The mission sent by native churches to the Koords, like most new missions, had a tardy success; and, after four years, the zeal of the native churches began to flag, and some of the native pastors proposed to stop the work in Koordistan, and devote themselves more fully to the "home field." Knowing that the influence of such a course would be disastrous, Mr. Wheeler threw himself into the breach, and was off for a three weeks' tour in Koordistan. Redwan, the seat of the mission, was eighty miles east of Diarbekir. He was accompanied by Hagop Effendi, Civil Head of the Protestants, and two native preachers; and was rejoiced to find at Redwan a congregation of eighteen men, thirteen women, and twenty-two children. They had learned, or begun to learn, to read in the Armeno-Koordish, into which the four Gospels had been translated; and some were learning the Armenian language, so as to be able to read the whole Bible. Their chapel, of sun-dried brick, ten feet by twenty, was crowded on the evening of their arrival. "They sang 'Sweet hour of prayer,'" writes Mr. Wheeler, "and 'There is no other name so sweet,' translated from Armenian by their preacher, who had also translated, with the help of Pastor Mardiros of Harpoot, 'Forever with the Lord,' 'How lost was my condition,' 'My faith looks up to Thee,' 'Safely through another week,' 'My days are passing swiftly by,' and others. Perhaps it was all romance, but somehow that little, close, low, dark, foul-aired chapel seemed to me almost a heavenly place, as we joined,--they in Koordish and I in Armenian,--in singing those sweet hymns." At an expense of forty dollars in gold, the people bought a fine lot for a larger building, including chapel, school-room, and parsonage, which they hoped to put up in the following year. They desired also the formation of a church, and the ordination of a pastor. "Do you wonder," adds Mr. Wheeler, "that I returned with a light heart to tell the churches these good news from their mission field?" The Harpoot church immediately decided to send a school-teacher to Redwan, so that the preacher might give himself entirely to his work. Mr. Pond, of Mardin, went to Sert four days distant in Koordistan, and experienced the usual trials by the way,--sleeping in "stifling stables, with a perfect menagerie of animals and fowls, and creeping creatures too numerous to catalogue."