Messrs. Dwight and Hamlin made a visit, about this time, to Nicomedia. Their intercourse with the native brethren there was generally private because of persecutors, but it was in the highest degree satisfactory. The first meeting was on the Sabbath, in a retired garden, where they sat four successive hours, in the middle of a circle of hungry souls, expounding to them the Gospel. After partaking of some refreshment, they sat three hours more in an adjacent house. Later in the day, they spent three hours in the same manner, in another garden; making in all ten hours of preaching and conversation in the course of one Sabbath; besides an hour more in their own room, with transient visitors from abroad. Many of the questions asked were of a highly practical nature. During this visit, a stranger called upon them, whose curiosity had been excited by the Patriarch's letter of warning against the American missionaries. He, in common with many of his brethren, was anxious to know more about this new way. Considerable time was spent with him in needful explanations, and with these, and a copy of the New Testament in modern Armenian and several tracts, he departed highly delighted. It was thus that a knowledge of the Gospel was first carried to Adabazar where this man resided, twenty-seven miles east of Nicomedia. The papists took advantage of the religious interest awakened in the Armenian Church; and there was reason to apprehend, that dark, dissatisfied minds, if not made acquainted with the Gospel, were in danger of falling into the iron embrace of the Romish Church. The papal missions had been roused to activity in all the Levant, and their numerous adherents enabled them to come extensively into contact with the native mind. Nor were they scrupulous as to their manner of exciting the jealousies of the people against Protestant missionaries. There is evidence also, that, after the Greek revolution, they took advantage of the fact that nearly all the dragomen of foreign ministers at the Turkish court were Roman Catholics.