THE RESULTS OF AMERICAN MISSIONS
Nowhere in all the world, not even in China or Japan, are the results
of the labours and influence of American missionaries more conspicuous
or more generally recognized than in the Ottoman Empire. They have
not confined themselves to making converts to Christianity, but their
intelligence and enterprise have been felt even more extensively and
effectively in the material than in the spiritual improvement of the
people. The first electric telegraph instrument in Turkey was set up
by missionaries. They introduced the first sewing machine, the first
printing press, and the first modern agricultural implements. They
brought the tomato and the potato and the other valuable vegetables
and fruits that are now staples; they built the first hospitals; they
started the first dispensary and the first modern schools. Before they
came, not one of the several races in Turkey had the Bible in its own
language. To-day, thanks to the American missionaries, every subject of
the Turkish sultan can read the Bible in his own language, if he can
read at all.
But a large volume would be necessary to tell what I would like to say
on this subject. Mr. Bryce, the British ambassador to Washington, in
one of his books, says: “I cannot mention the American missionaries
without a tribute to the admirable work they have done. They have been
the only good influence that has worked from abroad upon the Turkish
Empire.” Sir William Ramsey, the famous British scientist, who has
spent much time in Turkey, is quite as enthusiastic, and I could quote
a dozen other equally competent authorities as to the character of the
men and the results they have accomplished.
In the division of territory the Presbyterians have Syria, the
United Presbyterians Egypt, while European Turkey and Asia Minor are
occupied by the American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions,
affiliated with the Congregational Church, with headquarters at
Boston. There are several Church of England missions, but no central
organization. The Swedish, German, and Swiss Lutherans have schools,
churches, and orphanages. The French Roman Catholics have schools and
hospitals in Asia Minor in charge of Capuchin and Franciscan monks,
but the chief missionary work in Turkey--educational, benevolent, and
evangelical--has been done by agents of the American Board since 1820,
when two pioneers, Pliny Fisk and Levi Parsons, landed at Smyrna and
began to prepare themselves for preaching and teaching, by learning the
native languages.
The actual number of central stations of the American Board of Foreign
Missions in Turkey in 1910 is seventeen, at which 159 American born
missionaries are engaged. There are 263 out-stations, with 1,032 native
Protestant pastors and labourers, and 46,131 adherents; and 444 schools
and colleges with an average attendance of 23,846 students. This is the
summary of returns for the year 1910.
The headquarters from which the campaign of evangelization is
directed is called the Bible House in Stamboul, the native section
of Constantinople, which was built in 1871 and is to-day the most
far-reaching lighthouse in all the East. Its rays penetrate to every
corner of the Ottoman Empire. Here are the offices of administration,
the depository of the Bible Society, the printing plant and publication
house, the treasury, the library, the information bureaus, and other
branches of the work. If you ever want to know anything about missions
or missionaries in the near East, individually or collectively, their
personnel, their purposes, or the results they have accomplished, or
anything about American education and charitable work in Turkey, write
to the Bible House, Stamboul, Constantinople, and if you have any money
to contribute toward the expenses of the great work that is going on,
send it there to Dr. Peet.
The most far-reaching work of the American missionaries is educational,
which comprehends all races, all religions, and all languages. They
are educating representatives of every one of the many different
races of which the Turkish Empire is composed, regardless of
religious faith--Turks, Arabs, Egyptians, Armenians, Kurds, Persians,
Macedonians, Bulgars, Druses, Nestorians, Greeks, Russians, Georgians,
Circassians, and others too numerous to mention. Their influence is
thus extended to every community, because no student leaves an American
institution without carrying with him the germs of progress which must
affect the family and the neighbourhood and all of the inhabitants
with whom he may thereafter come in contact. This influence has been
working for half a century or more and has been preparing the minds
of the people for the great change that has recently come over them.
The missionaries do not teach revolution; they do not encourage
revolutionary methods, but they have always preached and taught
liberty, equality, fraternity, and the rights of man.
The congregations of the American churches, and especially the pupils
of the missionary schools, are usually reduced from 25 to 30 per cent.
ever year by immigration to the United States. Having learned from
their teachers of the advantages and the opportunities that exist
across the water, having acquired the English language, and being able
to get good advice as to location and often letters of introduction,
they have decided advantages over ordinary emigrants and for the same
reason they make the best sort of citizens when they reach their new
homes. It had been very difficult for an emigrant to leave Turkey until
two years ago, but somehow or another, there has been a constant stream
running that way for a quarter of a century.
