PROGRESS AND POWER OF CHRISTIAN MISSIONS IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE.
In the following pages have been gathered a few very important papers
that will be of permanent value, but necessarily the limits are very
narrow, and only a sketch of the beneficent influences of the sweet
and holy Gospel of Jesus as it comes into the dark, and cruel and
ignorant heart of Moslem heathen, or breathes a new life into the
dead forms of the ancient church of Armenia can be given. It may,
however, be the less regretted as the great missionary periodicals
of every Christian church have given to Christendom for years the
ever thrilling and precious story of the victories won by grace. It
is to be hoped however that these papers will freshen the interest
of the reader and increase his faith in the coming of the kingdom
of Christ--the kingdom of peace and good will and righteousness,
wherein the terrible evils which prevail under the rule of Islam
shall never more be done, but the will of God be sweetly supreme.
A CHAPTER OF MISSION HISTORY IN TURKEY.
BY REV. H. O. DWIGHT, OF CONSTANTINOPLE.
The providential preparation for the opening of the mission of the
American Board at Constantinople sixty years ago was sufficiently
remarkable to warrant recalling the story. In the year 1825 a tract
by the Rev. Jonas King on the necessity of studying the Scriptures
was published in Syria. It was translated into Armenian by Bishop
Dionysius at Beirût and sent in manuscript to an influential Armenian
at Constantinople. Its convincing words produced an extraordinary
effect upon all who read them. Minds largely ignorant of the Bible
and its teachings were aroused at once, to see the lacks of the
Armenian Church in the matter of Bible knowledge. A school, having
for its principal object the education of the clergy, was established
at the Armenian Patriarchate at Constantinople, under charge of the
eminent teacher Peshtimiljian. A rule limiting ordinations for the
priesthood in Constantinople to graduates at this school was adopted,
indicating slightly the ignorance which had been prevalent up to that
time among the ordinary priesthood. Peshtimiljian, the head master
of the new school, was a learned man for his day and was also firm
in his conviction that the Bible is the sole standard of Christian
life and doctrine.
Thus it was that when five or six years later the missionaries of the
Board went to reside at Constantinople, there to urge upon the people
individual examination of the Bible, their access to Armenians was
easy. They found a strong group in the Armenian Church who were already
exercised with this question, although it was pathetically evident
that they had no idea that any other branch of the Christian Church
was equally interested in the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is noteworthy
that all the first converts under the labors of the missionaries at
Constantinople and many of the later ones received their first impulse
towards evangelical Christianity from the school of Peshtimiljian,
and that, perhaps, before a missionary had reached Constantinople.
An impressive ceremony in the Armenian Patriarchal Church in
Constantinople, held in September, 1833, was part of the fruits of
this remarkable movement. It was the first ordination of Armenian
priests under the new rule. Fifteen young men, who had completed their
studies in the school, were then solemnly set apart for the priest's
office, and the missionaries were specially invited to be present at
the ceremony. One of the men ordained on that day, the Rev. Kevork
Ardzrouni, had been brought into such relations to the missionaries,
that after his ordination Dr. Goodell and Dr. Dwight could call upon
him in his cell of retirement. As they were leaving, Der Kevork asked
an interest in their prayers. It surely was not without significance
in the after life of this priest that there, at the threshold of his
church service, he received the benediction of that holy servant of
God, Rev. William Goodell, who solemnly invoked upon him the descent
of the Holy Spirit as they stood together in the cloisters of the
Armenian Patriarchate.
Der Kevork's name appears repeatedly in all the early records of the
mission at Constantinople. His early history was inseparably linked
with the history of the founding of the mission. He himself, full
of years and of good works, died at Constantinople in January 1984,
at the age of one hundred and seven. From the first Der Kevork was
prominent among the fifteen priests, ordained on that great day in
1833, as a man of learning and of piety. During five or six years
after his ordination he was one of the principal teachers in a great
Armenian school in Hasskeuy, the religious influence of which he at
least helped to make as pure and as strong as that of the mission
school. He also spent much time at that early day in visiting from
house to house among the people, reading the Scriptures, and exhorting
the people to obey the gospel message. Wherever he was there was a
quiet but powerful influence for the spread of evangelical ideas.
