The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-12-11
BY GUY T. VIsKNISKKI.

I his firearms, placed in his hands by | the authorities. Usually there Is more | or less decided resistance where two or three Armenians are gathered to- l gether for the celebration, and as | result from all over the province for l days after Christmas reports reach the | centers of atrocities committed In town | and village and mountain fastness. But ] because no three or four hundred, or l thousand, Armenians have been put to ] the sword in one community, the world . at large hears nothing of this priest stabbed to death in Ramsa, as he was on his way to celebrate early mass on the great day, or of that father in village in another part of the province who was struck down toward evening
 while endeavoring to keep a band of raiding Kurds from breaking into his
 house to heap insults on his family
 One of the greatest Christmas pleas
 ures of the Kurd and his Turkish abet-
 tors Is to find out what church has
 secretly decided to risk the ceremony
 of baptizing the cross in river and
 then lay in walt at the appointed spot and scatter the little congregation to
 the four winds of heaven.
 Owing to the fatalities attending this ceremony, because of the interference of their enemies, the churches through
 
 given up this ancient ritualistic prac- tice. baptizing the cross in font in the church instead But every once in a while a congregation Is strongly seized with the desire to hold the ceremony in all it's old-time glory, and plans are laid accordingly in secret. The con gregation is always certain that this time everything has been kept so quiet that the Kurds will not learn of the rendezvous. and SO, bright and early on Christmas morning, before sun up, in order the better to escape any spying eyes, the members steal to the river side. But before the ceremony has fairly bgun the enemy generally ap- pears, and if the poor Armenians escape with nothing more than a few slashes of the yataghan they consider them selves lucky
 Several years ago the members of a country church within the shadow of Mount Ararat. and only a few miles from the monastery of Etchmiadzin. where the Catholicos, or primate, of the Armenian church has his seat deter mined to baptize the cross in the river at all hazards. To that end they arm ed themselves with rifles and revolvers. and with the dawn of Christmas set out for the baptism much after the fashion of our Puritan forefathers going to church with flintlocks over their shoulders as protection against Indian attacks.
 They got to the river safely, and had almost reached the concluding chant of the service without interruption when suddenly, out of a deep gulley several hundred yards away there came the crack of a rife, and the next instant the black-robed and mitered priest was grovelling in the earth. The wo- men and children turned and fled, the men interposing themselves between them and the gulley whence the shot came and opening fire But they were shooting at a hidden foe. whose victims were in the open. and in less time than 1t takes to tell 1t a dozen of the con- gregation had fallen. Then the Kurds, leaving their shelter. charged. The remaining Armenians offered a desulto- ry resistance that served only to en- rage the Kurds, so that when their mornings work was over the little con gregation. with the exception of a few who were heeter than the rest, had been massacred.
 Nearly every Armenian village has US own story of family outraged on thls Christmas, another family on that Chrlstmas. and still another on another Chrlstmas. and SO on as far back as the memories of the oldest inhabitants run; The favorite procedure is to wait unuI the old folks have gathered about them their married sons and daughters, with their ofrsprings. as well as the slhgie members of the family, and then 10 charge down upon the gathering. arrest one or more of the men on trumped up chargesaand if any sort of protest or resistance is made break two or three heads Many an Armenian has come to an untimely end because he has persisted in indulging in the dangerous pleasure of breaking bread | with his relatives in celebration of | Christs birth
 The breaking up of family reunions | IS also favorite Christmas day pas lime or the Turkish authorities and l their agents in Syria. All such gath-