prayer-meetings (of course they were hardly what one generally understands
by the word "private," but still they could not be termed public) and to
the distribution of New Testaments, but no actual _teaching_ is mentioned.
Nor does Newman write his own views on the subject. The diary-letters are
chiefly filled with descriptions of the "perils of the way"--it is more or
less secular. To me this has always seemed strange, for there was no doubt
that he was, with the others, filled with a very real religious Christian
zeal _then_, although later his views unhappily underwent great change and
alteration, until a few years before his death, when his earlier faith was
restored. But this fact remains: but for one's own previous knowledge of
the aim of this journey, one would hardly recognize the _Narrative_ as a
missionary's diary at all.

In the _Memoir of Lord Congleton_ there is far more missionary spirit; but
still, even there, there is but very little detailed information as to
mission work. During their stay at Bagdad Lord Congleton and Mr. Groves
did indeed "develop plans for missionary work" which it was hoped would
soon prove successful. The former bought a large house in the midst of the
city for mission purposes. At first they thought of working among the
"Armenian and Roman Catholic Christian population," and also "among the
Jews," but they found the Mohammedans in Bagdad "peculiarly bigoted." And
they owned to themselves later that "Bagdad had proved a failure in a
missionary point of view." Mr. Groves, who wrote the _Memoir of Lord
Congleton_, indeed owns that, "To many who look at life superficially,
these years may seem lost; but He who often leads us 'about' (Deut. xxxii.
10) ... has purposes of which neither the one led, and still less the
lookers-on, have any conception.... Thus to some these years of toil and
sorrow _will_ appear a mistake."

It is impossible to doubt the earnest faith and missionary zeal of these