because Miss Fiske and Miss Rice have succeeded so well, an
unmarried lady from this country has nothing to do but to go there
and work like any one else. This is not true; such a one cannot live
by herself: her home must be in some missionary family. She cannot
go out alone, either inside or outside of the city. In many things
she needs to be shielded from annoyances here unknown. And God
provided all that the teachers of the Seminary needed of such help;
first, in the kind family of Mr. Stocking, and, after his death, in
the pleasant household of Mr. Breath. Indeed, not one of all the
missionary circle ever stood in need of such a hint as Paul gave the
church at Rome concerning the deaconess of Cenchrea. As Miss Fiske
says, playfully, "Whenever we went with them to visit pupils at a
distance, they always made us believe that it was a great privilege
to take us along;" and every lady who goes out, in a similar way, to
labor in the missionary field, will find just such Christian
kindness indispensable to her comfort and usefulness. In such a
sphere of action, a lady's dependence is her independence.

Another difficulty was the want of books. Such a thing as a school
book had been unknown among the Nestorians. The only ones to be had
in 1843 were the Bible in ancient Syriac,--a language unintelligible
to the common people,--and the Gospel of John, with a few chapters
of Genesis, in the spoken language, besides a few tracts. Later came
the Gospel of Matthew, and, after that, the four Gospels. Mr.
Stocking prepared a Spelling Book of fifty-four pages, 8vo, a Mental
Arithmetic of twenty-four pages, and afterwards a larger Arithmetic.
Mr. Coan, a Scripture Spelling Book of one hundred and sixty pages,
8vo. Mr. Stoddard issued a very full and complete Arithmetic for the
older scholars in 1856, but his System of Theology did not appear
till after his decease, in 1857. Dr. Wright was the author of a