Then came the reaction against the evangelicals. The more ignorant and
bigoted of the clergy looked with terror upon the influx of light among
the common people. It seemed to promise only harm to ecclesiastics
who had not, and cared not to have, spiritual understanding of the
priestly duty. The reactionary party gained the control of the church,
they secured the imprisonment and banishment of the evangelical
leaders in the Armenian Church, and the excommunication and cruel
persecution of all among the laity who persisted in claiming the right
to read the Bible and to judge by it of the value of the usages of the
ancient church. Der Kevork was one of the pious priests imprisoned
in 1839 and banished to a remote part of Asia Minor. The whole hope
of reform in the Armenian Church seemed to be destroyed. The Sultan
made a proclamation against the Protestants as enemies of the peace
of the empire; the ecclesiastics, citing the fact that Dr. Hamlin
did not make the sign of the cross or fast, officially asked for his
expulsion from Bebek; the American Episcopal missionary added fuel
to the flame by translating into Armenian, for the edification of
the reactionary party among the clergy, passages from the Missionary
Herald, which he claimed showed a purpose to break up the church, and
in print and in speech he denounced the missionaries of the Board as
infidels and "radicals." All these circumstances had their influence
upon the mind of Der Kevork, and by the time this terrible persecution
had led in 1846 to the organization of a separate evangelical church
at Constantinople, Der Kevork had decided to make his peace with his
own church and to break off relations with the missionaries. In doing
this he did violence to his conscience. But his hope that still he
might be able to aid in reforming his church from within, offers
sufficient justification for charity towards this pious priest.
It was long before Der Kevork ventured to renew intimate relations
with the missionaries and the evangelical Armenians. I can remember,
forty years ago, being taken by my father to see Der Kevork in his home
in Hasskeuy. There was evident constraint in their conversation, but
the old affection of twenty years before still existed. And when the
old man--for his beard even then was white as snow--laid his hand on
my head and said, "God bless you, my son, and make you a good man!" it
was like a blessing from a man of God.
As the conscience of the venerable priest more and more resumed
its sway over his life he became more and more earnest in teaching
evangelical truth. His great age made it necessary some time ago for
him to commit the principal part of his parish duties to an assistant,
happily a kindred spirit. But his influence in the Armenian Church,
especially during the last fifteen years, has been thoroughly and
penetratingly the influence of a simple and pure-minded Gospel
Christian. He had a standing order in the Bible House for all new
religious publications, and to the day of his death he loved to talk
with missionaries and pastors of the evangelical church upon the things
of the kingdom. His last sermon was preached at Easter, 1892, when
he was carried in a chair to the church which he had served for more
than half a century. There, supported by loving arms, he preached a
most powerful discourse upon the duty of Bible study and of conformity
of life thereto in pure and spiritual piety and devotion to Christ.
The public life of this aged priest of the Gregorian Armenian Church
corresponded with the whole period of the existence of the American
Board's mission among the Armenians. His spiritual life was largely
determined by the influence of the fathers of that mission, and the
outcome of his work was essentially on the same lines as the work of
the mission. It is, then, a suggestive token of the great change which
God had already effected in the Armenian Church that Protestants and
Armenians joined in mourning his loss, and that both honored in him
the same traits of character: a hearty love for the simple gospel
and a life conformed to the life of Jesus Christ.
HAVE MISSIONS IN TURKEY BEEN A FAILURE?
BY A. H. HAIGAZIAN.
University of Chicago.
It is only a short time that I have been in America; yet my intercourse
with American friends has led me to this conclusion, that the people
in general do not know what the missions have done in Turkey.
So far as I can judge, much has been said on the dark side of the
mission work. It seems to me that even the missionaries who return
home for a short rest, finding the people more interested with the
funny customs of the Old East; they are tempted to forget to tell
more about the results of the missions.
I thoroughly admit, that the need must be pictured before the eyes of
the people as vividly as possible, and for this end the costumes and
the beliefs of the natives are to be discussed. This must be done;
but on the other hand, the results and the fruits of the sincere
prayers and long toils should not be omitted. The former pleases the
people but the latter encourages them.
Dear American friends, I assure you that the missions in Turkey have
not been a failure. Your prayers and best wishes for Turkey have been
answered by the Great Master of the work.
