The weekly soliphone., 1917-03-15
ARMEVEANS AND
 SYRIANS DYING
Turkish Government Prevents Dis tribution of Food-Nearly a
 Million Slaughtered.

Ambassador to the United States) London, March S.-The slaugh ter Iof between seven and eight hun Idrcd thousand Armenians by the Turks since the beginning of the war reveals the Armenians quite as much martyrs to Christianity as lany of the early Christians who died in Nero's arena.
 There are today more than a million Armenians and Syrians Istarving to death in Asia Minor, Syria, the Russian Caucasus, Persia land Palestine. The relief work for them in America is in charge of the American Committee for Ar Imonian and Syrian Relief in New York
 In the history of the early Chris titan church there are no figures so glorious, none which have contin- ued to be so much honored by the church all through it's later days as those of the martyrs, men and women who from the time of Nero down to that of Dioclesian sealed with their blood the testimony to their faith withstanding every lure land every threat in order to pre-
 serve their loyalty to their Lord land Master Christ.
 In our own times we have seen this example of fidelity repeated in the Turkish empire and it is strange
 that the Christians of Europe and
 America should not have been moro
 moved by the examples of courage land heroic devotion which the Ar
 menian Christians have given. Of
 the seven or eight hundred thou |9and of Armenians who have per ishe1 in the recent massacres many thousands have died as martyrs by
 which I mean they have died for their Christian faith when they
 could have saved their lives by re-
 nouncing it.
 This has perhaps not been real
 ized even by those who in Europe
 or America have read of and been mortified by the wholesale slaugh- ter and hideous cruelties by which half of an ancient nation has been
 exterminated They can hardly un-
 derstand how there should be ,re- ligious persecution in our time; so
 let me try to explain the facts. It was not religious fanaticism
 that led the present rulers of Fur key to seek to root out Christiani- Ity. So far from being fanatics
 most of these men though nominal ly Mohammedans have no religion whatever. Their aim was political. They wanted to make the whole Turkish empire Mohammedan in or der to make it uniform with only one creed and no differences be- tween one class of subjects and another They saw that the Chris tian part of the population suffer ing under constant expressions and Icrueltisc, continued to turn it's eyes westward and hope for some re
 dress from tho Christian nations; lso they determined to eliminate Christianity altogether. During these recent massacret whenever any Christian would turr
 Mohammedan his life was spared. Il was only as q Christian that he was killed, Many Christian chile
 was torn from it's parents to bt | brought up as a Mussulman. Thou
 sands of Armenian Christian girls 1were sold in the market or distrib. luted among Turkish officers to be imprisoned for life in Turkish ha' lrcms and there forced into Mo lhammedanism. But many moro thousands of Armenians. women as well as men, were offered theii choice between Christ and Moham. med and when they refused Moham' med were shot or drowned forth. with. For days and days together l the bodies of Christian women who had thus perished were seen float ling down the Euphrates. Surely the remains of this suffre' 1 Surely the remains of this surf lfering nation could make no strong CT appeal for pity and help to tho Christians of America than they make through these martyr deaths | lOnly remnant is now left to whom charity can be extended. It is still q sorely afflicted remnant.
 CEEK DEACNM FAD