The first cause is a very simple one. That the Armenians are
Christians, and the Turks, Kurds, Circassians, and Georgians in Turkey
are Mohammedans, and the Mohammedan religion urges brutality. It has
already been shown to be not a religion, but a system of falsehood,
hatred, cruelty, lust, and sensuality; of course, these things combined
can only result in corruption. It would seem that Mohammed must
have taken his inspiration from both the domestic fowl and a bull. A
rooster is a polygamist; he has his hens without limit. So Mohammed,
the professed prophet, had wives without limit. He claimed to have
received a revelation from Heaven directing him to take to himself
any woman he pleased, no matter whether she was married and had a
husband or not; that made no difference with Mohammed. He took any
woman he wanted, and if her husband objected he was sure to be put to
death. Mohammedans cannot differ from their prophet, they follow him,
they strive to imitate him just as much as true Christians strive to
follow and imitate Christ. Further, cocks, as a rule, have crowing
spells five times in twenty-four hours, and generally mount a high
place and do their screaming there. So the Mohammedan priests, who
are called Moezzins, ascend a minaret, or a tower, and five times in
twenty four hours they call the people to worship. There is so little
confidence placed in the priests or criers that the people prefer to
have a blind one go on the minaret to give the calls, so that he may
not see their women unveiled in their houses.
From a bull, because he is not only immoderately lustful, but
fierce and destructive; and the farmers say that the older he
grows, the worse he is in both respects. It is certainly so with
Mohammedans,--naturally enough, for nothing is so lickerish as an old
man who has been sensual all his life, and cruelty is a trait which
grows with indulgence. The Sultan grows more of a beast, and more of
a fiend as he grows older, and all the Mohammedans are of the same
stripe. Armenian men and Armenian women alike dread the approach of
an old Turk far more than of a young one. Unless one has witnessed a
fight between bulls, he can have little idea of Turkish warfare. No
animal fight can approach it in ferocity or insatiability; when a bull
conquers another, he never leaves him until he gores him to death. So
when Mohammedans conquer a nation, be sure they will exterminate
it. To them mercy means apostasy; to leave a man alive or a woman
unravished is to be false to the precepts of Mohammed. They cannot
help it, it is their religion; a religion for wild animals. Their
priests go to the mosques and preach to them thus: "Believers in
Mohammed, love your fellow believers, but hate and kill all others;
they are Giaours, heathen dogs, filthy hogs." To kill a Christian and
to kill a hog is all the same to a Mohammedan; there is as little sin
in one as the other. The priests say, "Ask them to accept our religion;
if they do, you must not harm them; but if they will not, kill them,
for they have no right to live in a Mohammedan country. It is not only
no sin, but a great virtue; the more Christians you kill, the greater
reward you will have from Allah and his prophet Mohammed." The Turks
are slaughtering the Armenians to earn this reward. Of course if the
men apostatize they are spared; but the Turk has no notion of losing
the gratification of his lust on the women in that way. A woman who
falls into their hands need not hope to keep her virtue on any terms,
even by abjuring her religion; they violate her first, and force her
to become a Mohammedan afterwards.
Let it be fully understood throughout the Christian world that
the massacre is a religious demand; the Turks have to comply. As
a Christian tries to be faithful to Christ and his teachings, so
the Turks are trying to be faithful to their prophet and his. They
go to the mosques and pray, "Allah, help us; strengthen our hands
and sharpen our swords to kill the infidel Armenians." Then they
come from the mosques and begin to kill, and plunder, and outrage,
and commit every sort of indescribable atrocities on the peaceable
and defenseless Armenians. And it will grow worse instead of better,
since so-called Christian nations have given the Sultan public notice
that they will not interfere with him. Do not be deceived by his
lying reports; there was no Armenian rebellion; they could not rebel;
they did not kill the Turks, they never dreamed of such madness. This
awful fate has fallen on them purely and simply for being Christians.