The mission's first and most important work has been in the
establishment of many strong and evangelical churches in Turkey. At
this point you must remember that the main work of the missions in
Asiatic Turkey has been among Armenians. Missionaries do not preach
to Moslems or Mohammedans in Turkey, as it is often supposed. Neither
do they preach to heathen. Now the Armenians had already accepted
Christianity in the beginning of the fourth century as a whole
nation, and to this day they have kept Christianity in their national
church. But the intercourse with the Greek and Roman Catholic churches,
took out the vital element from the church. Now the whole missionary
effort is spent to reform the Old Armenian Church; and to a great
extent they are successful. I call the work of the missions in Turkey
only a reformation, nevertheless a great reformation. The attention of
the people has been directed to the Bible itself. The most important
and principal doctrines of Christianity have been preached to the
souls in a more open and simple way. Sunday schools, Young Men's and
Young Women's Christian Associations and Christian Endeavor Societies
have been formed, which were almost unknown before the mission
work. From the ignorant women of Turkey have come out many Hannahs
and Monicas. "Jesus, lover of my soul," "My faith looks up to Thee,"
"Nearer, my God, to Thee," and many other hymns which are used so much
among you, are also the favorite hymns of these Armenian Evangelical
churches. Even the most ignorant woman sings them without having a
hymn book in her hand. When you lift up your voices here in America
in Christian prayers and songs, be sure that at that moment, four
thousand miles beyond in Turkey, many voices have been lifted up with
the same spirit towards heaven. Yours and theirs ascend together up to
the throne of Almighty God. They have no such magnificent buildings for
their churches as you have here. In many churches they have no organ or
piano; a poor people. Yet if you should see those Protestant churches,
their sincerity, their piety, and their love for the truth of God,
you would surely say, "Truly the Gospel is preached to the poor."
The educational work of the missions has been not less successful. The
colleges and theological seminaries of the missions among those
Protestant churches can be well compared with the many colleges and
the theological seminaries of America. And the graduates of these
institutions are carrying on the work of the missions. We have
there able professors, able preachers and successful revivalists
and evangelists. Dr. Daniels, the secretary of the American Board,
recently in one of the Congregational churches of Chicago said:
"Our missionaries have laid the foundation, but our native preachers
and professors are building up the rest."
The congregations are made ready to hear more thoughtful
sermons. Don't think that it will be a very easy matter to preach in
those churches. Criticism of sermons is not confined to American and
European churches. Even the sermons of the missionaries are not so
welcome as before. They are nowadays anxious to hear only the thoughts
that come out from thoroughly educated minds. The cities of Marash,
Aintab, etc., which are educational centers, are choosing their pastors
from those who are educated in the American universities. The ideals
of the people are going to be higher and higher. The present colleges
and seminaries are being obliged almost every year to change their
programs, to fit them to the conditions and wants of the people.
Missions have awakened an interest among the people in the musical
department. Vocal music is taught in every high school. Haydn, Handel,
Mozart, Beethoven, etc., are familiar names to both educated young
men and women. The "Hallelujah Chorus" of Handel, and many other
classic pieces are sung in social meetings. During these last years
kindergartens have done much in the education of the young folks. The
kindergartens of Smyrna, Cæsarea, Aintab, Marash and Hadjin are very
successful. Those children can sing many English songs.
"Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder, what you are"
is one which I have heard many times. Even non-Protestants are much
attracted by this kind of education, and I think this is a good
opportunity for missions.
The third and last result of the missions which I will mention, is the
social improvement among the natives. The poverty of the people has
been a hindrance to this. Yet the improvement on this point cannot
be denied. An educated young man in Armenia wears the dress of an
American gentleman, with this difference, that, the former puts on
his fez instead of hat. Especially young women of the cities cannot
be distinguished by their dress from European or American young women.
These are some direct results of the missions. Besides, the missions
have done a great deal indirectly. Non-Protestant Armenians also
have been awakened to their duties. The preaching of the gospel
is becoming more common among them, and I am sure there are
hundreds of Armenians, who do not call themselves Protestants,
who are in reality Protestants. If so, then have missions been a
failure? Mrs. Scott-Stevenson in her book entitled "Our Ride Through
Asia Minor," severely criticises the missions, their aims and their
methods. If she should criticise only their methods, I should agree
with her in some degree; but to criticise the sacred aim of preaching
the Gospel is non-Christian sentiment, and I am sure she must have
taken those notes under the influences of the wines of Turkey, which
she seems very much delighted with.
Let me add one point more. The missionaries succeed better among
Armenians than among any Christian sects in Turkey. And why? Simply
because they love the truth. The history of the Armenian church proves
this. The history of the missions in Turkey proves this. Because
their motto is progress. Forward to a higher spirituality; forward to
a higher education; forward to a higher civilization. And no wonder
that they accept reformation so readily. They believe that the Kingdom
of God brings with itself all that which is necessary for a nation.
