Page:The Nestorians and their rituals, volume 1.djvu/77

Rh II. III. and V., of whom more will be said hereafter, were in a cemetery without the city walls. Joseph I. and IV. were buried at Rome.

Having received letters from Mutran Behnâm to the Jacobite Syrians, we were hospitably welcomed, and treated with much attention by them during our stay. Mutran Girgis of Kharpoot, as well as all the clergy and principal laymen were invited to meet us at dinner, and to these I had abundant opportunity of explaining the doctrines and discipline of our Church, of which they were profoundly ignorant. They begged us to send them a few copies of our Prayer Book in Arabic, which I afterwards did, as also some other useful works printed by the Church Missionary Society at Malta. They had obtained possession of a polemical treatise written by the American Independents, in which several important doctrines common to us and all the Eastern Churches are impugned, and they were not a little pleased to hear that in these respects there was no difference between themselves and the teaching of our ritual.

We next proceeded to visit their church, which, like all the rest in this city, is situated in an open court into which we passed through a door not more than three feet high. Some say that this narrow entrance is intended to teach humility of mind to such as go to worship; but it is more likely designed to prevent the ingress of horses and other animals into the court-yard. The church, which is dedicated to the blessed Virgin, differs little from those already described. Within the Sanctuary are two thrones for the Patriarch and Bishop, and immediately adjoining the church is a square chapel, dedicated to S. James, in which the baptismal font is placed. Several large paintings, or rather daubs, deface the walls, one of which deserves to be noticed as well on account of the doctrines which it illustrates, as for the novelty of the figures which are introduced into it. The subject was the final judgment, in which an angel is represented as weighing the souls of the departed, whilst Satan in human form, painted black, with a long tail and two horns, is taking down into hell such as are found wanting, amongst whom were two conspicuous figures intended to represent Adam and Eve.9 In another part of the picture an angel is announcing to the righteous that the has finally prevailed