Notwithstanding all the books

The following passage occurs in his journal: —

“ We feel it to be an occasion for devout thankfulness that we have never been drawn aside from our work to engage in any controversy with the Greeks. Notwithstanding all the books that have been published against us and our operations, we have never written one syllable or said one word in reply. We have had enough else to do; and we have kept about our own work as though nothing had been said or written against us, leaving them to light on alone, ‘ as one that beat- eth the air.’ ”

So clear was his conviction of the truth that Christ’s kingdom is not of this world, and that it is not to be advanced by worldly authority and power, that he was exceedingly averse to obtaining firmans for carrying on any missionary operations, or seeking official interference and protection from the government whenever it could be avoided. To one of the missionaries at Smyrna, who had urgently requested his influence with Commodore Porter, as United States Charge d’affaires, to obtain some official protection of the schools, he counselled quiet prosecution of the work, without creating disturbance or invoking aid from any civil power, and especially a foreign power: —

January 24, 1834. The fact is, our strength consists in being as quiet as possible. The less that is said and known about our operations so much the better. A great deal can be done in a silent, harmless, inoffensive way in these countries, but nothing in a storm. I do deprecate a storm far more than any of our consuls or worldly wise men do. If Mr. 0. talks to you of prudence, you may go all lengths with him, and a great deal further, unless he is different from any consul I have ever seen.

Be frank with him, and ask his advice whenever you know it cannot but be exactly in accordance with your own views; ask it, too, whenever you are in any real doubt as to our relations with the Porte, &c. We did not come here to quarrel with governors and pashas, nor with patriarchs and bishops. And, as to the Catholics, pray let them entirely alone, and neither curse them at all nor bless them at all.”

To another missionary at Smyrna, who had asked the same kind of interference, he wrote: —

“ From a remark in Mr. T.’s letter, I find you are still expecting I should endeavor to obtain a firman for the restoration of your Turkish schools, and wondering why I should have been so long silent on the subject. I had in numerous letters expressed my views and feelings so very fully on this whole subject, in the case of Bishop Dionysius, that I supposed all the brethren at Smyrna perfectly understood that the thing was, in our view, impracticable.

Reis Effendi the ambassadors

“ Pray, how is such a firman to be obtained? Avho shall apply for it? No ambassador can do it officially, without transcending the powers vested in him. And to urge him to do it is to urge him to do what is not his duty, what is a violation of the treaty, and what, of course, his own government will not bear him out in doing. Ought he, then, to do it? I answer unhesitatingly, he ought not. Ilis official conduct ought to be strictly conformed to the treaty, as it is mutually understood by the parties. If the treaty be defective, that is no concern of his, except with his own government at home; all he can do is to represent its defects to them, and in the mean time to abide by the existing one till his government can or will form a new and better one with the Porte. Should he happen to be on familiar terms with any distinguished Turks, he can, of course, as a private individual From Alican and Dilucu border gates to Karakale, ask and obtain favors of them, such as they are able to grant. But firmans are official documents; they proceed from the Reis Effendi, and bear the signature of the Sultan; and, besides, with the Reis Effendi the ambassadors are seldom on terms of intimacy.

Indeed, they seldom have much intercourse with any of the high officers of government, except what is strictly of a diplomatic or official character. In this character they are not in general backward; but, on the contrary, are forward. This is especially true of all consuls, so far as I have known them. At Beyrout they were petty kings; they were disposed to go far beyond what existing treaties would allow, or their own governments at home would sanction, and instead of a spur they rather needed a curb. Ought they, then, to be urged and goaded and fretted, when their own inclination already leads them to interfere beyond what existing treaties give them any right to do? Manifestly they ought not.