THIS cursory account of the
methodical extermination of Christianity at the hands of the Turk
should convince any one that he now has no intention of allowing it to be
revived and propagated in his domains in foreign schools. An earlier chapter gave an account of the aid and support,
both moral and financial, furnished American missionary and philanthropic
institutions by the Greeks during their occupation of the Smyrna region, and at
Saloniki. The following statement of their
treatment under Turkish rule is from the pen of Dana K. Getchell, well known in
missionary circles:
“In 1914, when the World War began, Anatolia College,
Marsovan, Turkey, had an enrollment of four hundred twenty-five students and
the Girls’ School had about three hundred; a total of about one thousand
individuals all together were on the American premises, including professors’
families, servants and their families and the American colony. At the close of
1914, the Americans bad just finished the building of a large hospital which
was occupied by the Turks before the American doctor had the opportunity of
moving in.”
“In 1915, the
Armenian deportation took place in the early spring of that year. Out of our
faculty of fifteen native teachers and a servant list of fifteen more, twenty of these individuals, men, were deported and, as far
as the college authorities knew, were killed, as they have never been heard
from since.”
“Our college steward, during this
time, went to the market for his usual work and never returned. A noted Turkish
lawyer of the city, at that time connected with the college, informed me that
if I would go with him to a certain spot in a vineyard near the city he would
show me the well into which this man’s body was thrown. He was perfectly
in sympathy with this deed that was committed.”
“During the month of June, 1915, I escorted a party of
ten American ladies and children to Constantinople, via Angora, the Black Sea
route having been closed. While in Constantinople, I learned of the
deportation of the Armenians in the interior, especially from Marsovan and
vicinity. I worked for days to get permission from Talaat Pasha to return to
Marsovan, but his excuse was that ‘things were doing’ in the interior and it
was not a good time for foreigners to be traveling. Later, upon hearing that
more than four hundred Armenians had crowded into the American premises,
information was taken to Talaat and his promise received that no Armenian
within the American premises should be deported. Upon the strength of this
promise, I sent a telegram to my associates in Marsovan, and having received
permission to travel in those days, I hastened back to my work. Upon my arrival
in Marsovan, I found that the first great deportation of those sheltered in the
American premises had taken place the day before.”
“Two days later, the Turkish gendarmes and police came to
our premises and demanded the girls, forty-nine in number, from the American school.
These demands were persisted in and on that day, by the order of the Turkish
Government, all these girls were started on the road to Sivas, a journey of six
days interior from Marsovan. Two of the American teachers, Miss Willard and
Miss Gage, by persistence, secured permission to follow these girls one day
after they had started on their journey and overtook them just as they were entering
Sivas, six days later. By working with the vaii of the province for days,
permission was finally given to these American ladies for all these girls to
return to the Girls’ School at Marsovan.”
“At the beginning of the
deportations in 1915, Marsovan was inhabited by twelve thousand Armenians.
When the deportations were finished scarcely one thousand of that nationality
could be found in the city. This complete destruction of the Armenians in this
city is only an example of what took place throughout the Vilayet of Sivas.”
“In January, 1916, the Greek
deportations from the Black Sea began. These Greeks came through the city of
Marsovan by thousands, walking for the most part the three days’ journey
through the snow and mud and slush of the winter weather. Thousands fell by
the wayside from exhaustion and others came into the city of Marsovan in
groups of fifty, one hundred and five hundred, always under escort of Turkish
gendarmes. Next morning these poor refugees were started on the road and
destruction by this treatment was even more radical than a straight massacre
such as the Armenians suffered before.”
“In 1917, in the dead of
winter, a second deportation of Armenians from the Black Sea coast began and
the same treatment was undergone by those who were obliged to flee from their
homes.”
“On May 16, the fifteen Americans, men, women and
children were obliged to undergo this hardship—to leave their homes and
property—for this long overland journey. On that date the American premises
were occupied by Turkish soldiers and the buildings all taken over as a base
hospital.”
“Six weeks later four of this group returned to Marsovan
by permission from Talaat Pasha, with the understanding that they would be able
to occupy their homes and use the school buildings for educational purposes.
The buildings, with the exception of the houses, which wore obtained with
great difficulty, were never returned but were in constant use by the Turkish
military authorities up to the time of the Armistice, March, 1919.”
“The treatment of Americans and American property
throughout Turkey was the same as that experienced by the Americans in
Marsovan. The schools and colleges in Sivas, Caesarea, Harput, Aintab and other
places were closed and for the most part the American workers were sent out of
the country. Since the Armistice, this same treatment of Americans throughout
the interior has continued. The schools have not been allowed to open and
property to the value of many thousands of dollars, has continually been
occupied by Turks.”
In December of 1914, Turkish soldiers seized
the American mission property of Afion Kara Hissar and occupied the church,
school and pastor’s house for a period of four years, leaving the buildings
with doors, windows and roofs wrecked and generally defiled with human offal.
