It was not the missionaries alone, who labored in word and doctrine. Several priests were "obedient to the faith," and preached it more or less formally; and intelligent lay brethren,--scattered abroad, some by persecution, some in the prosecution of their worldly business,--like the primitive disciples, preached the Word; that is, they took such opportunities as they could get, to make known the truth to those of their countrymen who were disposed to hear it. Vertanes, who had suffered imprisonment and banishment for the sake of Christ, made an extensive missionary tour through Armenia. In the summer of 1843, a body of Turkish police was seen conducting a young man, under twenty years of age, in the European dress, through the streets of Constantinople. His face was pale, and his arms were pinioned behind him. Arriving at a place of public concourse, they suddenly halted, the prisoner kneeled, and a blow of the yatagan severed his head from the body. His crime was apostasy from the Mohammedan faith. He was an obscure Armenian, and while under the influence of alcohol had abjured the faith of his fathers, and declared himself a Mohammedan. He had not submitted, however, to the rite of circumcision before he repented of his rashness. The penalty of apostasy being death, he fled to Greece. In about a year, impatient to see his widowed mother, he returned in a Frank dress, but was soon recognized, imprisoned, tortured to induce him to reabandon his original belief, and even paraded through the streets with his hands tied behind his back, as if for execution; but upon his proclaiming aloud his firm belief in Christianity, he was sentenced to decapitation. The British ambassador, Sir Stratford Canning, impelled by motives of humanity, made an earnest effort to procure his release, and the Grand Vizier promised that the young man should not be beheaded. On learning that he had been, the ambassador declared it to be an insult to the Established Religion of England, as well as to all Europe, and insisted that no similar act of fanaticism should ever again occur. In this he was said to be warmly seconded both by the French and Prussian ministers. The Grand Vizier, as before, was ready to give a verbal pledge; but soon a second act of treachery was discovered. A Greek, in the interior of Asia Minor, had declared himself it Mohammedan, and afterwards refused to perform the rites of that religion, and the Turkish minister was preparing the death-warrant for him, at the very time when he was making these promises to the ambassador. Sir Stratford now very peremptorily demanded, that a written pledge be given by the Sultan himself (as his ministers could no longer be trusted), that no person embracing the Moslem religion and afterwards returning to Christianity, should on that account be put to death; and the Earl of Aberdeen, on the part of the home government, instructed him in a noble letter not to recede from the demand. The