The government assented on condition, that no religious instruction should be given in the school, meaning thereby to exclude even the reading of the New Testament; but the missionaries would neither consent to teach what they did not believe, nor to maintain a school from which religious instruction must be excluded.
The school was therefore closed, and the station abandoned.

It should be noted, that the school was not supported by the government, but by the friends of Greece in the United States, and that no impropriety was alleged on the part of the resident missionary.
As Mr.Leyburn must now leave Greece, and had not health to learn one of the languages of Western Asia, he returned home, with the consent of the Prudential Committee.

His former associate, Mr.
Houston, was then preparing to join the mission to the Nestorians in Persia, but the sudden failure of his wife's health prevented, and the two brethren afterwards became successful ministers of the Gospel in the Southern States, from which they had gone forth.
A station was commenced among the Greeks on the island of Cyprus in 1834, a year earlier than that on Scio.

The Greek population of the island was reckoned at sixty thousand, and the pioneer missionary was the Rev.Lorenzo W.Pease, who arrived, with his wife, in the last month of the year.

As it was proposed to make this a branch of the Syrian mission, Mr.Thomson came over from Beirut, and with Mr.
Pease explored the island.