“The Armenians are the representatives of one of the oldest civilized Christian races, being beyond all doubt one of the most pacific, one of the most industrious, and one of the most intelligent races in the world.”
—Gladstone.
In all the history of the Roman Empire, from Nero down to the days of Constantine, there is no chapter so cruel, so terrible as the atrocious crimes of the present Turkish Empire. These massacres have been committed at the command of the Sultan, and with flourish of trumpets, as at Zilleh, when at noon November 28, 1895, the trumpet was blown and the Turks began to assault the Christians with the cry, “Down with Armenians. This is the Sultan’s order.”
This is the Curse of Islam that it makes it the religious duty of every follower of the prophet, from the Sultan down to the howling dervishes, to hate the Christians, to kill and plunder, rob, outrage and torture every one who will not accept the faith of Mohammed. The evident intention of the Sultan is to utterly destroy and exterminate the Christian people in Armenia.
It is reserved for the dawning of the twentieth century to see all the horrors of the conquests of Tamerlane repeated, and to realize for itself what these Christian races have suffered since the fateful year 1453, when Constantinople, the glory of Eastern Europe, fell a prey to hordes of the Ottoman Turks. It is because he has outdone the cruelties of all the ages that caused the foremost of living English poets to stigmatize the reigning Sultan as “Abdul, the Damned.”
In our helplessness we can only take refuge, perhaps, under the arms of the Almighty. Justice and judgment are the habitations of His throne and a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of His kingdom. “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord.”
When Christendom repeats that phrase “Thy Kingdom Come” in the universal prayer it means the downfall of Islam, the overthrow of every throne of iniquity, and of all kingdoms whose foundations are laid in blood.
The kingdom of Christ is a kingdom of righteousness and between it and the cruel, lustful barbarism of Islam there can be no peace. It affords an outlet for one’s outraged feelings as the cries of smitten Armenia fill our ears, to read the woes once denounced by the prophets of Jehovah against the gigantic wickedness of empires founded in blood.
The cry of the bittern is heard in the pools of Chaldea, and the howling of jackals amid the ruins of Nineveh. The lions roam among the deserted palaces of Babylon and it shall be desolate forever.
When the judgments of the Lord are visited upon the earth the nations will learn righteousness. The ultimate issue can not be doubtful, but still the cry is, “How long, O Lord? How long?”