The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1895-05-11
THROrTLING CHRISTIANITY.


the British foreign Office communication
relating to religious liberty IN Turkey,
the defence of which is one Of the prim-
ary objects of the Alliance. Sir
PHILIP CURRIE, Her Majestys a,nbassa-
dor to the Porte, requested the Evan
gelical Alliance of Constantlnople &c
elucidate said communication, aud an
elaborate response has been presented
and forwarded, in which the history of
the whole subject since 1867 has been
reviewed. The claim is made that
there has been an increasing exclusion
| OF Christians from responsible Office
under the Government, an extensive re-
introduction of torture and corporeal
punishment. gradual return 70 the
use by officials of insulting language
concerning Christianity, gradual re-
subsection OF the property of Christ
ians to the will Of officials and private
Moslems, as seen in the eastern
provinces, where both Armenians and
HISTORIANS have been harried and dis
possessed of their property, and actual
war on Christians is its extreme re-
suits. 1t is also asserted that the right
OF education has been limited since
1884, by the claim to extinguish Christ
ian schools for technical deviations
OF their teachers from the law as to con-
troll Of methods of education, for the
lack of formal permits, such permits
not having been required when the
schools were founded. since 1894, by the
claim that no school can exist in the
country without having obtained the
imperial firman in each case.
AT THIS moment congregations of from
100 10 800 Protestants are said to be
prohibited from worship in places which
have been recognized as their meeting
houses during ten or twenty years.
Meanwhile series of stringent orders
are said to have been issued from the
Porte, laying heavy penalties upon
officials who neglect to close schools
which are without permits; command
ing that teachers refrain from having
addresses made 10 the scholars or from
having essays read by scholars at pub
lie school festivals unless the ad-
dresses or the essays are first sub
mitted to the approval of the authori- |
ties; directing that the repair of pri-
vate houses occupied by authorized |
Christian schools be prevented unless |
authorized by order from Constanti- |
nople; and requiring the prohibition of
purchases of houses or building lots by
American and French subjects
(the most OF foreign schools in Turkey |
belong to these nationalities), unless in
each case bond is obtained from the
purchaser promising that the buildings
shall be razed to the ground should wor-
ship or schools be ut any time estab-
lished in them.
The last law, issued in January, 1895,
gives list of prohibited subjects so
broad that under IL officials may ex-
cluGe, II they desire, all Christian liter
lture. Ii requires censors to reject a
book il they find in it single sentence
which appears to them of doubtful
meaning, and it fixes severe penalties
ipon the importation, sale, distribution
" even the transportation of any book
which has not received the approval of
he censors, applying these penalties
lot only to the case of dealers in books,
nut to private owners of books. The
ensor who examines books imported
rom abroad has to give written dec
iratiop that he accepts responsibility
or the consequences of authorizing q
iven book, and, therefore, he rarely
ares to commit himself in writing to !
he fact that he has passed book !
With approval. 1t has become usual c
hing for travellers to be stripped of (
heir books at any guard station in the I
lterior of Turkey. O
SO complete is the destruction of 4
hrlstian books in some districts, v
trough these causes. that the Christian O
hildren now growing up in those dis n
lets bid fair to be as ignorant as d
ere their grandfathers. The censor 4
mp of foreign religious and literary @
orks Is SO stringent as to deprive the q
in Turkey of the ordinary A
eans OF keeping in touch with the ad- d
lncement Of knowledge among their o
'-rehgionists abroad. Such classics of a
uglish literature as Shakespeare. Byron. a
ilton, Scott, are refused authorization. %
with the higher literature of any a.
nguage. No standard history, no en- W
'ciopedla, no treatise on metaphysics a,
any extended character, no full and G.
'tended theology or commentary on h
10 Bible can pass the censorship for C,
PRODUCTION into the interior Of Turkey. fc
There is interference with the publca- al
on of standard, historic, Christian al
'oks printed, not in the arabic letters tc
at Aloslems use, but in the Christian n.