Story of Turkey and Armenia

Front matter

Qass L-^

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT

STORY

Chapter I. Pack

Introcliietory, 1

CHAPTER n.

Tlio Evil of the Turk, 25

CHAPTER in.

Abdul Hamid, Sultan ^t Turkey, 37

CHAPTER IV.

The People of Turkey— Their Home-Life and Religion, . . . lOo

CHAPTER V.

Constantinople, 208

CHAPTER VI.

The Armenians— Who Are They? 220

CHAPTER VII.

The Armenian Church, 231

CHAPTER VIII.

A Trip Through Armenia. 2."'»3

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER IX.

PAGE.

Gladstone on the Armenian Question, 291

CHAPTER ?<.

Tlie Kurds, 304

CHAPTER XI.

Home-Life of the Armenians, 318

CHAPTER Xn.

Opinions of Distinj^uished Writers, . 332

CHAPTER XIII.

The Armenian Outrages, 364

CHAPTER XIV.

The Condition of Armenia, 379

CHAPTER XV.

Rtory of the Massacres— How Caused 445

CHAPTER XVI.

ClavM Karton and the Red Cross, 487

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

A Wealthy Turkish Gentleman and His Friends. . . Frontispiece.

Fountain of Aehmet III, Constantinople 5

Constantinople— Pedestal of Obelisk 11

Constantinople— Sweet Waters of Asia 11

Palace of Beylerbey, Constantinople 17

The Execution of Criminals at City Gate, Fabriz 23

A Turkish Cawas 29

Abdul Hamid, Sultan of Turkey 35

Head Bishop of the Armenian Church 35

Beggars 41

Khalil Rifaat Pasha, the New Grand Vizier, on his way to

take up his Post 47

Mosque of the Sultan at Sweet Waters of Europe 53

Entrance to a Mosque 59

Imperial Kiosk of Sweet Waters of Asia— Constantinople. . . 65

Interior of Mosque of St. Sophia, Constantinople 71

Palace of Balarius, Constantinople 77

Seven Towers of Constantinople 83

Gate to a Palace 89

Interior of Mosque of St. Sophia 89

Gate of Seraskierat, Constantinople 95

A Scene in Turkey 101

Roberts College 107

Imperial Palace of Dolman Baytche, Constantinople 113

Great ^Nlosque, Tomb of John the Baptist, Damascus 119

Tomb of Sultan Malimaud 119

Massacre in the Streets of Marash 1 25

8 LIST OF ILLUSy RATIONS.

PAGE.

Mosque of the Sultan Valide 131

Bosphorus 131

Au Oriental Funeral 137

Burned Ooluiiin of Constantine 145

Temple of Jupiter— East End of Peristyle, Baalbak 145

Kiosk of the Reviews 153

Interior of Mosque, Soliman 153

Interior of a Mosque 161

A TurkisJi Cart 169

Damascus— Group of Tombs of Damasquins Emir 169

Mosque of Solimar, Constantinople 177

Dancing Dervishes 185

Turkish Ladies 185

Howling Dervish 193

A Turkish Lady of Wealth 193

Mohammedans at Prayer 201

View of Constantinople 209

A Turkish Feast 217

Armenian Women in Walking Costume 225

Obelisk, Constantinople 233

An Armenian High Priest 241

An Armenian Woman 249

Armenian School Children 257

A Street in the City of Van. Armenia 265

Armenian Princess 273

Turkish High Priest 273

An Armenian City 281

Armenian Women Making Bread 289

A Group of Kurds, Armenia 289

An Armenian Village 297

A "Mollah" Narrating the Battle of Kerhala i ';o Bazar at

Tabriz, Persia 305

In a Kurdish Camp 313

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 9

PAGE.

A Kurd Captiiring an Armenian \yoman 'jl*'

Mt. Ararat ^-^

A Newspaper Reporter Being Pursued by Turkish Soldiers. . 329

Armenian Feasant Women Weaving Turkish Carpets 337

Kurdish Bandits ^2 '

A Rural Scene in Armenia ^-i-'^

Vestibule of Palace of Dolma Baytche 353

Map of Turkey in Asia 361

Armenian Villagers Pursued by Kurds 369

Armenians Being Sent Away to Exile 377

A Group of Villagers, Armenia 385

A Harvest Scene 385

Armenian Refugees 393

A Scene in Armenia 401

An Armenian Family 409

Koor-se, Armenia 417

Carrying Presents to the Shah of Persia on Birthday 425

Baalbets— Sculpture of Ceiling of Temple of Jupiter 433

Tower of Galata 433

Wall and Gate of Libasgun 441

Armenians Slain in the Streets of Baiburt 449

Armenian Mother and Children 457

Story of Turkey and Armenia.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY.

