Morning journal and courier., 1881-12-29
The Late Dr. Bacon.

His Experience with Arab Robbers. 1 To the Editor of the JOURNAL AND COURIER: We have before us the narrative of Dr. Ba l con giving the details of his perilous jour { ney in Asiatic Turkey when he fell captive ] into the hands of a band of Arab robbers and l narrowly escaped being murdered by thei, hands This was in the spring of 1851, wher he was in his tiftieth year. He was accom- panied by his son Leonard, now of Norwich then a young man, and the Rev. MT. Marsh the American missionary. We make from il two extracts the first to illustrate his Chris tian faith in the moment of expected assassi nation:
 'It was not without nervous shrinking that had seen the rifles of murderers point. ed at us from behind the rocks; that, how. ever, was only sudden and momentary flash of peril. But here was the announce
 ment of deliberate purpose in regard to us. We were sentenced, as it were, to immediate
 and bloody death. And we were to die thus so far away from home and country and friends
 ''I cast one glance upon the vast amphi-
 theater of mountains. I felt that I was in
 the presence and in the hands of him who setteth fast the mountains by his power,' and witheut whom not hair of our head could
 fall tG the ground.
 'sI will not undertake to account for it.
 perhaps my mind was stunned and made in
 some measure insensible by the announce
 ment that our death had been determined
 upon. Whatever may have been the cause, I proved myself strangely tranquil and self.
 possessed, as if I was sure of being deliver
 cd Sn if Saamad fo 1a with ions. Not one of us gave any sign of agita- ton.
 "A moments consultation was enough to determine what we should do. We had come to the GghG as 8 man having authority; we had come with document in our hands which had given us the right to demand pro- lection and an escort and we immediately sent our servant to say to him that we want ed to see him either where we were or in his castle.
 "While Rh1IG5T was gone on this errand, as nobody was then just near enough to disturb us, the moment seemed favorable for uniting in vocal prayer. Not wishing to attract the attention of our Moslem captors, we made only slight change of position and our SUD- plications were made in voice which none of them could hear. With one voice and mind we committed ourselves to the power the care, the loving kindness of redeeming God, to live or to die as his wisdom should determine
 ''We prayed that if it were consistent with his counsels, we might be delivered out of the hands of these unreasonable and wicked men; and that he in whose hands are the hearts of men, and who can turn them as the rivers of water are turned, would so in- fuence their thoughts, dividing their minds and turning their counsels into foolishness as to baff1e their purposes and procure our deliverance. If we were then and there to q E. ing, Lord Jesus receive our spirits; and we prayed that whatever should befall us might turn out for the furtherance of the gospel.
 We prayed for the dear ones far away, bound to us by the tenderest ties of human affection, whose faces we were perhaps never again to see among the living. For all their welfare, temporal and eternal, we committed them to our covenant God. We prayed for the dear churches in our native land in which we were especially interested, and for the universal kingdom of Christ. We prayed for those dark mountains, full of the habita- tions of cruelty, that the dayspring on high might visit them and even the men that were thirsting for our blood might put on the nature of the Lamb and learn to sit at the feet of Jesus.''
 day or two later, while the peril was still imminent, he describes another scene from which we make an extract as it illustrates the quiet touches of humor, the gentle sar- casm that seemed innate with him:
 After awhile another party came and with them still younger chief, more ele- gantly dressed than the first, with his silver hilted dagger in his silver sheath, with the same general cast of features, but with languid dGrdeJied air, as if he had spent the flower of his youth in reading novels. Pres ently was requested to exercise my medical science and skill for the benefit of the GghG's son, -the pensive and interesting dan --,t~<~ = T& r~x1 4<xD of chronic dyspepsia, and gave such ad- vice and medicine as the circumstances would admit t,-teaching the young nobleman withal the technical name of his disease, which he pronounced with great satisfaction, though in drawling young England style"