Get a load of this....

[yaaqub]

Shlama,

I'm currently reading Asahel Grant's "The Nestorians; Or, The Lost Tribes" and came across a section in the book that reminded me of this thread:

"Monday was spent in attendance upon the sick, in general intercourse with the people, and preparations for the continuance of my journey. I gave medicine to forty or fifty of the soldiers, and received the warmest thanks of the governor, who made me his guest. He said it was God who had sent me for their relief, when they had neither physician to prescribe nor medicine to alleviate their sufferings. The Nestorian priest lamented the low state to which their Church had been reduced, and said he feared that the people, in their gross ignorance, would fall a sacrifice to the wiles of the papists; who, he had been told, were about to make more vigorous efforts than ever to convert the whole of his people to Romanism.

He told a sad tale of their past efforts and success, stating that his own father was bastinadoed [???] to compel him to become a Roman Catholic! The papists in Mesopotamia have assured me that no effort will be spared to convert the whole of the Nestorian Church to their faith; and this report is confirmed by letters since received from Bagdad, one of which says that three bishops and priests, educated at the Progaganda, were 'about going to Mosul to hold a convention to devise measures to bring over all the Nestorians to the Romish faith!'...With God and truth on our side, we have nothing to fear, if the Church will come up to her duty.

The Nestorians have nobly stood their ground, and they are still upon the watch-tower. As I approached their mountain fastnesses, their first inquiry was to know whether I was a "Catoleek;' declaring that they would not permit these 'wolves in sheep's clothing' to enter their country. Hitherto they have prevented the emissaries of Rome from entering their mountains. But the latter are looking with eagerness to this interesting field; and, while they are extending their labours in the East, no effort will be spared to spread their influence among the mountain tribes. Will Protestant Christians, to whom the Nestorians are stretching out their hands for help, suffer the golden harvest to fall into the garner of the pope?"