Prussian and French governments were equally decided; and after some hesitancy, even Russia threw the weight of her influence into the scale. After a struggle of some weeks the required pledge was given, signed by the Sultan himself, that henceforth NO PERSON SHOULD BE PERSECUTED FOR HIS RELIGIOUS OPINIONS IN TURKEY. The British ambassador distinctly acknowledged the finger of God in this transaction, which he said seemed little less than a miracle. It will hereafter appear, that the pledge had a wider range, than was thought of at the time by the governments of Europe, by their representatives, or even by the Turks. God was setting up a spiritual kingdom, and his people must have freedom to worship Him in his appointed way. The battle for religious freedom in Turkey was fought over the mutilated remains of the Armenian renegade, and the Sultan's pledge secured to the Protestant native Christians the full enjoyment of their civil rites, while openly practicing their own religion.1 1 This brief statement is compiled from the _Correspondence relating to Executions in Turkey for Apostasy from Islamism_, published by the British Parliament in 1844, occupying forty folio pages. The correspondence is highly honorable to the great men who were then controlling the political affairs of Europe, and to a large extent also of Western Asia. But before this comprehensive meaning of the pledge could be understood, and the benefit of it actually enjoyed by the people of God, they were subjected to more grievous sufferings for their faith than any yet endured. From 1843 to 1846, there was no long respite from persecution; yet in all this time the spirit of inquiry wonderfully spread, and believers were the more added to the Lord. In 1843, Priest Vertanes was rudely deposed from office, and thrown into prison. Finding he could not be induced to sign a paper of recantation, drawn up for him by the Patriarch, he was hurried by the Patriarch's beadles, with great violence, into an open sail-boat, without opportunity to obtain even an outer garment from his house, although it was midwinter, and sent across the sea of Marmora to the monastery of Ahmah, near Nicomedia.