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The teachers exhorted their little flock not to count their lives dear to them, for Jesus' sake. Happily, they were not called to such a test of discipleship; but the sympathies of the Moslems were plainly with Mar Shimon, and no one knew what a day might bring forth.
Even Moslems gazed with wonder, as they passed close by the door of the patriarch, and went out of the city gate. On the green hill-side at Seir the little one was laid to rest, and the father, thanking the company for their kindness, hastened them back, to be in time for the afternoon service. In the mean time, Mar Shimon sent far and near, forbidding all intercourse with the missionaries.
He remained there till the 7th of May, 1840. During this time, two brothers of the Patriarch visited the mission, and urged its extension into the mountains. Mar Shimon also wrote, renewing his request for a visit in the spring. Dr.
Ainsworth, travelling at the expense of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge and the Royal Geographical Society. The statements of this gentleman and of his companion, Mr. Rassam, to Mar Shimon, so resembled those made by the Papists, that the Patriarch suspected them of being Jesuits in disguise, and they actually left the mountains without removing that suspicion.
On the 25th of August, a messenger came in haste for one of them, saying that her dying brother wished to see her immediately. As the man was her relative, the girl was ready to go at once; but providentially Miss Fiske learned that the brother was well, and the messenger had been seen last with Mar Shimon. So he left, chagrined and enraged at his failure.
On the morning of July 28th, the infant daughter of Priest Eshoo, named Sarah, after her sainted sister, lay on her death bed; and to punish her father for his preaching, Mar Shimon forbade her burial in the Nestorian graveyard. He collected a mob ready to do his bidding as soon as she should die; but she lingered on, and so disappointed him for that day.
In 1844 they numbered sixteen souls; but in 1846, from various causes, they were diminished to ten. These were not discouraged, but remained at their post confident that labors in the Lord cannot be in vain. Then the persecution under Mar Shimon shut them up to God as their only hope, while it rid them of some native helpers, who cared chiefly for their own temporal advantage.
An immediate effect of the news was to displace the Governor of Oroomiah, Yahyah Khan, with whom Mar Shimon had been forming an alliance, to strengthen him in his persecutions. Through the friendly, but unsolicited agency of the English Consul, five of the most prominent of Mar Shimon's coadjutors were put under heavy bonds in no way to aid or abet him again in similar proceedings.
Mar Shimon now made common cause with the Persian nobility. The English and Russian ambassadors had procured the appointment of Dawood Khan as governor of the Christians in Oroomiah, in order to protect them from illegal oppression.
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