Bleeding Armenia: Its history and horrors under the curse of Islam

by Augustus Warner Williams; M. Smbat Gabrielean

The Young Turkey leaders demanded the restoration of the Constitution. In order to accomplish that they proposed to get rid, in some way, of the Sultan who first decreed and then abrogated that instrument. There were threats of assassination, and something like a reign of terror prevailed at Yildiz Kiosk. The Sultan took as many precautions against treachery as ever did the Russian Czar. The man who brought about the abolition of the Parliament by his rascality was a cabinet minister. He, too, was threatened with death. The strictest repression was practiced. The merest hint was enough to cause a man’s arrest and summary execution. But in spite of all, the revolutionary movement grew. Mysterious placards appeared on the walls, calling for fulfilment of the Hatt of 1877. The name of Midhat Pasha, who suffered martyrdom for having given Turkey a Constitution, was spoken now and then, in whispers only, but in tones of grateful reverence. A whisper of “The Constitution,” too, went round. Army and navy were becoming secretly leavened with the idea. The Sultan and his Ministers did not know whom to trust.

And now that we have seen what a fiasco this brilliantly projected great naval demonstration proved itself to be; and how cleverly the Sultan played his pawns against Castles and Kings and Queens, and checkmated all the Powers of Europe, we will leave him in his hell of infamy bathed in the blood of nearly a hundred thousand slain, with the voices of agonized and outraged mothers and daughters raining maledictions upon his accursed head, while we try to be patient until the rod of the Almighty shall smite the wicked, till the day of reckoning and of vengeance shall come in the day of the Lord at hand. We leave the Sultan in his palace to the companionship, perhaps the guidance, of Khalil Rifaat Pasha, the new Grand Vizier, the voice of history and the righteous judgments of God, but as for Islam, as a system of government over Christian populations, we can but pray daily for its speedy, utter and final overthrow.

CHAPTER IX.

PROGRESS AND POWER OF CHRISTIAN MISSIONS IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE.

In the following pages have been gathered a few very important papers that will be of permanent value, but necessarily the limits are very narrow, and only a sketch of the beneficent influences of the sweet and holy Gospel of Jesus as it comes into the dark, and cruel and ignorant heart of Moslem heathen, or breathes a new life into the dead forms of the ancient church of Armenia can be given. It may, however, be the less regretted as the great missionary periodicals of every Christian church have given to Christendom for years the ever thrilling and precious story of the victories won by grace. It is to be hoped however that these papers will freshen the interest of the reader and increase his faith in the coming of the kingdom of Christ—the kingdom of peace and good will and righteousness, wherein the terrible evils which prevail under the rule of Islam shall never more be done, but the will of God be sweetly supreme.

A CHAPTER OF MISSION HISTORY IN TURKEY.

BY REV. H. O. DWIGHT, OF CONSTANTINOPLE.

The providential preparation for the opening of the mission of the American Board at Constantinople sixty years ago was sufficiently remarkable to warrant recalling the story. In the year 1825 a tract by the Rev. Jonas King on the necessity of studying the Scriptures was published in Syria. It was translated into Armenian by Bishop Dionysius at Beirût and sent in manuscript to an influential Armenian at Constantinople. Its convincing words produced an extraordinary effect upon all who read them. Minds largely ignorant of the Bible and its teachings were aroused at once, to see the lacks of the Armenian Church in the matter of Bible knowledge. A school, having for its principal object the education of the clergy, was established at the Armenian Patriarchate at Constantinople, under charge of the eminent teacher Peshtimiljian. A rule limiting ordinations for the priesthood in Constantinople to graduates at this school was adopted, indicating slightly the ignorance which had been prevalent up to that time among the ordinary priesthood. Peshtimiljian, the head master of the new school, was a learned man for his day and was also firm in his conviction that the Bible is the sole standard of Christian life and doctrine.