Volume II Part 25 (2/2)

”1. They are becoming intelligent. Making the Bible a study, they become established in Christian doctrine.

”2. Church discipline is better maintained than it is in American churches. Their 'watch and care' are delightful to witness. Many of these Christians came out of the grossest corruption, but the fellows.h.i.+p of the church is a s.h.i.+eld and a support.

”3. They are self-denying. The support of their own inst.i.tutions, including the building of their school-houses and houses of wors.h.i.+p, with very little missionary aid, necessitates the sacrifice of comforts which they cheerfully forego. Experience in Turkey has abundantly proved, that dependent churches are nearly worthless for evangelizing agencies. When the inst.i.tutions of the Gospel are supported for them, they regard the work of extending it as belonging especially to the missionaries; and hence, however lavish the expenditure, they often complain that money is not more freely spent, and the work prosecuted on a grander scale. Complaints against missionaries come chiefly from churches doing little for themselves. On the other hand, self-supporting churches regard the work of propagating the Gospel as their own, and whatever is given them, they gratefully receive as aid in doing their own work.

”4. These churches resemble the primitive churches in their disposition to work for others. They are imbued with a spirit of labor. They go from house to house, reading and preaching the word.

This is the theme in the shop, the field, and by the way-side.

”The chief source of discomfort is in the Armenian character itself, in which there is a lack of stability, and a want of perseverance.

But there is ground for hope, that even this national trait may be overcome by the power of the Gospel.

”In Harpoot and its seventy out-station is a Protestant community of about five thousand souls, characterized by a remarkable reformation in the outward life. Many of them are doubtless Christians, who, in the great care which the churches use in receiving members to their fellows.h.i.+p, are in a certain sense on probation. The Protestant name has become a synonym for integrity and uprightness.

”The extent, to which the Gospel has affected the communities not Protestant, cannot be appreciated by one not in actual contact with them. It manifests itself partly in the weakened power of superst.i.tion, the multiplication of schools, the number of adults who have learned to read, the increase in general intelligence and knowledge of the truth, the decrease of intemperance and vice, the promotion of enterprise and good order; and, in short, the beginnings of a civilization, that has a Christian aspect. There have been sold at Harpoot about four thousand copies of the Bible, and twenty thousand portions of the same, with nearly fifty-five thousand volumes of other books, religious and educational, from the mission press. Large numbers of these have gone into the hands of the unevangelized, and are silently exerting an influence. This cla.s.s of persons is always represented in our congregations. They hear the truth discussed everywhere, and thousands of them have accepted it intellectually, who have not yet separated themselves from their own religious communities. All this suggests the possibility of a rapid development, when the Spirit shall be poured out from on high.

”Were the Harpoot field limited to the district seventy miles square, of which the city is the centre, it might now be safely left, with its seminaries and hundreds of villages, to the eleven churches and the native laborers found there, with an annual grant, for a few years, from the American Board. As it is, there is good hope that, by the blessing of G.o.d on the means in use, the whole district, embracing more than twenty thousand square miles and half a million of souls, may, in a few years, be relinquished as a missionary field.”

Some estimate may be formed of the influence exerted by the press, when it is considered that more than ten and a half millions of pages were issued, in the single year 1870, in the Armenian, Armeno-Turkish, Graeco-Turkish, and Bulgarian languages; and that nearly three hundred millions of pages have been issued by these missions since they began their operations. The number of missionaries among the Armenians, in 1870, was forty, and of female a.s.sistant missionaries sixty.

When the missionaries entered Turkey, religion was administered wholly by the hierarchy, and had everywhere a stereotype form. Death was the penalty for heresy among the Moslems; and it was scarcely less in the prevailing sentiment of the nominal Christian sects. The history relates how far this obstacle existed, and how far it has been overcome. Whatever be true as regards thy ecclesiastics, the people have now accepted, in some good degree, the principle of religious freedom, and so has the government of the Sultan.

