XCAUSES OF PROGRESS, AND HINDRANCES

The progress of this wonderful reformation may be ascribed to a few causes or agencies.

1. THE BIBLE: The Armenian Church not only encourages, but almost enforces the reading of the Scriptures among the people. They reverence the word of God. When the missionaries came into Armenia they found a common ground on the “Thus saith the Lord” to deal with the people and the clergymen. The absolute necessity of the Bible as the only standard was felt by the missionaries, as our forefathers felt it after the conversion of the nation to Christianity, and the ablest intellects have been engaged in its translation into the vernacular dialects.Rev.Dr.Goodell, nearly seventy-five years ago, wrote “Turn now to our labor among the Armenians, our whole work with them is emphatically a Bible work. The Bible is our only standard, and our final appeal. It is even more necessary for us than it was for the reformers in England, because we are foreigners. Without it we could say one thing and the priests and bishops could say another; but where would be the umpire? It would be nowhere,and all our efforts would be like ‘beating the air.’”[93]

The British and the American Bible Societies greatly aided the publication and circulation of the Scriptures through their agents in co-operation with the missionaries among the people and in many a family, town, and city the Bible itself has proved to be the mightiest means of the conversion of many. “The entrance of thy word giveth light.” “The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul.”

The writer’s father was engaged in business in Constantinople over fifty years ago, and when he returned home to Sivas, he brought with him a copy of the New Testament, which he had bought from a colporteur. This copy of the New Testament was read by him and his sons, and the simple reading of the word of God resulted in the conversion of the writer and several members of the family. His only sister was employed by the missionaries for over thirty years as a Bible-woman, until her deportation in 1915.

After his conversion and study a few years in the mission school at Marsovan, it was the privilege of the writer to spend some time in teaching in a small town. The Protestant people, whose children he taught, had no preacher and they urged him to preach for them. Not ability nor preparedness, but necessity, compelled him to engage in this double duty. One day he was asked by a man who belonged to the Armenian church, and whose brother (deceased then)was one of the first converts to Protestantism, whether he knew how the Protestant work began there. His reply was “No,” and what the man told him is something like the following:

The first Protestant brother who came to the town went to a coffee-house,[94]and took out his Bible and attempted to read it to the men there; but they refused to listen to him. He was so grieved that he burst into tears. This attracted the attention of an elderly man, well-known in the town as “Uncle Toros.” He came to him and asked what was the matter. He answered that he would like to read the Bible and speak to them about the wonderful love of God, but they objected to his so doing. Uncle Toros was much interested in the earnestness of the man and his plans, and, being very hospitable, on learning that he was a stranger in the town invited him to his own house. According to the custom of the country everybody that is able has a guest-chamber for guests. Uncle Toros also was a very influential man in the town and he had many friends and relatives, who with the neighbors used to come to his sitting-room and spend the early part of every night.

Thus our brother had a good audience every evening to whom he could read and expound the Bible. No one could insult or molest him—he was Uncle Toros’ guest. This was the beginning of the work at Zara, about thirty miles northeast of Sivas, andwhen the writer was there, nearly fifteen years later, he found about twenty families composing the Protestant community.

The “two-edged sword” of the Spirit, “the Word of God” on the one hand and “the young converts, full of faith and of the Holy Ghost” on the other hand, have been still going about “lighting the torch of truth and salvation throughout the land” and have thus wrought this marvelous reformation which until within a short time has been progressing rapidly. The Turkish government is trying a plan, which the Roman emperors tried in the early Christian centuries, namely to destroy the Christians and Christianity in the empire.

The following instance combines three phases in one, to wit: the mighty power of the word of God, heroism of those who believe in the power of that Word and the violation of all promises of religious freedom, the marked cruelty and perversion of justice of the Turkish officials.

