A History of Protestant missions in the near East

300 History of Protestant Missions in the Near East
bers, and in 1862 a native presbytery was organized. Could
the ancient Church tolerate within her borders this foreign organization,
which was to a great extent independent of her,
and was chiefly composed of pupils of the mission, or was
there bound to be a rupture ?
A great majority of the Nestorians live, as we have seen, in
the mountains of Kurdistan, and especially in the districts of
Hakkiari and Bohtan, in the high-lying valleys of Tiary,
Amadia, and Gawar. In 1839 Dr. Grant, the medical missionary,
endeavoured to establish friendly relations with these
Nestorians and their Patriarch. Several things contributed
to make regular mission work in the mountains impossible.
In the first work place, among these wild mountains meant
great fatigue and privation. Then there were the predatory
Kurds, with whose friendship the missionaries could not dispense
if their lives were to be safe, and from whose attacks
one was never secure even then. There was also political unrest,
for the Turks were endeavouring to subdue Kurds and
Nestorians alike, playing the one against the other most skillfully.
Above all, there was the ever-shifting policy of successive
patriarchs, who were politicians rather than religious
leaders, and who, as such, were ever ready to favour those who
could best protect them against the Turks and Kurds. After
twenty years of romantic adventures and of hardships, to
which the untiring pioneer, Dr. Grant, and several of his successors
succumbed, the missionaries came to the conclusion
that it was impossible for them to gain a permanent footing
in the mountains. They altered their plans, and, instead of
sacrificing any more precious lives, employed native helpers as
much as possible in that region, the missionaries paying occasional
visits, and'regular reports being sent to Urumiah. This
was merely a makeshift, especially when one remembers that
it was in the mountains that the chief strength of the Syrian
population lay. And the missionaries were compelled at last
to recognize the painful fact that they had not been successful
in exercising any powerful influence on the mountain Nestorians,
either as a Church or as a nation, and that they would