One of the three most remarkable epochs in the world's history was the Gothic age. With it we irresistibly associate the barons of Runnymede, the great names of Saint Louis and Saint Ferdinand, the greater name of Dante. We rarely remember to put with them another name, representing, it is true, no Christian advance; instead, one in Islam. The name is Othman or Osman, and from that name is derived Ottoman or Osmanli. Othman's father was the leader of a wild heathen band from Central Asia. Until recently the subjects of the Ottoman Empire have recognized only the name Ottomans or- Osmanhs, not that of Turk, which applies to a wider race. The Uighurs, or Turks, were pushed forth from Central Asia by the Mongols. The Turks gradually came west, and were probably, like the Kurds of today, a wild race supplying neighboring rulers with mercenary troops. They settled in Khorasan (the northeastern province of Persia). They began their career first as slaves and then as mercenary soldiers. Being of great beauty and vigor, they were favorites with all the princes with whom they came in contact, and whom they well served. They developed before long into a military aristocracy, and ended in becoming Seljuk Sultans, governing most of the Khalifs' dominions in Asia. They even controlled the power of the Persians and Arabs. Out of the many tribes of Turks, one came into Asia Minor, and it was the good fortune of its leader to help the Seljuk Sultan in battle against the Mongols at Angora (1250). Gaining the victory through his help, the Sultan gave to his supporters a few square miles of land under Bithynian Olympus; the name of the place was Sugat, and these few square miles became the nucleus of the Ottoman Empire. The leader of the Turks had managed afifairs so well as to obtain for his son Othman the succession of the Seljuk Sultan. Othman — a prince of much physical prowess, bravery and patience, qualities which he transmitted to his descendants — continually advanced his small domain (making Brusa his capital), until it absorbed northwestern Asia Minor. One of the cleverest methods of conquest was in the formation of the Janissaries (new troops), composed of children taken when young from conquered races, generally Christians. The new soldiers were compelled to become ^Moslems and to undergo a life of severe discipline. Separated from family and country, given great pay, and opportunity for the gratification of ambition and of pleasure, this military organization became a redoubtable instrument. Seventy years ago the Janissaries were suppressed; they had grown too arrogant. The Ottoman civil and military government was regarded in such a friendly way that the Greek Emperor did not even object when the Turks crossed the Hellespont, and for the first time took possession of European soil. About

8T0BT OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA. 3

this time a convenient earthquake happened, and the walls of Gallipoli fell down. The Turks immediately marched in, declaring that Providence had opened the city to them, and they could not think of disregarding so clear an instance of divine interposition. From Gallipoli in a few years the Turks had spread over all what is no\v known as Turkey in Europe, and then began to conquer the outlying provinces — Servia, Bulgaria, Rumania.

This development of Turkish aggrandizement had been a wonderful one, and it occupied only a century and one-half. We shall look far and wide to find a parallel. The reason for this growth was not in the circumstances which surrounded the Turks, but in the great abilities which each of their rulers represented. Cruel they were, and rudely ruled a rude race ; yet there is no question as to their pre-eminent power in militarism and statecraft. Now% however, there came an event wdiich not only delayed by fifty years the capture of Constantinople, but seemed to blot out the Ottoman Empire. It was the descent of Tamerlane. This great warrior was himself of Mongol-Turkish race, and had established his dominion throughout low^er Russia, Central Asia, India, Persia and Syria, but he had been resisted by the Mamluk Sultans of Egypt and by the Ottoman Sultan of Turkey. The latter was crushed by Tamerlane on that same plain of- Angora where the Ottoman Empire had taken its start. The Moslems, believers in fate, regarded the empire doomed where it had begun.

Yet by the energy of a great man — the Sultan Mohammed — the start was made all over again, and only half a century

4 ,STOi?Y OF TURKEY AXD ARMEXIA.

sufiiced to rebuild the empire, to overwhelm the Christians with just retribution for their perfidy, and to capture Constantinople. How could all this be done, and so soon? First, because of the superiority in physical and moral worth of the' Ottoman Turks; because they represented a better government than those about them; because the disintegrated peoples of Asia Minor in the south and the conquered Christians in the north had become so impressed with these things that they were ready to fuse with the turks, even to accepting the religion of the latter; and because the clever Ottomans made no difference between born and converted Moslems in preferment; indeed, most of the Grand Viziers have been of Christian or of Jewish birth.

