XVI. RESULTS
I have had occasion to revert to the work of the accomplished and devoted band of American missionaries and teachers settled in these districts. In a thousand ways they are raising the standard of morality, of intelligence, of education, of material well-being, of industrial enterprise. Directly or indirectly every phase of their work is rapidly paving the way for American commerce. Special stress should be laid upon the remarkable work of the physicians, ordained or unordained, who are attached to the various stations. They form a steadily growing network, dotting the map of Asia Minor at Cæsarea, Marsovan, Sivas, Adana, Aintab, Mardin, Harpoot, Bitlis, and Van. At most of these points well-equipped hospitals are in active operation. From the very nature of their occupation they come more easily and rapidly into touch with the Turkish population and quickly gain their confidence.
Taking all in all, I regard the results following the foundation of this institution (Euphrates College) as among the most important and noteworthy secured by American effort in foreign lands. The whole work appeals most strongly to one whose chief duty is to aid and further the entrance of American wares in this land. I know of no import better adapted to secure the future commercial supremacy of the United States in this land of such wonderful potential possibilities than the introduction of American teachers, of American educational appliances and books of American methods and ideas.
—Prof. Thomas H. Norton, Ph. D.,
United States Consul at Harpoot and Smyrna, Turkey.
While those troublous scenes were being enacted, the missionaries were engaged in preparing and sending out evangelical Christian literature in the form of the Bible in the vernacular Armenian, Armeno-Turkish and Greek languages, and by fostering educational operations. As early as 1836 a school for Armenian girls was opened in Smyrna. A boarding-school for Armenian boys opened in Bebek in 1840 was so promising that in 1843-44 Secretary Anderson, upon a visit to Constantinople, recommended that this institution be strengthened. At that time it was decided to discontinue the special work to the Greeks and to open a high school for girls at the capital. The purpose of the seminary at Bebek was to train able and devout young men for the gospel ministry, that the newly organized churches might have proper leaders. In 1848 the seminary contained forty-seven students.
In 1847 some Christian literature found its way into Aintab in northern Syria. During that year and the next, missionary visits were made to the place. In 1849 Mr. Schneider took up his residence there, and Aintab became a regular mission station. In the midst of persecution the work spread with great rapidity. Preachers and colporters were forbidden by the Armenian primates to visit the neighboring towns, so evangelical tradesmen began a systematic visitation to outside places, plying their trade and preaching the gospel. The spirit of intelligent faith and religious liberty spread in all directions until the entire region was affected. In 1861 the church in Aintab had nearly three hundred members and the Sabbath congregation often numbered more than one thousand souls. The Sabbath-school then had nearly two thousand members. In 1855 Marash was occupied as a mission station, and these two places have since been the two central stations of that mission.
For nearly a generation after the separation of the Protestants took place there was more or less hostile feeling between the two bodies, although the number of the evangelicals rapidly increased. The spirit of inquiry was abroad among the Armenians and nothing could satisfy it but the truth. Travelers into the interior and visitors to Constantinople from the interior carried this spirit into the most remote sections of the country. The anathemas which had been communicated to the churches of the inland towns and cities had stirred up many questions and aroused alert minds to seek the cause. On the whole, the evangelical movement was most materially helped by these rude and bungling endeavors to suppress it by brute force. Wherever missionaries went they were met by a group of men, naturally among the most enlightened in all the community, who sought aid in the interpretation of the Scriptures, and who were eager to receive literature explaining evangelical truth.