The official French paper, the Journal de Constantinople, in its issue of August 4, 1864, published a leader supposed to emanate from Ali Pasha, the grand vizier, in which the arrest of the Christian Turks was charged to the alleged fact that the zeal of the missionaries in making converts amounted to a “veritable war,” and that in this work of proselyting seductive arts were employed. These charges were investigated by the Minister of the United States, and by the British ambassador, and not only were the missionaries exonerated from all blame, but Earl Russell, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in Great Britain, strongly defended the missionaries and demanded of Turkey that she maintain in her dealings with her subjects the observance of the true principles of religious liberty. Upon the demand of the English government the exiled Turks were permitted to return.
It was at once understood by the Moslems that for them there was no liberty to change their faith. It is true that none were arrested upon the open charge of changing their religion, but every conceivable pretense was trumped up against them, to substantiate which any number of Mohammedan witnesses could be procured, and the Christian Mohammedan was sent into exile, languished in prison, or disappeared from view. Frequently missionaries attempted to follow up a case of manifest persecution, but they usually came upon a medical certificate that the man had died in prison from fever or some other natural cause, or lost all traces of the prisoner through frequent transfers to distant parts. Some men are known to have been shot by their guard in the transfer.
In the Treaty of Berlin, entered into in 1878 by England, Austria, Russia, France, Italy, and Turkey, Article 2 states that absolute religious liberty is to exist in all the various territories mentioned in the preceding article “including the whole Turkish empire.” The sixty-second article begins, “The Sublime Porte, having expressed its willingness to maintain the principle of religious liberty and to give it the widest sphere, the contracting parties take cognizance of this spontaneous declaration.” Then follow specifications of how the sultan is to carry out these principles.
In spite of these reiterated declarations, it is evident that the Turkish government does not and never did intend to acknowledge the right of a Moslem to become a Christian. A high official once told the writer that Turkey gives to all her subjects the widest religious liberty. He said, “There is the fullest liberty for the Armenian to become a Catholic, for the Greek to become an Armenian, for the Catholic and Armenian to become Greeks, for any one of them to become Protestant, or for all to become Mohammedans. There is the fullest and completest religious liberty for all the subjects of this empire.”
In response to the question, “How about liberty for the Mohammedan to become a Christian?” he replied, “That is an impossibility in the nature of the case. When one has once accepted Islam and become a follower of the Prophet he cannot change. There is no power on earth that can change him. Whatever he may say or claim cannot alter the fact that he is a Moslem still and must always be such. It is, therefore, an absurdity to say that a Moslem has the privilege of changing his religion, for to do so is beyond his power.” For the last forty years the actions of the official and influential Turks have borne out this theory of religious liberty in the Ottoman empire. Every Moslem showing interest in Christian things takes his life in his hands. No protection can be afforded him against the false charges that begin at once to multiply. His only safety lies in flight.
XXV. THE MACEDONIAN QUESTION
Mr. G. B. Ravndal, until recently United States consul at Beirut, Syria, is an intelligent and sympathetic witness of the progress of events in that part of the Turkish empire. He writes, with special reference to the commercial aspects of missionary advance, that “the Syria of to-day cannot be compared with the Syria of twenty-five years ago. Education is working wonders, raising the standard of living, multiplying and diversifying the requirements of the people, developing the natural resources of the country, and increasing the purchasing capacity of the individual. Illiteracy is on the wane, independent thought is in the ascendant. We have printing-presses, railroads, carriage-roads, bridges, postal and telegraph routes. Trade is increasing in volume and variety, and the United States is getting a larger and larger share of it. Our country, owing primarily to the efforts of our missionaries, is near and dear to a large portion of the population, not only of this country, but of the entire Levant—nay, even of Persia and the Sudan. Through our college (at Beirut), with its School of Commerce and museums, through the mission press, the industrial academy, and the experimental farm, missionaries have become ambassadors of American trade, and as the foreign commerce of the Levant swells into larger proportions—it is yet in its infancy—the United States is getting a surer foothold in the near East.” He also speaks of his gratification in witnessing the increasing introduction of American machinery into Syria, such as reaping, threshing, and milling machines, and expresses his confidence that “Western Asia will before long become a market for our agricultural, irrigation, and other machinery, which no manufacturer at home will despise or ignore.” He refers to the School of Commerce recently established in connection with the American College at Beirut, with its students drawn from a widely extended region, reaching from Trebizond on the north to Khartum on the south, and from Albania in the west to Teheran in the east, as an enterprise which is destined to “play a leading part in the economics of the Levant.” There is a business ring to testimonies like these just quoted from men of official position in the East, which surely cannot be credited to missionary partiality or misjudgment, and as such we are glad to have the privilege of presenting them.