Daybreak in Turkey / Second Edition

by James L. Barton

XII. EARLY PIONEERING AND EXPLORATIONS

The elevating influence of the missionaries in Turkey cannot be over-estimated. It is the most hopeful of all the influences which are at work in the empire to-day. Most people at home think of the missionary as a propagandist whose chief endeavor is to win converts to his creed, but on the field he appears as a very different character; he is an educator, a physician, a scientist, a peacemaker, a neighbor, and an example of civilized living. Judged by the numbers added to Protestant churches from the population of the Turkish empire, missions there might be counted a failure, or, at the most, but a partial success; but the making of Protestants is the smallest part of a missionary’s work. 1. The missionary elevates the whole standard of Christian living and thinking. There are in Turkey churches hoary with age—Greek, Armenian, Syrian—in which ignorance, barbarism, superstition, and low morality hold sway. To retain their members in the face of the missionary, these churches find intelligence, purity, spirituality, and civilization necessary, and have been greatly elevated by missionary enterprise. 2. In countries like Turkey, where medical skill is beyond the reach of the mass of the people, the preventable suffering and death are appalling. How eagerly the villagers bring their sick to any stranger in the hope that he may be a physician, almost every traveler can testify. The brightest spots in the country are the missionary medical centers, where untold sufferings are allayed. These range all the way from the village dispensary to the Medical College at Beirut, where one of the world’s best surgeons not only helps the suffering, but teaches others to do it too. 3. The most important phase of missionary work in Turkey is, however, the educational. From humble schools scattered widely through the villages to colleges like Robert College and the Syrian Protestant College at Beirut (which are the fruit of missionary enterprise) most successful efforts are being made, by broad-minded, undenominational methods, to train the young to think, and to induct them into modern science and civilization. The effect of this is already widely apparent, and it is clear that if the day ever comes when Turkey is able to take her place among the nations as a state which appreciates the laws of humanity sufficiently to be trusted, as Japan is now trusted, to control the lives and property of foreigners resident within her limits, it will be because of the civilizing influence of these educational institutions, combined with the lessons in integrity taught by the missionaries’ simple Christian lives. Apart from their work for Turkey, the missionaries have contributed much to science. Archæology owes them large debts in every part of the empire, and, to mention no other fields, the only authoritative work on the botany of Syria is by a missionary. The missionaries are in my opinion working more directly than any other class of men to complete the social evolution of mankind, and to make possible the peaceable federation of the world.

—George A. Barton, Ph. D.,
Professor of Semitic Languages in Bryn Mawr College,
Director of the American School of Oriental Study and Research
in Palestine, 1902-1903.

It was no light task to plant missions in a country so little known and extensive as was the Turkish empire at the beginning of the last century. Of the races which made up its large population little was understood except a general knowledge of the Jews and Greeks, and there was much less information regarding the Turks. In accordance with the policy already adopted by the American Board, the early missionaries were sent out to investigate and explore before deciding upon the location of missions and stations and before fixing the exact nature and methods of work.

The instructions given the earlier missionaries to Turkey seldom failed to emphasize the importance of fully examining the different parts of the country and becoming acquainted with the character, beliefs, and characteristics of the different races and peoples which comprise its population. In some cases particular unexplored regions were named as demanding immediate attention. All the early missionaries were directed to report to headquarters, in full detail, the results of their researches and observations.

In the instructions given in 1819 to Pliny Fisk and Levi Parsons, the first missionaries appointed to Turkey, the following passage occurs:

“You will survey with earnest attention the various tribes and classes which dwell in that land and in the surrounding countries. The two grand inquiries ever present in your minds will be, ‘What good can be done?’ and ‘By what means?’ What can be done for the Jews? What for the pagans? What for the Mohammedans? What for the Christians? What for the people in Palestine? What for those in Egypt, in Syria, in Armenia, in other countries to which your inquiry may be extended?”

This single quotation demonstrates the spirit of them all, and reveals the deliberate and far-seeing policy of the Board in inaugurating its missions in Turkey as well as in other countries. Men of the highest ability and broadest vision were selected for missionary appointment and upon them was placed the responsibility of selecting the location of the missions and stations, and deciding the policy and methods of work.

The archives of the Board are rich with the early reports of those first missionaries, who explored with fearlessness and zeal, and observed with discriminating care and precision. They were conscious of the fact that much in the future depended upon the thoroughness of their work and the accuracy and fulness of their reports.