After Constantinople, the Crimea, Greece, Armenia and Kurdistan were taken, while a foothold was gained on the Italian coast at Otranto. Many important conquests now followed — those of Mesopotamia, Syria, Arabia and Egypt; this was not only a vast addition, but, what was of infinitely greater moment, gave to the Ottoman Sultan the title of Khalif, for by the conquest of the Mamluks he succeeded to their supremacy over the sacred cities of Mecca and Medina, while the last of the Baghdad Khalifs made over to the Ottoman Sultan the symbols of his high office — namely, the cloak and the standard of the Prophet liimself. Then came the conquest of Hungary; but when Suleiman the Magnificent would take Vienna, his siege came to naught, and the Ottoman Empire met its first rebuff. Still, its conquests increased, as a rule, in spite of a second check — this time at Lc-::.nto; Cyprus, Tunis, and Georgia were added to the

STORY OF TURKEY AXI) ARMENIA. 7

empire, and the first conflict experienced with Russia. The year 1600 marked the point of greatest territorial extent.

Then followed a decHne; Turkey itself receded, then it was dismembered. Hungary was first lopped off, then Transylvania, then Wallachia, and so on; and the empire had to acknowledge the independence of peoples once subject to it. We have noted the causes of growth ; those of decline are no less evident. In the first place, Turkey has ever been a consumer, not a producer ; a military power, she has fattened on what conquered lands could give her; she gave them nothing. Often she gave them worse than nothing — cruelty, brutal lust, slavery. After Suleiman — a prince who held his own in that Renaissance age which saw a Charles V, an Elizabeth, a Francis I, a Leo X — there was, in place of barbaric but direct government, indirection and the growing seclusion of the Sultan, induced largely by the pernicious harem influence. The first ten sultans had been robust, able, cruel; the last twenty-five (save Mahmud II) have been no less cruel, but no longer robust, no longer able. There were now, however, external causes to accentuate the internal, the chief of which was Russia's rise. By 1700 the Turkish dominions in Europe had shrunk to half their former extent. The next century saw Russian aggrandizement come to such a point that not only did the Crimean Khanate become independent of Turkey, but gates at Moscow and Kherson were inscribed "The Way to Constantinople," and Constantine became henceforth an honored name in the Russian Imperial family. Later events — Navarino, the disaffection of Egypt, the treaty of L^nkiar-Skelessi lately runiorcd to have been readopted), the

Crimean war reaction, quickly followed by the Lebanon affair, the independence of Rumania, the successive revolts of the Herzegovina, of Bulgaria, Servia and Montenegro, resulting in the Russo-Turkish war, and the further dismemberment of Turkey in both Europe and Asia — are not these summed up in Lord Beaconsfield's phrase, "Peace with honor?" — a phrase which has meant so much peace to some of the European States, little and big, so little honor to Great Britain and Turkey. The latter's hold in Europe, both in area and population, is now reduced to less than one-fourth of what it once was. It still has much of its vast area and population in Asia; but in Africa the loss of Algiers, Tunis and Egypt takes away two-thirds of its area and twelve times the present population in Tripoli.

Fifty years ago the Emperor Nicholas said to Sir Hamilton Seymour: ''We have on our hands a sick man, a very sick man." The present invalid is the Sultan Abdul-Hamid H. He succeeded to the throne in 1876, on the deposition of his older brother, Murad V, who was declared to be suffering from idiocy, and has since been kept in strict seclusion. Abdul-Hamid is the thirty-fifth sovereign in uninterrupted male descent of the House of Othman, the founder of the empire. No family in European history can show such an example of continuous authority. The crown is inherited by the eldest male descendant in the imperial line, no matter whether he be the Sultan's son, uncle, cousin, or nephew.

