volume 2 - Robert Bedrosian's Armenian History Workshop

The Nestorians at Tall Kef. 247
Mosul at once. I told our kind host, Kuss Thoma, to
send or bring to Mosul the manuscripts which he had
acquired for me, and we set out on our return journey
at noon.
After we had been on the road a couple of hours
the day changed suddenly and it began to rain so heavily
that we were soon wet to the skin, and as there seemed to
be no hope of the clouds breaking we decided to fulfil
our promise and stay at Tall Kef for the night. We
hurried on and reached this village at 4.30, and were
most kindly welcomed by the priest of the Church of
Mar Cyriacus, who had a good fire lighted and did everything
to make us comfortable. After the evening meal
Nimrud told me that the inhabitants of the village
wanted me to do them a service, and that a body of them
proposed to come into the house and tell me what they
wished me to do. Of course I said I was willing to do
an5rthing I could for them, and some twenty-five or
thirty greybeards thronged into the room and seated
themselves quietly on the cushions placed by the walls,
and then the priest explained to me what they wanted.
The substance of his speech was this : The
branch of
the Nestorians to which the Chaldeans of Tall Kef
belonged was in danger of coming to an
operations of emissaries from Rome on the
end. The
one hand,
and the successful work of the American Missionaries
on the other, were undermining their Church, and many
of its members had become lukewarm and careless about
their religion, and the Chaldeans there present thought
that a determined attempt must be made at once to
counter the influence of Rome and the work of the
Americans, and to instil new life into their Church. They
loved England and the English, and the. Church of
England, and they wanted union with the Church of
England. The possessions of their Church were becoming
fewer, and they needed help from England to maintain
their sacred buildings, to provide plate for the Sacramental
Services, candlesticks for their altars, vestments for their
priests, and church furniture. The Archbishop of Canterbury
was doing a great deal for the Nestorians at Urmi,