His daily spirit, as evinced in all his actions, made me feel that he was just the man for this portion of the Lord's vineyard." The Papists were, to say the least, not the main cause of Mar Shimon's alienation from his American friends.

In 1840, after Dr.
Grant had passed through the mountains the second time, on his return to America, the Patriarch was visited by Mr.Ainsworth, travelling at the expense of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge and the Royal Geographical Society.

The statements of this gentleman and of his companion, Mr.Rassam, to Mar Shimon, so resembled those made by the Papists, that the Patriarch suspected them of being Jesuits in disguise, and they actually left the mountains without removing that suspicion.

Nor was it creditable to them, that they passed through Oroomiah without even calling on the American missionaries there.1 1 See _Dr.Grant and the Mountain Nestorians_, pp.

151-154.