The church in Diarbekir continued to grow, even during the three or four years' absence of the pastor. They were active in communicating the truth to their neighbors, and were especially interested in securing the introduction of the Gospel into the surrounding villages, and into Koordistan. But since then, the energy bestowed upon these outside enterprises has been turned toward the building of a large church, by means of funds collected by the pastor chiefly in England, and to strictly home affairs. The young men sent on the mission to Koordistan addressed themselves chiefly to the Armenians and Jacobites, without neglecting the Moslems, Koords, and Yezidees. These sects, in their social intercourse, used only the Koordish language; but in their prayers, the Armenians used the ancient Armenian, the Jacobites the ancient Syriac, and the Koords the Arabic, all wholly unintelligible to them. And it was a new thought to them, that God could be addressed in the Koordish language. A company of native missionaries was sent from Harpoot, in the summer of 1868, to the benighted region of Moosh. This was a result of the tour just described, and was a self-denying enterprise, but the sacrifice was cheerfully made. The two Seminaries at Harpoot were now full. Including the students brought thither for a time from Mardin, and the Koordish students, there were fifty in each Seminary; and these, with their children, made a colony of one hundred and fifty. It became manifest, soon after the Crimean war, that the Papal ecclesiastics in Turkey, emboldened by the increased prospect of French protection, grew relentlessly cruel where they had power, in their persecutions of the Protestants. A painful illustration of this occurred at Mardin in the summer of 1868, upon the arrival of a new Papal Patriarch. He and the Papal Armenian bishop resolved to make a determined effort to crush out Protestantism. The charges upon which the proceedings were based, were pretended arrearages in the payment of taxes, whereas none of the taxes were due. On July 25th, six Protestants were arrested, and taken, not to prison, but to the cavalry camp, to bring water for the horses, sprinkle the ground, build mangers, clear privies, etc. Suleeba, the Protestant preacher from Diarbekir who was laboring there at the time, went to the Muteserif or governor of the city, and represented the injustice of the proceeding. As a result, he was ordered to prison himself, but was soon released. After various other efforts with the Muteserif and the Pasha to secure justice (in which he was opposed by the Papal Syrian Patriarch, and by priests and leaders of the other sects at Mardin), and after presenting receipts which had been given the Protestants for their taxes, Suleeba was delivered to the soldiers, with the rest. He writes:--