The government of Turkey is often called the "Sublime Porte." This name is taken from the only gate in general use along tlic quay wliich runs outside the whole length of the sea-wall of Constantinople. It is called Bab-i-Humayum (the great gate of the Seraglio), or the Sublime Porte. In the old days, just without this gate pyramids of heads used to be piled up, trophies of war. The Sublime Porte really means the Sultan. Pie is absolute in matters both temporal and spiritual. He delegates his authority in temporal things to his Grand Mzier, and in religious affairs to the Sheik-ul- Islam. In connection with the Sultan and Grand Vizier is the Privy Council, the ministers of which, however, are little more than secretaries. Connected with the Sheik-ul-Islam is the Ulema, a body comprising priests and lawyers, and also the Mufti, the interpreters of the Koran. The government is thus before everything a theocracy, and is irreformable to any permanent degree. True, a constitution was proclaimed in 1876, but it lasted only a few months. There can be no equality of Moslem and Christian before the law. Yet the Sultan has repeatedly promised "perfect equality of civil rights" to all his subjects. What he really has had to do, however, is to exercise his Khalifate. By its votaries the Mohammedan religion is believed to be God's last expression of His w^ill. Therefore, the Sultan, the IMoslem counterpart of papal vicegerency and infallibility, is not only a sovereign, he is also an Inquisitor. He must needs compel all to embrace Islam; if the "heathen" will not, then death to them; if Christians and Jews will not, then servitude to them. The Turkish dominion in Europe is about equally divided between Mohammedans and Christians, but in Asia the former form a vast majority. The Christians number those wlio use the Roman Catholic Hturgy, the Greeks, Armenians, Bulgarians, Syrians, Maronites, and Protestants.

The empire is partitioned into thirty-one departments called Vilayets. These are subdivided into provinces (Sanjaks), and these in turn into districts (Kazaks), and these again into subdistricts and communities. The Governor of a Vilayet is called a Vali, and is assisted by a Provincial Council. The provinces, districts, etc., are governed by authorities, and the names of the Governors of sub-districts and of communes — Mudir and Muktar — have lately become familiar. The making and carrying out of Turkish law have not yet come to such a state of perfection that foreigners feel like giving up their own consular courts, which they retain, and by means of which are under the same laws as in their respective countries. Cases between foreign and Turkish subjects, however, are tried in the Ottoman courts. Through the prevailing dishonesty, foreign governments are also compelled to maintain their own postoffices in Turkey. Yet, by England at least, Turkish government is apparently thought good enough for unarmed Christians, since, in spite of solemn obligations incurred eighteen years ago, not one thing has the British government done to succor those Christians.

The Turks today are still nomadic. Their agriculture is backward, not so much from soil-sterility in Albania or in Asia Minor as from the apathy of the inhabitants to settled vocations. In Macedonia and in Thrace the soil is fertile, but the same poverty is seen. The people have ruthlessly destroyed their forests. Their mines are unworked despite

C()Xr^TANTIN(H%E-PEDESTAL OF OBELISK.

the gold, silver, copper and salt known to exist abundantly. With an empire possessing every kind of soil and climate, vegetable, animal and mineral product, the Ottomans are bankrupt ; they seem as alien as when, six hundred years ago, they emerged from obscurity.

Armenia is a country lying about Mount Ararat as a central point. The country is now partly in Russia, partly in Persia, partly in Asia Minor. Turkish Armenia is about the size of New England; it is a mountain land, some of the Taurus peaks rising over 10,000 feet. There are a few valleys in which scant rice and cotton may be grown, but the high plateau is mostly a grazing place. As in the rest of the Ottoman Empire, agriculture is in a pitifully primitive state, and, though there are abundant deposits, mining does not exist. The climate is one of extremes of cold and heat. The sources of the Euphrates and Tigris are in Armenia, and there is also Lake Van, a salt lake. The roads are nothing but bridle-paths; they are infested with brigands, and there are no inns. Geographical isolation is not the least of the hardships in the present crisis.

The Armenians represent an ancient civilization, and have kept their individuality through all ages. Their name comes from an early king, Haik, a descendant of Japhet. Armenia is mentioned several times in the Old Testament; for instance (2 Kings xix, 37), when the sons of Sennacherib are said to have escaped thither. The best known Armenian king, TigraiK's 1, was an ally of Cyrus the Great, and in Xenophon's

14 STORT OF TURKEY AXD ARMENIA.

Retreat of the Ten Thousand we have a description of Armenia as it might be today. Then came Alexander's conquest, followed by those of the Parthians, Romans, Byzantines, Saracens and Turks. The latter overran the country in the eleventh century.

The Armenian language is, like the Greek, an independent branch of the Indo-Germanic. The Gothic Bishop Ulfilas was the first to give form to the early German, by his translation of the Bible, and so did the Armenian Bishop Alesrob to Armenian; he invented the Armenian alphabet, and then translated the Bible into that tongue. The language is distinguished by two characteristics : there is no gender, and all words are accented on the last syllable.

