her clergy the only apostolical succession,
and that her trine immersion, performed by her clergy, was the only
baptism, while all not thus baptized were beyond the hope of
salvation. Of course all Protestant preachers, whether episcopal or
non-episcopal, were regarded by the Greeks as unbaptized heretics.
The Greek Church held the worst errors of Popery, such as
transubstantiation, worshipping the Virgin Mary, praying to saints,
baptismal regeneration, and the inherent efficacy of ordinances to
save the soul. The power of excommunication in the hands of the
priests, was regarded by the people with extreme dread, as sealing
the soul over to perdition; and believing, as they did, that
salvation is certain in the Church, and nowhere else, they regarded
every attempt at innovation as an attack upon their dearest
interests, and resisted it with persecution, or turned away with
disgust and scorn. There were persons both among the ecclesiastics
and laymen, to whom this would not apply; but the inflexible
opposition of the hierarchy, as a body, to all efforts for
propagating the evangelical religion, was matter for profound
lamentation.

Yet labors in Greece had not been expended in vain. There had been
very few hopeful conversions; but as many as two hundred thousand
copies of the New Testament and parts of the Old had been put in
circulation in the modern Greek language; a million copies of books
and tracts had been scattered, by different missionary societies,
broad-cast over the Greek community; perhaps a score of Greek young
men had been liberally educated by benevolent societies and
individuals in America and England; and more than ten thousand Greek
youths had received instruction in Greece and Turkey, at the schools
of various missions. Of the good seed thus sown, though not often on
good ground, there may yet be a harvest to gladden future
generations. The labor had not been fruitless. The Greek government
was not what it would have been, and the same may be said of the
social state. Nor were the same old ideas prevalent among the people
as to the authority of councils and of the ancient fathers, and the
authority of God's Word stood higher than before. The same low
estimate was no longer put upon knowledge and education, nor upon
religious tolerance, nor were there the same impressions concerning
Protestantism, and Protestant nations, and the Christian world at
large. In all these respects, there had been progress.