Avedis (good news) Zotian was a boy of ten or twelve years of age when the writer was acquainted with him, over forty years ago. He was quiet, unassuming, skillful and industrious and was engaged in his father’s trade, copper-smithing. Through his cousin, who was a constant reader of the Bible and a friend of the writer, and still better a warm friend of the reformation, Avedis was brought under the influence of the Word of God. He finally, about 1885, avowed himself a Protestant and joined that community. He became very active, and, like theprophet Jeremiah, felt that “His word was in his heart as a burning fire.” He had a long distance to go to the services and would not be able to stop on his way and speak to others on the topic of religion. He, therefore, thought one Sunday in 1889 to have a verse on a piece of board and to carry it along so that the people could see and read it. The words from Matt. 4:17, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand,” were written in the Armenian, and Avedis had his friend Sahag, another Protestant Armenian, to write the same in the Turkish language. Avedis started to church with the above text. He was arrested on his way by the Turkish officers and thrown into prison. His friend Sahag also was arrested for his share of the crime and shared the corner of the prison with Avedis. The charge against these young men was that they were political agitators.

After several months’ imprisonment the unrighteous judge declared them guilty and sentenced them to be exiled for life. They, with tearful eyes, bade adieu to their friends, relatives, brothers, sisters, aged parents, and to their newly married wives, who in vain had tried to wipe away their overflowing tears. They were driven like cattle by the mounted officers to Smyrna, then sent to Africa. They were so cruelly ill-treated on their way that, not very long after their exile, Avedis was taken away by his Heavenly Father to rest from his labors. And what became of Sahag no one knows. The Turkish government’s early determination to root out the Christians and Christianityfrom the empire lacks no evidences. Only the selfish European powers, the guardians of the Christian subjects of the Porte, were unwilling to see them.

2. EDUCATION. Next in importance to the Bible and the activity of the natives in spreading it, the superiority of the educational institutions of the mission and the love for the truth in the native youth will claim our attention, as potent factors in the progress of this reformation.

Since the entrance of the Turks into Western Asia the ancient centers of learning have been lying in ruins; the photophobic malady of Mohammedanism and its fanatic devotees had extinguished the numerous lights which have been burning for centuries on the altars of learning. These wild beasts of mankind had broken in upon these countries, once so glorious and famous for their happy estate of civilization and culture, who had given religion and laws to the world, but now, through ignorance, superstition, and vice had become the most deplorable spectacle of extreme misery. The barbarous tyrants—the sultans of the Ottoman empire—who gloried in cruelty and aimed only at the height of greatness through sensuality, had reduced so great and goodly a part of the world to that lamentable distress and servitude under which it now faints and groans. “The true religion discountenanced and oppressed (insulted); no light of learning permitted, nor virtue cherished, violence and rapine exulting over all and leaving no security, save to an abject mind and unlooked-on poverty.”

The above description of an eye-witness was uttered two centuries before the coming of the missionaries, who have found it literally true when they came into the East. They also found in this unhappy empire “a noble race”—the Armenians—“the Anglo-Saxons of the East,” whose “standard of moral purity is also said to be immeasurably above that of the Turks around them, and they have a conscience which can be touched and roused.” Their higher standard of moral purity and superior intelligence are due to their religion—Christianity—and to their better education. For as far back as the middle of the seventeenth century, the Armenian press was in full activity in Constantinople.

It was no wonder that the Armenians had welcomed the missionaries and had they been left alone they would not have attempted to prevent the work of reformation at all.

“When the missionaries came to Turkey they were kindly received by the patriarch and clergymen, who showed great hospitality and favor to them, and encouraged them to build up schools, which they promised to support by sending their young men and priests to be educated. But afterwards the Jesuits, who are ever the uncompromising enemies of Protestantism, secretly stirred up the Armenian and Greek leaders against the missionaries and their work, whom they now began to regard with suspicion and envy. Even among the Armenian priests and college-men were those who, though they at first persecuted the Protestants, became not only their stanchest friends, but also earnest workers for the cause of Christ.”

