Page:The Nestorians and their rituals, volume 1.djvu/435



principal changes which had taken place among the different Christian communities up to the date of our second arrival at Mosul have already been related in the foregoing narrative. After relinquishing this station for five years the American Independents have lately sent a missionary to the Syrian Jacobites, who has succeeded in proselyting a few individuals from that body. After vainly using every endeavour to induce them not to frequent the religious meetings of the missionary, Mutran Behnâm excommunicated them, and thus the matter remains for the present. It is but just to add that the two American gentlemen who were successively engaged in this work, frequently expressed their anxiety not to create a schism among the Syrians; but a single glance at the doctrines, Church discipline, and ritual order of the latter, compared with the principles of the Independents, will show that this is a chimera. The missionaries have opened a rival chapel and a school, where, if honest men, they will undoubtedly inculcate their own doctrines; and this they desire to do with the approbation of the Bishop of the diocese! Of course none of the recognized ecclesiastical authorities can assent to any such proceedings unless they are convinced of the orthodoxy of the missionaries, or unless they are paid to sanction their operations. Now it is well known that the Bishops and