And we cannot help but mention our hearty gratitude to the American
Board. Thanks for their love of humanity; thanks for their liberal
gifts; thanks for their prayers, and thanks for their missionaries. Yet
there is much to be done. We need more help. The harvest is ready--more
reapers! The points thus far mentioned are pledges for a greater
success.
[The following paper was contributed to the "World's Congress of
Missions," held at Chicago in 1893. The "Parliament of Religions" will
long be remembered as the most remarkable gathering the world has yet
seen of the defenders of the Ethnic Faiths of the world. Representative
men from the ends of the earth brought to this parliament the best
religious thought of their respective faiths. It was the high water
mark of that which the best and wisest of men have discovered or that
has been revealed concerning God, duty and destiny.]
MODERN TRIUMPHS OF THE GOSPEL IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE.
REV. HENRY H. JESSUP, D. D.
To recount the triumphs of the Gospel in the Ottoman Empire would be
to write the history of its moral, intellectual and social progress
for the past seventy-five years.
When Pliny Fisk and Levi Parsons sailed for Jerusalem in 1818
the Ottoman Empire was virtually a "terra incognita." Ruling over
thirty-five millions of souls in Southeastern Europe, Western Asia and
Northern Africa, of whom twelve millions were Oriental Christians,
this great empire had not a school excepting the Koranic medrisehs
for boys in the mosques, and its vast populations were in a state of
intellectual, moral and religious stagnation. These young Americans
were instructed to ascertain "what good could be done for Jews,
Pagans, Mohammedans and Christians in Egypt, Syria, Persia, Armenia
and other adjacent countries." Fisk died in Beirut in 1826, and by his
grave was planted a little cypress tree. Parsons died in Alexandria,
and his grave is unknown. They both "died without the sight" of fruit
from their labors.
Three-quarters of a century have passed, and to-day we are asked,
what good has been done to Jews, Pagans, Mohammedans and Christians
in this great empire?
The work to be done in 1820 was formidable and the means seemingly
contemptible. What could a handful of young men and women accomplish,
coming from a distant land whose very existence was discredited, to an
empire whose political and religious systems had been fossilized for
centuries, where schools, books and Bibles were unknown? For these
inexperienced youth from the land of the Pilgrims, reared in the
air of civil and religious liberty, trained to hate all despotism,
political or ecclesiastical, and to love a free press, free schools,
and absolute freedom of conscience, to attempt to change public opinion
and renovate society, to reform the Oriental churches and liberalize
Islam, seemed a forlorn and desperate venture.
Seventy years have passed. Sultans have risen and fallen. Patriarchs
and Bishops remain, but Turkey is not what it was in 1820, and can
never retrograde to those days of darkness. That little evergreen
tree planted by Pliny Fisk's grave in the suburbs of a town of eight
thousand population has grown to be a stately cypress tree in the
very center of a city of ninety thousand people. Overlooking it is
a female seminary, a large church edifice, a Sunday school hall,
a printing house, which sends out more than twenty millions of
pages annually. That little iron door to the east opens into a vault
containing thirteen thousand electrotype plates of various editions
of the Arabic Scriptures. Within a radius of two miles are four
Christian colleges, seven female seminaries, sixty boys' day schools,
thirty-one girls' schools, seventeen printing presses, and four large
hospitals. The boys' and girls' schools belong to the Protestants,
Catholics, Greeks, Muslims and Jews, and sixteen thousand children
are under instruction. Scores of Muslim girls are as familiar with
the Old Testament prophecies with regard to Christ as are our Sunday
school children at home. Bibles, hymn books and Christian literature,
as well as scientific, historical and educational works, are scattered
over the city and throughout the land. Young Syrian women, formerly
shut up in ignorance and illiteracy, now enjoy the instruction of
home libraries and useful periodicals, and even carry on discussions
in the public press and write books of decided merit....
THE OUTCOME.
I. The Gospel has triumphed in securing in a great measure to the
people of Turkey that most precious treasure, religious liberty and
freedom of conscience.
In 1820, every Ottoman subject had a right to remain in his own
sect and to think as his fathers thought before him. Muslim could
remain Muslim, Greek remain Greek, Armenian Armenian, and Maronite
Maronite. Each sect was a walled enclosure with gates bolted and
barred, and the only possible egress from any was into the fold
of Islam.
