Page:The Nestorians and their rituals, volume 1.djvu/338

284 but in a very destitute state, chiefly owing to the exactions of the local government. Mutran Yoosef happened to be there at the time on his annual visitation to collect tithe, and was exerting his influence to bring these Nestorians into the bosom of the Church of Rome. He had succeeded with one village, but the remainder had sent in assurances of their obedience to Mar Shimoon, and begged that he would not fail speedily to consecrate a Bishop to watch over their spiritual interests. …

"The above is a summary of our operations among the Chaldeans and Nestorians since our arrival here, and I beg that the Church will speedily acquaint us whether we have thereby transgressed the spirit of our instructions. If so, however discouraging it may be to those who have begun to look up to her for support and protection, we must forbear, as it will be worse than futile to enter upon measures of general usefulness to the Churches and then have them to be taken advantage of by those who will only turn them against the truth. And I see not how we can continue even as we have begun to any available purpose, unless the Church intends to maintain an agency here for superintending the carrying out of her benevolent designs. For example, of what avail will it be to establish schools in the country unless the Church continues to support and watch over them? The plant thus sown must be watered, or it will inevitably droop and die for lack of moisture, and this the native Churches have no means of supplying. Should our Church abandon these Churches, there is too much reason to fear that ere long they will fall under the Roman yoke, as the Papal emissaries are as zealous as they are indefatigable, sparing neither men nor money to compass this object. I need not enlarge on the moral evil which would result from such an alternative. Rome has already filled the East with schism, by inculcating doctrines and superstitions which would certainly have been condemned by the Catholic Church as heretical, had they been propounded before the fifth century. And now that she has lost much of her hold upon the West, she is striving in the pangs of dissolution as it were to set up another kingdom in the East, founded on darkness and ignorance, such as she has established in South America, and which it will require more than human power to destroy or even to shake. While the