PREFATORY NOTE.

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FTER various futile attempts, and in spite of the distractions and diversions occasioned by travel, missionary work at home, and a long-continued search for lost vitality, this work-which was long urged upon me by friends abroad, as also in my own country-is now an accomplished fact.

As regards its aim and scope, it will speak for itself. Had it been my own work simply, to be portrayed in this volume, it would never have seen the light!

Should any be disposed to complain of a lack of groundwork in dates and statistics, I would with pleasure refer them for the same to a recent and valuable work on the "Armenian Mission," by the Rev. Dr. Anderson, former Secretary of the American Board. It may, however, be well to state, in this connection, that my missionary life was commenced in Constantinople, on the last day of January, 1853, when the dew of youth yet "lay upon my tabernacle," and the "world was all before me where to choose: "-that I did not offer -that I did not offer my services to the Board, but was called to a work for which I felt unfitted, which I had never anticipated, and would never have dared to enter without hearing the Divine Command and Commission. And here I may quote, as my own experience, the testimony of Florence Nightingale respecting herself: "If I could give

you information of my life, it would be to show how a woman of very ordinary ability has been led by God in strange and unaccustomed paths, to do in His service, what He has done in her. And, if I could tell you all, you would see how GOD' HAS DONE ALL, and I nothing. I have worked hard, very hard, that is all; and I HAVE NEVER REFUSED GOD ANYTHING !" And now, in the prime of life, with renewed vigor (after five years of reluctant tarrying in the land of my fathers), I anticipate another campaign of missionary service, of my own free choice, as the grandest, the most ennobling, and inspiring ministry to which God has admitted the fellowship of man!

When the proposition to prepare these narratives for the press was first made, an almost insurmountable obstacle presented itself in the fear that such publicity, if known to our Armenian converts, might seriously mar the simplicity of their Christian character. This evil I have endeavored to obviate by changing the names of persons now living, whose history is briefly sketched in these pages. And I may add, that the pictures are not intentionally embellished; it has been my aim to adhere, faithfully, to the original in each portraiture, giving the very words employed by individuals, and truthfully stating both sides, so far as known.

Some of the specimens of Christian manhood and womanhood, shown as the result of only a few years of culture, remind one of the noble fruits produced by the virgin soil of California. And yet they are none the less the genuine outcome of a PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY, which everyone who bears the Christian name should show, as the evidence of being “rooted and grounded in Christ." If Christian culture were made as prominent and as thorough at home as in some favored por

tions of the foreign soil, perhaps there would be fewer barren trees in the Vineyard of the Lord!

I cannot close this allusion to home-husbandry and homepiety without a word of grateful acknowledgment to those warm-hearted, large-souled Christian "fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters," in whose homes, and by whose encouragement and sympathy, this work has been wrought out. Nor can I forget the friends of Christ in England and Scotland, who, when I was too exhausted to reach my native shores, and sadly needing the ministry of love, received the "American Missionary" as one of their very own, in many a home of the rarest refinement, culture, and elegance, and by many a cheerful fireside whose memory still warms my heart!

The abiding hope that the Master would use this offspring of much prayer and faith to advance His own Cause and Kingdom in the earth,-and thus redeem the years which, after a life of such active service, seemed running to waste, has made the otherwise tedious and toilsome work of preparation a health-giving, soul-inspiring labor of love! And to Him, by whose aid alone it has been completed, I now commit it, with humble confidence that He will "prosper it in that whereunto it is sent ' M. A W.