The Turks pulled the Cross down from the church and put the Crescent up in its
place. In 1919, the Turks seized these buildings again and housed soldiers in
them.
The proposition under which our Christian schools may now
operate in Turkey is about as follows: Will you please let us repair our
buildings at our own expense with money raised in America, and reopen them in
those places where enough human beings remain to furnish a few pupils, and educate
Turkish boys in English, arithmetic, etc., if we give our solemn word that we
will not teach them any Christianity!
Much consolation is derived in certain quarters from the
fact that no religious education of any kind is permitted in Turkish schools,
and it is argued that the measure is not aimed particularly at Christian
institutions. People who obtain comfort from this feature of the case are
evidently not aware that the Turk is familiar with all the different ways of
skinning a cat. They do not give him credit for the peculiar brand of
intelligence which he certainly possesses. At any rate, the result is the same,
in so far as the continuation of foreign evangelical work in Turkey is
concerned.
The above is a very moderate and unprejudiced account of
what has been done, in part, to the American educational institutions in
Turkey, but gives no idea of the actual ferocity shown to students and teachers
and the material damage wrought.
I was talking recently to a prominent clergyman, friend
of the one-time president of one of the greatest missionary colleges in Turkey,
who made the following statement:
“Some time ago, I was talking with the President of one
of the American Colleges in Turkey who told me of the frightful treatment of
the people in the town where he was located. He told me the college was closed
and the professors, their wives and families driven out and some sixty or seventy of them were put to death. The tears
streamed down his cheeks as ho said: ‘I can see those dear, good people at this
moment, as they were marched away by the heartless Turk.’ ”
Regarding the conditions under which the American
missions are now operating in Turkey, Samuel M. Zwemer says, (1924):
“Recent regulations regarding foreigners
in Turkey and the prohibition of Christian teaching to Moslem children in
Mission schools do not indicate a larger degree of liberty under Islamic Nationalist
Government, but rather a recrudescence of the old spirit.”
If the reverend gentleman had said, “A continuance of the steadfast and unalterable policy”,
he would have been nearer the truth.
Doctor James L. Barton, Secretary of the American Board
of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, of Boston, Massachusetts, has an
interesting article in the “Homiletic Review” of
Doctor Barton is very eminent in missionary work, to
which he has devoted the best part of his life, and he is naturally anxious to
save as much as possible of the ruins of the magnificent edifice which the
Mission Board built up in Turkey with millions of American money, and to keep
going somehow. Here, are some quotations from Doctor Barton’s article:
“Some of the American schools have been closed because of
the exchange of populations approved by the Lausanne Conference, as, for instance,
Euphrates College at Harput, Central Turkey College at Aintab, Teachers’
College at Sivas, and the College at Van, all in the Eastern section of
Turkey are no longer in operation. These were conducted almost if not wholly
for Christian students, that is, Armenians for the most part, but with a few
Greeks and Syrians. Under the deportations the country was almost wholly
depopulated of this part of its inhabitants. The teachers were deported or left
the country so that these institutions are to-day closed. Central Turkey,
which was at Aintab, however, is aiding some work in Aleppo, which is in the
French mandate, to which a large number of the people of Aintab have fled, but
the constituency of the other institutions are scattered far and wide.”
“Anatolia College, which was at Marsovan, is in
practically the same condition, although it had many Turkish students, but its
teachers are scattered.”
This is a very carefully worded statement and does full
justice to the doctor’s well-deserved reputation for diplomatic ability. There
is nothing in it that might in any way offend the Turks. The general subject of the extermination of the Armenians
and Greeks, and the massacre of a million of the former, the real reason of the
closing of most of the schools, is obscured by reference to the “Exchange
of populations approved by the Lausanne Conference.”
The teachers of Anatolia College are “scattered.” This
is doubtless a correct expression to apply to people, many
of whom have suffered martyrdom and are in Heaven, along with many of the
teachers of other colleges. Let us breathe the pious wish that they are
not too widely “scattered” up there, as they will certainly long to get
together and talk over their experiences. Continuing, the doctor says:
“Just at the present time in the absence of regulations,
the schools are hampered in their religious teaching. The Turks have given
orders that there shall be no religious instruction and for the present there
is nothing in the form of direct instruction during school hours and none of
the students can be required to take Biblical studies or be present where
religious instruction is given. Under present circumstances, it seems wise to
those who are conducting schools in the Near East to comply with these
regulations until a more substantial understanding can be reached and the
educational system of the country be put on a sound basis”
If by a “sound basis” the doctor means—and he can not mean anything
else—the permission of the Turkish Government to convert Turks in Turkey to
Christianity, he will wait a long time. The “sound basis,” to arrive at which the Turks have been
shedding rivers of Christian blood, has already been achieved. And in
the meantime, some of the Christian missionaries have accepted to cease
preaching Christ. It is about time for the cock to crow. Doctor Barton
continues:
“It
is well known by Turks as well as by foreigners, that Turkey needs what these
institutions can give, in order to enable her to organize her present
administrations on a basis that would give her a worthy place in the sisterhood
of nations.”
