g a song of thanks to God that out of 100 martyrs, not one had
denied the faith. His song was as follows: "Praised be Thy power our
God; let the kingdom of our Savior be victorious. Thou quickener of
life, thou hast prepared a crown for Thy martyrs." Then he was beheaded
with an axe.

Another severe persecution was in the 14th century by Tamerlane. In
1848 two Kurdish dukes Baddirkhunback and Nurullaback and their armies
came whirling down from the Kurdish mountains and in one month
massacred 25,000 Assyrians. The spirit of martyrdom still lives in this
people, as was shown in 1893, when two men and a girl were killed as
martyrs. No doubt there are to-day singing praises before the throne of
God, hundreds of martyrs from this nation.

CHAPTER VIII.

THEIR CONDITION AT THE TIME AMERICAN MISSIONS WERE STARTED.

The colleges of the Assyrians were destroyed four hundred years before
the American missionaries came. Not a single school was left, and the
only effort at education was by monks teaching dead languages to
aspirants for the priesthood. Learned bishops and monks who were full
of the spirit of Christ in spreading the gospel at home and abroad had
all vanished. Some of the clergy could not understand what they read.
Priests and their parish became blind to the Word of God, as their
books had been burned in times of persecution by the Mohammedans in
order to keep them ignorant. Sometimes there was only one priest in a
dozen villages. The clouds of ignorance spread over all the nation.
Their sun went down. Regeneration and conversion were unknown to them.
Traditions prevailed among priests and laymen. They trusted in saints
and in ancient and holy church buildings. In their ignorance they
offered sacrifice to martyrs and built tombs to prophets; put more hope
in the merit of fasting than in Christ. A small number of New Testament
manuscripts, which were written in dead languages were used only in
taking oaths. Sometimes laymen kneeled before them and kissed them
instead of obeying the truth that was written in them. The candlestick
of the church was turned down and the light quenched. Moreover the
Mohammedans had threatened to massacre them if they did not accept that
faith. The Assyrians had lost about all of their Christianity except
the name. Among 100,000 Christians in Kurdiston and 60,000 in Persia
there was only one lady who could read, and she was a nun, sister of
the patriarch. The words of the daugh