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TEHERAN. SHAH'S COLLEGE

87

the entrance to the mosques, and the only missionary work was under the Americans. In a letter dated Agha Baba, near Kasbin, June 15, after describing his work among Europeans at Teheran, he said:

'Tuesday morning I spent nearly two hours at the American Presbyterian Mission. . . I went with the ladies into their Armenian school, and said a few words to the children, and prayed with them before leaving. They have a Jewish school down in the city of nearly fifty boys, held in a synagogue strange to say, with a Jewish convert for head-teacher. I wish I could have seen this, but I was too lame to walk. Unhappily, no Persians are allowed to come to their schools; a few, very few, inquirers come at great risk. They are building a fine large chapel by their mission buildings. I felt refreshed by the visit though there was not much to encourage, except in the sale of Holy Scripture. In the afternoon a German gentleman in the Shah's employ took me down to inspect the Shah's college for two hundred youths, mainly of good families, where European languages, literature, and science are taught, French being evidently the favourite tongue. There was a musical performance for me and some athletic sports, in all which the youth showed to great advantage. In several of the class-rooms I was expected to say a few encouraging words to them. The professors are mostly foreigners, the Russian classes being the least popular, the French most so, the English fairly represented. M. Bichat, the chief French professor, has been some thirty-five years in his post, and is one of the chief institutions in Teheran. He is a fine specimen of the dignified and courteous veteran Frenchman. The buildings have some splendour. The courts are flower gardens instead of grass-plots as at Oxford and Cambridge. Tea, cigarettes and sherbet were handed round. The brother of one of the chief ministers of state took me round the buildings. Mathematics are chiefly taught by military professors and in their bearings on war-like projectiles, &c. The painting and drawing class seemed chiefly connected with portrait drawing. All portraits of promise are laid before the Shah.'

From Teheran the first part of the journey was made in a tarantas or drosky, a sort of brougham, provided by the kindness of Mr. Thomson, the English minister at Teheran. After that he rode but in shorter stages than before.

'I am taking,' said the bishop, 'smaller marches this time, not above sixteen or twenty miles a day, lest the sprain should give me trouble. The first I accomplished easily to-day. The carriage ride yesterday was through a country green and well-watered

almost everywhere, with large tracts of cultivation surrounding the villages. . . . Such beauty and variety of wild flowers I scarcely remember to have seen in all my travels. The road lay under endless ranges of hills, near on the right hand, breaks in which here and there disclosed fine snowy peaks, from which flow down the rivulets which turn this waste into a garden almost the whole distance. Towards Kasbin the fields are exchanged for vineyards. One begins to be reminded that we are drawing near to Europe and its scenery. Kasbin is rather a flourishing town, with finely embellished gates and substantial walls, though not very imposing. I had a return of fever, and was too prostrate to venture out. One little glass of the wine of Kasbin set me up wonderfully. It is like foreign wine, and very slightly fermented. I felt I must have something to revive me, I was so low.'

This letter was finished at Kadoom, only one stage from Reshd, where he embarked upon the Caspian. He was much tried with fever during the last days, and nearly thrown from his horse. I have been singing,' he said, 'a Te Deum of praise.'

'June 28. Volga Steamer. The weather was very rough much of the time on the Caspian, and the Russian officers talk so loud that it was quite bewildering and distressing to the head. Last evening we reached Astrakhan up a long estuary, some thirty or forty miles long, with reedy, sedgy banks, and marshes beyond or willow plantations, most uninteresting, but of course perfectly calm. . . . Astrakhan has about 50,000 inhabitants, and was an old Tartar capital of Kalmucks from the fourteenth century. There is really nothing to see on the banks but occasional villages with green-tiled roofs of churches, and an endless series of windmills wherever the ground rises above the general flat level. Fishing and trading boats ply their poor craft, but poverty seems the sad rule. This morning before daybreak a poor young woman flung herself into the Volga off our steamer and drowned herself. They stopped for two hours and searched about, but to no purpose of course in such a stream. The private story of her sorrow is known to herself and God. She was twenty years of age, and has parents and sisters on board (second-class passengers). I expect to land at Tsaritsin early to-morrow, and go by rail to Moscow (D.V.). All I can do is to reach it by daybreak on Sunday, and attend the services, which I expect to find refreshing. The city will have quieted down, I suppose, from its grand spectacle and ceremony (the coronation of the Czar). I think I feel the better for the sea-air and the solid joints of meat on board the steamers. Along the Caspian shores cherries were brought on board, but poor as compared with English ones.'

