The great complaint of the missionaries had been of the indifference of the people. But after the departure of Mr. Byington, there was no ground for this at Eski Zagra. False reports were circulated with such effect, that the day-scholars were taken from the school, and the boarding-school was reassembled with difficulty. The oldest assistant teacher was forcibly abducted, but escaped and returned. A mob soon gathered, broke open an outer door, cut away some of the bars to the windows, and broke sixty panes of glass with stones. The proprietor of the house now sent for the police, which dispersed the rioters. Such outrages could not be allowed, and representations were made to Mr. Morris, the American Minister at Constantinople, and to Mr. Blunt, the friendly English Consul at Adrianople. Their prompt efforts were effectual. More than a score of the offenders were sentenced to imprisonment of different lengths, but were pardoned at the request of the missionaries. This act of clemency had a happy influence on the people, and the persecution had a good effect on the school. A young man who had been for five years a student at Philippopolis, was licensed to preach the gospel on the 24th of July; and on the following Sabbath, ten Bulgarians, six of whom were girls in the school, sat down at the Lord's table, in the presence of forty spectators. This was the more significant, as the Bulgarian council, a month before, had enjoined upon the different "trades" of the city and neighboring villages, to have no dealings with two individuals whose names and places of business were specified, nor with any others who were known as inclined to Protestantism. Such persons were therefore refused bread, or the right of baking at the public ovens, and some were reduced to great distress. The missionaries talked seriously with the leading men of the city in favor of religious _freedom_, but only a few of them conversed reasonably on the subject, and the masses were wholly opposed to it. Three men, as a means of asserting their religious liberty, went before the Turkish authorities and declared themselves Protestants, which seemed to be the beginning of a Protestant Bulgarian community. The missionaries were sometimes threatened with personal violence, but the Turkish government was ready to defend them. In January, 1869, four Bulgarians were admitted to the communion at Eski Zagra, two of them pupils in the school, and two married men. The number of Bulgarian communicants in that place was now eleven.