The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1896-02-16
ARMENIAN AND EARLY CHRISTIAN
PROSECUTIONS.


Over in Armenia there is going on
conflict that beyond question is at
tended with cruelty and oppression.
With barbarity. according ITO the re-
ports we hear, that shocks the en-
lightenment Of our age with aStonish-
ment and horror. Yet we are not
always sure that the reports of the
atrocities-the extent of them and the
cruelty Of them-are quite correct. Re
Gently when the British foreign office
published its Blue book on Antolia,
the official reports corrected the more
| careless reports previously published in
the British press. Mr.. E. Ashmead-
Bartlett in a communication to the
Pail Mall Gazette said of this official
report:
The official reports published show
that the Sassun 'atrocities,', as de-
scribed in the British press, were the
most gigantic fraud ever palmed off
upon the British public
The 10000" 10, 00O," 5000 victims,
according to various figh-falutin' cor
respondents who got their information
from a distance varying from $50 to
1000 miles from the scene of operation,
have been reduced to a maximum Of
800 slain, and that after a severe re-
volt. The well-known horrors of Cali
gusan and the pits of DEATH ETC.. dis
appear.
Indeed, the sources of the worst re-
manning reports seem to be the credu-
lily of an inexperienced and very
Turcophode Vice Consul, who swal-
lowed wholesale the vivid tales of Ar
menian ecclesiastics, at a monastery,
where he foolishly spent three weeks.
Let US hope that now ait last some
justice will be done to the sultan and
the most shamefully reviled Turk
The sins of the "unspeahabIe Turk
are black enough beyond question, but
it is not right to exaggerate them, as
over-excited religionists are apt to do;
and when the Armenian sympathizer
undertakes to say that the Christians
in Armenia are made to suffer more
than the early Christians suffered, he
doubtless magnif1es the present perse-
cutions in Turkey, or has forgotten or
never read the prosecutions of the
early Christians. Let the persecution
of the early Christians under the
fourth edict of Diocletian be consid-
cred.
Diocletian thought to destroy the
ing the constancy of the leaders; but
meeting with more resistance than he
anticipated, he at last issued a fourth
edict directing the magistrates to
compel all Christians, irrespective of
age, sex or official position, to offer sac
rifce to the gods; and to employ tor
lures to compel that apostasy. The
magistrates yielded strict obedience to
the edict Of the emperor, and the
Christian church was reduced to the
last extremity. [Mosheim's Feel. Hist,
Cent. w., Part i, Oh. il The scenes
of suffering from tortures and blood
sheds throughout the empire, except in
Gaul, where Constantine reigned, defy
description. Thousands, both men
and women and children says Fuse
bus. speaking of those who suffered
in Egypt, "despising the present life
for the sake of our Savior's doctrine,
submitted to death in various shapes.
Some. after being tortured with scrap
pings this torture was ralzing the flesh
from the body by means of an iron
toothed instrument and the rack, and
the most dreadful scourgings, and
other innumerable agonies which one
might shudder to hear. were finally
committed to the flames; and some
plunged and drowned in the sea. others
voluntarily offering their own heads
to their executioners. others dying in
the midst Of their torments. some vast
ed away by famine, and others again
fixed to the cross. Some, indeed. were
executed as malefactors usually were;
others, more cruelty, were nailed with
the head downwards, and kept alive !
until they We're destroyed by starving
on the cross itself" [Eusebius Feel.
Hist, Bk. viii, Oh. VIII
After describing similar, but still l.