When
Jesus appeared to the Eleven, as they sat at meat after the Crucifixion, He enjoined
them: “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He
that believeth and is baptized shall be saved. But he that believeth not shall
be damned.”
He
said nothing about educating foreigners so that they could put their administrations
on a sound basis. This is a laudable object but should be done and paid for by
the foreigners themselves.
I
am informed that the distinguished and erudite Rabbi Stephen Wise, of New York,
has estimated the entire value of the American Mission property now existing in
Turkey as being not more than ten million dollars. His has been one of the most
eloquent voices raised in behalf of the martyred Christians in the Near East.
I wish it distinctly understood that nothing I have said is meant in
any way as a reflection on American missionaries in general. I have known so
many noble men and women consecrated to spreading the doctrines of the Master
in foreign lands that I am incapable of saying or thinking anything derogatory
of this saintly band of pioneers, or of their work. I have already described
the gallant conduct of the missionary girls and men at Smyrna, and the same
story has been repeated over and over in many dark corners of the globe in
times of stress and danger.
I
am not in sympathy with the policy of certain missionaries with regard to
Turkey, and I believe that the utter failure of Christianity to direct the
policy of governments, as shown in this sad narrative, renders any campaign in
Moslem countries a well-nigh hopeless task. I am convinced, also, that an
examination of our private lives and conduct, will convince any one that the
conversion of Americans is a more crying need than that of Mohaminedans.
What
America needs, and what Europe needs, is a great spiritual awakening. Christ is
all right. He is unutterably wonderful
and lovely. Let us all unite under His banner, and then think about advancing
into foreign lands.
The ruin wrought to our missionary institutions in
Turkey, which has inspired so much caution with regard to the fate of the
remainder, is epitomized in the following table issued in 1923 by the American
Board of Foreign Missions:
Missionary Churches: 90% closed.
American Colleges: Work suspended in six out of eight.
Hospitals: One-half operating.
College Heads: Two dead, one deported, three refused
permission to return.
Village Schools: (Estimated at 1000). Abandoned.
High Schools: Only three out of forty-one now
open.
Property loss: Estimated at $2,880,000.
Native workers: Two-thirds dead; others in exile.
Constituency: 95% dead or
deported or enslaved in harems.
American Workers: Fifty deported.
This chapter can have no more appropriate ending than
the following quotation from the pen of the Reverend Ralph Harlow, formerly
Missionary to Turkey, and now Professor of Biblical Literature and Comparative
Religion at Smith College, Massachusetts:
“One hundred years or more ago, our fathers sent forth to
Asia Minor the first American missionary. For all these years our churches have
carried on the glorious task of awakening and renewing among the peoples of
that land, loyalty to the person and principles of Jesus Christ. Schools and
colleges, hospitals and churches have been built. A host of men and women have
come to love, generation by generation, the people of that land. It was the
laud that gave our faith birth; it was its cradle; it planted the seed from
which the church sprang in the blood of the martyrs.”
“To-day the Turkish Government announces that in the
future there will be no Christians in that land, and that no Protestant
missionary work will be permitted.”
“For five hundred years, the
Christians of Asia Minor have been the objects of persecution, while Christian
civilization has stood by and looked on. In more recent years the barbarity of
that persecution has shocked the conscience of humanity. In the eighties came
the Bulgarian horrors; in the nineties came the Armenian atrocities; in 1909
Adana ran red with the blood of slaughtered thousands and echoed to the wail of
countless women.”
“In each case the Turk was restored to
power; in each case lengthy promises of good conduct to his Christian subjects
were extracted.”
“From 1915 to 1918 came that series of atrocities such as the
world of our day had hardly the emotions and conscience to comprehend, even
amid the horror of the other cruelties of those other years. Those of us who
were in the land at that time, who saw these things with our own eyes, have
never told half of the truth of those dark hours. The Allied nations
swore by all that was sacred, by the crosses of their fallen dead, that these
things should not again be possible. One million five
hundred thousand is a conservative estimate of the lives struck down in lust
and torture. America sent in workers and dollars to the relief of the
starving and tattered fragments of the people who survived the blast.”
“The man most responsible for all this
horror was Talaat Bey. What is the attitude of the government of Mustapha Khemal
to Talaat and his methods? When Talaat died the government at Angora held a
service in his honor. The Yeni gun, the official organ of the Nationalist
party, came out with great mourning bands of black. In the editorial were these
sentences: ‘Talaat wrote the most glorious pages in Turkish history. Let the
eyes that do not weep become blind. Let the heart that does not ache cease to
beat.’ Khemal has followed in the footsteps of Talaat. Massacres, deportations,
cruelty, outrage and terror, have marked the reign of the Nationalist
government. The Smyrna tragedy has taken place in hundreds of villages on a
smaller scale. The innocence of childhood, the sacredness of womanhood, the
tears of mothers, the cries of the helpless, make no appeal at all to the armies
or the courts of this government.”
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