There are now about four million Armenians, of whom only 600,000 are in xA.rmenia — a fourth of the entire number in all Turkey. There are 1,250,000 in Russian Armenia, and they are fairly prosperous there; 150,000 in Persian Armenia; 100,000 in Europe, and about 5000 in this country. The saying runs that if it takes ten Christians to cheat a Jew, it takes ten Jews to cheat an Armenian, and the cleverness of the latter in trade is well known. They go to Constantinople, and the great cities whenever possible, and often become affluent. The stay-at-homers attend to their flocks, till their soil, make their honey, and weave their carpets and rugs.

Half the population of Armenia is ^loslem, and it is made up of Kurds and Turks. The former are by nature brave and hospitable, but are still unsubjugated, and have become brutal through contact with the degenerate Turk. Contrary to the customs of other Mohammedans, their women iin about unveiled and enjoy much liberty. The Kurds are now organized into guerrilla regiments of the Turkish army.

According to legend, the Apostle Thaddeus founded the Armenian Church; according to history, St. Gregory the Illuminator, in 289, when the king was baptized and Christianity became the national religion. The Armenian is supposed to be the oldest of any national church. As they were at war during the Council of Chalcedon, the Armenians did not attend it and did not approve its decrees. This led to a separation, and, about 500 years ago, a division in the Armenian Church itself occurred, when a branch of it acknowledged the Pope's supremacy. The highest Armenian ecclesiastical dignitary is called Kathohkos. He resides near Erivan, the capital of Russian Armenia, and at least once in their lives all Armenians must journey thither. There is a belief in the worship of saints in the Armenian Church, but none in purgatory; there are ignorance and superstition, but the work of foreign missionaries is doing much to break through the dry ecclesiastical crust. In Armenia and Asiatic Turkey there are about 250 Americans, who hold over $2,000,000 worth of property for religious, medical and educational uses. These figures do not cover our large commercial interests there.

Until the Crimean war, Russia had exercised a hundred years a kind of protectorate over the Ottoman Christians, but in 1856 she was deprived of that protectorate, and the Great Powers of Europe, in a collective protectorate, took her place. Russia had always accomplished something with the Sultan; he never forgot that, with one exception, for two centuries Russia had defeated him in every war. Therefore he was deHghted at the chance of escaping from deaUng with one Powder to deaHng with a number, for what was everybody's business was nobody's business. Furthermore, he was convinced that the integrity of his empire was essential to the balance of power in Europe. The best proof of this was the fact that Turkey had been admitted into the comity of nations. British preponderance was meanwhile growing, and in 1880 England bound herself to defend the Armenian frontier against Russia, and to see that reforms were carried out in Armenia. The curious situation is that, should Russia decide to interfere with the awful iniquities which have been going on in Armenia, the Sultan could, under this convention, call upon England to protect him. An added responsibility of England's is found in the Treaty of BerHn. The sixty-first clause of that treaty declares that the Porte shall carry out the reforms demanded by local requirements in Armenia. As a part of that agreement, the Sultan guarantees the security of Armenia against the Circassians and the Kurds, and agrees that he "will periodically make known the steps taken to this end to the Powers, who will superintend their application." Not once has Turkey announced any reforms; there have been none. In the Russo-Turkish Treaty of San Stefano the Sultan had bound himself to introduce reforms in Armenia, and the Russian troops were to remain in that province until such reforms were established. To her shame be it said, England was the only Power insisting upon the submission of the Treaty of San Stefano to the revision of the Congress at Berlin.

