His spirit upon both preachers and listeners. At
some of these meetings there would be from thirty to 100 men and women
crying aloud and trying to learn what they must do to be saved. In
those times some of the penitents in their ignorance prayed prayers
that they would to-day be ashamed of. One old man, who is now an elder,
became terribly in earnest when he was under conviction and was seeking
conversion. In his anguish he prayed thus: "O Lord God, Father of
Christ, send Thy Spirit and regenerate all of this church. If you won't
do this, then destroy this church over our heads and kill us." This
prayer, and others like it, was prayed with such intense earnestness,
that another seeker near by thought the Lord would answer it at once;
and so, reaching for his hat, he prayed: "O Lord don't do this until I
get out; then destroy all of them if you want to." Hastily uttering
this prayer he sought safety outside the walls of the building. When
the old elder was recently reminded of the prayer he made years ago, he
was not ashamed, for he said that was all they knew in those days as
they had not yet learned how to pray.

Until the time of these revivals there had been no separation of the
missionaries from the old Assyrian church. It had been their custom to
take of the Lord's Supper from the hands of Assyrian priests. Mr.
Cochran, president of the Oroomiah college thought it was now time to
form a separate organization. Accordingly the new converts were
organized into a separate church on evangelical principles.

This separation aroused the bitter opposition of the bishops and
priests of the old church for a time, but it finally resulted
beneficially to both sects. The ancient church tried to attract and
hold the people by adopting the same kind of preaching and
Sunday-schools as were being carried on by the evangelical branch.
Preaching sermons was a new work for priests of the old church, and
many amusing mistakes were made at first. One priest in an enthusiastic
discourse when intending to call the Mohammedans, dogs, made the sad
mistake of addressing his audience as, "Ye dogs and sons of dogs." At
another time a bishop having announced that he would preach a sermon,
carefully wrote his discourse. A large and expectant audience greeted
him. When it was time to deliver the address the bishop felt in every
pocket for his written sermon but failed to find it. Turning to the
audience he said: "Satan, the accursed, has stolen