and establish schools
among them, and also to desire that we should send to them some Arabic
Testaments and Psalms. All this is most encouraging, and I plainly
see, that were there twenty servants of Christ, faithful men, who
would be content to work for the Lord in every way, there might soon
be found abundant work for them. Mousul seems especially open to
Christian influence. Many of those immediately connected with the
Pasha are Christians, and many even among the Mohammedans have still
Christian recollections. The letter from Mousul, Meenas tells us, will
come in about three days; if so, Mr. Pfander proposes sending back a
present of Arabic Testaments and Psalms, with the expression of our
hope that the Lord may strengthen our hands, as he has made willing
our hearts, to extend our labours unto them. Major T. often asks me if
I think any missionary mechanics may still come out. The Lord does so
much and so wonderfully, that I can almost hope this, notwithstanding
the host of prejudices to be first surmounted.

Marteroos, the schoolmaster, who we hear is on his way from Sheeraz,
will, I trust, be a great comfort to us, and a help to the school. He
taught two years in the school at Calcutta, and though solicited,
would receive no salary; and also at Bushire. This is a trait of
character so utterly unlike these countries, that we cannot but hope
he will enter into our plans with a heartiness that we can expect few
others would. From his understanding English, we hope he may be able
to take not only the higher Armenian classes, but also to have time to
translate such books as we need for the use of the school, and also
little tracts for circulation.

The Musruff, (or treasurer) of the Pasha told Major T. that they had
begun the canal between the Tigris and Euphrates. This shews the Pasha
is still anxious about the steam communication.

Our Mohammedan Moolah still continues to read the New Testament, with
the Armenian schoolmaster, who seems very sanguine that he will become
a Christian. At all events, I bless God that he sees the record of God
with his own eyes, so that if he now rejects the testimony, it will be
God's that he rejects, and not the solemn mockery of Christ's most
simple and most holy truth, which they have before seen.

We were much delighted to find that those of the little boys who had
been exercised in translating their own language into the vulgar, had
retained such a clear knowledge of it, that