Thus, eighteen years ago, England and Turkey made their compact. Neither the Christian nor the Moslem Power has since done anything to relieve the situation. For England there is no excuse; for Turkey, the only apology has been that the population of Armenia, being mixed, reforms cannot be instituted applicable to Christians and Mussulsmans alike ; but, as Canon MacColl points out, precisely the same objections were made to the constitution which Lord Dufferin drew up for the Lebanon after the Syrian massacres in i860. That, however, did not prevent Great Britain insisting that the constitution should be accepted by the Porte, and events since then have abundantly justified such firmness. During these eighteen years, despite the Berlin Treaty, the Armenians have suffered as much as ever — latterly, far more. Their testimony is rarely taken in the courts; it is never acted on (while the uncorroborated evidence of a Mussulman is enough to send a Christian to jail). They may not bear arms. They are harassed by intolerable taxes. In addition to ordinary taxation (the assessing and collecting of which are outrageously performed), for all Christians who refuse to embrace Islam there is either death or the ransom from death, a capitation tax. Christians are excluded from the Ottoman army; in place of that service a tax is put on all males from three months old. There are extraordinary taxes for temporary purposes, which are never removed — we learn that the extraordinary tax levied in 1867 to pay the cost of the Sultan's visit to England is still being imposed, though the promise was that it should be levied onlv for that vear. Taxes are often demanded a year in advance, a promise being made that, the interval shall be exempted — a promise never kept. Then there is the dreaded hospitality tax. Every Christian subject of the Sultan is legally bound to provide three days' gratuitous hospitality for any Moslem traveler who may chance to demand it. These Mohammedan guests are as unwelcome as they are omnipresent. They require not only the best the house affords in food, drink and shelter, but they regard no sanctity of person as inviolable ; indeed. Canon MacColl sees nothing improbable in the allegation that there is scarcely a Christian woman in Armenia who has not been outraged. While this is probably an exaggeration, we know that failure to pay a tax is regarded by Turkish law as rebelHon. The penalty is forfeiture of property or of Hfe. The Armenians have long been compelled to pay blackmail to the tax-gatherers, so that property and Hfe, and that which is dearer than life — the dignity of their women — might be preserved. The Christians have now become so impoverished that they canriot meet all these extortions, for, after paying ordinary taxes, the peasant's share of his crop is but one-third.

This impoverishment was the cause of the Sassun massacre a year and one-half ago. The Christians had no money. The Kurds stole flocks from the villages. The Armenians tried to recover the flocks, and a fight took place, in which some Kurds were killed. Then it transpired that the latter were enrolled as soldiers. This was exactly what was wanted. The Christians had doubly forfeited their right to Hfe, and an imperial order went forth to diminish the population. The population was diminished by just so much; it would not do to exterminate the Armenians — the milch-cow business is too good to be destroyed — but the Armenians must be cut down to a certain level. Killing goes on, say from ten to four, when the level is supposed to be reached, but woe to a Turk who kills after four; he himself is summarily shot.

The Turks allege that the Armenians were preparing for a general uprising, and that their minds had been inflamed by paid agitators. The first charge was that the Armenians wished to set up an autonomous government, eventually comprising their co-religionists in Russia and Persia. The next was that the agitators were trying to sow the seed of discontent and anarchy in order to prepare the way for a strong power (Russia) to step in and keep order. A third charge was that the agitators were Nihilists. It is true, as we are told, that the real aim of the Armenians, as a whole, is somewhat obscured by the utterances and acts of a few irresponsible Armenian hotheads.

Whatever may be said about a choice of evils as between Russia and Turkey, in the case of the Armenians there is no longer any question. In his recent book, Mr. Frederick Greene wtII says: "Russia is crude, stupid, and, in certain respects, brutal; but she is not decrepit, debauched and doting like ofificial Turkey. "^ '•' " Christians and Mohammedans cannot live together on equal terms under a Mohammedan government, because the Mohammedan religion forbids that shey should; but Mohammedans and Christians may perfectly well live together under a Christian government. They do so under the governments both of England and of Russia."

While there are undoubtedly some honest Turks, no reliance may be placed on any promise of the Sultan, for no Sultan could ever carry them out. Religious principle and temporal policy ahke forbid. Reform in the Ottoman dominions cannot come from within ; it must come from without.

CHAPTER 11.

THE EVIL OF THE TURK.

By an Armenian.*

The questions are often asked, ''Why does Turkey wage perpetual war against her Christian subjects? What are some of the grievances to which they are subjected and of which they complain? And why are the Turkish displays of barbarism allowed to go unchecked and unpunished at the close of the enlightened nineteenth century?"

I would answer these questions from the standpoint of one reared in that country, and under those conditions of enslavement and persecution that surround all Christians there. The answer to the first question may be found in the teachings of the dominating religion of the government, Mohammedanism, whose watchword from the past to the present has been, 'The sword is the key of heaven and hell" — meaning that those who accepted Mohammedanism, even from the terrors of the sword, should be saved, while those rejecting it should die by the same weapon and be damned. This is the only means used in propagating the religion of Islam. On either side of the pulpits of St. Sophia and the Mosque of Eyub are two flags hanging; one representing Judaism, and the other Christianity. When the imam goes up to the pulpit, he carries a wooden sword in one hand and the Koran in the other,

♦The anthor of the article is a recent graduate of one of the leading theological seminaries.

to indicate that the conquest of the Koran over Judaism and Christianity is to be accompHshed by the sword, teaching the people that their wars are holy wars, and that the Mohammedan soldier is the executor of God's will and vengeance.