The above quotation from a native writer is well supported by the following statement of an American writer, a returned missionary of the American Board:

“In 1834 these schools had two thousand scholars, and though supported by the people, yet, having been established by the advice and assistance of the mission, their influence was great in its favor, till the monks and priests began to preach violently against the mission and schools, ‘and even against the patriarch for favoring them.’ But it was too late to destroy their influence. The Armenians had become roused by the spreading light,” and “in 1835 the revival of learning and piety among the Armenians continued to advance hand in hand.”[95]

The Seminary at Bebek in 1840 commenced with three scholars. The following year the number of the students had increased to twenty-four, and many had been refused for want of funds. A few years later a female seminary was started at Pera, Constantinople, and this had a wonderful effect upon the community. Education of the female, neglected for centuries, began to revive in the East, even the adult women and matrons attempted to learn to read their Bibles and they generally succeeded well. “Fifty adult females have begun to learn to read during the year; more than fifty have already learned to read well, and many others are in the process of learning.” Wherever the missionaries went there they started schools, and these schools were not only the centersfrom which the light of truth radiated around, but they also became in many places nuclei for new churches.

The Bebek Seminary, in 1854, reported its number of students as fifty, and “its former pupils are employed as preachers, teachers, translators, and helpers in many places.” In the following year the demand for teachers and preachers from the seminary was so great that other schools were started—one at Tokat, and another at Aintab. The number of free schools had increased this year (1855) to thirty-eight, and the whole number of pupils nine hundred and sixty.

It was in the same year that the American Board sent theRev.Dr.Anderson and Thompson to India and Turkey. In the previous year the Baptist Missionary Society also had sent its deputation to India. “The result of these delegations was that the character of the education of nearly all the missionary institutions of the highest grade was wholly changed. The English language was proscribed and the curriculum of studies reduced to a vernacular basis. Many schools were closed and some missionaries came home, and considerable friction was occasioned, but the new system was rigidly enforced.”[96]

Dr.Cyrus Hamlin,Dr.H. J. Van Lennep, and some other missionaries advocated the importance of a thorough education and the knowledge of the English language for the native ministry, believing that “no country was ever reformed but by its sons, and that for such a great work a better education ISnecessary.” They, however, met not a little opposition from the Board and some of their associates in the mission.

“The American Board’s change of base on the matter of education” furnished an occasion—for some trouble in the field—for some Armenian young men who sought a better education abroad. But their aspiring and venturing into England and America for a thorough English education, subjected them to opposition, from some of the missionaries, and afterwards, when they attempted to secure employment in the mission-fields, they met discouragement and disappointment. Even as late as in 1880Dr.Hamlin, advocating his position, wrote:

“Every young man who started with a good foundation of English, and of character, has done well. I recall at this moment five such cases: (1) Alexan Bezjian, now professor in Aintab College; (2) Alexander Djijisian, who spent one or two years in Edinburgh, now pastor at Ada Bazar. He is a noble and strong man in judgment and power of argument, in true insight, in theological training and as a preacher, the supervisor of many a missionary; (3) The late Broasa pastor, now head of the High School, who studied at Basle. No one will dare to impugn his character and ability; (4) Pastor Keropé, like the others, a Bebek Seminary student. He went to England andMr.Farnsworth, instead of opposing him, had the grace to aid him. He made a good impression in England and obtained aid to build a church;Mr.Farnsworth pronounced it the best church that has been erected among the Protestants in Turkey; (5) Pastor Thomas, of Diarbekir. I do not know of a man who speaks theArmenian language who is his equal for a platform speech. He carries his audience with him. He is clear and logical. He lifts his audience to higher planes of principle, thought and feeling.”

