries sailed for Calcutta, a committee, appointed by the Board to appeal to its constituency, used this emphatic language: "It is worthy of consideration, that the Board is not confined in its operations to any part of the world, but may direct its attention to Africa, North or South America, or the Isles of the Sea, as well as to Asia." At the Annual Meeting in 1813, it was voted: "That the Prudential Committee be directed to make inquiry respecting the settlement of a mission at San Salvador, in Brazil, at Port Louis, in the Isle of France, or on the island of Madagascar." In the latter part of 1818, it was resolved to commence a mission in Western Asia. The Prudential Committee said, in their Report for 1819: "In Palestine, Syria, the provinces of Asia Minor, Armenia, Georgia, and Persia, though Mohammedan countries, there are many thousands of Jews, and many thousands of Christians, at least in name. But the whole mingled population is in a state of deplorable ignorance and degradation,--destitute of the means of divine knowledge, and bewildered with vain imaginations and strong delusions." In that year Pliny Fisk and Levi Parsons embarked for this field.