Many beautiful traditions or parables gather round the visit of the Magi in the East, as in the West; and one of them may be recounted here. "Our fathers say" that when Adam went forth from the garden, he took with him two things as memorials of his lost Paradise. These were some of the spices that grew upon the Tree of Knowledge, and one branch gathered from the Tree of Life. They were preserved by his descendants in the East, as tokens that the lost inheritance would be given back again some day; and when at last the Wise Men knew that He had come, who was to restore it, and went forth to do Him homage, those spices were the frankincense that they offered at Bethlehem. The branch of the Tree of Life they took with them also, and left in Jerusalem; and there those who knew not what they did, took it, and used it for the cross-beam of the Tree on Calvary.
Originally the church in Urmi, like that in the mountains, was of that "East Syrian" communion which its enemies called Nestorian. It is very certain, however, that the body did not teach what Nestorius of Constantinople was condemned for teaching, in the year 431; and indeed it is very doubtful whether either he or anybody else ever did so.
It has since become the prey of foreign missions of various complexions, such as Russian Orthodox, French Roman Catholic, and American Presbyterian; each of which has been anxious to win the body over to what they are convinced is a much better form of Christianity, and could not conscientiously be content to leave it in its old independence, while recalling it to its own ancient rule. All three have achieved a good deal of success, and the "Old Church" is now a small minority; but to a member of the Church of England it appears doubtful whether the success was worth winning. Do you improve the Oriental Christian by taking him out of the Church of his fathers and inducing him to join any other body? He has his faults in the Old Church, and plenty of them; and there is an element of truth in the accusation so often thrown at him, that he is an invertebrate, backboneless creature--Christian, only because his fathers were Christian before him. There is no doubt that his religion is an external armour of inherited habit and belief; and that he is, so to speak, crustaceous rather than vertebrate in his spiritual construction. We will assume it as certain that all those who make this fact a reproach to him would themselves have become Christians, had they been born heathens or Mussulmans. Still, if a zealous reformer extracts the lobster from his shell (a feat which can be performed, if you disregard the lobster's feelings), even that drastic operation does not enable him to develop a backbone. He merely develops a fresh armour of habit, that may or may not be superior to the old. Further, invertebrate though the Oriental Christian may be (and, therefore, of course, of a far lower type than the vertebrate European Protestant), he has the peculiar powers of his species; and can endure an amount of cutting and hacking, without losing his faith, which would altogether destroy the spiritual life of a higher type of Christian. The gift of passive endurance may appear small to those who have it not; but at least it can claim Gospel approval.