The American Mission to the Armenians

“ It had been known for several weeks that the Rev. William Goodell, D.D., of the American Mission to the Armenians, was about to retire from the scene of his labors, and return with his family to America. Dr. Goodell is in his seventy fourth year, and has spent forty-three years in active missionary labor in the East, during thirty-four of which he has resided in this city. In these circumstances it need be no wonder that his long residence among us, his public position, his professional labors, and his inestimable personal virtues, should have endeared him to all who have resided here any considerable time, and made them contemplate his withdrawal almost as a personal bereavement. It needed but a simple suggestion to secure the expression of these feelings in an address to their venerable friend, accompanied by the gift of a timepiece as a memorial of esteem from the older British residents here. The presentation took place in the presence of a numerous assemblage of British and American residents. Charles S. Hanson was called to the chair, and, observing that the meeting was held for the purpose of taking leave of their venerable friend, requested the Rev. Dr. Schauffler to open the proceedings with prayer. He then called upon the Rev. Dr. Thomson, of the British and Foreign Bible Society, to read the address which had been prepared, and of which the following is a transcript: —

“ ‘ CONSTANTINOPLE, June 8,1865.

“ ‘ DEAR DR. GOODELL, — We have asked you to meet us on this occasion, that we may express to you publicly those senti-ments of esteem and regard which we all entertain for you per-sonally, and that respect and admiration with which we look back upon yourJong and unblemished career of Christian use-fulness in this city, — sentiments which we feel all the more deeply in the near prospect of your withdrawal from among us.

Disinterested and laborious services

“ ‘ Several of our number can remember that when you first arrived here in 1831, there was no chaplain to minister to the British residents, and consequently none to address to them in their own language the word of life, to dispense to them the sacraments, or to pour the consolations of the Gospel into the sorrowing heart. Your disinterested and laborious services at that period are still gratefully remembered by many of your friends, and they doubt not that a more enduring record of them is preserved on high.

As members of other churches and of a different nationality, though one intimately connected with your own, we have long highly appreciated that catholic Christian love with which you have ever welcomed good men of every denomination, winning their confidence by your cheerful cordiality of manner, while your whole character and deportment, chastened by wisdom, and pervaded by Christian principle, never failed to instruct and encourage all who had the privilege of your acquaintance. Nor can we omit to refer to the edification and enjoyment with which we have often listened to your lucid, faithful, and impressive expositions of divine truth, while we pray that we may more than ever be guided by that faith and hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, which it has always been your happiness to proclaim.