The appearance of an open Bible, the preaching of the Gospel, free
schools and open discussion of religious questions threw all things
into confusion. Not a few received the Gospel and claimed the right
to think for themselves.... Anathemas, the major excommunication,
stripes and imprisonment, intimidated some, but drove multitudes
out of the Oriental Churches, and as the imperial laws regarded
every man outside the traditional sects as an outlaw, exile, death,
or recantation seemed their only possible fate.
But these storms of persecution developed some of the noblest types
of Christian character. True heroic spirits, like Asaad esh Shidiak in
Lebanon, preferred death to submission to the doctrines of a priestly
hierarchy. The Maronite monastery of Connobîn, near the Cedars of
Lebanon, where he was walled up in a cell under the overhanging cliff
and starved to death, has become memorable in Syria as the scene of the
first martyrdom for the evangelical faith in Turkey in modern times.
Scourging, imprisonment and exile have been the lot of multitudes
who have stood steadfast amid their sufferings. Mr. Butrus Bistany,
a young Maronite scholar, who found the truth as Luther found it,
in a monastery, fled for his life to Beirut, and remained concealed
for two years in the American Mission, fearing death at the hands
of the spies of the Patriarch. But he was spared to be a pillar in
the Protestant Church, a learned Arabic author, the assistant of Eli
Smith in Bible translation, and the biographer of Asaad esh Shidiak....
Kamil Abdul Messiah, a youthful Syrian convert to Christianity from
Islam, who died in Bussorah in June, 1892, seemed baptized by the
Holy Spirit and divinely instructed in the Word of God. He grasped the
vital truths of the Gospel as by a Heavenly instinct. He was a youth
of pure life and lips, of faith and prayer, of courage and zeal, and
he was mighty in the Scriptures. In Southern Arabia he preached in the
streets of towns, in Arab camps, on the deck of coasting ships, and
even in mosques. His journals read like chapters from the Acts. His
early death was a loss to the Arab race, but his memory is fragrant
with the aroma of a pure and godly life and example.
Time would fail us to recount the history of the able writers,
the liberal Christian merchants, the faithful pastors and teachers,
the godly physicians, the self-denying poor, the patient, loving,
and exemplary women, who have been Christ's witnesses during these
years of toil and prayer in Syria.
In November, 1847, an Imperial decree recognized native Protestants
as an independent community with a civil head.
In 1850 the Sultan gave a firman granting to Protestants all
the privileges given to other Christian communities, and in 1853
another, declaring Christians before the law equal in all respects
to Mohammedans, and the death penalty for apostasy from Islam was
abolished. This Magna Charta of Protestant rights is the charter of
liberty of conscience to all men in Turkey.
The Ottoman Government became to a great extent tolerant, and to-day,
as compared with its Northern Muscovite neighbor, it is a model of
toleration. There is no open legal persecution for conscience's sake.
The Bible in its various languages is distributed throughout the
Empire, with the imperial permit printed on the title page. There is
not yet liberty to print controversial books touching the religion of
Islam, although Islamic works attacking Christianity are distributed
openly, with official approbation. The censorship of the press is
rigid, but the existing Christian literature is rarely interfered with.
The Sheikh ul Islam in Constantinople recently replied officially
to a European convert to Islam who asked his aid in entering the
Mohammedan religion, that "religion is a matter between man and
God, and that no sheikh or priest or mediator is needed in man's
approach to his Maker." This is one of the cardinal principles of
Christianity,--the difference consisting in this:--that while the
Sheikh ul Islam probably meant to exclude even the mediation of Christ,
the Gospel claims Christ as the only Mediator.
It is also true that if any Christian wishes to become a Mohammedan he
must go before the Kadi, who summons the Christian's religious minister
to labor with him and examine his case before he is admitted to Islam.
That so much of religious liberty exists is cause for profound
gratitude.
II. The social triumphs of Gospel work in Turkey appear in the
transformation of the family and the elevation of woman.
The Mohammedan practice of the veiling and seclusion of woman and
her exclusion from all social dignity and responsibilities rested
like a blight on womankind among all the sects of the Empire. Even
among the women of the non-Muslim sects the veil became a necessary
shield from insult.
An exploration of the Empire in 1829 failed to discover a single
school for girls. American women were the first to break the spell,
and after long and patient efforts the first school building for the
instruction of girls in the Ottoman Empire was erected in Beirut,
in 1834, at the expense of Mrs. Tod, an American lady in Alexandria,
and the teacher was Mrs. Sarah L. H. Smith....