A dozen missionaries have told me that the brightest and most
promising young men and women in their districts, and especially the
best teachers in their schools, have emigrated. Many of them go to
Massachusetts, Chicago has thousands, and there is a large colony
in Troy working in the shirt and collar factories. For example, the
churches at Harpoot had 3,107 members one year and 2,413 the next. The
balance had gone to America. One fourth of the congregation of the
mission church at Bitlis emigrated, almost in a body, last year. It
would be a great deal better for Turkey if these people would stay at
home and use the knowledge and the principles they have gained in the
regeneration of their country, but it cannot be denied that they are
among the most valuable immigrants of all the aliens that go to the
United States.
Most of the mission churches are small, like those in the villages of
the United States, with congregations of only twenty-five or thirty
or fifty members. Those in the cities are larger, several having more
than a thousand members. They are organized just like the Protestant
churches in the United States with native pastors and native church
officers. They have Sunday schools, prayer meetings, Christian Endeavor
societies and other organizations, and they study the same Sunday
school lessons as the Protestant children in the United States.
Most of them are self-supporting. Sometimes the newly organized
congregations get a little help from the United States at the start,
but the great majority of native converts pay more for their religion
and make greater sacrifices than the Christians of the United States.
For example, thirteen out of twenty-seven churches in the Central
Turkish mission are not only entirely self-supporting but contribute
substantial aid to weaker churches in their neighbourhood. In the
entire Turkish Empire last year the native churches paid five sixths of
all the expenses of education, worship, and charity.
The board pays the salaries of the missionaries, but the effort is to
bring the native churches to a condition of pecuniary independence
for the reason that it stimulates their pride and their ambition; it
gives them confidence and self-respect, which, as everybody knows,
are the strongest elements in the formation of national as well as
individual character. Notwithstanding the extension of the work, the
amount of money contributed by the United States for the support of
native churches has been growing smaller every year. Whereas the board
contributed $54,585 to assist native churches twenty years ago, in
1910 it gave less than $20,000.
The most significant feature of the statistical reports of American
missions in Turkey is the column which gives the contributions of the
natives for the support of their churches. In 1910, the total was
$119,987, an increase from $92,937 for the year 1903.
This is very remarkable, and means ten times as much as the same
amount would mean in America, because of the poverty of the people
and the fact that the earnings of the great mass of native Christians
do not often exceed thirty or forty cents a day. This money is given
voluntarily for the erection and support of houses of worship, for the
salaries of their native pastors, and for the circulation of religious
literature. It may safely be said that no Christian community in the
world, unless it be the Roman Catholics of Ireland, contributes so
large a portion of its income for religious purposes as the native
Protestants of Turkey. Because of the liberality of the people in this
respect the Protestant church in Turkey has been able to enjoy the
ministration of educated pastors. This accounts also for the large
attendance of natives upon the American schools, which derive a larger
proportion of their income from tuition fees probably than any other
schools of their class in the world. This is particularly true of the
American colleges. No college these days pretends to live, and few
could survive without, endowments, but the American colleges in Turkey
are more dependent upon their tuition fees and less dependent upon
endowments for support than any similar institutions in existence.
In making a comparison of the American and Turkish schools, Dr.
Crawford, a veteran missionary teacher at Trebizond, said:
“Although the Department of Public Instruction at Constantinople is
making noble efforts to improve the schools of Turkey, they still are
limited in quantity and poor in quality. The Mohammedan schools are
taught by priests, who are themselves, with few exceptions, illiterate.
The pupils sit on the floor of a mosque swaying back and forth,
studying about the three ‘R’s’--reading, writing and ’rithmetic--and
the Koran, of course. They pay more attention to that than to anything
else, and, indeed, some of the mullahs are so illiterate that they
would not be able to read anything else. Of late the Turkish officials
have begun to recognize the usefulness of Christian schools and not
only tolerate them, but are introducing their methods to a degree
into the mosque schools. With a liberal and intelligent minister of
education there ought to be a decided improvement in the Turkish
system of instruction, but there will be great difficulty in securing
teachers. Of course, women teachers cannot be utilized and men who have
education enough to qualify them to teach properly can get positions
under the government or elsewhere that pay much better salaries than
teaching school.
“The Greeks have excellent schools and their people show a craving for
knowledge which is characteristic of the race. The Roman Catholics have
French and Italian schools for the colonies of those nations under
the instruction of Jesuits and Capuchin monks, and they are usually
very good. But the lack of education throughout the Turkish Empire is
deplorable, and if the American schools have done nothing else than
stimulate a rivalry on the part of the other religious denominations
and the government, the money that has been contributed to support them
has been well invested.
“As a rule, both the Greek and the Armenian clergy are uneducated.
Most of them are very little higher intellectually than the Turkish
mullahs. Some of them can merely read the service, and no more. There
is no inducement for educated men to go into the priesthood because the
pay is so small; altogether too small to enable them to live decently
and to give their families the ordinary comforts of life. Educated
men cannot afford to become priests, and as education is not required
in either the Greek or Armenian Churches, when a priest dies the
congregation select one of their own number who happens to be able to
read and make him their priest. A bishop of the Armenian Church in this
vicinity recently resigned to accept a government office, and gave as
his reason for doing so that his salary was not sufficient to support
his family and to educate his children.