The lateRev.Dr.Tracy, a former teacher of the writer and the ex-president of Anatolia College, Marsavan, wrote in 1904:

“During the prosecution of this [mission] work in the Turkish Empire, wise attention has been given all along to the education of the young, both in the common branches with reference to good and intelligent social and family Christian life; and in the more advanced, with reference to the Christian leadership so vitally important in the development of a community. That this principle, discerned by our own American forefathers, as a corner stone in our national structure, is just as applicable to and important in the building of Christian communities in mission lands as at home, has dawned at last upon the minds of all who seriously prosecute this foreign work. The position which Christian education has taken in missions is impregnably strong. Not only does such education improve, inform, enable young men and young women, but it finds out the able and gathers up the natural leaders; it not only educates, but makes educators. It is a means without which no Christian country, community, or enterprise has ever held permanent leadership, or ever can. The day of light is advancing in the East with the rise of the Christian colleges.“Very great and far-reaching was the influence of that school established in early times by Cyrus Hamlin in the village of Bebek, on the Bosphorus. The first venture, though so small a craft compared with what has followed, made the wake for a whole fleet of mighty vessels coming after—Robert College at Constantinople,the Syrian Protestant College at Beirut, the Central Turkey College at Aintab, Euphrates College at Harpoot, Anadolia College at Marsovan, the American College for Girls at Sculari, the Institute at Samakov in Bulgaria,St.Paul’s Institute at Tarsus, the International College at Smyrna, with leading schools for girls in the interior like those at Marash, Marsovan (Sivas Girls’ High School, and Sivas Teachers’ College, etc.), and elsewhere. Another most important class of institutions took its rise from the same fountain—the theological seminaries at Marash, Marsovan, Harpoot, without which the others would hardly have come into existence. They introduced the gospel widely and educational progress followed. Here we have a dozen or more institutions which are the leaders of thought and makers of character in the empire.”[97]

“Very great and far-reaching was the influence of that school established in early times by Cyrus Hamlin in the village of Bebek, on the Bosphorus. The first venture, though so small a craft compared with what has followed, made the wake for a whole fleet of mighty vessels coming after—Robert College at Constantinople,the Syrian Protestant College at Beirut, the Central Turkey College at Aintab, Euphrates College at Harpoot, Anadolia College at Marsovan, the American College for Girls at Sculari, the Institute at Samakov in Bulgaria,St.Paul’s Institute at Tarsus, the International College at Smyrna, with leading schools for girls in the interior like those at Marash, Marsovan (Sivas Girls’ High School, and Sivas Teachers’ College, etc.), and elsewhere. Another most important class of institutions took its rise from the same fountain—the theological seminaries at Marash, Marsovan, Harpoot, without which the others would hardly have come into existence. They introduced the gospel widely and educational progress followed. Here we have a dozen or more institutions which are the leaders of thought and makers of character in the empire.”[97]

With one or two exceptions these colleges and high schools are, or were, crowded by the Armenian boys and girls: Sivas Teachers’ College—“This College has occupied a unique position in its training teachers for important positions in the mission and in the government schools. During the last year (1914) there were more pupils than at any time in the past. The exact figures are not obtainable, but the total enrollment for the previous year was over 500.”[2]

St.Paul’s College, Tarsus—“The enrollment was the largest recorded: in the College 118, academy 142; total, 260. Of these, thirty-five were Moslems, the greatest in the history of the school. Nearly two hundred were Armenians, but Greeks, Turks, Arabs, Syrians, were represented in the student body.”[98]

Before the spring of 1915 twenty-five thousand and one hundred and thirty-four pupils were attending and receiving Christian training from the kindergarten schools up to the highest colleges in the land.[99]

3. THE CHRISTIAN LITERATURE; another cause of progress of the reformed and evangelical work was and is the necessity of a Christian literature. It has been stated that the Armenian literature is largely of religious and Christian character, but the most and best of it is in the ancient Armenian language. After the translation of the Bible into the modern Armenian a new literature in the same was necessitated. This necessity was gradually being met until the war broke out. “THE AVEDAPER—an Armenian paper, published in weekly and monthly editions. It was the most attractively printed Armenian paper in the empire. It is under efficient Armenian management. There was an encouraging increase in subscriptions until the war conditions interfered with the mails and returns fell off. It was finally decided to discontinue the paper for the present.”[100]Within the last fifty or sixty years a goodly number of useful books have been written and translated into the modern Armenian language; such as school books, commentaries, Sunday School lesson helps, dictionaries, religious treatises, hymn books—“whatever is most necessary for the healthy nourishment of awakening minds in the families, theschools, the communities is published, but with sad insufficiency.”

