Page:The Nestorians and their rituals, volume 1.djvu/275

Rh diable defect, namely, that with the forms and practice of worship they are not taught to understand the Gospel.

"In a country where none can read but the priests, it is most essential that attention should be given to the instruction of the people in the humanizing precepts so characteristic of and peculiar to Christianity. It is not the fault of the laity, for they are regular attendants at church, but of the priests solely; who partly chant and partly mumble through a liturgy of great beauty and excellence, and through the ennobling lessons of the New Testament, in so unintelligible a manner that no practical advantage can be derived therefrom. And it is to be remarked here that the old Syriac, in which the rituals and Testament are written, differs also much from the Syriac dialect at present used by the mountaineers. Certain prayers are familiar to all, but they have little moral effect. Many persons piously disposed retire to a corner of the church to pray in privacy, and I have often observed that such persons adhere also to the old oriental practice of frequent prostrations, a form not observed by the clergy; [the priests are directed to stand between the porch and the altar in the Nestorian rituals, as the ministers often do in our own church while the people kneel: within the sanctuary they often prostrate themselves:] but there is no plain distinct enunciation of the precepts and practice of our or of His Apostles. There is no sermon or lecture to expound difficulties of doctrine, to awaken reflection, or to sustain faith by convincing the intellect: thus the main body of Nestorians are only nominal Christians, and must remain so till assistance is sent to them from more favoured nations. Left to themselves and without education the people have deteriorated, and with the carelessness and ignorance of the laity have come laxity and superficiality among the clergy.

"It would be a great injustice, however, to these mountaineers, were I not to acknowledge that they are superior in intelligence and in moral worth to the inhabitants (Christians and Mohammedans) of the same classes in Anatolia, in Syria, and Mesopotamia. There are some forms of society, and many decencies of life belonging to improved civilization, that are omitted by the mountaineers; but there is no doubt that they are, as a race, more quick and impressible, more open, candid,