In 1877, the first Muslim school for girls was opened in Beirut. They
now have three girls' schools in the city, with five hundred
pupils. Thus far their girls' schools are confined to the great
cities, and they have shown commendable zeal in erecting neat and
commodious buildings.
In Syria and Palestine there are now nine thousand and eighty-one
girls under Protestant instruction, and there are thousands in the
Greek and Papal schools. The effects of female education prosecuted
for so many years has been a palpable change in the status and dignity
of woman. The light and comfort, the moral and intellectual elevation
which have resulted are plain even to the casual observer. The mother
is becoming the primary instructor of the children at home, and by
precept and example their moral and religious guide.
The indifference of the Oriental Christians and the opposition of the
Mohammedans to female education has been largely overcome. A Mohammedan
Turkish lady in Constantinople, Fatimeh Alia Khanum, daughter of Joudet
Pasha, has just published a novelette in Turkish and Arabic to show
the superiority of the home life of Turkish Muslim women to that of
European Christian women. A Protestant young lady of Northern Syria has
taken a prize of $50 for the best original Arabic story illustrating
the benefits of female education. Another Protestant young woman has
recently published an Arabic book on "Society and Social Customs," and,
on the eve of her departure for the Columbian Exposition, delivered a
public lecture on the duty of Ottoman subjects to support their own
domestic manufacturers. It was largely attended by Muslim sheikhs,
Turkish effendis and the public generally, and at the close a young
Jewess, a fellow-graduate with her from the American Female Seminary,
arose and made an impromptu address in support of the speaker's views.
Too much cannot be said in admiration of the self-denying and
successful labors of the American, English, Scotch and German women
who have toiled patiently through long years, and many of whom have
sacrificed their lives to the elevation of their sisters in this great
Empire. Educated and cultivated wives, mothers, sisters and daughters,
all over the land, rise up and call them blessed. These happy Oriental
homes, neat and well ordered, their high character, their exemplary
conduct, their intelligence and interest in the proper training of
their own children and the best welfare of society, are among the
noblest fruits of a revived Christianity in the East.
What is wanted to complete the symmetry of this picture of the
intellectual progress of Oriental women is that a deputation of
Mohammedan ladies should attend the great World's Congress of Women
from all the nations, and explain to their sisters from Christian
and pagan Empires wherein consists the excellency and glory of the
veiling and seclusion of Mohammedan women in harems and zenanas,
and the permission to their men to have four legal wives and as
many concubines as their right hands may acquire by purchase or
capture. They should have the opportunity to explain the superiority
of this system to that of Christianity, under which woman is allowed
the most complete liberty of action, is trusted and honored, and given
the highest place in the great organized enterprises of benevolence,
charity, religion and social reform, and in the relief of human
suffering at home and abroad.
III. To Protestant Missions is due the modern intellectual and
educational awakening of the whole Empire. The American schools
had been in operation forty years before the Turkish government
officially promulgated (in 1869), school laws, and instituted a scheme
of governmental education.
In 1864 there were twelve thousand five hundred elementary Mosque
schools for reading the Koran, in which there were said to be half
a million of students. In 1890, according to the recently published
Ottoman reports, there were in the Empire forty-one thousand six
hundred and fifty-nine schools of all kinds, of which three thousand
are probably Christian and Jewish. As there are thirty-five thousand
five hundred and ninety-eight mosques in the Empire, and each mosque
is supposed to have its "medriseh" or school, there would appear
to be about four thousand secular government schools not connected
with the mosques, independent of ecclesiastical control by mollahs
and sheikhs, and belonging to the imperial graded system of public
instruction; yet many of the mosque schools have now been absorbed
into the government system, so that there may be twenty thousand of
these so-called secular government schools....
There are now in the Empire eighty hundred and ninety-two Protestant
schools, with forty-three thousand and twenty-seven pupils.
Schools. Boys. Girls. Total Pupils.
In Syria and Palestine 328 9,756 9,081 18,837
In Egypt 100 3,271 3,029 6,300
In Asia Minor, etc. 464 10,000 7,890 17,890
--- ------ ------ ------
Total 892 23,027 20,000 43,027
Of these pupils twenty thousand are girls, a fact most potent and
eloquent with regard to the future of these interesting peoples.
