purpose.

dis

At an interview which the father of John had with him just before my departure, he said, "If you will renounce this faith, in eight days I will procure your charge." "Why do you talk with us thus?" was the reply. "Why do you not rather send us the Rabbies and let us reason together, that we may convince one another of the truth?" Indeed from their first entry into the prison, they have showed the same readiness to "give a reason of the hope that was in them." When urged by the Greeks and Armenians to join their respective churches, they replied, "Convince us that your way is right and we will follow it." The apostate Peter who is still in prison, when asked lately why he turned back from following Christ, made no other reply, than "Do not ask me," being evidently much ashamed.

Such then is the condition in which are left these Christian heroes-martyrs I had almost called them. Strong indeed must be their conviction of truth and love of the Savior to enable them through so many wearisome months to endure the horrors of a Turkish prison. Yet He who is ever present with his people in the most thorny path of their pilgrimage, is able so to make all grace abound unto them and by them, that they and others from their example shall rejoice and glorify God on account of these firery trials. To this end may 66 prayer be made without ceasing of

the church unto God for them."

A short time previously to the date of the above letter the two Christian Jews and the Armenian were most unexpectedly set at liberty. This was effected through the influence of some of the countrymen of the latter, to whose care they had been

confided by Mr. Leeves. One of them thus describes the event.

"On Thursday, March 15, at four o'clock in the evening, by order of his majesty the Grand Seignor, the poor Christian Jews and the Armenian, Bagtasar, were liberated from the bagnio. Bagtasar went to his own house, and the two others were sent to our patriarch, who received them with great pleasure, and with paternal affection. On Friday morning I had the honor of going to see them, and of clothing them in their new clothes with my own hands. I consider it as a favor of Almighty God to have seen and ministered to the wants of these persons, and I thank him for that moment.

"You will learn more at length from the Wortabet Joseph the circumstances of the liberation of these now happy men. With how many trials has the good God proved them. His holy will be praised!"

The unhappy Peter was suffered by the Armenians to remain in prison, but through the exertions of his Jewish brethren he was after a while released. The interest attached to the history of those who "endured unto the end," will justify the following quotation from a letter of Mr. Hartley. Speaking of John Baptist, who had been with him at Smryna for a few weeks, he says

"He has great zeal for the conversion of his countrymen and of others, and has already been rendered useful to several persons. There are from eight to twelve Jews at Constantinople, who thirst for an opportunity of being baptised. To one of them, in particular, I wish to direct your attention: he is a young man, eighteen years old, of a very rich family, and related

:

by marriage to a late distinguished Jew at Constantinople after John Baptist's release from prison, he came to visit him, in order to hold controversies with him: the issue has been, that he has become a believer in Jesus Christ, and is exceedingly eager to be baptized: he professes himself willing to lose all the wealth of his family, and to part with father, mother, and friends, for the sake of Jesus Christ: nay, what is the most extraordinary, undeterred by the sufferings from which our two young friends have so recently escaped, he expresses a willingness to prove all the horrors of the prison, and of death itself, if God should call him to that trial.

"John Baptist has been treated with much kindness by the Armenians, nor am I aware that they have exacted from him any observance inconsistent with a good conscience: he partook daily at the table of the Armenian Bishop, and has also been furnished by him with lodgings.

It has been customary for later writers to estimate the number of Jews in European Turkey at 300,000. I cannot persuade myself, however, there are more than 200,000. In Seres there are said to 5 or 6000. In Philippopoli 200, in Tartar Bazargik, 300. Some thousands should perhaps be reckoned for Yassy, Bucharest, Adrianople, Rodosto, and the lesser towns in Moldavia, Wallachia, and Romania. If to those be added the highest estimates for Constantinople and Salonica, they will still fall short of the number I have stated.

30

CHAPTER XXV.

JEWS OF ASIA.

Smyrna-Visits to Jewish families-Uproar in the Synagoue― Aged females—Schools-The Passover-Asia Minor—Syria --Palestine-Jerusalem-Missionary labors in Greece-Reasons for returning to America-Memorials of missionary brethren-Whole number of Jews in the world-The ten tribes-Return of the Jews to Palestine-Different sects -Efforts for their improvement.

Smyrna, Jan. 17, 1827.

MANY of the principal Greeks, both teachers and priests have called on us, and we daily read the Scriptures with some young men in Greek and Italian. I wish I could speak as favorably of the Jews, but longer time will be necessary to overcome the shyness which most of them manifest. As in other places, my first visits here have been to their synagogues and burying ground. On one occasion we were invited by a respectable Jew who is in the employment of a Frank merchant, to accompany him to his house. A part of the room in which we were received was one or two feet above the other. This was carpeted and furnished with cushions on which the lady of the house was sitting richly dressed and surrounded by a large company of sons and daughters. We were treated with sweetmeats and coffee, and the children gathered around me to read from the Hebrew Psalter. They told me also their names of Abraham, Sarah, Benjamin, &c., to which I at

tempted to reply in Italian, that mine too was a Jewish name--that of one of their kings. It was the first visit I had ever made to a Jewish family and almost my first sight of oriental manners. I can hardly describe my feelings on such an occasion. The impressions which Scripture history had made on my mind in childhood were revived in all their freshness. I seemed to have got back a hundred generations. nearer to the world's great ancestor, and to view the patriarchal scenes in all the magic coloring with which youthful fancy had arrayed them.

With a more melancholy interest I have visited another Jew, Mr. Cohen, whose name is mentioned in the journals of our lamented predecessors, but in whose character the intervening years seem to have made no improvement. Notwithstanding the hopeful accounts of Messrs. Parsons, Fisk, and Lewis, I still found him living in the midst of his Jewish brethren. He has long been known in Frank Street as a public crier, but his grey hairs indicate that his earthly employments are drawing to a close. Fifty years ago, at the age of sixteen he resided sometime in South America, and on his return stopped for a while in New York. He informed me, as he has others, that he spoke fourteen different languages. While we were present, he conversed quite readily in two or three. repeated with some particularity the conversation which he had held with Messrs. Parsons and Fisk, about the Messiahship of Jesus, and spoke with an air of triumph of his own manner of conducting the argu

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ment. When angry with his brethren, he assured us that he sometimes swore about the Talmud and repeated the oaths in English. On the whole I saw nothing