[69]. Mrs. Bishop, Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan, vol. ii., p. 336.
[70]. By far the largest part of foreign missionary work in Turkey has always been in the hands of Americans, although, of course, they neither claim nor have any monopoly in this respect. As a matter of fact there are many other large and successful missionary, benevolent, and educational enterprises conducted in that land by other foreign societies as well as individuals. The various Roman Catholic orders are strongly established in many parts, and are generally of French connections and introduce that language in their work as the Americans do English. The following is a partial list of other societies at work in Turkey: The British and Foreign Bible Society, the Church Missionary Society, the Bible Lands Missions Aid Society, the British Syrian Mission Schools and Bible Work, the Church of Scotland Mission to the Jews, the Society of Friends (both English and American), the Irish Presbyterian Mission, the Reformed Presbyterian Mission, and the German Deaconesses. In addition to all these agencies, there are many private and local schools and institutions that are doing excellent work, but of which only this general mention can here be made.
The statistics of Robert College, Constantinople, are not included in these tables, as that institution, though a child of American Missions, is independent of them.
[71]. “The creation of churches, strict in their discipline, and protesting against the mass of superstitions which smother all spiritual life in the National Armenian Church, is undoubtedly having a very salutary effect far beyond the limited membership, and is tending to force reform upon an ancient church which contains within herself the elements of resurrection.”—Mrs. Bishop, Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan, vol. ii., p. 336.
[72]. Unhappily there are some who can see nothing but bigotry and mistakes in what the missionaries have done. Such characters are to be found among all races, as the following extract shows:
“It might be thought that here, [Missilonghi] on the spot where he [Byron] breathed his last, malignity would have held her accursed tongue; but it was not so. He had committed the fault, unpardonable in the eyes of political opponents, of attaching himself to one of the great parties that then divided Greece; and though he had given her all that man could give, in his own dying words, ‘his time, his means, his health, and, lastly, his life,’ the Greeks spoke of him with all the rancour and bitterness of party spirit. Even death had not won oblivion for his political offences; and I heard those who saw him die in her cause affirm that Byron was no friend to Greece.”—Stephens, Greece, Turkey, Russia, and Poland, New York: Harper and Brothers, 1839.
[73]. This is an exact copy of the official documents as published by the State Department, capitalization included.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
- Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling.
- Archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings retained as printed.