It should be gratefully acknowledged, that violence towards missionaries has almost everywhere been the exception, and not the rule. It has been so even in Koordistan. But Mr. Cochran, while travelling with several Nestorians through Nochea, was assailed by five robbers in the employ of a Koordish chief, named Seyed Khan Bey. As Moslems the assailants were of course reckless of the life of Christians; and, for a time, the party were apprehensive of being murdered. But at last, while the freebooters were intent on their prey, the company fled up the steep mountain side, leaving their effects. Their horses were afterwards recovered. The year 1854 opened with a revival in both the seminaries. At the commencement of it, scarcely half the students in either of the institutions gave evidence of piety, which was an unusually small proportion. The thought of this, and especially that several of the senior class were about going forth into the world without Christ, led to earnest prayer, and to efforts which were followed by an immediate blessing. The special religious interest continued several weeks, and extended to the large village of Geog Tapa, but the results appear not to have been distinctly reported. The eighteen young men who graduated in 1854, were of higher promise than any previous class. Several of the performances at their graduation were very gratifying, particularly the valedictory addresses, pronounced by a young man of eighteen, which would not suffer in matter or manner, Dr. Perkins thought, by the side of similar addresses at any American college. Nearly all were hopefully pious, and were returning to homes widely distant from each other. In some parts of the field there was much enthusiasm. In Geog Tapa, for example, about seventy adults had commenced learning to read. The mode pursued there and elsewhere, was to induce teachers, scholars in the village schools, and other readers to teach adults, by the promise of a Bible, Testament, or other book, if they were successful. At an examination, the forenoon was devoted to the girls' school, taught by two graduates of the female seminary, and the afternoon to the Sabbath-school. Such a crowd of Nestorians was present, that it was necessary in the afternoon, to meet in a grove. The first class examined in the Sabbath-school consisted of men from twenty to seventy years of age, headed by the chief man of the village. Then followed a class of women, fifty or sixty in number, from forty to fifty years of age. These classes, not being able to read, had been taught orally. Next came a class of men, about twenty in number, and a class of twenty-three women, who had recently learned to read. These had been taught individually by boys connected with the village schools, each of whom received a copy of the Old Testament as a reward. On the plain of Oroomiah seventy-three free schools were reported, with more than a thousand boys, and one hundred and fifty girls and women as pupils.