Yet labors in Greece had not been expended in vain. There had been very few hopeful conversions; but as many as two hundred thousand copies of the New Testament and parts of the Old had been put in circulation in the modern Greek language; a million copies of books and tracts had been scattered, by different missionary societies, broad-cast over the Greek community; perhaps a score of Greek young men had been liberally educated by benevolent societies and individuals in America and England; and more than ten thousand Greek youths had received instruction in Greece and Turkey, at the schools of various missions. Of the good seed thus sown, though not often on good ground, there may yet be a harvest to gladden future generations. The labor had not been fruitless. The Greek government was not what it would have been, and the same may be said of the social state. Nor were the same old ideas prevalent among the people as to the authority of councils and of the ancient fathers, and the authority of God's Word stood higher than before. The same low estimate was no longer put upon knowledge and education, nor upon religious tolerance, nor were there the same impressions concerning Protestantism, and Protestant nations, and the Christian world at large. In all these respects, there had been progress. Infidelity had received a check, and so had its influence on surrounding peoples. The Word of God, printed in the spoken language, was in very many habitations of the people; and the elements of their intellectual, moral, and social being were not, and can never again be, as if missionaries had not been among them. The efforts made by Dr. King in Greece, for nearly a quarter of a century after this time, to secure freedom in the worship of God and in the preaching of the Gospel, will form the subject of future chapters. And in the histories of the Syrian and Armenian missions, the reader will occasionally notice hopeful outbreaks of the spirit of religious inquiry among the people bearing the Grecian name. CHAPTER XI. THE NESTORIANS. 1833-1836. The facts brought to light by Messrs. Smith and Dwight respecting the Nestorians, made it the duty of the American Board to commence a mission among them. Accordingly in January, 1833, the Rev. Justin Perkins, then a tutor in Amherst College, was appointed the first missionary to that people; and Mr. Smith, being ready to return to the Mediterranean, having published his "Researches in Armenia and Persia," it was decided that Mr. Perkins should accompany him as far as Malta. They received their official instructions together, in the chapel of the Theological Seminary at Andover, on a Sabbath evening in September, and the two brethren embarked, with their wives, on the 21st of that month. Mr. Perkins, in the interval, had been prostrated by a fever, but it was deemed safe for him to proceed, and his recovery was so rapid that he was soon able to administer to the comfort of his associates at sea.