At the time, we were endeavouring to give the local "Nestorian" clergy a week's instruction in matters pastoral and devotional. As part of the course, we ordered the whole gathering to write a sermon on the text, "As lambs in the midst of wolves." We could not help feeling a profane sympathy with the teaching propounded in one of the discourses;--that undoubtedly Christians were lambs, as Scripture said; but that what was most needful under the circumstances was that they should develop the teeth and claws of wolves! The doctrine received practical support from an incident that occurred before the week ended, when two of the deacons present announced, "By your leave, _Rabbi_, we must go." "And wherefore, O deacon?" "Because our village is being attacked by Kurds, _Rabbi_; and it is needful for us to go and help beat them." Leave was given readily enough; but when was a respectable "retreat" interrupted by such an incident before? As for the official who was called Governor of Urmi, he sat in the walled town, and did nothing. Once he expressed a general hope that things would go better in the near future; because he had hired a murderer to assassinate Bedr Ismail Agha, the man who was doing most of the raiding at the time. But even the rôle of First Murderer in the Government troupe was bungled; a gratuitous bit of mismanagement, for there was plenty of talent for the part. Christian townships in the neighbourhood, finding themselves in daily risk of plunder, sent in to complain to his Excellency; and "soldiers" were actually ordered to go out and protect them. They started; but returned in two hours, stating that they had heard a rumour that there were Kurds on the road. They had, of course, never dreamed of doing anything to molest the people they were sent out to punish; but in compensation, they had robbed all the unfortunate villagers, Christian and Mussulman alike, whom they met upon the way coming to seek shelter in the town! When one of the townships in question, Gukhtapa, renewed its request for some sort of protection, the governor could only regret his inability to afford any assistance "because the soldiers say that they won't go." He generously offered to send Kurdish irregulars of another tribe, Marku men, who might be persuaded to "sit in the village." "Thank you," said the applicants, "but of the two we prefer the robbers who will go away again, to the robbers who will sit there indefinitely." They then took their own measures for protection; giving hospitality to a party of Tergawari Christians, driven from their homes by the Turkish aggression, and glad to earn their living by so congenial an occupation as fighting for it.