The Canton times. (Canton, Miss.) 1893-1906, 1896-01-24
ARMENIAN MASSACRES.
Rev. DR.. Talmage Paints a Vivid
I, Word Picture
das the Terrible Atrocities Committed on
che Armenian Christians-Tho
Turkish Empire Should
be Dismembered.

The following vivid picture of tn
Turkish atrocities in Armenia wa
given as a Sunday discourse by Rev
e. Dewitt Talmage to his Washington
congregation. He took for his text:
Ihey escaped into the land Of Armenia. IL
Kings, xix, 81.
In Biblical geography this is the frs
time that Armenia appears, calico
chen by the same name as now. Ar
Tnenia is chiefly a lakeland, 1000 fee
above the level of the sea, and on ont
OF the peaks Noah's ark landed, with
Tss human family and fauna that were
to fill the earth. That region was the
birthplace of the rivers which fertl
lized the Garden of Eden when Adam
and Eve lived there, their only ROOT
the crystal skies, and their carpet the
emerald of rich grass. Its inha
the ethnologists tell us, are a superior
type of the Caucasian race. Their re-
Eigion is founded on the Bible. Their
Saviour is our Christ. Their crime
is that they will not become
followers of Mohammed, that Ju-
piter of sensuality. To drive
them from the face of the earth is the
ambition of all Mohamme dams. To ac-
complish this, murder is no crime, and
wholesale massacre is matter of en-
Ghusiastic appreciation and govern
mental reward. The prayer sanctioned
by highest Mohammedan authority and
recited every day throughout Turkey
and Egypt, while styling all those not
Mohammedans as infidels, is as fol-
lows: 20 Lord of all creatures! O AL
yah! Destroy the inidels and Polythe-
lists, thine enemies, the enemies OF the
religion! 0 Allah! Make their children
orphans and defile their bodies; cause
their feet to slip; give them and their
families, their households and their
women, and their relatives by mar
riage, their brothers and their friends,
their possessions and the race, their
wealth and their lands as booty to the
Moslems, Lord of all creatures"
The life of an Armenian in the pres
ence of those who make that prayer is
of no more value than the life of a
summer insect. The sultan of Turkey
sits on throne impersonating that
6rigandage and assassination. At this
time all civilized nations are in horror
at the attempts of that Mohammedan
government to destroy all the Chris
tians of Armenia. hear somebody
talking as though some new thing
We're happening, and that the Turkish
government had taken new role of
tragedy on the stage of nations. No,
no! She is at the same old business,
Overlooking her diabolism of other
centuries, we come down to our
century to find that in 1922
the Turkish government slew 50,-
o00 anti-Moslems, and in 1850
she slew 10000, and in 1860 she
slew IL 200, and in 1876 she slew 10000.
short of the slaughter of
of human beings does not |
put enough red wine into her cup of |
to make it worth quaffing. |
Nor is this the only time she has prom
ised reform. In the presence of the
war ships at the mouth of the Oar
she has promised the civil
ICED nations of the earth that she
would stop her butcheries, and the in
and hemisphere farce has
been enacted of believing what she
says, when all the past ought to per-
suade us that she is only pausing in
her atrocities to put nations off the
track and then resume the work of
1eath.
In 1920 Turkey, in treaty with Russia,
promised to alleviate the condition of
but the promise was broken.
In 1889 the then sultan promised pro-
5ection of life and property without
reference to religion, and the promise
vas broken. In 1874, at the demand
VI an English minister plenipotentiary,
he sultan declared, after the public
of an Armenian at Constan-
inople, that no such death penalty
hould again be inflicted, and the prom
sc was broken. In 1850, at the demand
# foreign nations, the Turkish gov
.rnment promised protection to Pro-
but to this day the Protes-
ants az STEAMBOAT are not allowed to
,uild church, although they have
he funds ready, and the Greek
orotestants, who have a church,
ire not permitted to worship in
t. In 1856. after the Crimean
var, Turkey promised that no one
Ihould be hindered in the exercise of
he religion he professed, and that
promise has been broken. In 1878, at
he memorable treaty of Berlin, Tur-
rey promised religious liberty to all
Yer subjects in every part of the Otto
nan empire, and the premise was
,roken. Not once in all the centuries
las the Turkish government kept her
,romise of mercy. So far from any
the condition of the Ar
nenians has become worse and worse
Tear by year, and all the promises the