Dr. Perkins wrote in 1857, that when the mission was commenced, twenty-four years before, hardly a score of Nestorian men were able to read intelligently, and but a single woman, the sister of the Patriarch. The people had no printed books, and but few copies even of portions of the Bible in manuscript, and these were all in the ancient Syriac, and almost unintelligible. Their spoken language, the modern Syriac, had not been reduced to writing. Their moral degradation was extreme. Still there was a remarkable simplicity in their conception of religious doctrines, and a remarkable absence of bigotry in their feelings, as compared with other oriental sects, and they were very accessible to the missionaries. The change had been great. Of the fifty-six in the male seminary when he wrote, thirty were hopefully pious; and so were ninety-one of the one hundred and fifty who had been connected with it. These were the fruits of seven revivals. Of the one hundred and three who had been connected with the female seminary, sixty, or more than one-half, gave good evidence of conversion; and the same might be said of three fourths who were then in the school. A large portion of the young men who had left the seminary, were either preachers of the gospel, or very competent teachers in the village school; and the greater part of the religious graduates of the other seminary were married to those missionary helpers. This seminary had been blessed with eight revivals. The instruction in both institutions had been almost wholly in the native tongue. The entire Bible had been translated into the spoken language, which the mission had reduced to a written form; and two thousand intelligent readers, the result of the schools, had been supplied with the sacred volume. Indeed, the Scriptures had been printed and given to the people in the ancient Peschito version, as well as in the spoken tongue. To these were added valuable works on experimental and practical religion, for the use of the schools, and to meet the wants of a community in the early stages of a Christian civilization. Though separate churches had not been organized, none but pious Nestorians, for the last two or three years, had been admitted to communion with the mission church. The number who had thus communed was about two hundred, and it was thought that from one hundred and fifty to two hundred more were worthy of a place at the Lord's table. The French Jesuits and their emissaries had been a sore trial, but their success had not been great; and they had probably been useful, by stimulating the mission and the pious Nestorians in their Master's service. Mrs. Rhea had been two years a member of the mission as Miss Harris, and three as Mrs. Rhea. Her active and useful life closed on the 7th of December, 1857, at the age of twenty-nine years and five months. "Her sick room," says Dr. Wright, "was a hallowed place, where the Sun of Righteousness shone with wonderful brightness."