“Agricultural and industrial education is needed more than anything
else in order to enable the people to get the best profit from their
labour and to teach them to use modern labour-saving implements and
methods.
“It is the policy of the missionaries to make the natives do everything
for themselves so far as practicable, and native pastors relieve them
of much of their labour except supervision. But at the same time the
missionary must drive new stakes and plough new ground and plant new
seeds all the time to extend his sphere of influence. And he travels
about for this reason, holding religious services in the native
languages and drawing believers together until he gets enough material
to start a church. I know a man who preaches three times every
Sunday in three different languages in different places to different
congregations--Turkish, Armenian and Greek. And they have all kinds of
schools to look after, from kindergartens to theological seminaries.
The latter are especially important because they furnish pastors for
the native churches. The faculties in the American colleges are nearly
all natives, but the presidents, the deans, and the treasurers are
always Americans, and the boards of trustees are mixed.”
If you would attend a gathering of native pastors in Turkey you
would find that they compare favourably in appearance and manners
and intelligence and education with the members of any conference or
presbytery or ministerial association in the United States, and that is
one of the reasons why their work has been so successful. The Moslem
priests and the clergy of the orthodox Greek and Armenian churches are
almost universally uncouth and illiterate men and the public in Turkey
is prompt and keen in detecting the difference.
President Angell, of the University of Michigan, who was United States
minister to Turkey for several years, once said: “So far as Americans
are concerned the missionary work in European Turkey and Asia Minor
is and long has been almost exclusively in the hands of the American
Board. In no part of the world has that board or any board had abler
or more devoted representatives to preach the gospel, to conduct
schools and colleges or to establish and administer hospitals. Wherever
an American mission is established, there is a centre of alert,
enterprising American life, whose influence in a hundred ways is felt
even by the lethargic Oriental life.”
The vital need, however, is chapels. Every congregation ought to have a
home and its own place of worship. It is not necessary to explain the
advantages. They are obvious. It is just ten times as important for a
native congregation in Turkey to have its own house of worship as it
is for a congregation in the United States, and for the same reason.
And, as a rule, the congregation in the United States has ten times the
financial ability to provide its own house of worship as the little
circle of native believers in Turkey.
Each of the one hundred and fifty-nine American missionaries in Turkey
to-day has a district like the diocese of an Episcopal bishop, with
a dozen or twenty churches under his care. He visits them regularly,
advises with their pastors, superintends their schools, and exercises a
paternal authority over the people. They consult him concerning their
temporal as well as their spiritual welfare, not only the members of
his congregation, but men of every class. No class of people in all
Turkey are so trusted by the officials and the public and by every
race as the American missionaries. All classes accept the word of a
missionary without question. Money is intrusted to him for safe-keeping
or for transmission to other hands without asking for a receipt, and
it is a common thing for officials of high rank to seek counsel of
missionaries when they are in doubt or in danger. As a well-known
writer has said:
“They know that in times of trouble the missionary is their best
friend, no matter how much they may have abused him in times of
prosperity. They know that he will always do what he believes to be
for their best good, even though there may be a difference of judgment
as to what is the best thing. In the midst of Oriental duplicity the
missionaries have established a reputation for speaking the truth. At
first this was one of the severest puzzles to the Turks in the dealings
of the missionaries with the government. They could conceive of no
reason for telling the truth under such circumstances, so they were
completely misled.”
Under the new régime, the missionaries are having their own way. They
are being sought instead of seeking. Not only are they free to come
and go and introduce American ideas and knowledge, but the government
is taking away their best native teachers and is using them for the
education of more young men and young women who are needed to take
charge of the public schools.
Until the constitution was proclaimed missionary education and medical
work was seriously hampered throughout the Levant by the government
authorities, and the remarkable results that have been accomplished by
the American missionaries have been obtained in the face of all kinds
of obstacles and embarrassments. Travelling permits were refused by
the police and neither the missionaries nor their native helpers were
allowed to go freely from place to place. The missionaries, when buying
real estate, often have been required to give pledges that it would
not be used for religious or educational purposes. Twenty-nine years
ago the Protestants of Constantinople purchased a site for a house of
worship, and the American ambassador has not yet been able to obtain
permission for them to erect a building. Places of worship and schools
have frequently been closed by order of the officials. The residences
and the school-houses of American missionaries have often been searched
and books and manuscripts--even ordinary text books--have been seized
and destroyed. Schools have been burned by local fanatics and several
American missionaries have suffered martyrdom.