MOSCOW AND ST. PETERSBURG

89

'Moscow, Sunday, July 1. One does seem to breathe again somehow at finding oneself again in a European town, however quaint and strange it be, and with many oriental forms of architecture. Think of over three hundred churches for about half a million of people! The first part of the journey by train was very agreeable, as we had plenty of room to sleep, much as in Indian travel, or even better; but the latter was less so, as we were extremely crowded. Still the Russians are fairly polite and courteous, and I met with two or three who spoke English. With one or two others I was able to muster German enough to get on decently, though in broken sentences. We had about forty hours of rail, and got in at 10 this morning. . . . I was sad at passing through the villages with bells ringing for church. After getting a little breakfast at this quiet and most respectable hotel (Hotel Billault), I set out in search of the English service, and after long inquiry found it had been closed from last Sunday till August 8, as the English residents are mostly out in the country this month. . . I met two people looking out for a service one a young converted Jewess from Mildmay, and now a governess here, a simple, quiet girl. I got her to take me to the chaplain, as he lived a mile off or so, to inquire, and she seemed so disappointed at no service that I told her that if she could find four or five and bring them to the hotel this evening I would give them a quiet service.'

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'Moscow, July 2. I leave to-morrow evening for St. Petersburg, finding that is really the directest route homewards, and I can get part of two days there, as at Berlin (D.V.), and still hope to reach you on Tuesday evening or Wednesday morning, coming from Calais to Dover, and taking the first train for Tunbridge. I fear your nieces will laugh terribly at so wizen and worn an old man, as I shall look to their young eyes. I have been looking over some of the chief palaces and cathedrals in and around the Kremlin to-day. I had an hour and a half with two polished and agreeable Russian gentlemen in French chiefly, and I hope I was able to witness to them a little for Christ. They thanked me so warmly afterwards, and we seemed quite to part as friends.'

During his brief stay at St. Petersburg the bishop saw the famous Sinaitic MS., and also a celebrated Cufic copy of the Koran, said to have belonged to Ali. This he mentioned to Sir W. Muir in a letter commenting upon his volume on the Caliphs. Thus ends the correspondence on this interesting journey. Dr. Bruce, after the bishop's death, wrote to the Punjab Mission News:

'Never was a missionary more full of the martyr spirit than our beloved bishop. In one sense perhaps too much so, for he was

not satisfied with being a martyr in will, but seemed determined to be a martyr in deed also. God has granted his desire, and he is now among the martyrum candidatus exercitus. Will He not also answer his prayer for the dark lands for which he died? Surely He will.

'On the occasion of his visit to Persia in 1883, Bishop French often impressed this upon me: "If we would win these Moslem lands for Christ, we must die for them.” "Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone, but, if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." Whether this be true of India or not, it certainly seems to be true of Moslem lands. . . . While the present generation lasts the good bishop's visit to us in Julfa Ispahan will not be forgotten, and I have no doubt its fruits will last through eternity.'

CHAPTER XIX.

LAHORE CATHEDRAL.

'Thus speaketh the Lord of Hosts, Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your cieled houses, and this house to lie waste? Now therefore thus saith the Lord of Hosts, Consider your ways. Go up to the mountain, and bring wood, and build the house, and I will take pleasure in it, and I will be glorified, saith the Lord.'-THe Prophet HagGAI. 'I would rather have a church built to remember me by, than have my marble face looked at in Westminster Abbey !'

THE BISHOP TO HIS DAUGHTER EDITH.

THE bishop remained in England till Sept. 17, 1884; he came ostensibly for rest and holiday, but no rest save a change of work was ever possible to his 'unweariable spirit.' His home head-quarters were successively at Eastbourne and at Tunbridge Wells, where he found his great heart-interest in every interval of deputation journeying, in ministering by the sick bed of his daughter Edith. Two or three days a week he generally spent at home, and now and then a Sunday. But he had set himself to gather £4,000 at least for his cathedral church, and did not cease to plead for other objects in his diocese (for chaplains, and for education), and to give his advocacy freely to wider claims of the great Church societies. He said himself that he always felt happiest in pleading for these great societies, and gave them three Sundays for every one to his own special work. In face of such a statement it is difficult to estimate how much good he effected in his months at home, or the amount of effort that it cost him. For a few weeks on his first arrival he obtained a partial relaxation, and for a few weeks before sailing he in a measure slackened his

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