“The mission press is connected with Central Turkey College (at Aintab). Some of the students are given aid in the printing department and in the book bindery. Besides the regular job work the press prints a monthly religious paper in Armeno-Turkish (Armenian letter in Turkish language) called the New Life. No figures are at hand for the total output, but the usual number of pages printed exceeds 700,000.”[101]If this terrible war had not interfered with the missionary work, the annual output would have been between nine and ten million pages of print.

4. THE MEDICAL WORK. The last but not the least of the causes of the progress of the evangelical work in the East is the medical work or the hospitals. Before the coming of the missionaries into the East, and the medical missionaries following them, there were some native physicians, mostly Armenians, in the country. But their knowledge of the art of healing must naturally have been in a crude state. It is no wonder when we remember the fact, that though the East, especially Western Asia, has been the seat of ancient learning, yet it has been for over five hundred years under the rule of the tyrants, the sultans, who delighted more in injustice, cruelty, and sensuality than in learning. So the reflex light of the Sun of righteousness from the West brought also healings in His wings.

Some churches and missionary organizations have been slow to learn the meaning of Christ when He “sent them (His disciples) to preach the Kingdom of God and heal the sick.” (Luke ix: 2.)

“Regular medical departments, with hospitals, are of late growth. In view of the healing mercy and saving power exerted through them, it now seems strange that their development should have been so belated. When, however, it is remembered that in missions almost everything in the way of means and measures is experimental it is not so strange that among the forces born into life and action the ‘noblest offspring’ should ‘be the last.’”[102]

Before the war there were fifteen missionary stations in Asiatic Turkey. Nine of these stations had medical departments with hospitals connected with them; 39,503 patients have been treated in these hospitals and the total number of treatments during the year of 1914 reached 134,357. This is a tremendous power for good and a marvelous blessing for a country like Turkey, yet the rulers of that unhappy country have been destitute of any sense of justice or gratitude, as the following, a few sentences fromDr.Barton’s letter to the writer, show:

Congregational House, 14 BeaconSt.,Boston,Mass.,July 20, 1916.My DearDr.Gabrielian:You ask with reference to the situation in Turkey. We have but very little definite information. Our missionaries of Marsovan have just come out under compulsionby the Turkish Government and all of the mission property in Marsoval is in the hands of the Government; also the same is true of Sivas, except that Miss Graffam and Miss Fowle were allowed to remain, and in Talas they have taken possession of the public buildings, but the missionaries at last reports were there, hoping to be allowed to remain....Very faithfully yours,James L. Barton.

Congregational House, 14 BeaconSt.,Boston,Mass.,July 20, 1916.

You ask with reference to the situation in Turkey. We have but very little definite information. Our missionaries of Marsovan have just come out under compulsionby the Turkish Government and all of the mission property in Marsoval is in the hands of the Government; also the same is true of Sivas, except that Miss Graffam and Miss Fowle were allowed to remain, and in Talas they have taken possession of the public buildings, but the missionaries at last reports were there, hoping to be allowed to remain....

Very faithfully yours,James L. Barton.