No Moslem can be released from his religious obligations, and when
he renounces his faith and professes any other religion the only
punishment is death. Hitherto the only safety for a convert was to
flee from his country before his conversion became known. This is not
strange when it is considered that Islam is the political as well as
the religious system of the country; the judges of the courts are
theologians; the shariat, or code of laws, is based upon the Koran, and
both are grounded upon divine authority as set forth in the teachings
of the Prophet.
In discussing this question with the late Rev. Herbert M. Allen, editor
and founder of _The Orient_, the enterprising American missionary
newspaper, at Constantinople, whose death in 1910 was a sad loss to the
cause of civilization in Turkey, he said:
“The most imperative need of Turkey in an educational way at present is
a high-class theological seminary, such as you have in Chicago and New
York. Here we are in the land of the Bible. Nearly all the religions
of the world originated in this section. Here the gospel was first
preached. Turkey is occupied to-day with the same races that lived
here then, all of them preserving their memorials. I believe that a
non-sectarian theological seminary established here for the purpose
of teaching Biblical history and comparative theology in a broad way
would appeal to every one of these races. The schools of theology
that we have to-day appeal only to those who intend to enter the
Protestant missionary service, but a seminary on a university basis,
like that at Chicago, would draw ambitious young men from all races
and denominations, and would undoubtedly receive sufficient patronage
to become self supporting with the aid of the endowments that such an
institution should command.
“The weakness of the Greek and the Armenian Churches has been the
absence of an educated clergy. Their lack of influence among the
people; their lack of progress, and the diminishing respect that is
shown to the profession is due to this cause. Such a seminary would
educate leaders in thought and progress in the social and political, as
well as the religious, life of the country. And what this country needs
more than anything else is educated leaders.
“The several races that make up the population of the Turkish Empire
are all represented in the Armenian schools,” continued Mr. Allen,
“but vary according to localities. In Armenia most of the students are
Armenians; in the colleges nearer the coast and the commercial cities
the larger number are Greeks. As for Mohammedans, they are scattered
and have been comparatively few in number until recently, but now the
eagerness for education is so great that a Moslem father will send his
son to a Christian college without the slightest hesitation. They have
no fear that their children will be proselyted by Christian teachers,
and they know they will get a good education; that their morals will be
protected; that their health will be looked after, and that they will
be given a broad view of things. There is no difficulty in mixing the
different creeds. They all worship together and sit together in the
dining-room and mingle in the playgrounds, as well as in the classroom.
And they submit without the slightest hesitation to all the rules
concerning prayers and divine worship and the study of the Bible.
“Outside of Constantinople, the American colleges have no competition.
There are some French schools and the Greeks have contributed plenty
of money for the education of their own race, but they do not seem
to know how to spend it. Not long ago I visited a Greek college near
Cesarea, endowed by a wealthy merchant in Constantinople. I found fine
buildings, well equipped, but everybody told me the schools scarcely
amounted to anything. The reason is that they have incompetent teachers
and poor management and what is still worse, the lack of an ideal. The
success of the American schools and their popularity is due to the
high American ideal that is maintained by the faculties. It combines
discipline, punctuality, truth, honour, self-control, self-respect,
and other virtues that are not always found in the Oriental, but which
are just as essential for good citizens and well-rounded characters
here as anywhere else. We aim to make our students full men; to elevate
them to the highest standard of manhood, and that is the reason of the
influence and the success of the American schools. We have practically
no competition in that line of education.
“Very often the same families who send pupils to us will first send
them to a French school to study French, but they afterward send them
to us to get what they call the American training; that standard of
manhood and sterling character which most of our graduates have taken
away with their diplomas.
“There is an English school in Constantinople for the benefit of
English children, although other nationalities are admitted, and there
are various other schools, but the American is the only nationality or
religious denomination that has ever attempted general educational work
in Turkey.
“What race is most responsive and appreciative of the opportunities
furnished by the American schools?
“The Armenians by all means. From the beginning they have filled our
schools. They are the most progressive element in the empire and they
appreciate the value of education more highly than any other race.
Several years ago, before Abdul Hamid showed his hostility to them,
the Armenians started what was called ‘The Union Educational Society,’
which established primary schools in various parts of Armenia. When
the sultan began to persecute the Armenians the schools were closed
and the society was converted into a political organization, but since
the revolution it has been re organized under an excellent board of
managers and is doing good work, establishing schools in different
parts of that province.
“They already have opened sixty to my knowledge and the number is
increasing so fast that it is difficult to keep track of them. Mr.
Minassian, a graduate of Yale, who took a post-graduate course in
pedagogy and applied sciences at Harvard, is the superintendent
of these schools--and a very competent man. He could have been an
assistant professor at Yale if he had been willing to stay there,
but he came over here to assist in the regeneration of his native
country and is doing splendid work. He is making a special feature of
agriculture and is teaching the young men, and the old men, also, how
to get better results from the soil.
