If the above estimate is correct, and I can vouch for the tolerable exactness of the greater portion of it, the present Chaldean community in the East does not exceed 20,000 souls, scattered over a large surface of country extending from Diarbekir to the frontiers of Persia, and from the borders of Tyari to Baghdad,—a district which in former ages contained a vast Nestorian population.
If we compare the present Chaldean community with the condition of their Nestorian forefathers, as deducible from the account given of them by Mutran Hanna in his autobiography, justice demands that we should acknowledge the superiority of the former in civilization, general intelligence, and ecclesiastical order. Whilst, on the other hand, if we draw a parallel betwixt them and the Nestorians even as late as the thirteenth century, the latter may justly claim the palm of pre-eminence in all these respects, in proof of which we may bring forward the writings of those famous authors who flourished among them at that period. Like the Papal Syrians, the Chaldeans have profited by their communion and intercourse with Rome, from whence they have learned something of European advancement, and their youth who have been educated at the Propaganda are undoubtedly more generally intelligent than those brought up in this country. They have, moreover, established a few schools in several of their dioceses; and although the instruction conveyed is restricted to the elements of science, and is made conformable to the errors of the Papacy, still we must regard the attempt to raise the minds of their people as a decided improvement upon the ignorance and want of all scholastic teaching, which existed among the Nestorians of the plains before their secession to Rome. I speak now more especially of the towns and adjacent villages, for in the more secluded districts the Chaldeans generally are as ignorant as their Nestorian neighbours, and the only benefit which they have derived from a change of name and communion, apart from their rejection of the doctrine of the Two Persons in our blessed Lord, is the promise of political protection from France, and an occasional present of ecclesiastical vestments, church ornaments, pictures of saints, rosaries, &c., which latter gifts, I am happy to say, the later proselytes to Rome know not how to use, and show no disposition to learn.
