ry. They have made clear what for ages was obscure. They have translated the records of a civilization to be ranked with that of Greece and Rome, and older than either by many centuries. None, more than they themselves, are conscious of the imperfections of their transla tions of the Assyrian records. There are signs of whose value they are ignorant. There are idioms whose meaning they have not determined. There are chronological and historical differences with well-authenticated facts that they have not been able to reconcile. But all things are possible to him who works. That which these emi nent scholars have given us is but the beginning of the end. There are in the British Museum thousands of tablets not translated, whose import may yet astonish the world. There are mounds at Babylon and Nineveh unexplored, whose buried treasures of art and learning invite the discoverer. What seer shall foretell the developments of future exploration? Up to the present moment, Babylon has not been extensively and thoroughly explored. Her vast mounds await the coming of those who will bring to light her too long entombed monuments. It may be that the library of Nebuchadnezzar will be recovered, together with the older annals of the Babylonians. What light such records might throw upon the whole programme of the ancient civ ilization of mankind! and, perhaps, solve the problem whether the civilization of the East originated on the plains of Assyria or in the valley of the Nile. And who can tell how much more remote such records would car ry us into the past? The day may not be far distant when Nimrod's Biography, Noah's History of the Flood, and Adam's Autobiography, shall become standard works among the civilized nations of the earth.

Hitherto, the work of exploration has been advanced

chiefly by France and England; but the time has come when the United States should contribute to a result of such general interest. Ten thousand dollars judiciously expended in the work of excavation might lead to the most gratifying results. It would be a national honor were an accredited agent of our country to discover a new palace with its buried treasures. The Sublime Porte would doubtless accord to the United States the same courtesy extended to England and France, the right of possession of whatever antiquities might be discovered by an authorized representative. It is the opinion of nearly all the distinguished Assyrian explorers that new and valuable discoveries are yet to be made, and that any properly directed effort of exploration would be attended with success. The mounds hitherto explored have been only partially excavated, and the work previously done is preparatory for future effort. But whether new excavations shall be attempted or not, the sum of ten thousand dollars would secure some rare specimens of Assyrian sculpture, such as a pair of the humanheaded lions, a royal statue in high-relief, scenes of war, of the chase, of domestic life, of mechanic art, of devotion, delineated in bass-relief on slabs of alabaster, and a li brary of histories, poems, and learned works inscribed on terra-cotta tablets, on clay cylinders, on marble slabs. And the facilities for transportation are as great as the antiquities are numerous. Even the heaviest specimens can be floated on rafts down the Tigris to Busrah on the Shaat-el-Arab, where a government vessel might receive them and transport them to the United States, to be added to the splendid collection from Cyprus, of which New York is justly proud.

CHAPTER VII.

Christianity in the East.-Origin of the Nestorians.-Their Great Learning. -Their Vast Missions.-Letter from Mr. Hormuzd Rassam on the Eastern Churches. Syrian Jacobites.--Syrian Catholics.-Chaldean Nestorians.Their Chaldean Origin. - Opinions of Ancient and Modern Authors.— Language of the Chaldeans.-History and Creed of the Nestorians.Their Present and Their Future.

FROM the Garden of Eden to the snows of Ararat, and from the confines of Persia to the shores of the Mediterranean, Christianity is accepted as a Divine verity. The apostles were the first to preach Christ to the teeming millions of that ancient region, the cradle of humanity. The churches they planted took deep root, and bore abundant fruit. For three hundred years they continued to flourish in the unity of the Spirit; but, in the lapse of time, the union was severed, and the separated parts became sectarian centres of bitter contention. The rival sects strove for the mastery, and displayed a zeal that knew no bounds. Neither the change of govern ments, nor the power of persecution, nor the lapse of centuries, has been sufficient to extinguish that zeal, or totally destroy those who were inspired therewith. remnant remains, still tenacious of ecclesiastical life.

A

The Armenians are by far the most powerful, and the most widely diffused, in the group of purely Oriental churches. Their home is the mountain tract that encir cles Ararat, and in wealth, in steadiness, in quietness, they are the "Quakers" of the East. Proud of their founder, they trace their origin to Gregory the Illumi

nator, whose dead hand is still used for continuing the succession of their patriarchs.

The "Church of Syria " is the oldest of all the Gentile churches, and ancient Antioch is revered as the place of its birth. Its sacred annals are adorned with the immortal names of Ignatius, of Chrysostom, and John of Damascus. Its two divided parts are the Jacobites, who are Monophysites, and the Maronites, who are Monothelitic. The chief city of the former is Diarbekir; the chief sanctuary of the latter is the convent of Kanobin, shaded by the cedars of Lebanon.

The "Chaldean Christians," called by their opponents "Nestorians," live in the secluded fastnesses of Kurdis tan, and are the remnant of the ancient church of Central Asia. They trace their descent to St. Thomas the Apostle. They accept as binding, the decisions of the Councils of Nicæa and Constantinople, but reject those of Ephesus, which condemned Nestorius, from whom they are named by those who differ from them.* In the day of their power, Edessa was their sacred city, and the city of Nisibis was their seat of learning and the centre of their grand missionary operations. From their fa mous schools went forth giants in literature, whose acquirements excite our admiration. Their varied productions were on a magnificent scale, and the authors thereof continued to flourish till crushed by the despotism of the Moslems. Not less than one hundred and fifty authors contributed to advance literature in the East. They were commentators on the whole or parts of the Bible; they were sacred and profane historians; they were lexicographers, grammarians, logicians, metaphysicians, geographers, astronomers, writers on natural

*Stanley's "Eastern Church," pp. 91-94.

philosophy; and more than a hundred were poets. Some of them passed beyond the limits of their own language, and carried their investigations into the wide field of Greek literature. They composed Greco-Syriac lexicons, and enriched the Syriac language by the introduction of a great variety of words from the Greek classics. Several of the Nestorian bishops wrote learned treatises in Persian, and one of the number translated the works of Aristotle into that language for the Emperor Chosroes. Some of these monuments of Nestorian learning remain to this day, and can be seen in the libraries at Mosul, Mardeen, and Bagdad. But not a few have been destroyed by the Latin missionaries, who used every possi ble artifice to exterminate the works of the Nestorian authors. This vandalism is to be deplored, as an irrepara ble loss to archæology. What light such works might have thrown on the downfall of the ancient Assyrian dynasties, and on the fortunes of the successive kingdoms which rose upon their ruins, and respecting which our information is so scanty! Such information might have solved those difficulties that still baffle the research of the most learned men in Europe, and might have been the key to the remarkable relics of antiquity which are now being exhumed from the mounds of Nineveh and Babylon.*

Impelled by a Divine zeal, the Nestorian missionaries went forth from Edessa and Nisibis to convert the world to Christ. In the sixth century they successfully preached Christianity to the Bactrians, the Huns, the Persians, the Indians, the Persarmenians, the Medes, and the Elamites. The barbaric churches, from the Persian Gulf to the Caspian Sea, were almost infinite; and their

* Badger's "Nestorians," vol. ii., pp. 8–15.