In May, 1863, native pastors were ordained at Antioch, Bitlis, Adana, and Tarsus. In June, a fifth was ordained at Killis, the officiating clergy in this last case, with a single exception, being natives. CHAPTER XXXIV. THE ARMENIANS. 1864-1866. A reactionary movement took place among the Mohammedans of the capital in 1864. The government had encouraged the introduction of European science. Men high in civil positions had delivered courses of lectures on history and other topics, in a surprisingly liberal spirit, and to audiences embracing hundreds of Turks. A "Literary and Scientific Gazette," published monthly under the auspices of a native "Oriental Society," discussed questions of political and social economy from an occidental stand-point; and the press was active in issuing pamphlets and books by native writers, indicating and promoting a new intellectual life. All this the devotees of the "Old School" regarded with suspicion. They were even more alarmed by the religious liberty, which had been successfully claimed for converts from Mohammedanism, who had been openly baptized, and lived unmolested as Christians. The government had some time before been led to discourage Christian education by missionaries and other foreigners, when they could do this indirectly and under plausible pretexts; and they were somewhat rigid in their censorship of the religious press. The Scriptures, however, were allowed to be printed and circulated in the Arabo-Turkish, or sacred character, and no objection was made to simple expositions of Christian truth in that language. But when copies of Dr. Pfander's book[1] were brought to Constantinople, which defended Christianity against Mohammedanism, and assailed the latter, it was detained at the custom-house; yet copies got abroad in some way, without foreign agency, and were sought by Mohammedans who were interested in the great question it discussed. A Moslem published a bitter reply; and in July, the manifest increase of both Christian ideas and pantheistic infidelity among the people, and the growing excitement among the fanatical party, began to alarm the government. There was believed to be a somewhat large body, who wished to reform the Mohammedan faith; and it was said that a petition was presented to the government, by some Moslems calling themselves Protestants, for a mosque in which to worship in their own way. [1] Dr. Pfander, was a highly respected missionary of the (English) Church Missionary Society. The work was printed in London.