“The missionaries in Armenia are considering the question of placing
their common schools under his direction, and I think within a few
years it will be an accomplished fact, provided they can come to some
satisfactory understanding concerning the regulations. Armenia will be
the most progressive and prosperous part of the Ottoman Empire before
many years. The ambition of the people is unbounded; their national
pride is stronger and their industry is greater than that of any other
race. No people have suffered so much, but none has gained more than
the Armenians.”
“Has there been any change in the policy of the government toward
education?”
“Decidedly. The new government seems to be working very hard to
organize an educational system throughout the empire and is copying
European methods. It is sending boys to foreign countries to be
educated for teachers, and is also placing students in almost every one
of the American colleges and high schools. Five government students
have matriculated at Robert College and five young women entered
the American College for Girls last winter to be educated at the
government’s expense as instructors in the national schools. When the
American College for Girls moves to its new location next year, the
imperial government will start a school in their old building, with
the American college as its model. Normal schools and high schools are
being opened as fast as competent instructors can be found, but the
great obstacle to the extension of the school system is the lack of
teachers and the inability to pay such salaries as will tempt educated
men to undertake the work.
“The most significant and satisfactory feature of the new régime is
the recognition of Christian schools on the same basis as Moslem
schools by the Department of Education. In the allotment of the
funds appropriated for education the American missionary schools are
receiving the same assistance as those recently organized by the
government.”
In the work of the American missionaries in Turkey, as in other parts
of the world, printing presses are of importance. Without them little
could have been accomplished; slow progress would have been made.
There are two great publication houses in the near East, one under the
direction of the Presbyterian board at Beirut, and the other under the
Congregational church in Constantinople. They are the most complete
and modern printing plants in that part of the world, representing an
investment of many thousands of dollars and equal to any of their size
in the United States. The presses are going all the time, turning out
an average of fifty million pages each a year in not less than ten
languages. The output, since the presses were established in 1833, has
undoubtedly been as large as that of any other printing house in the
world, and indeed there are few of longer or greater age or better
record.
The entire plan of missionary work in Turkey at the beginning was based
upon the use of these presses, and within three years after the first
missionaries arrived in that field, a plant was set up on the island of
Malta to furnish literature for Palestine and Turkey. It was considered
unsafe to attempt at that time to do any printing on Turkish soil, and
Malta, being under the British flag, was the nearest locality where
the presses could run without interruption. In 1833, the political
atmosphere having cleared, the Arabic outfit was transferred to Beirut
in Syria, while the Greek, Turkish, and Armenian branches were set up
in Smyrna. During the ten years at Malta, more than twenty-one million
pages were printed for the benefit of Greeks, Armenians and Turks. This
included text-books for the elementary schools, which were chiefly
translations of standard American editions. Then came the Bible, which
has since been translated and published entire in four different
languages, and partially in several more, and distributed by millions
of copies throughout the East.
The Bible was translated into Turkish and published at Smyrna in 1836.
Dr. Elias Riggs’s translation into Armenian was published in 1852, and
his translation into Bulgarian in 1871. The Arabic Bible, translated by
Smith and Van Dyck, has since been issued from the Beirut press, and
more than 1,500,000 copies have been circulated.
In a single year the American press at Beirut issued 152,500 volumes of
distinctively Biblical literature, with a total of 47,278,000 pages, in
addition to nearly 9,000,000 pages of text-books and other literature,
making a total of 56,000,000 pages from that one plant.
This other literature consists of hymn books, school books of all
kinds and of all grades, from kindergarten material to theological
and medical works; picture books for children, Christmas cards,
Sunday-school lessons, story books, translations of standard works, and
several original works by both native and American authors.
The work of Bible publication has since continued under the patronage
of the American Bible Society and the British and Foreign Bible
Societies, until the entire Scriptures are now available for all
Turkish, Arabic, Syrian, Persian, Armenian, Bulgarian, and Greek
speaking peoples, and the New Testament, the Psalms and other parts
are available for Kurds and Albanians. It is bound in cheap form and
convenient size and sold at cost. Very few copies are given away.
Although the Armenian claims to be the oldest branch of the Christian
church, yet when the American missionaries came, they had only a few
manuscript copies of the Bible, kept in monasteries or in the larger
churches, carefully guarded by priests who were themselves unable to
read the text, while the people were permitted only to kiss the covers
which were often of solid silver. To-day, thanks to Dr. Elias Riggs,
one of the veteran American missionaries, every Armenian can have his
copy of the Scriptures in his own language at a nominal price. It is a
significant fact that the editions are disposed of as rapidly as they
are turned off the press, and it is asserted by competent authority
that this book has done more to unify and simplify the modern Armenian
language than all other influences combined.
