'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎543] (606/714)

THE NOimi-WEST AND WESTEEN PROVINCES
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It did not long survive, however, and was abandoned, after the
departure of the first missionaries, in 1837.
Finally, but not till after repeated overtures, the Anglican Church
appeared upon the scene. The first official communications between
the leaders of the two Churches appear to have taken place
in the year 1843, when the Mar Shimunof that day opened
a correspondence with Archbishop Howley. Mr. W. F.
Ainsworth had already, in 1840, been sent out on a mission by the
joint agency An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, headed by an agent. ot the Royal Geographical Society and the S.P.C.K.,
to report upon the condition of the Nestorian peoples, 1 and in 1842
he was followed by Dr. G. P. Badger, the well-known scholar, who
was despatched by the S.P.C.K. and S.P.G. ; but upon the latter
withdrawing from the co-operation in the succeeding year he was
compelled to return, not, however, before ho had collected the mate
rial for a standard work upon the Nestorian ritual. 2 The commu
nications then languished till in 1868 a further and pathetic appeal
for assistance was addressed by the Bishops of the Syrian Church
to Archbishop Tait. The result was the mission of the Rev. E. L.
Cutts, and a third book. 3 The succession, however, of more or less
bootless missions and more or less admirable books now came to
an end. A minister was definitely authorised and sent out by
Dr. Tait in 1881 ; and since 1884 when, in consequence of troubles
both with the Turks and Persians, Mr. Riley was commissioned
by Archbishop Benson to report upon the situation, he has been
succeeded by a capable missionary staff with a well-elaborated
organisation. In 1888, the ministers of the new Mission, whose
object is not the making of converts, which is formally disavowed,
but the re-edification and gradual purification of the ancient Nes-
torian Church, 4 arrived in Persia, and met with an enthusiastic
1 Travels and Researches in Asia Minor, &c., 2 vols. 1842.
2 The Nestorians and their Ritual, 2 vols. 1852.
3 Christians under the Crescent in Asia, S.P.C.K.
4 The Archbishop's letter to the Patriarch of Antioch, announcing the Mission,
contained these words: ' Our object in sending out these priests is not to bring
over these Christians to the communion of the Church of England, nor to alter
their ecclesiastical customs and traditions, nor to change any doctrines held by
them which are not contrary to that faith which the Holy Spirit, speaking through
the (Ecumenical Councils of the undivided Church of Christ, has taught as
necessary to be believed by all Christians; but to encourage them in bettering
their religious condition, and to strengthen an ancient Church, which, through
ignorance from within and persecution from without, cannot any longer stand
alone, but without some assistance must eventually succumb, though unwillingly,
to the external organisations at work in its midst.'