ed:
he returned to Ispahan, and from thence went to Tabreez, which place
he reached before the plague broke out the second time. This account
makes me long to hear from his own pen the course of the Lord's
dealings with him. The same gentleman told me that the plague in
Tabreez was much worse the second than the first time. Kermanshah is
absolutely destroyed, and the governor, a grandson of the king, is
reported to have collected from the property of the dead five lacs of
piasters. In Kourdistan, also, they say it has been dreadful. In
Saggas, Banah, and Sulemania, he says the desolation is shocking. How
wonderful God's visitations on these nations are; it makes the soul
that the Lord has appointed to be in the midst of them often say,
Lord, let thy kingdom come; yea, speedily, that thy people may know
peace and safety.

I have sent to see the number of the poor little boys of my school
that remain, and I find that they amount to 25 out of 80, and that
I may expect near 30, should I get a master for them. I shall,
therefore, endeavour to accomplish this, the Lord enabling me, and
when I feel strong enough to begin again.

I am very anxious about the dear N----'s at Tabreez, from whom I have
not received a line. Abbas Meerza ordered large pits to be dug for
those who died of the plague, and when they were full to have them
covered in. The Ambassador, and the English, Russian, and other public
functionaries, had fled, and from a packet that came from Capt.
Campbell, who has now the charge of the mission since the death of Sir
John Macdonald, we know that he was safe up to a late date.

_Oct. 26._--I was much struck with an account which Mr. Swoboda, an
Austrian merchant, gave me to-day, of a conversation he had with the
brother-in-law of Ali Pasha. He said that now, in Stamboul, the
Christians went to the mosque, and the Mohammedans to the Church;
there was no difference. How strikingly this shows the rapid progress
of that infidel spirit in these countries, which is spreading in
Europe; surely these then are such signs as should keep us on the
watch for our Lord.

Accounts have just come that the struggle has commenced at Damascus,
that supreme seat of bigotry, between the new and the old regime, and
it remains to be seen how it will terminate. I already hear of one or
two Roman Catholic boys, who will now come to the school, who before,
during the life of the bishop, were afraid. My health I also feel
daily establ