You would see us in want of clothes, but not daring to purchase them; our families requiring air and exercise, but unable to go abroad for the purpose, except at particular times and under certain restrictions; our children destitute of shoes, and obliged to wait till we can send to Russia and get a whole box of them, having to pay something extraordinary, if not exorbitant, at the custom-house in order to save the box from being opened and its contents exposed to contagion.
You would see one of the family taken ill, perhaps from a mere cold, and immediately separated from ache others, no one feeling it safe to come in actual contact, till it can be ascertained that it is not the plague. You would see those of us who have to go abroad put on cloaks, made of oil-cloth, which are said to be plague- proof, and which make us look more like walking in the midst of death than in the midst of life. But withal you would see us generally cheerful and happy, attending to our translations, having our own little precious meetings together, and sometimes feeling that we were probably within a day or two of heaven.
The number of victims cannot be ascertained with any degree of certainty. For a considerable time the number reported averaged from six to ten thousand a week. Some say one-fifth of all Constantinople has perished. This, no doubt, is an exaggeration; but it is agreed on all hands that there has been no such plague here before, since the memorable one of 1812. I have never before seen the streets so deserted and the places of public concourse so thinned. Thousands of faces I used to see, I now see no more. In one rich and influential family twenty-one individuals were swept away in a few days, the father " only having escaped alone to tell" the melancholy story. Oh, how many tens of thousands have been hurried away from the land of the living!
Schauffler's German service
Oh, what a world that other world must be! But, blessed be God, among all these multitudes I am happy to report one individual who, it is believed, was a Christian. This was Frans Muller, a young German, who was a constant attendant on Mr. Schauffler's German service. He is the only one we love to call to mind, the only one we think of with satisfaction, as being a follower and disciple of Christ, and as belonging to His everlasting kingdom. And I have therefore given you his name above, for " the righteous shall be in everlasting remembrance."
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