Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1919-01-23
= L ye shall ask anything of the I,
Father in my name, He will

give 1t you.'
For nineteen centuries this glori-
GUS promise has been source of
comfort and of strength to count
less millions of the opprest, the sick,
the suffering, the troubled, and the
grievously burdened. These burning
words have been a pillar of fire by
night and pillar of cloud by day
to the heavily laden and the sore
distrest and to those multitudes who
have passed through the Valley of
the Shadow of affliction or death.
And now in this latter day-nay, at
this very hour-millions of women
and children in and near those
lands, those hills and rivers made
holy by the sacred memories of our
Lord, are claiming this promise and
are crying out to Him in an agony
of spirit and body beseeching Him
that He will save them from starva-
tion, from death, and from horrors
worse than death.
Four million Armenians. Syrians.
and other war-sufferers in western
Asia are practically without food,
clothing, or shelter, the vast major
ity helpless women and children.
More than million and d half have
been deported. Nearly million
have been brutally murdered and
massacred. Four hundred thousand
children are orphaned. 1t can be
said that there are practically no
more children left under the age of
five, all having perished from ex-
posure and disease For every hun
dred births there are from two to
three hundred deaths. The newiy
born children die almost imm ediate-
ly, the mothers having nothing to
give them but tears. Deaths from
dysentery, typhus, tuberculosis, and
famine are increasing from day to
day with appalling rapidity. The
homeless-a pitiful stream of wom-
en- and children-wander aimlessly
through the streets of their wrecked
villages. If you stop a child toward
evening, and ask him where he is
going he will tell you, AZ am search
ing for a place to eep."
All winter long they have slept in
hooks and corners, in alleys and by
the roadsides, with no blankets, no
covering whatever, their clothing
the merest rags. The women clasp
their wan-faced children to their
breasts and on their faces is written
the pitfful story of their utter de-
spair.
The scenes in these lands of grief
| and suffering are beyond the power
OF imagination to conceive or of
words to describe. Throuehout the
length and breadth of these conn
tries there is no food save bread. the
dry crusts of bread that they re-
ceive at the hands of charity. No
meats. no soups, no vegetables, no
sugar less than a pound of bread
daily, and even this poor morsel has
often to be shared with others. "A
poor old woman faint with hunger
SAID TO me today writes one of the
oeVoteo workers, 'Sahib, the bread
won't go down. 1 soak it in water
but it sticks in my throat"
"Wheresoever / CO." a missionary
reports. II see men or women fallen
on the street dead or diving. and
little emaciated children stretchine
out their wasted hands for lust ono
shahie for bread tears runnine
down their cheeks, and still move
awful arc the little ones sittine
propt against a wall, listless and
torpid, indifferent even to food. wait
ing quietly for DEATH"
Just now" says another worker
II have been interrupted in NV
writing. A Jewess has come to foil
me of a woman who staggered to
her door begging late last evening
She was allowed to spend the ntght
in q corner of the house and this
morning she was dead. Won't you
please sends some one to bury her.
! implored my caller"
Such pleas are frequent now
There are more dead than buried
in Armenia. Mon and women once
in good circumstances and self-re-
specting. now hungry. helpless
friendless. crawl away. like animals
out of sight. die unseen. and lie un.
buried.
There is no joy of victory in these
distraught lands; but only the cries
! of an agoniZed people to whom
peace has brought neither benedic-
ton nor blessing; neither rest nor
respite; lands where the war has
left an awful human wreckage in
| its wake; a great Kingdom of Grief
fl led with the cries of mothers and
| orphans, q distrest people PROSTATE
with desolation. numbed with suf-
| fering, having no partnership in the
great joy of u liberated world.
No sons. no fathers. no brothers