sand visits." After the removal (Nov., 1843) to the property subsequently bought by the American Board for the enlargement of the school the number of visitors increased. Far from a slave to system Mr. Hamlin nevertheless sought earnestly to maintain regularity in school exercises; yet sometimes this became impossible. Take one day as an example. In June, 1845, at breakfast time I received word of a gathering of young men from the city in Mr. Hamlin's study-a large room with a beautiful outlook on the Bosphorus. Going over I found twenty young and older men there who had come to spend the day, and others were also expected. Many of them we had never seen before. It was an Armenian feast-day, and instead of going to wine. shops or elsewhere to make it a day of pleasure, they had come to hear what we could say to them. Accordingly, taking an Armenian New Testament in hand, I stayed a couple of hours with them, answering their questions and expatiating, as I was able, on the vital truths of the Gospel way of life and Christian duty, while Mr. H. looked after the school-room and prepared to give us one of a series of addresses on "The Evidences of True Christianity," making it eminently practical and adapted to his auditors. As he was about closing at noon fifteen others came in. They expressed great disappointment at being late. Mr. H. suggested that I conduct a second service. This being warmly seconded by the guests I returned at the end of an hour, and gave them a sermon on the text, "My Kingdom is not of this world," to an audience, including the school, of nearly eighty persons. After this the time was filled to five p. m. with continued discussions of themes which had been presented, and we received evidently sincere thanks for what we had done for them.

Mr. Hamlin's ability of work seemed almost without limit. While doing, in teaching, preaching, private intercourse with individuals, and manual mechanical labor, what hardly any other two men could accomplish, the light from his study window was often visible until near or after midnight, when he was using his pen in correspondence or preparing matter for publication. To the latter he was impelled, as other members of the Constantinople station also were, by the demand created by the awakening of mind on religious topics among Armenians and to some extent among Greeks and other nationalities, and a necessity of meeting vehement assaults made upon us. These, soon after the seminary was opened, came especially from French Jesuits and Lazarists who, in a series of booklets and tracts, charged upon Protestantism everything base and criminal. To counteract the bad impression made by these and set forth evangelical truth, the station approved of Mr. Hamlin's writing a book on “Papists and Protestants." This he did with the vigor, skill, and effectiveness characteristic of him. Later he became author of valuable tracts, the longest of which, on the Mediatorship of Christ, was both

controversial and deeply spiritual. Besides these at a still later date he reviewed a book published by the highest authority of the Armenian Church. Mr. Hamlin speaks as follows:*

I wrote besides a pretty severe criticism on a book by Archbishop Matteos Catholicos of Etchmiadzin. The translated title would be: "The Good Man and the Good Christian." It was a weak, windy thing, full of contradictions, anachronisms, misstatements, heresies, libels, and I did not spare him. His own people did not reverence him greatly and they laughed at the predicaments I thrust him into. I showed him up as a heretic to his own church. It broke entirely the hurtful influence of his book.

Other important publications of Mr. Hamlin I must pass without notice. His contributions, together with those of other missionaries, are acknowledged by all intelligent and candid Armenians as of greatest service in saving the Armenian Church from being captured by Rome and by promoting enlightenment and spiritual religion in it.

It was during the time of my association with Mr. Hamlin that an evil, which, from the opening of the seminary had troubled him, became to us intolerable. Tho mostly from well-to-do families, yet, from persecution when not originally poor, more than three-fourths of the students could not keep themselves decently clothed. length the idea was broached of establishing a workshop in which they could earn the necessary means for a respectable appearance and the great evil of dependence on charity be escaped. Mr. Hamlin easily obtained aid from English friends in the capital for starting the enterprise. The pupils came readily into the idea. It soon became a success. Various forms of industry were introduced. The tax on Mr. Hamlin's time and mechanical ingenuity was not small, as for a season he gave an hour in the morning, another hour in the middle of the day, and a third hour toward evening to working in the shop. This he regretted but felt to be compensated by the good effects on health and the quickness with which the students became expert in their industrial employments. I rejoiced with him in the pleasing transformation which came upon the whole appearance of things in the school.

