corroborated. The churches of this country ought to be accurately
informed as to the number of the Nestorians, their places of
residence, their doctrines, rites, morals, education, etc. Whether
you will be able at present, with a due regard for personal safety,
to penetrate the Koordish mountains, and visit the Nestorian
Patriarch, is very doubtful. But the journey should be performed as
soon as may be, lest interested and perverse men should prejudice
his mind against you."

After stating that they should take pains to show the Nestorians,
that they had no intention of subjecting them to any foreign
ecclesiastial power; and showing that the acknowledgment of the New
Testament, as the only authoritative standard of religious truth,
made them stand on common ground with the people to whom they were
sent; it was stated, that their main object would be to enable the
Nestorian Church, through the grace of God, to exert a commanding
influence in the regeneration of Asia.

"Concentrated effort," it was added, "is effective effort. There is
such a thing as attempting too much. Many a missionary has attempted
such great things, and so many, in a new field, that he has
accomplished little, and perhaps nothing as he ought. Your surveys
may extend over a great surface; but a richer and speedier harvest
will crown your labors, if your cultivation is applied to a single
field."

The Nestorians are a branch of the ancient Christian Church, and
derive their name from Nestorius, a native of Syria and Bishop of
Constantinople, who was excommunicated by the third General Council
at Ephesus, in the year 431. The cause of his condemnation was
probably the desire to humble the occupant of the see of
Constantinople, which had begun to eclipse its sister patriarchates,
rather than any real doctrinal errors. He was banished to Arabia
Petraea, then to Libya, and finally died in Upper Egypt. But his
cause was the cause of his countrymen, and he had influential
friends in the patriarchate of Antioch, who denied the fairness of
his trial and the justice of his condemnation. His case was ardently
espoused by many young men from Persia in the famous school of
Edessa (now Oorfa), and though these were expelled, and the school
itself was destroyed in the year 489, by order of the Emperor Zeno,
the banished youths carried home with them a warm sympathy for
Nestorius, and various causes combined to extend it among the
Persian ecclesiastics. In the