Before the inst.i.tution of Protestant missions, the school-books among the Turks, Armenians, and Greeks were in the ancient languages, and the schools were consequently of little practical value. One of the first things done by the missionaries was the publication of school-books in the languages spoken by the people; and this simple movement took wonderfully with both Christians and Moslems, and has wrought a mighty revolution in the empire.

The principle of self-support in native churches appears now to be the well-defined policy of all the missions in Turkey, to be realized in practice at the earliest possible day. In some of the missionary districts, the forming of the church and the ordination of the pastor are expected to occur at the same time; and when aid is given it is only for a limited series of years; and the schools, and all other necessary agencies, are to be transferred at the earliest moment from the mission to the people themselves. As a general rule, the missionaries do not now take the lead in the building of school-houses and places of wors.h.i.+p. They aid as may seem necessary; but the responsibility and chief pecuniary burden are left with the people; except where the power of precedent, from a different course, is too strong to be overcome at once.

The various testimonies embodied in this chapter will not affect all minds alike. Yet all must admit, that the Gospel has gained a deeper, firmer hold on the Armenians, than it ever had before, from the days of Gregory ”the Illuminator” until now. A mental, moral, and social revolution is in progress, and mainly as a consequence of the republication of the Gospel by missionaries in the past half century; and there is no probability of any event occurring that shall be sufficient to arrest it. Doubtless great evil would result from extensive inroads of sectarian zeal. But there is hope of triumph even then,--from the Bible in their own language, brought by the press within reach of thousands of families, with fathers, mothers, and children able and free to read it; from self-governed, self-supported, self-propagating churches, scattered over the empire, each with its indoctrinated native pastor; from woman holding such a place in the family and social circle, as she never held before; and from common schools, and normal schools, and high schools, and theological seminaries, and even colleges, all independent of the hierarchy, and beyond the power of the Jesuits; with the logic of free thought, and a free conscience.

It would seem that it may not be needful greatly to enlarge the present number of missionaries among the Armenian people. The native ministers and native churches are the main thing. And it must be admitted, that the Gospel, through the grace of G.o.d, has been republished, and its inst.i.tutions replanted, extensively and most hopefully in the Armenian Church of the Orient. ”In the midst of fermentation,” writes the Constantinople station in 1872, ”the leaven of truth is making its way; and so is, also, that of infidelity; but the latter is temporary in its influence, the former permanent. There is far more Protestantism outside of the Protestant church than within it. Protestant ideas of truth, of liberty of conscience, of progress, are spread far and wide, and are convulsing these nations.”

CHAPTER XLVI.

THE MOHAMMEDANS.

The necessity for republis.h.i.+ng the Gospel among the Oriental Churches, in order to approach the Mohammedans successfully, was stated in the Introduction to this History.[1] It seems proper now to give some ill.u.s.trations of the effect this republication is likely to have upon that people.

[1] See Volume i. pp. 1-6.

A large portion of the Mohammedan population of Turkey is undoubtedly of Christian origin, and therefore less firmly wedded to the Moslem faith and ritual, than are the Osmanly Turks. Three fourths of the four millions in European Turkey, are believed to be of this cla.s.s. The Kuzzelbashes in Eastern Turkey have a tradition that their Christian ancestors were compelled to become Mohammedans, and they are now regarded by the Turks as little better than infidels; nor are the Koords in much higher repute. Of the Druzes enough was said in the first volume.[1]

[1] See Chapter xv.

Though the penalty of death for embracing the Christian religion has been abrogated in Turkey,[1] yet the convert from Mohammedanism does not feel himself free from danger of secret a.s.sa.s.sination. Far greater security of life and property is enjoyed by Protestant Armenians and Bulgarians, than by Protestant Turks. Indeed, it is not long since Protestant Turks had no security whatever; and in Persia, they have none now. When Koord, Kuzzelbash, and Turk shall feel as free to inquire, and to act on conviction, as the members of the nominally Christian sects, there are facts encouraging the belief, that large numbers of Moslems may be expected to embrace the Christian faith.

[1] See Chapters ix. and xxv.

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