They were even more alarmed by the religious liberty, which had been successfully claimed for converts from Mohammedanism, who had been openly baptized, and lived unmolested as Christians.

The government had some time before been led to discourage Christian education by missionaries and other foreigners, when they could do this indirectly and under plausible pretexts; and they were somewhat rigid in their censorship of the religious press.

The Scriptures, however, were allowed to be printed and circulated in the Arabo-Turkish, or sacred character, and no objection was made to simple expositions of Christian truth in that language.
But when copies of Dr.Pfander's book[1] were brought to Constantinople, which defended Christianity against Mohammedanism, and assailed the latter, it was detained at the custom-house; yet copies got abroad in some way, without foreign agency, and were sought by Mohammedans who were interested in the great question it discussed.

A Moslem published a bitter reply; and in July, the manifest increase of both Christian ideas and pantheistic infidelity among the people, and the growing excitement among the fanatical party, began to alarm the government.

There was believed to be a somewhat large body, who wished to reform the Mohammedan faith; and it was said that a petition was presented to the government, by some Moslems calling themselves Protestants, for a mosque in which to worship in their own way.
[1] Dr.Pfander, was a highly respected missionary of the (English) Church Missionary Society.