The same is true of the Bulgarian language. There was no Bulgarian
literature until American missionaries began to write it, and the
missionary presses began to publish it. Of the first one hundred books
in the Bulgarian language seventy were issued by the missionary press
at Smyrna and Constantinople.
The Kurds, a powerful and populous element of the Turkish Empire, had
no written language and no literature of any kind until the American
missionaries created one for them and translated the New Testament into
the local dialect written with Armenian characters.
The Albanians had no literature when the Americans came, and it would
not be far from the truth to say that they have none now except what
the missionaries have given them.
Although every Turk is a Mohammedan and the sultan of Turkey is the
recognized head of that faith, the Koran, the Moslem Bible, written by
the prophet Mohammed, has never been printed in the Turkish language,
but remains exclusively in the Arabic tongue, in which it is written,
but the Bible has been printed in Turkish for nearly seventy-five
years, and may be read to-day in his own dialect by every one of the
many races which constitute the Mohammedan world.
When the Americans first began to issue literature in Arabic the
scholars of that race criticised the type, which had been made in
Europe and was about as perfect as English type would be if it were
made by an Arab. Rev. Eli Smith, who was in charge at that time,
realized that half the value of the American publications would be
lost unless their typographical appearance met with the approval of
the artistic taste of Mohammedan scholars. The type did not exist and
it was his duty to create it. He made models of the letters of the
alphabet by copying them from choice Arabic manuscripts, and in 1836
he took them to Germany to be cast. The voyage ended in a shipwreck
and all his work was lost in the waters of the Mediterranean. Dr.
Smith, however, was a patient and persistent man. He began again at
the beginning and did it all over with the greatest care and fonts of
type were cast in the Tauchnitz establishment at Leipzig under his
supervision. After five years of patient labour, the first book was
issued from the mission press at Beirut in 1841, and it was not only a
model of the “art preservative,” but was undoubtedly the most perfect
and beautiful specimen of Arabic printing ever seen.
Then the work of printing the Bible was decided upon and Dr. Smith
was detailed to superintend it. It was the labour of his life, and
no literary task was ever conducted with such conscientious care. As
soon as he had completed one of the books it was put into type, and
a hundred proofs were struck off and sent to educated Syrians and
Arabs and British, American and German scholars, whose criticisms were
carefully considered, and, after twenty-eight years of hard work by Dr.
Smith and his successor, Dr. Van Dyck, the American press at Beirut
issued a translation which has received the approval of all the real
Arabic scholars of the day.
The next step was to electrotype the pages and secure duplicate plates
that would insure its preservation forever, and that long and costly
labour, which involved probably the hardest task of proof-reading ever
undertaken, has recently been completed by Dr. Franklin P. Hoskins of
Beirut.
The mission press of Beirut, under Dr. Hoskins’s direction, had
already issued 1,535,266 copies of the Arabic Bible up to December
31, 1909, which have been distributed among the Mohammedan races from
the Adriatic to the Yellow Seas. Thousands of copies have gone to our
Mohammedan wards in the Philippines. They are to be found in Yucatan,
in Brazil, in the Argentine Republic, and at the Cape of Good Hope.
There is a regular demand from every section of Asia and Africa, where
most of the followers of Mohammed live. They generally accept the Old
Testament as history and claim the patriarchs and the prophets as their
own.
Next in importance to the publication of the Bible, has been the work
of producing text-books for the schools in the East. Like the general
literature, they are mostly reprints and translations of American
editions, but they have to be adapted in a measure to local conditions.
The courses in the American colleges in Turkey are conducted in
English, but French, German, Turkish, and other languages are taught.
For these American text-books are used, the same as in our own
colleges, but for the common schools of the Turkish Empire an entire
set of school books had to be created by the American missionaries,
which have since been adopted by the government for local use.
No geography, or history, or arithmetic, or anything else in Turkish
or the other ten languages in common use in that empire existed when
the Americans undertook their campaign of education seventy-five years
ago. They had to be prepared and printed with the sultan’s stupid and
malicious censors looking over the shoulders of the writers and the
printers and the proof-readers to prevent the publication of anything
that might reflect upon the benign policy of “the great assassin,” as
Mr. Gladstone called him, or suggest to the people ideas inconsistent
with their poverty and retrogression. Many amusing stories are told
of the ridiculous rules and corrections made by these censors. Even
the text of the Bible had to be changed and certain passages omitted
because they taught the doctrine of human rights and referred to
penalties visited upon unjust rulers by God and man. The word Armenia,
the name of one of the largest provinces of the Ottoman Empire, was
forbidden, and the name of Macedonia, another, was also placed upon the
list of terms that could not be used. The same rules that were applied
by the censors to daily newspapers were applied to the Bible and all
other books, but nevertheless the presses have never been stopped and
the influence of the literature they have issued is incalculable.