Following the anathema pronounced upon all evangelical believers by the patriarch and the bitter persecution to which it led in 1846, aid came from the Christian world which met necessities for relief to outcasts from business for the period until the Evangelical Armenians were made a distinct civil organization. But after that triumph. was gained the boycotting of them made their situation one of deplorable difficulty. How to secure work by which the poor evangelical brethren could live and support their families called forth from Mr. Hamlin thought and endeavor which led to his taking some

Page 253 of "My Life and Times."

others than students into his workshop, his helping individual undertakings, and finally to the obtaining of a firman from the government for an American mill and bakery independent of all guilds in Constantinople.

The story of the difficulties overcome, of doubt on the part of missionaries and at the Mission House in Boston, the first success in giving remunerative employment to the needy Armenians, the honor to American bread by its superior quality and always overweight, the enforced great enlargement of operations to meet demands of humanity at the hospitals and military camps of the Bosphorus during the

Crimean war, the laundry enterprise which became an invaluable boon to suffering soldiers and many poor employees, providential deliverances from plots of unprincipled enemies, the results in aid of the church and school-house building, and the interesting of Mr. Robert of New York in the founding of an American College at the Ottoman capital under superintendence of Mr. Hamlin, reads in a simple narrative of the facts, like a romance. But the limits of this article forbid my dwelling on what occurred after my return to America in 1850. In 1852, having been elected by the American Board to an official connection with its home administration, I could not controvert the action of the Prudential Committee as to the use of money from the board's treasury, while I had sympathy with Mr. Hamlin's action and

strong confidence as to its outcome in his doing what was without precedent and parallel as a missionary. His industrial schemes did vindicate themselves. Their benefits in relief of suffering humanity were incalculable. When the accounts were finally settled a profit of $25,000 appeared, of which every cent went into a fund for aiding church erection. Not a dollar remained in his pocket.

It occurred by the action of the Prudential Committee that in 1863 and 1864 I spent more than a year in Turkey in assisting missionary labors in the capital, visiting out-stations and attending annual meetings of the Syria, Central Turkey, and Western Turkey missions. At that time the Missionary Seminary had been closed at Bebek and Mr. Hamlin was occupying the edifice with Robert College. The conferences I had with him were frequent and free. He was still the missionary in spirit, and he made a visit with me to an out-station fifty miles from the capital. We discussed missionary problems, in regard to which we differed only in the extent to which certain views were to be carried out. After six years of further service in America, and returning in 1871 to resume for fifteen more years the position of a missionary, I was present on the memorable Fourth of July of that year, to join in congratulation at the formal opening of Robert College in its completed beautiful edifice on the splendid site overlooking the Roumeli Castle.

It was a day of gladness and thanksgiving, of recognition of a wonderful history of human agency directed and supplemented by Divine Providence in bringing to visible sight of all passers through the Bosphorus a significant emblem of the future in its relation to the past in the mutations of human affairs.

To all who ask for a fitting monument to Cyrus Hamlin and Christopher R. Robert, to endure through coming ages, we reply:

Behold it in the Temple of Science and Christianity towering above the symbols of barbaric force at their meeting-place in the central point of contact among the nations!

The Board of Trustees of Robert College have recently issued a most interesting and attractive pamphlet descriptive of the history and work of Robert College. Copies can be had from the secretary, Rev. Edward B. Coe, D.D., 42 West 52nd Street, New York. The College has been doing a noble work for nearly forty years, and has already exerted a strong influence in bringing new light and life into the Levant. Its aim from the first has been to give a thorough unsectarian but Christian training to the young men of many eastern nations. Already over 2,000 such men have been educated there, many of them having attained high positions in their native land. The opportunities and needs of the college are constantly increasing. The trustees are asking for three new professors a head of the preparatory department; a professor of commercial branches, and a physician and surgeon who shall have charge of the physical health and training of the students. These appointments also call for an increase in the endowment fund. The library and scientific departments are also in need of increased facilities.-EDITORS.

GROUP OF STUDENTS, REPRESENTING FIFTEEN NATIONALITIES, NOW IN ROBERT COLLEGE. Beginning at the left, front row, the nationalities are: American, Egyptian, Scotch, Turkish, Russian, Georgian, Israelite. On the second row, beginning at the left, are Greek, Austrian, Polish, Dalmatian; and in the third row, Armenian, Canadian, English, and Bulgarian.