The Corresponding Secretaries of the Board are Rev. Selah B. Treat, Řev George W. WOOD, and Rev. N. G. CLARK. Letters relating to the Missions and General Concerns of the Board, may be addressed

SECRETARIES OF THE A. B. C. F. M.,

Missionary House, 33 Pemberton Square, Boston.

Letters for the Corresponding Secretary resident in New York, may be addressed REV. GEORGE W. WOOD, Bible House, Astor Place, New York city. Donations and letters relating to the Pecuniary Concerns of the Board, (except letters on the subject of the Missionary Herald,) should be addressed LANGDON S. WARD, Trensurer of the A. B. C. F. M.,

Missionary House, 33 Pemberton Square, Boston.

Letters for the Editor of the Missionary Herald, should be addressed

REV. ISAAC R. WORCESTER, Missionary House, 33 Pemberton Square, Boston. Letters relating to the business department of the Herald, subscriptions and remittances for the same, should be addressed

CHARLES HUTCHINS, Missionary House, 33 Pemberton Square, Boston.

Letters for Rev. Rufus Anderson, D. D., may still be addressed to the Missionary House.

GENERAL AGENCIES.

The following arrangement has been made in the system of General Agencies, by the Prudential Committee, with a view to efficiency in the raising of funds.

The payment of $50 at one time constitutes a minister, and the payment of $100 at one time constitutes any other person, an Honorary Member of the Board.

LEGACIES.

In making devises and legacies to the Board, the entire corporate name -"The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions". tator may be defeated.

- should be used; otherwise the intent of the tes

THE

MISSIONARY HERALD.

VOL. LXIV. SEPTEMBER, 1868. - No. IX.

SEIR.

BY REV. HENRY N. COBB.

THE name of Seir is inseparably associated with the history of the Nestorian mission, in some of its most important aspects. It can never be forgotten as the health-retreat of the missionary families. Residing for a large part of the year in Oroomiah, their early experience was one of great suffering—almost constant sickness, and frequent deaths, especially of children. A retreat was absolutely necessary from the extreme heat of the city, and the poisonous exhalations of the plain. The constant irrigation and abundance of vegetation which characterized that portion of the plain immediately about the city, rendered these exhalations peculiarly hurtful. A suitable spot for such a retreat was early found at Seir, a small village of perhaps a hundred inhabitants, about six miles west from the city, and at an elevation of 1,000 feet above it, on the eastern slope of the mountain of the same name. The mission premises are represented in the cut annexed. A court surrounded by a high wall of mud, and with circular towers of the same material at each corner, form the inclosure; an arrangement made necessary by the danger of incursions from the thievish Koords. This court is divided in the middle by a continuous row of buildings, of sundried brick and mud, containing permanent residences for three families. These are at present occupied, the one on the right by Mr. Cochran and his family, that on the extreme left (not visible in the cut) by Mr. Shedd, and the middle portion by Dr. Perkins. During the summer, the families from the city also find a refuge there. Only the second story rooms are occupied, as a rule, for dwelling purposes. The view from the roof, which is an open and continued stretch over the front rooms, from end to end of the three dwellings, is at once commanding and beautiful, embracing the broad plain, dotted with a multitude of villages, each surrounded by orchards and groves and vineyards; the city, embowered and almost hidden in the midst of the dense foliage of its gardens; the lake, extending far to the east; and the mountains, encircling lake and

plain on every hand. The pure and cooler air of the mountain, with the greater freedom from the restraint and confinement of the city, have proved of inestimable service to the health and comfort of the missionaries and their families.

Seir is also to be remembered as the seat of the male seminary, since 1847. As such, it has been the scene of most earnest and devoted labors on the part of those connected with the seminary, and of precious and powerful revivals among the students. In the year 1846 occurred a revival which Mr. Stoddard has called "the first general awakening in a church which had slept for ages." The long deferred answer to the hope and prayer of the missionaries was signally granted, and nowhere more signally than in the male seminary. Located in the city of Oroomiah, it had been customary to disband during the summer months and reassemble in the autumn. But now, should the students be dismissed as usual, it was feared that the interest might decline and the work cease. The school was therefore removed for the first time, and temporarily, to Seir. In three tents on the mountain side, above the mission premises, the young men were gathered, and the good work of grace went on unchecked. The advantages of this location, for the purposes of the seminary, were so many and manifest, that the following year witnessed the permanent removal of the seminary from Oroomiah, and its establishment at Seir. The necessary buildings, of mud and sun-dried brick, were completed under the efficient superintendence of Mr. Stoddard. They are of unpretending appearance, but of sufficient capacity and convenience, immediately adjoining the residences of the missionaries, though without the wall inclosing the latter. If represented in the picture, they would occupy the extreme right, but only a corner is visible.

But though unrepresented, the seminary cannot be overlooked in a sketch of Seir. As the alma mater of a large body of educated and pious young men, most of them now preachers of the "unsearchable riches of Christ," it is connected with very much that is most hopeful, and likely to be most influential for the permanence and growth of the work of Christ in Persia. Indeed, in these days, when so much effort is being directed, and so wisely, to training up, in mission fields, a native ministry and self-supporting churches, it is impossible to over-estimate the importance of a school of the prophets which has sent out nearly a hundred preachers of righteousness, of whom many are now settled as pastors, or scattered on the plain of Oroomiah and in the Koordish mountains, as helpers and evangelists. It is hardly too much to hope, that Seir may one day be, to the revived and reformed Nestorian church, what the famous school at Edessa was to their ancient church. Nor is it too much to affirm, that it is chiefly through the instrumentality of such schools, and the native ministry they educate, that the gospel is to be successfully and permanently established in all mission fields. Seir also has an interest, as proving, in its own history, the power of the gospel as taught in its school. Originally, it was a village of highway robbers. Now, it is believed that every family is represented in the little community of believers. One who was once the leader of the gang of robbers has been for many years a leading communicant, a sort of elder, and a trusted messenger of the mission.

And there attaches a sorrowful interest to Seir, by reason of the deaths that have occurred there, and the graves of those devoted servants of God, or of their little ones, whose remains slumber peacefully in the little cemetery on the