History of the Missions of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions to the Oriental | Page 7

punishment,--certain penances, such as fasting, alms-giving, saying prayers, and the like. The fasts are merely the substituting of a less for a more palatable and nutritious diet. Alms are more for the spiritual benefit of the giver, than for the relief of the receiver. The supposed efficacy of prayer has no connection with the sincerity of the offerer. For in none of the Oriental Churches, excepting the Arabic branch of the Greek Church, are the prayers in a language understood by the people.
They believe that all who die before baptism, or after baptism with deadly sins unconfessed, are lost forever; but if one die after confession, and while his penance is incomplete, he cannot be sent to hell, neither is he prepared for heaven. He must first complete his penance in a temporary state of misery. This state the papists call purgatory; and though the other churches reject the name, they cleave tenaciously to the thing. As all believe that the sufferings of the departed may be shortened by the merit of good works performed by surviving relatives and imputed to them, prayers for the dead are frequent in churches and over graves, and masses are celebrated in their name.
Though the Nestorians renounced auricular confession, they no more looked to the redemption of Christ for pardon, than did their neighbors, and they knew of no other regeneration than baptism.
There is no need of entering here on the practical influence of such a religion on the lives of the people. That will appear in the progress of our history. Enough has been said to justify the American churches in laboring to restore to the degenerate churches of the East the Gospel they had lost, especially as an indispensable means of Christianizing the Moslems of Turkey and Persia.
The Oriental communities within the range of this history, are the following:--
The GREEKS; The ARMENIANS; The NESTORIANS; The JACOBITES; The BULGARIANS; The ROMAN CATHOLICS OF TURKEY; The JEWS OF TURKEY; and The MOHAMMEDANS.
The Missions are as follows:--
The PALESTINE Mission; The SYRIA Mission; The GREEK Mission; The ARMENIAN Mission; The NESTORIAN Mission; The ASSYRIAN Mission; The MISSION TO THE JEWS; and that to The MOHAMMEDANS.
MISSIONS TO THE ORIENTAL CHURCHES.
CHAPTER I.
PALESTINE.
1819--1824.
American missions in Bible lands, like their apostolic predecessors, had a beginning at Jerusalem. The first missionaries from this country to the Oriental Churches were Pliny Fisk and Levi Parsons. On the 23d of September, 1818, they were appointed to labor in Palestine. But as, at that early period, there was special need of making the churches acquainted with the work, and foreign missionaries were less common than now, they were detained to labor at home until November of the following year, when they embarked at Boston for Smyrna, in the ship Sally Ann, Captain Edes. They were both interesting men, and the impressive public services connected with their departure were long remembered in Boston. A single extract from the official instructions of Dr. Worcester, the Corresponding Secretary of the Board, will give at once a glimpse of that remarkable man, and a view of the object of the mission.
"From the heights of the Holy Land, and from Zion, you will take an extended view of the wide-spread desolations and variegated scenes presenting themselves on every side to Christian sensibility; and will survey with earnest attention the various tribes and classes who dwell in that land, and in the surrounding countries. The two grand inquiries ever present to your minds will be, WHAT GOOD CAN BE DONE? and BY WHAT MEANS? What can be done for Jews? What for Pagans? What for Mohammedans? What for Christians? What for the people in Palestine? What for those in Egypt, in Syria, in Persia, in Armenia, in other countries to which your inquiries may be extended?"
The vessel touched at Malta, thus giving opportunity, so far as the quarantines of those times would allow, for personal intercourse with the Rev. William Jowett, of the Church Missionary Society, and afterwards one of its secretaries. He received his American brethren in that catholic spirit, which has ever characterized that society and its agents, and gave them all the aid in his power. They also received kindness from the Rev. Mr. Wilson, of the London Missionary Society, then resident in Malta, and from Dr. Naudi, a native of the island and interested in Protestant missions, though then a Roman Catholic.
The brethren reached Smyrna at the opening of the year 1820, and took lodgings in a Swiss family, where French, Italian, Modern Greek, and some Turkish were spoken, but no English. American and English residents treated them kindly, and they were specially indebted to the Messrs. Van Lennep, Dutch merchants, to whom they were introduced by Captain Edes.
In May they repaired to the Greek College in Scio, for the purpose of studying the Modern Hellenic,