One of the hindrances to the work of still greater progress of reformation was, and is, the poverty of the Protestant community. The condition of the Protestant Armenians was very much like that of a young man falling in love with a pure, virtuous, and noble yet poor girl. The rash youth, disregarding the opposition of his parents, married the woman he loved, and on account of this he has been disinherited. Those who espoused the cause of reformation were driven out, not only from their homes and employments, but also from the use of the churches and school-houses, and even were not allowed to bury their dead in the old cemeteries. It was not very difficult for the American Board to meet some of the needs of the Protestant community, while that community was small and its needs few. But by the increase of the community its needs also multiplied. However, knowing the people as we do, their poverty was not a great hindrance. For the generous poor man is richer than the rich miser.

“Many a poor Armenian in the Koodish mountains, many a tattered villager on the Harpoot plains, used to the suffering of robbery and inured to want, bringsfor the support and propagation of the gospel his poor pittance, more munificent, measured by the sacrificing devotion of it, than the gifts of princes sounding aloud as they fall into the treasury. In other parts of the country there are those so humble that the dwelling of the family would hardly be valued at $25, who yet bring $25 to help build the house of worship, where they and their poor neighbors may hear the sound of the gospel.”[103]

The most prolific source of all evil influences and hindrances against the progress of reformation in the East is the Mohammedan Government. Prof. Vambery’s words might have been heeded twenty-five or thirty years ago, and many hundred thousands of lives would have been saved:

“The conviction is inevitable that until the power of Islamism is broken the true reformation of this land is an impossibility. At whose door shall we lay the blame of cherishing such a viper? That the solution of the vexed question of the politicalstatusof Turkey involves great difficulties cannot be denied. But those [the European powers] that are pleased to preserve the existing state of things, as a barrier for themselves against the encroachments of an already overgrown European power, ought to take into consideration the result of encouraging the continuance of a power at onceso poisonous and so suicidalas that of the waning crescent.”

FOOTNOTES:[93]Primce, “Memoirs ofRev.William Goodell, D.D.,” p. 282.[94]The coffee-houses in the East are much like the saloons in this country, except that no alcoholic liquors are sold. People go there to smoke and sip coffee in small cups and while the time away.[95]Wilder, “Mission Schools of the A.B.C.F.M.,” p. 375.[96]Hamlin, “Among the Turks,” p. 275.[97]Tracy, “Historical Sketch of Missions in Asiatic Turkey,” pp. 20-21, (A.B.C.F.M.)[98]The Annual Report of the American Board, pp. 100, 105, for year 1915.[99]The Armenian common and high schools—beside the Mission institutions—were many, but Abdul Hamid had reduced them. Since his overthrow they were again flourishing before the war.[100]The Annual Report of the American Board, pp. 103, 107 for year 1915.[101]The Annual Report of the American Board, pp. 103-107 for the year 1918.[102]Tracy, “Historical Sketch of the Missions in Asiatic Turkey,” p. 34.[103]Tracy, “The Historical Sketch of the Missions in Asiatic Turkey,” page 16.

[93]Primce, “Memoirs ofRev.William Goodell, D.D.,” p. 282.

[94]The coffee-houses in the East are much like the saloons in this country, except that no alcoholic liquors are sold. People go there to smoke and sip coffee in small cups and while the time away.

[95]Wilder, “Mission Schools of the A.B.C.F.M.,” p. 375.

[96]Hamlin, “Among the Turks,” p. 275.

[97]Tracy, “Historical Sketch of Missions in Asiatic Turkey,” pp. 20-21, (A.B.C.F.M.)

[98]The Annual Report of the American Board, pp. 100, 105, for year 1915.

[99]The Armenian common and high schools—beside the Mission institutions—were many, but Abdul Hamid had reduced them. Since his overthrow they were again flourishing before the war.

[100]The Annual Report of the American Board, pp. 103, 107 for year 1915.

[101]The Annual Report of the American Board, pp. 103-107 for the year 1918.

[102]Tracy, “Historical Sketch of the Missions in Asiatic Turkey,” p. 34.

[103]Tracy, “The Historical Sketch of the Missions in Asiatic Turkey,” page 16.

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