[Doubtless he wanted the best men he could find as his physician and minister of finance, and these men were found among the Christians. Let the last year tell whether he be the friend or the enemy of the Christians.]
“In reference to the charge of ruthless despotism laid upon Sultan Abdul Hamid in connection with his abrogation of the charter granted during the first months of his reign, I will quote his own words. He said to me one day:—‘In Europe the soil was prepared centuries ago for liberal institutions, and now I am asked to transplant a sapling to the foreign, stony and rugged ground of Asiatic life. Let me clear away the thistles, and stones, let me till the soil, and provide for irrigation because rain is very scarce in Asia and then we may transport the new plant; and believe me that nobody will be more delighted at its thriving than myself.’”
Thus far the professor. And now, it is to be wondered if he calls the extermination of the Armenians the clearing away of the thistles and does he propose to irrigate the soil of Armenia with the blood of its noblest race. Is he not rather slitting the veins of Asia Minor and pouring out its heart’s best blood?
That the Sultan was a warm personal friend of Gen. Lew Wallace does not make him any the less a despot; neither because Hon. S. S. Cox, who succeeded Gen. Wallace was an admirer of the Sultan as the following quotation will show; does that make him the less a fanatic and the most remorseless shedder of blood that Europe has seen since the days of Tamerlane.
“The Sultan is of middle size and of Turkish type. He wears a full black beard, is of a dark complexion and has very expressive eyes. His forehead is large, indicative of intellectual power. He is very gracious in manner though at times seemingly a little embarrassed. * * *
“As Caliph he is the divine representative of Mohammed. His family line runs back with unbroken links to the thirteenth century. He is one of the most industrious, painstaking, honest, conscientious and vigilant rulers of the world. He is amiable and just withal. His every word betokens a good heart and a sagacious head. [What a comment the horrors of the many months just past furnishes to this flattering estimate a Mohammedian conscience!]
“He is an early riser. After he leaves his seraglio and has partaken of a slight repast his secretaries wait on him with portfolios. He peruses all the official correspondence and current reports. He gives up his time till noon to work of this character. Then his breakfast is served. After that he walks in his park and gardens, looks in at his aviaries, perhaps stirs up his menagerie, makes an inspection of his two hundred horses in their fine stables, indulges his little daughters in a row upon the fairy lake which he has had constructed, and it may be attends a performance at the little theatre provided for his children in the palace. At 5 P. M. having accomplished most of his official work, he mounts his favorite white horse, Ferhan, a war-scarred veteran for a ride in the park. The park of the palace Yildiz where he lives comprises some thousand acres. It is surrounded by high walls and protected by the soldiery.”
But all this does not tell us what the man at heart is any more than if some flatterer of Nero should expatiate on the esthetic taste of Nero and his love of the fine arts and his skill as a violinist when he sat at night in his marble palace and enjoyed the blazing magnificence of Rome. It is as foreign to the present situation as if some one should praise the skill of Nero’s horsemanship as he drove his mettled steeds with firm reins along the course lighted by the blazing torches of the tar-besmeared Christians, whom he accused of having set the city on fire.
The persistence with which the Sultan has followed out his purpose of exterminating the Armenians, in the face of a horrified and indignant Christendom, marks his audacity and contempt of Christians as sublime in height, as infernal in spirit, and bottomless in its cruelty.
Gibbon in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire can scarcely find polite words enough to express his contempt for the forms of early Christianity and praised the Turks as possessing the rarest of qualities when he said: “The Turks are distinguished for their patience, discipline, sobriety, bravery, honesty and modesty,” and Hon. Sunset Cox echoed the same when he wrote, “It is because of these solid characteristics, and in spite of the harem, in spite of autocratic power, in spite of the Janissary and the seraglio that this race and rule remain potent in the Orient. His heart (the heart of the present Sultan) is touched by suffering, and his views lean strongly to that toleration of the various races and religions of his realm, which other and more boastful nations would do well to imitate.”