For two generations the two publishing houses of the American missions
have issued newspapers in Armenian, Greek, Bulgarian, Arabic, and other
languages used in the Turkish Empire, which have had a wide circulation
and a permanent influence among all classes. These papers contain
reviews of current events, religious intelligence, stories and poetry,
miscellaneous information, and have been the only newspapers that have
been allowed to circulate in certain portions of the empire.
_The Orient_, a weekly founded by Herbert Allen and published by the
Bible House in Constantinople, for example, contains items of interest
to the native Christian communities all over the empire. Among other
things I have found in it the best reports of the proceedings of the
Turkish Parliament I have seen anywhere.
Monthly magazines containing religious and general literature are
issued regularly and have a large circulation. Theological and
scientific discussions and the news of the scientific world are
published for the benefit of professional readers. In other words, the
missionary presses have been putting out for circulation throughout the
Turkish Empire the same sort of literature that is expected from our
own first-class publishing houses in the United States, to supply the
needs of people whose intellects are gradually awakening, to develop
native writers, and to create a demand for their writings, so that they
may live by their pens.
There have been many eminent and remarkable men among the American
missionaries in Turkey, and several of them have had remarkable
experiences. The career of the Rev. Dr. Elias Riggs stands unique in
missionary annals. For sixty-nine years he laboured in the Turkish
Empire, with only one visit to the United States. On that occasion,
he was invited to accept a professorship at Yale University, which he
promptly declined in order to continue his missionary work. Doctor
Riggs was a genius in languages. He was one of the most learned men
of his time. He was the King of Translators. He translated the Bible
and other books into all the languages of Turkey and Bulgaria. He
translated many hymns into those languages, and many of his own verses
are still sung in the Christian churches of the East. His entire life
was devoted to the labour of bringing Christian literature within
reach of the numerous races which composed the Ottoman Empire, for no
foreigner has ever known their complex dialects so well as he.
At one time there was a very stormy meeting of missionaries at
Constantinople. Good men often differ in opinion and sometimes do not
hesitate to criticise the opinions of others. If everybody thought
alike this world would not make much progress. We all know that
friction makes the wheels go round. It was one of those occasions when
good men of strong character differ as to the proper course that should
be adopted, and the discussion was long and earnest, and sometimes
so earnest that some of the wise and good men lost their tempers. A
new-comer, who was deeply interested in the debate and sat through the
sessions for several days, asked one of his colleagues the name of “a
little old man who has been present from the beginning and has never
said a word.” The reply was:
“That is Dr. Elias Riggs, and he is able to keep silent in seventeen
different languages.”
At the dedication of a new church in Smyrna, several years ago, the
programme of exercises was made up so that every community in that
polyglot city should be represented, and Dr. Riggs, who presided,
introduced each speaker in the language he was to use.
Dr. Cyrus Hamlin, founder of Robert College at Constantinople, was a
master of colloquial conversation, which he picked up by contact with
his fellow men rather than from books, and, while he was not always
correct in his moods and tenses, he never failed to make himself
understood. He used to tell a good story on himself to illustrate the
difference between his own linguistic accomplishments and those of Dr.
Riggs. He said that a learned Armenian, complimenting him upon the
freedom with which he spoke that language, remarked:
“Dr. Riggs, he speaks the Armenian grammatic; but you speak Armenian
idiotic.”
Dr. Riggs was never detected in a grammatical error in the use of
the seventeen languages with which he was familiar. Whether he was
speaking, writing, or translating, he used each language “grammatic.”
When Dr. Riggs was in the prime of his usefulness, a committee
previously appointed, finished a translation of the New Testament in
the Komanji language, which is spoken by a barbaric klan of Kurds
in the mountains of northern Mesopotamia and the eastern section of
Turkey. When the committee brought their manuscript to the printing
office at the Bible House in Constantinople, they were asked if they
had submitted it to Dr. Riggs. They replied promptly:
“Dr. Riggs has never been in the Kurdistan mountains; he knows nothing
of the Komanji language, and, therefore, we have never thought of
consulting him.”
And they were very much annoyed at the pressure brought upon them by
people at the Bible House who insisted that the manuscript ought to
be submitted to the criticism of the greatest translator in the world
before subjecting the board to the expense of putting it in type.
The committee was finally compelled to yield, and asked Dr. Riggs
if he would spare them a few hours to listen to a reading of their
translation. He readily consented, and came into the conference with
his well-worn old copy of the Greek Testament under his arm. As one of
the committee read the Komanji version of the Gospel of St. Matthew
aloud, Dr. Riggs followed him in his Greek text, and, in the middle
of the second chapter, asked why they had translated a certain phrase
differently from that given in the first chapter. The translators made
a note of the criticism and said they would look it up. They made a
similar note of another criticism a short time later, and then several
more, and before they had finished the Gospel of St. Matthew, they
turned the whole manuscript over for Dr. Riggs to review and were
finally compelled to put it through another thorough revision in which
they were guided by his advice.
