The daily morning journal and courier., 1895-11-18
THE ARMENIAN QUESTION
GRAPHICALLY DISC USSED BY REV.
 MR. ETHAN, AN EXILE.

NHd4 DLeC GGNLN pL AtI
 MR. FILIAN, AN EXILE.
 Baptist Church Last Evening-The Pres
 cut Sultan an Usurper-The Law of Sue
 cession in TurlSey-Rescued by MT. Clad
 stone-Over 10000 Armenians Recently
 NIassaored--AnotherL Lecture Next Thurs
 day Afternoon.
 Calvary Baptist church was well fill- ed last evening with an audience to hear Rev. George H. Filian of Antioch, Syria, lecture on Armenia, MT. Filian graduated from Chicago Theological seminary in 1882 and returned to his native country, where he became pas tor of the Armenian Evangelical church in Marsovan in Asia Minor, northwestern Armenia. He there had a congregation of more than 1000 mem- bers, one of the largest native self supporting churches in the empire. MT. Filian in his duties as minister con- fined himself to his parochial work, but having been misrepresented by Mo- hammedan enemies he was four years ago banished to this country. He was at that time at the head of college for young Armenians, and at the same time of his banishment two of the prin- cipal professors of the college were ar n 6na th from which fate he was rescued by MT. Gladstone, prime minister of England The two men were then banished to England. MT Filian said that in the recent massacres in Armenia over 40,- 900 Christians had perished, and the survivors are appealing to Christen- dom for aid. The predecessor of the present sultan was an educated man, and was imbued with modern ideas of toleration and religious liberty. He or- ganized a parliament much like the English legislative body, in which he allowed Christian representation and equal rights with Mohammedans. He gained the enmity of the old school Turks and he was assassinated in the same place on the Bosphorus, in which his uncle before him was murdered. In Turkey there is no crown prince, and | the order of succession to the throne is not by the oldest son or next of kin, but the succession goes to the next old est of the royal family, be he brother, uncle, nephew or whatsoever relation. The present sultan had no such right to ! the throne, but after having murdered | tha In ci11t ba 1r,l l power and as a usurper he has follow ed the policy of killing off all his rela- tives that there will be none of them to depose him. MT. Filian predicted that before two years have rolled away he will no longer be sultan, and fEr- | thermore that Turkey will be rent by revolution the outcome of which will | be that despotism will be overthrown. All the mosques of Constantinople were i formerly Christian churches, but when the Turks conquered the country the Christians were driven from their houses of worship, the Christian pie lures adorning the walls were defaced, and in place of Christian ministers the mazerains or blind callers to wor- ship of Mohamet occupied the holy places. The muzerains are all blind men, as the Turkish designation im- plies, and said MT Filian, "The reason of this Is that the blind want blind leaders" Ostensibly, however, the req son is that the priests cannot see the women who come to, worship
 | In connection with the lecture stere- opticon pictures Illustrating interesting phazes of the Armenian question were shown, among them being the mosques with towering minarets. The most fa- nous of these, St. Sophia, was shown. This splendid edifice is about l, 400 years | old, and is so much larger than our capitol building at Washington that | the dome of the latter could easily be placed inside of it. Other pictures were shown of the present sultan and his predecessors, bands of Kurds, who are now killing Armenians; Christian colleges and churches, and views of Constantinople, all making lecture rarely equalled in interest, having as it does a bearing on a question of vital interest to civilized Christian people at this time of unparalleled atrocities committed by the Turks on Armenian 1 Christians.
 l MT. Filian will lecture on the same topic at United church chapel Thurs day afternoon at o'clock, and the Iec- ture promises to be even more interest ing, if possible, than the one last even- ing.