Page:The Nestorians and their rituals, volume 2.djvu/55

Rh fication at the last would be little better than a refuge of lies, we readily admit; yet it is equally indisputable that they tend to keep up a remembrance of, and a reverence for, the substance which they typify, and like a husk or shell do at least indicate the hidden kernel, if they do not preserve it from rottenness and decay.

Had the Christian faith as professed by the Nestorians been devoid of the outward symbolism of solemn rites, stated and ever-recurring commemorations, appointed seasons of public humiliation and religious festivity, a recognized priesthood consecrated to the especial service of the altar with a solemnity of inauguration calculated to affect and to impress the minds of the people with a due regard for their sacerdotal functions, and in the discharge of their sacred office keeping up a constant remembrance of the claims of upon the obedience and worship of His intelligent creatures,—in all probability they would have mixed with the infidels among whom they dwelt, and have long ceased to exist as a body of professing Christians. The truth of these remarks was strikingly illustrated and confirmed by the conduct of many Nestorian children taken to Jezeerah by the Coords after the massacre of 1843. On being released from slavery many of these fell under my care at Mosul, and on inquiry I found that every possible attempt both by threats and promises had been made, on the part of their barbarous masters to induce them to embrace Islamism. With some few the Mohammedans declared that they had succeeded, and on this plea strove to detain them in bondage; but the little creatures protested that they had never ceased to sign themselves with the sign of the cross, and had obstinately refused to eat flesh on Friday. Whilst they continued to observe these duties strictly, (and, poor things! many of them knew little more,) they felt persuaded that they had not abjured the faith of their fathers.

The ignorance, therefore, general among the Nestorians, of the essentials of their religion, precludes the propriety of adducing their testimony in an inquiry like the present. With regard, however, to traditional opinions and observances, so far as their belief and practice are conformable to the declared way of their learned and devout predecessors, these shall be adduced