A History of Protestant missions in the near East

98 History of Protestant Missions in the Near East
The energetic support of the Eussian government was also
confidently relied on, since the pious Emperor Alexander I
was at that time Czar. It was under his influence that the
Kussian Bible Society had been founded in 1813. This Society
joined its forces with those of the British and Foreign Bible
Society to reprint and distribute the then rare Ancient
Armenian Bible. By 1815, 5,000 complete Bibles and 2,000
New Testaments (followed, in 1817, by 2,000 more) were sent
to Kussian Armenia and were speedily disposed of. It must
be confessed, however, that they were bought only by the
educated classes and higher clergy, who alone understood
ancient Armenian.
The Basle Mission was begun with the permission of the
Russian government, though under certain restrictions.
Pastors
were allowed in
the German settlements, but non-Christians
should be baptized only on condition that they settled in
the German colonies. There were four tasks that the Basle
Committee placed before the first missionaries in 1821 :
(1) to
distribute the Word of God in every language and dialect of
those peoples ; (2) to acquire a knowledge of the chief languages
commonly spoken by them ; (3) to found a college for
Persians and Tartars, as an advanced school for pupils of the
elementary national schools ; (4) to set up a printing-press for
the translation of the Bible and of Protestant literature.
A Scottish missionary society had, in 1802, begun to work
in these southeasterly parts of Eussia, especially from two
centres, the Tartar village of Karass, on the northern slope of
the Caucasus, and Astrachan, the capital, lying on the Caspian
Sea. But as the results proved unsatisfactory they determined
to make Astrachan the sole centre, and to direct their efforts
mainly to the distribution of the Bible and of Protestant literature.
They were therefore glad that the Basle Mission was
ready to take up their work at Karass. This mission thus
secured a firm footing for its work.
The Suabian colonists in Eussian Transcaucasia welcomed
the Basle Brethren with joy, and placed themselves under their
spiritual care.
Eev. A. H. Dittrich drew up for them a prac-