also demand from these higher ecclesiastical orders abstinence from animal food, even from their infancy. The mother of tlie candidate for the episcopate or patriar- chate must observe the same abstinence while she nurses the infant. The Nestorian bishops do not defend these practices from Scripture, but only as matters of pro- priety (this restriction, however, is not always observed, and was violated only recently by bishop Mar Yohanu in 1859). Neither celibacy nor abstinence from animal food are required of the inferior clergy, nor do monas- teries or convents exist among the Nestorians proper. The clergy are usually poor. They cultivate the ground, or teach a few scholars, or gain a small pittance by mar- riage fees and small contributions. It can be no matter of surprise that some of them can scarcely read. When visited b)' the American missionaries in 1833, a majority of them could merely chant their devotions in the an- cient Syriac, and even some of the bishops were in the same predicament. The Syriac Bible has since been distributed freely among them, and tlie state of general knowledge is improved. The patriarch receives an an- nual contribution, collected for him by the bishops ; it seldom exceeds three hundred dollars. The Komish agents leave no measures untried, of force or fraud, to seduce the Nestorian Church and even its patriarchs. A few years ago a Jesuit offered to the Nestorian patri- arch ten thousand dollars, it is said, on condition that he would acknowledge the papal supremacy. lie made answer in the words that Simon I'eter once addressed to Simon Magus, " Thy money perish with thee." A more adroit overture was made afterwards, though with as little success, in the offer to canonize Nestorius.
Religion, in the proper sense, is in a low condition. The vice of lying is almost universal among clergy and laity ; intemperance is very prevalent. The Sunday is to a great extent regarded only as a holiday, and pro- faneness and some other vices are very common. Still a venerable remnant exists of a primitive Church, founded, as they invariably maintain, not bj^ Nestorius, but in apostolic times by Thomas the Apostle (q. v.). It is beset with dangers on every side. The artifices of the .Jesuits are unceasing and sometimes successful. Kecently a patriarch was brought over by violence to the Church of IJomc. On the other hand, the Mohamme- dans attempt to proselyte. Nestorian girls are occasion- ally kidnapped or decoyed away, and become the wives of the followers of the false prophet. Some hardened culprits apostatize for the sake of escaping punishment, but these are all the triumphs of which the Jlohamme- dans can boast.
The sword of the ^loslem has not spared the Nesto- I rians. They are grievously oppressed and ground down with taxes and impositions. The Nestorians are marked out alike by religion and nationality as victims of op- pression. However great their wrongs, they can hope for little redress, for a distant court shares in the ])]un- der taken from them, and believes its own officials rather than the despised rayahs whom they oppress. Even when foreign intervention procures some edict in their favor, these same officials, in distant Ontmiah, are at no loss to evade its demands. The Nestorian is not al- lowed a place in the bazaar; he cannot engage in com- merce. And in the mechanic arts he cannot aspire higher than the position of a mason or carpenter, which, of course, is not to be compared to the standing of the same trailes among us. When our missionaries went to Orumiah a decent garment on a Nestorian was safe only as it had an outer covering of rags to hide it. The lofty spirit of the mountaineers in 1)S43 ventured to re- bel, and an indiscriminate massacre was the penalty. "What can we doV" said they to the European visitors who inquired the cause of their rebellion; "if we de- scend into the ]>lains, build villages, plant vineyards, and till tlie barren soil, we are so overwhelmed with taxa- tions and impositions of every kind that our labor, though blessed of (iod, is of no protit to ourselves. If we take refuge in the mountains, even hero we are lia-
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NESTORIAXS
ble every year to be hunted like partridges. Such is I our lot ; but God is merciful." Jlr. Badger, who visited the Kurds, on behalf of the Society for Promoting Chris- j tiau Knowledge, relates that as lie passed through Mar- den, a village on one of the summits of the mountain range, in 1S43, he saw in the market-place several hu- man heads rolling in the dust which had been brought in as trophies by the soldiers of Mohammed Pasha. " The next day," he says, '■ I saw a large number of horses, asses, mules, and even cows, laden with booty taken from the same people, tlie Kurds of a neighboring district. Among these there were loads of liuman heads, and a number of prisoners, some of whom were to be impaled on fne morrow. The collector of taxes in the district had embezzled a sum of money, and the Kurds were | ordered to make good the deticiency. As they were un- able or unwilling to comply, a troop of Albanians was sent against them, who plundered the refractory villages, i massacred about a hundred and tifty persons, and com- mitted other excesses too horrible to relate. Such is : Ottoman rule."