The Ashland union. [volume] (Ashland, Ashland County, Ohio) 1854-1868, 1860-08-15
Warletp.
THE MASSACRE AT SYRIA.
F,o,, ,ze Londou Times. Ju1v 1e.


The accounts received yesterday from the
coast of Syria have realized all our worst fears.
On the 9th of this month the city of Demas-
Gus was attacked by the Druses and 500 chris
tians are said to have perished: The Consul
lates with the exception of the English were
burnt down In short the whole place seems
to have been at the mercy of the marauding
army, the Turkish authorities having shown
their usual completely with the aegressors. =
This frightful event must remove the scruples
of the most cautious politician. Instant action
must take place to save the world from the
crimes which willbe reproach to it for ages
No one can tell what another week may bring
forth The next mail from Beyreut may in
form us that Aleppo has shared the fate of
Damascus, that at Jerusalem christians OF eve
ry name and church, including a number OF
Protestant Englishmen, have been put to the
sword.
Whatever may have been the beginning of
this movement, there can be no doubt that 1t
has assumed a most formidable character
Yesterday it was a fcud between two noun
tain tribes; tomorrow it may be the onslaught
of the Mussulman races on the Christians,
whom recent events have caused them to look
upon with increasing hatred and dread. Be-
fore succor can arrive, before the Turk can
be made to feel that Europe will stand no tri-
fling in this matter, it may be that every vii
lage in Syria, nay, in the whole of Asia, may
be stained with blood Races which have
lived in security for centuries under the pro-
lection of the European Powers, may be swept
from the earth by this fierce outbreak of fanat-
icism, all hopes of better future may be de-
stroycd, and the regeneration of these unhap-
by lands made impossible forever by a single
month of unchecked lawlessness. When too
late it may be discovered that civilization has
L -lo1,~, ~ dol
it was beginning to blossom and to give hopes
of bringing forth fruit.
It is strange that land which was the era
die of Christianity, should continue age after
age to be the place of its sharpest trial 1t
would almost seem as if a spell hung over
that renowned and holy corner of Asia, and
condemned it to keep forever its former like
ness to furnish prosecutors and martyrs, fren-
zied multitudes demanding blood, and timid
Governors giving up the guiltless to death
Since the days when the Patriarchates OF An
tioch and Jerusalem went down under the
first shock of Arab invasion the Christians of
Syria and Palestine have been the most i'll
used subjects of the most fanatical part of
Islam. Their fate has somewhat resembled
that of the tribes whom Israel before found in
the same land They have been exterminated
or reduced to the condition of slaves, or forced
TO conform to the victorious faith. The small
number of Christians now in Syria and Egypt,
compared with the vast multitudes whom the
first Caliphs found in those countries shows
how active have been all the causes of depopu-
| lation. ...---...y -l-
In the earlier periods of the conquest the
slaughter was prodigious In later times mis-
cry has done the work of the sword The
population has died out, or merged into the
| domir ant race. When our ancestors engaged
| in Crusades they had real justification in the
evils endured by their fellow Christians, and
probably from those days to these there never
has been time when the religious spirit
| which prompted such adventures would not
have found q pretext in some act OF cruelty
4 In Europe and in Asia Minor the Christian
has had only to do with the Turk, whose big
, otry has been tempered by his qualities as g
politician and ruler. Nowhere in the western
parts of tho. empire have slaves or Greeks
had to undergo the habitual in-usage and the
periodical violence which has been the portion
of the Syrian christians from the Arab perse
cutors.
/ What is to be done with country in which
these things are so often happening, and il
which they may happen at any hour? Are
1--we to give up the land which has a higher in
terest than any other to the human race, tha
every man of our religion may be extermina
ted from it, and their place possessed wholly
by the most savage populations. of the East
Are we, who have kept the Sultan on hi