Gather up the fragments

And those who thus take notes do it for the purpose of communicating to others what they hear from us. They ‘ gather up the fragments,’ and retail them; and, as retailers, nobody in all Constantinople carries on a brisker trade than they do. They light their candle, not to conceal it under a bushel, but to put it on a candlestick, for the public benefit. And the water they drink for their own refreshment becomes a well of living water, springing up for the refreshment of all their neighbors and friends.”

The man Christ Jesus

During the year 1842, the Gospel made silent but rapid progress among the Armenians. The Spirit was moving upon the hearts of the people with greater power than at any previous time. Many who had rested in the forms and ceremonies of the church, and who had trusted to the priests to negotiate with God in their behalf, learned for the first time that “ God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth,” and that there is only “ one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.”

Some who had been stout opposes of the truth, taking part or rejoicing in the persecution of the followers of Christ, were humbled at the foot of the cross. The female part of the population, which, owing to the seclusion in which the women of the East are kept, and in part also to their ignorance, had been inaccessible, now began to feel the truth, and for the first time were among the attendants upon the ministration of the word. Having the whole word of God in their own familiar language, many of the people began to study it as did the ancient Bereans, searching the Scriptures daily, though not so much to learn whether these things were so, as to learn more and more of Christ and of His truth.

The believers at the capital had rest for a time, but the arm of persecution was not withdrawn in the interior. Many in the towns distant from Constantinople, who had heard the word gladly, were called to suffer as witnesses for the truth. At Erzroom, an enlightened and truly pious priest, who had begun to preach the Gospel in its simplicity, was seized by order of his bishop, bastinadoed until he swooned, and in that state was thrown into prison and bound with chains. At Nicomedia, and at other places nearer the capital, where the number of believers was multiplied, the enemies of the truth were restrained from using violence, but they did not at all withhold the tongue of hatred and slander.