Here is a summary of chapter 3 --- The Russian Revolution has not yet happened nor the massacre of the Armenians in Persia.

William Ambrose Shedd went to Urumia in 1892. During his first summer there he made an 8 week trip through Kurdistan as far as Amadia and Mosul, visiting Mar Shimon, head of the Nestorian Church at Kochanis. His father John Haskell Shedd died in 1895. The father left his work to his son. William’s mother left Persia for America during the next year. This husband and wife team had worked from more than half a century with the Nestorians.  The book says:

When missionary work among the Nestorians or Syrians was first begun Their spiritual life was at a low ebb. Centuries of living as a subject people among the Mohammedans with violence and oppression an everyday experience And no rights of regress had been debasing…The Syrian Evangelical Church in spite of persecution and opposition …was a living power for righteousness, leavening the mass.”

There appears to have been little work for the Christian men. Several thousand Syrian men would spend the greater part of a year working or begging in Russia and leaving some of the Christian villages nearly empty of males. This custom of begging in Russia was so common that those who made it a profession were called “Stealers of the Cross.” The begging was due to the centuries of persecution and oppressions, frequent Kurdish raids, the general disorder of the country which the Persian Government was unable to control, the discouraging industrial conditions and Russian influence made developing the Nestorian church difficult.

In the winter of 1897 Mr. Shedd made a trip to Tergerwar, one of the outlying districts, trudging through the snow, giving food to 2,000 refugees from Turkey and holding many crowded meetings. On this trip he was invited by Piroo, a fugitive Kurd to go on a hunt for mountain sheep. Upon getting to his mountain village they spent the night at his house with everyone sleeping in a room 12 by 15 feet. The next morning Mr. Shedd and the gang climbed the nearby mountains through 3 feet of snow. He said, “I must confess I was too exhausted to do anything but pant and cough and watch the sport. I was given a buck for my ‘prowess’.

Another time Mr. Shedd went to Salmas-Khoi district to administer relief to the refugees who had escaped the massacres in Turkey. He said, “I never saw such pitiful creatures, poor little children fatherless and motherless…As is always the case with this poor misgoverned land, the innocent suffer with the guilty or oftener instead of the guilty. …I saw one poor man in the street in front of the Governor’s door who was dying and did die a few hours later. He was an innocent man who had been arrested to fill the vacancy of an escaped Revolutionist. He died from the effects of the beating and branding he had received in the Persian prison.” On his way home he had an experience similar to Saul of Tarsus and was a crisis in his life.

In 1897 was the coming of the Russian Mission to Urumia causing a big land slide toward the Russian Church and creating consternation in the other churches of Urumia. As the Russian priests made their triumphant procession thru the villages nearly the netire Old Nestorian church, many Armenians and Roman Catholics and some of the Evangelical Church members gave their names to be written as members of the Russian Orthodox Church. Mr Shedd says, The methods of the Russian priests were interesting. The first thing on reaching a village was to reconsecrate the Nestorian church which they took possession of without discussing the question of legal rights. Those who gave their names were received individually and made their confession to a priest…the people gathered in the churchyard and renounced the errors of the Nestorian church and accepted the Russian Orthodox church. Then all attended communion.

The people joined the R. O. Church because they saw in the Russian Mission the herald of Russian political influence under which they hoped to find deliverance from their intolerable position as subject races. The massacre of Christians in Turkey brought terror and panic to the hearts of the Persian Christians and the sought refuge in the Russian Church. The strongest pressure was brought to bear on them and all sorts of reports circulated. They believed the time was at hand when their deliverance from the Moslem was at hand. This movement was under the patronage of the Czar and while on the surface it appeared to be religious it was purely political. The evangelical church remained loyal with only a few going over to the R. O. church. Somehow Mr. Shedd maintained a friendly relationship with the Russians and with the Persian authorities.

Mr. Shedd continued to work at the college as principal and teacher of theology often making his own textbooks. He was treasurer, superintendent of the village schools, editor of the Syriac newspaper, preached on Sunday and studying languages …he was doing an immense amount of work…he worked on a dictionary to regulate spelling of the Syriac language, worked on a Jewish version of the Sermon on the Mount, studied old Syriac manuscripts, worked in the College museum and acted as trustee of Deacon Abraham’s orphanage.  He preached 90 sermons in 14 months, gave 15 other speeches at conferences, attended 12 preacher meetings and 75 other meetings.

In 1894 he married Adela L, Myers whose health was never robust…she died a few years later leaving two daughters. He returned to America for a furlough in 1902 after 10 years of service.

Updated 3/10/06