Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Tiffany Vergon, and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
[Illustration: PLAIN OF OROOMIAH, FROM THE SEMINARY AT SEIR.]
With
Fine Illustrations, and a Map of Nestorian Country.
Our Saviour bade his disciples gather up the fragments, that nothing belost; and many who have known of Miss Fiske's fifteen years of laborfor woman in Persia, have desired her to prepare for publication thefacts now presented to the reader. The writer was one of these; and itwas only when he found that she could not do it, that he attempted it,in accordance with her wishes, simply that these interesting records ofdivine grace might not be lost.
The materials have been drawn from the letters and conversations ofthose familiar with the scenes described, and especially from MissFiske. In all cases, the language of others has been condensed, as muchas is consistent, with the truthful expression of their ideas; and, inthe translation of the letters of Nestorians, it has not been deemedessential to follow slavishly every Syriac idiom, for, instead of theseletters owing their interest, as some have supposed, to theirtranslators, they may have sometimes rather suffered from renderingsneedlessly idiomatic.
It was at one time proposed to embrace the history of both the Male andFemale Seminaries, but the proposition came too late, and the memoir ofthe lamented Stoddard gives so full an account of the former, that nowwe need to hear only the story of its less known companion; but let thereader bear in mind that as much might have been said of the one as ofthe other, had the design been to give an account of both.
A strict adherence to the order of events in the following pages wouldhave produced a series of disjointed annals. To avoid such a breakingup of the narrative, each subject has been treated in full wheneverintroduced, though that has involved a freedom somewhat independent ofchronological order.
The notices of the revivals are mere incidental sketches. Theircomplete history remains to be written.
The beautiful Illustrations introduced are all new, copied fromsketches taken on the spot by the skillful pencil of a dear missionarybrother, whose modesty, though it will not consent to the mention ofhis name, yet cannot prevent a grateful sense of his kindness. The Mapis an improvement on others previously published, and, besides addingto our geographical knowledge, will be found valuable to the friends ofmissions.
If the readers of these pages enjoy but a small part of the delightfound in their preparation, the writer will not regret his undertaking.May the day be hastened when heaven shall repeat the hosannas of aregenerated world, even as now the abundant grace bestowed upon theNestorians redounds, through the thanksgiving of many, to the glory ofGod.