Protestant missionaries in the Middle East

[Crawford, John Adair]. Journal of a Deputation Sent to the East by the Committee of the Malta Protestant College, in 1849 [...].

$3,908.00

First edition. Comprehensive journal of a Protestant mission from Malta to the Middle East investigating conditions and obstacles of missionary work in Egypt, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Greece and Turkey. Inscribed by the author: ''Geo A. Hamilton from the author Jno Adair Crawford May 1854''.

Contains an extensive account of Muslim faith and customs, laws, dress, domestic habits, diet and dwellings, an ecclesiastical and political history of Egypt, descriptions of Jaffa, Jerusalem, Damascus and other places. Enriched with maps of the Middle East and a plan of Jerusalem, detailing the Protestant church and burial place, the Anglican mission and hospital, the English and French consulates, and the residence of the Turkish governor besides major landmarks such as the Mosque of Omar or the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Extensive remarks on the Eastern Churches and ideas of reformation, a history of knowledge and education in the East, descriptions of Eastern Europe and parts of Russia, along with a list of students admitted to the Malta Protestant College since 1849, including pupils from Syria, Greece, Constantinople, Abessinia, Egypt and Palestine, complete this seminal work.

John Adair Crawford (d. 1879) was a physician active for the cause of Christian missionary work. He instigated the Malta Protestant College, established in 1846 in St. Julian's for training Missionaries for the East. A notable project at the college, from 1839 to 1845, was the translation of the Bible into modern standard Arabic, which took place under the supervision of the Lutheran missionary Samuel Gobat (1799-1879). Due to the rapid increase of the number of pupils and the necessity to enlarge the original premises, the college had to borrow £2,500 to cover in part the expenses incurred by the alteration of buildings. The frontispieces in the present books show the existing building of the Protestant College as well as the proposed new building - a luxurious hilltop structure that was never realised.