A History of Protestant missions in the near East

2io
History
of Protestant Missions in the Near East
brothers, one of whom is a doctor. Under English rule Muhammadans
proved to be less unapproachable, and some of
them joined the mission. But the Greeks kept sternly aloof,
and even offered violent opposition. Chapels were maliciously
set on fire,
and the lives of converts were threatened by excited
crowds. The British authorities also intimated to the
missionaries that they did not approve of their proselytizing
among the Greek Christians, and that sufficient provision was
being made for the sick by the government.
Cyprus is, therefore,
not an inviting place as a mission field. There are only
twenty-five or thirty communicants belonging to the mission.
The stations are the harbour town of Larnaka, and Leukosia
(Nicosia), the capital of the island.
Several undertakings on a smaller scale must now be mentioned,
some of which were soon abandoned. Skene, the
British consul, tried in 1860 to settle Beduins of the Syrian
desert as agriculturists, and to persuade their children to attend
Christian schools. 1
In Antioch, the ancient capital^of Syria, which gives to-day
no evidence of its former greatness, two small Churches, the
Scottish and Irish Reformed Presbyterian Churches, founded
a small mission, which was conducted by a medical missionary.
After the latter had long managed with an inadequate
rented cottage, a roomy mission house was built, costing
P* 1 Skene's project was an interesting one. As British Consul in Aleppo, he
had seen how the Beduin robber tribes, such as the Anesi and Heduan, were
continually pushing back the peaceful farmers of Syria, in order to obtain more
and better pasturage for their ever -increasing herds of camels and sheep. As he
had, since the Crimean War, kept up an acquaintance with influential Beduin
sheikhs, he thought he would be able, in spite of the Beduins' deep-rooted distrust
of the Turkish authorities, to induce several tribes to establish a kind of
buffer against the desert hordes of nomads and bandits. Under the presumption
that the hatti humayoun allowed religious liberty in Turkey (cf. Chap.
Ill, 6), a Muhammadan missionary society was formed in London on the motion
of Dr. Muehleisen Arnold in 1861. This society entered into communication
with Skene, with a view to finding centres for their missionary work in these
agricultural settlements. But Skene's project was frustrated by Turkish indifference,
and Arnold' s Mnhammadan Mission had no vitality in it (Ev.
Missionsmagazin, 1861, pp. 319 ff.).