The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1896-02-01

abounds in romantic mountain seem
cry and is watered by many streams
and rivers, the Euphrates and the
Tigris being the most important.
The climate is cold in the highlands,
while the summer heat OF the valleys
is intense. Agriculture forms quite
part of the occupation of the peo-
pie. But grazing and cattle breed
ing are extensively followed and rich
mines of copper, iron, salt, lead and
other minerals are worked to some
degree. The people are physically a
fine specimen Of the ndo-European
race and have excellent talents for
business, being especially skilled in
banking and mercantile pursuits.
At the present time it is estimated
that there is living within the bound
aries of the country between one mil
lion and two million of these people.
1t is said that they embraced Chris
tianity about the year 300 A. D. and
although their political and religious
history, like all eastern countries, has
been somewhat stormy, yet the Ar
menian has ever kept the Christian
faith. Politically the greater part of
the country is province of the Otto
man empire.
These people have been for hun
dreds of years the victims of the
Mohammedan Turk, and wave after
wave of blood has swept over their
fair land. 1t is the genius of the
Mohammed to massacre all who are
not Mohammedans. Atrocities are
natural to the Turk. By terror and
the sword was the Mohammedan re-
ligion established. By terror and the
sword the sultans climbed to supreme
power. By terror and the sword they
have maintained themselves on the
throne of the Caesars for centuries,
and by terror and the sword they now
attempt to keep back every form of
liberty and civilization which Chris
tianity fosters, by carrying on a
wholesale numbering expedition
against the Christians; for there is no
question but that the sultan directs
and orders these massacres.
Rev. Canon MacCall in a recent
article says:
"These massacres of Christians are
periodical in Turkey and they are
never the result of local fanaticism;
they are invariably organized and or
dered by the sultan and his minis
tiers, for the purpose of keeping down
the Christian population. AFFECT
cowardice has made this sultan more
recklessly ferocious than his prede
cessors, that is all. The policy is the
same, having at one time Greece for
its theater, then Syria, then Bulgaria,
then Armenia. 1t is a deliberate
system of pollarding the various
Christian communities as each threat
ems to overtop its Mussulman neigh
bors in population and prosperity"
W. T. Stead also says in pamph
let entitled "England's Responsibility
towards Armenia" and also in an
article in the Contemporary Review,
the following:
81 have proved by an overwhelm-
ing mass of official evidence that the
present sultan, Abdul Hamid, has
been engaged for four years in care
fully maturing his plans for the per-
petration of the horrors which have
lately aroused the indignation of the
civilized world. He it is who is re-
sponsible, not the Kurds and Turks,
who have only been the instruments
of his cruelty"
Those who are charitably inclined
may say that the sultan is not able
to see the wrong as an American can
see. His education and religion ap
prove of his deeds and probably he
acts conscientiously in them. True,
his education and religion does sane
ton the plan of killing Christians.
1t is part of the Mohammedan re
ligion. The following prayer, which
every true Moslem is expected to re-
peat every day, will, if he believes in
prayer, inspire them to deeds of cru
city:
20 Lord of all creaturesl o Allah!
destroy the infdels and the polythe-
lists, thine enemies, the enemies of
thy religion, o Allah make their
children orphans and defile their
bodies. Cause their feet to slip, give
them and their families, their house
hold and their women, their children
and their relations by marriage, their
brothers and their friends, their pos
sessions and their race, their wealth
and their lands as booty to the Mos
lens, o Lord of all creatures"
Imagine the effect of that prayer
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