When he was quite a young man and shortly after he entered the field,
Dr. Riggs was thrown in with a party of Albanians for several weeks
while travelling in that province. Twenty-five years later at a
meeting of the American missionaries in European Turkey, a committee
was appointed to arrange for the preparation and publication of an
Albanian grammar. During the discussion, Dr. Riggs said nothing, but
after a decision had been reached and a committee had been appointed,
he remarked quietly to the chairman that several years before, while
in Albania, he had taken a few notes concerning the language and would
be glad to put them into the hands of the committee, who might find
them of some aid in their work. The chairman took the manuscripts and
thanked him. When the committee met and came to examine the “few notes”
of Dr. Riggs, they were astonished to find that they comprised an
almost complete grammar of the Albanian language, the fullest that had
ever been undertaken, and it was the foundation of the text-book that
was shortly afterward published.
The value of the services rendered by Dr. Riggs to the people of
the various races which compose the Ottoman Empire can never be
overestimated. He not only gave them translations of the Bible
and other Christian literature, but furnished them the means of
recording their spoken languages. By his translations of the Bible
he accomplished for the Armenians, the Bulgarians, and other Turkish
races, what the King James Version of the Holy Scriptures accomplished
for the English language and the English-speaking people, and what the
translations and dictionary of Dr. Hepburn did for Japan. He made the
literature of these races accessible to other scholars.
Another remarkable linguist among the American missionaries in Turkey
was the Rev. Dr. William Gottlieb Schauffler, a native of Stuttgart,
Germany, and a graduate of Andover. He was a very versatile man,
being not only a great scholar and linguist, but a powerful preacher,
a skilful musician, a fascinating conversationalist, and a man of
brilliant social attainments. He translated the Old Testament into
Spanish, and his work was published in Vienna. He also translated the
entire Bible into the Osmanli-Turkish. His son, Rev. Dr. Henry Albert
Schauffler, who was born at Constantinople, and educated at Williams
College and Andover Seminary, was engaged among the Slavic population
of Cleveland, Ohio, during the later years of his life.
Rev. Dr. Edwin Elijah Bliss, a graduate of Amherst College and Andover
Seminary, went to Trebizond in 1843, and spent his life in missionary
work there and at Erzeroom, Marsovan, and Constantinople, where he died
at a ripe old age in 1892. His principal and widely influential service
was the preparation and publication of books for other missionaries to
use among the natives; and he edited the mission periodical called the
Avedaper for many years.
There was another famous missionary of the same name, Dr. Isaac Grout
Bliss, also a graduate of Amherst and Andover, who represented the
American Bible Society at Constantinople for many years. He raised
the funds and built the Bible House at Constantinople, which is the
headquarters of American missionary and educational work in Turkey.
Dr. Wilson Amos Fornsworth, a graduate of Middlebury College and
Andover Seminary, and his wife, Caroline Elizabeth Palmer Fornsworth,
were, perhaps, next to Dr. Riggs, the longest in the service. They
were at Cæsarea from 1852 to 1903, a period of fifty-one years. During
this time, he travelled 75,000 miles in his missionary work, including
30,000 miles on horseback.
Harrison Grey Otis Dwight, D.D., who was one of the earliest
missionaries in the field, was a graduate of Hamilton College and
Andover Seminary, and went out to Turkey in 1830, where he remained
until his death in 1862. Doctor Dwight’s explorations in Asiatic
Turkey and in Persia in 1831–32, led to the establishment of the
American missions in Armenia and Nestoria. He was a man of remarkable
talent, judgment, and discernment, and an intrepid explorer and pioneer.
[Illustration: A Mosque of Baku]
[Illustration: Persian quarter, Baku]
The late Justice Brewer of the United States Supreme Court, was the son
of Rev. Josiah Brewer, one of the earliest American missionaries in
Turkey, and was born at Smyrna in 1837. His mother was a member of the
famous Field family of Stockbridge, Mass., a sister of David Dudley,
Cyrus, Henry, and Stephen J. Field.
The pioneer of the education of women in Turkey was Eliza Fritcher,
a native of Millport, N. Y., and a graduate of Mt. Holyoke Seminary.
She set in operation and for more than thirty years managed a
boarding-school for girls at Marsovan, which is now a large and
influential institution.
Charlotte Elizabeth Ely, and her sister, Mary Anne Ely, both graduates
of Mt. Holyoke, also did very important work in the education of girls.
Maria Abigail West, another pioneer, spent her life in strenuous
service among the women and children of Armenia. And there were many
others equally earnest and equally useful in the early days. It is a
remarkable fact that no American missionary in Turkey has ever retired
from that field because of a lack of interest or encouragement in the
work.