Page:The Nestorians and their rituals, volume 1.djvu/335

Rh uniform liturgy, ritual, or discipline. This we have done by seeking opportunities to make known the doctrine and apostolical order of our Church, wherever we have travelled, and by opening our house at all times to the numerous visitors who frequent it from the town and country, and by distributing many copies of our Book of Common Prayer in Arabic to such as have asked for them. But the most effectual means to this end has been the opening of our little chapel, wherein we have carried out into practice the excellent order of our services. The daily matins and vespers, and the weekly celebration of the holy Eucharist, with a rigid observance of our festivals and fasts, have done more to make known the spirit of our Church than any other measure that could have been adopted. Numbers from the town and villages, have been present on various occasions, and since the unfortunate massacre, Mar Shimoon and many of his people from the mountains have had frequent opportunities of witnessing our order, and of commending it as true, primitive, and apostolical. … We have moreover distributed seven of the nine cases of the Holy Scriptures which we brought out with us, besides supplying schools and many private individuals with elementary treatises printed at the press of the Church Missionary Society at Malta.

"These efforts on our part have tended greatly to strengthen that portion of the Chaldean community who desire to restore the independence of their Church; but not having been confined to any particular denomination of Christians, they have had also a more general effect in weakening the hold which Rome has acquired over the greater portion of the Christian population in these districts.

"Agreeably with our instructions I very early entered into correspondence with Mutran Elîa of Alkôsh, the rightful successor to the Chaldean patriarchate according to the custom prevalent among the Nestorians, and by him we were encouraged to labour among his people, while he for the present declined taking any active part toward recovering his rights, or of openly co-operating with us. … But a great difficulty exists against any attempt to restore the patriarchal dignity to the old line, a difficulty arising out of the personal character of Mutran Elîa himself, which has proved a great source of discouragement