reception was every thing but kind; and they have actually dragged away one of their deacons from the dear brethren at Shushee, to try him at Ech-Miazin for heresy. I have also heard that the bishop of Ispahan, who superintends all these countries, even as far as India, has prohibited the reception of any tracts by his people, and would not let them have a school till the Roman Catholics appeared there and established one, taking away some of his flock, when he granted it. In fact, wherever the hierarchical spirit exists, there a spirit of domination and pride--there a spirit of Antichrist exists--whether in the Brahmin, the Mufti, or the Patriarch, there is a body of men who will not go in themselves, nor let others go in; it must be so, as Mr. Jowett justly observes, wherever the distinction between laity and clergy is kept up in opposition to the right and duty of each man to judge for himself. Mr. Jowett's words are, I think, "The principal religious characteristic of Syria and the Holy Land, (and he might have added, of all the ancient churches, and too many of the modern,) that which is common to all its professors and sects, is that _system of distinction between priesthood and laity_, felt even when not avowed; according to which, it seems to be the interest of a few professed teachers to hold the rest of their fellow-creatures in darkness." Those men, therefore, who, in a hasty visit, welcome you, and if you are well introduced, flatter you, no sooner see or feel your real design, than they become your enemies, and the missionary who should begin with any other expectation from present prospects, must be disappointed. For instance, had we been where there was a powerful clergy, we should have met with the greatest opposition in our school, because of our casting out of it the book which they so highly prize, called the Shammakirke. Yet no Christian teacher could conscientiously allow it--it was full of prayers to the Virgin, the Cross, &c. &c.; we therefore here succeeded, under God's blessing, because the laity were strong and the priesthood weak, without any serious struggle; but their progress has been very different at Shushee.