There are thirty-one colleges, seminaries and boarding-schools for
girls, of which eleven are taught by English and twenty by American
ladies. In some of these schools young women are carried to the higher
branches of science. In all of them the Bible is taught as a daily
text book.
There are six American colleges for young men, the most of them
well equipped and manned, taking the lead in academic and scientific
training. The medical college in Beirut has pupils from nearly all
parts of the Empire.
The standard of instruction is kept as high as the circumstances
of the different provinces will admit, and the education given is
thoroughly Biblical and Christian. And there are no more upright,
intelligent, useful, loyal and progressive subjects of the Sultan
today than the graduates of these colleges.
IV. The fourth evidence of the Gospel's triumph is the translation of
the Bible into all the languages of the Empire, and the publication
of a vast mass of religious, educational, historical, and scientific
books. The Bible is now printed in eleven languages and made available
to all the people of the Empire. About fifteen hundred different books
have been published in these various languages, of which nearly seven
hundred are from the Arabic press in Beirut. The Arabic Bible is sent
to the whole Arabic reading Mohammedan world. The literary, scientific,
historical and religious books also have a wide circulation.
Seventy years ago there were neither books nor readers. Now the
hundreds of thousands of readers can find books in their own tongue,
and to suit every taste. There are children's illustrated books
for the school and the fireside, stories and histories for the
young, solid historical, theological, and instructive works for
the old, and scientific books and periodicals for students. Bunyan,
D'Aubigné, Edwards, Alexander, Moody, and Spurgeon are speaking to the
Orientals. Richard Newton instructs and delights the children. Eli
Smith, Van Dyck, and Post, Meshaka and Bistany, Nofel and Wortabet,
instruct the scholarly and educated, while mathematics, astronomy,
philosophy, chemistry, and medicine, geology and meteorology carry
students on to the higher departments of learning. Tracts and Sunday
school lesson books abound, and periodical literature supplies the
present daily wants of society.
The American Arabic Press, founded in Malta in 1822, and in Beirut in
1834, set in motion the forces which have now filled all the great
cities of the Empire with presses and newspapers, and awakened the
people to a new intellectual life. The Beirut Press alone has printed
five hundred millions of pages in Arabic.
The Bible and the Koran are now the two religious books of the
Empire. The Koran is in one language for one sect, and cannot be
translated, and any copy of the Koran found in the possession of a
native Christian or a European traveler is confiscated. The Bible is in
eleven languages and is freely offered for sale to all. Sixty thousand
copies of the Scriptures are sold annually in the Turkish Empire.
THE OUTLOOK.
1. Russia is straining every nerve to destroy Protestant schools as
endangering the political solidarity of the Greek Church and thus
hostile to her prestige and future influence in Turkey.
2. Republican France, having exiled the Jesuits as intolerable at
home, finds them pliant tools of her political schemes abroad and
subsidizes them heavily with money and diplomatic support in thwarting
Protestant missions.
3. The civil policy of the Turkish Government is "Turkey for the
Turks." This means virtually filling all the offices of the Empire
with Mohammedans, thus gradually closing every avenue of public
official employment and promotion to the six millions of the Christian
population, who are far in advance of the Muslims in education and
intelligence.
We do not here dispute the right or the political sagacity of this
new régime. But its natural result is seen in the emigration of
thousands of the most energetic and enlightened young men to foreign
lands. Protestant schools are endangered by losing their trained
teachers, and the churches by losing their best members and the
material for their future pastors, and the cause of self-support
is gravely imperilled. But though thus threatened Protestantism
is secured.
1. By the wide distribution of the Scriptures. The hundreds
of thousands of Bibles in the hands of the people will make the
extinction of Protestantism impossible unless the people themselves
are exterminated.
2. By the wide diffusion of education and the founding of so many
Protestant colleges and seminaries which have come to Turkey to stay.
3. By the deep-rooted faith and personal convictions of tens
of thousands who believe in the right of individual judgment in
religion and in the supremacy of conscience enlightened by the Word
of God. Fifty thousand Protestants in the Empire can be depended upon
to hold their own, even were all foreign missionaries to be withdrawn.
4. By the vast body of Christian literature and the power of the
journalistic press, which are inconsistent with a recoil into the
domain of priestly tyranny and the stifling of the human conscience.
Protestantism as a principle is steadily growing in every sect in
the Empire. The Ark of God is safe in this land. Let us work on in
patience and good cheer, with gratitude and unquestioning faith.