Sadik Shahid Bey

“ Besides, Islam is not a dead power. Under the hypocritic appearance of humanity, and the imitative mockery of civilization of Islam, still lies the same venomous dragon of the early ages—to ruin the vitality of the Christian church; and whenever it finds an opportunity for its deadly work, it is eager and able to act. The great Queen of England may feel herself happy and proud for the millions of her Mohametan subjects—as a little girl would feel for some pretty small eggs of snakes. ”

“ At any moment the aga of the next town could be expected to come with his "segmen" (horsemen) and open a dispute with the chief of this town, shed blood, burn a part of the town, carry away the herds and flocks, spoil the crops and do every harm imaginable. Whether defeat or victory, the people always lost, and the greatest sufferers were the Armenians. The Kurdish or Turkish bey would send word to certain Armenian individuals or community, demanding so much money or provisions, the denial of which would always cost life, honor and property. ”

“ Turkish Prisons are always attached to the city hall and in its dark and damp basement. These prisons, far from being the means of correction, are the most terrible device of bribery, vengeance, cruelty and suffering, especially for the poor Christians who are shut in these subterranean hells under the name of political prisoners. For them there is no law, no justice, no conscience and no name. ”

“ It is a mystery of Divine Providence how the Darkness should be permitted to rule the Light, and a greater mystery that the most civilized nations and governments—the supposed champions of Liberty—would take such a barbarous nation as the Turks for their friend, and such a tyrant, the greatest enemy of Christian civilization, for their ally! ”

“ They show no sign of consciousness of their wretched condition. Some individuals sparks glowing here and there are at once put out and the national suicide still goes on, and the suffering of the Christian subjects can never be realized. Under all their bondage, intellectual slavery, blackmailing, poverty and persecution they are groaning for liberty. But, alas! the world seems totally deaf to their cries and sighing! ”

“ The loss of the English Government means the loss of the Anglo-Saxon influence, something far more preferable than the selfish and avaricious policy of the government, or rather of the millionaires, who, having credited treasures to Turkey, do not want to lose their interest, even if it costs the blood of the Armenian, or any other nation. The loss of the Anglo-Saxon influence means the loss of Christian civilization. Russia, with her despotic policy of the Middle Ages, will be too glad to grasp the staff of the church universal and drive the nations back to the dark centuries. ”

“ Comets are the tails of these gigantic demons, and the eclipses of the moon and the sun are their struggle to swallow them, which can be avoided by crying to God from the minarets, and at the same time frightening them by shooting fire-arms towards the skies and making all kinds of noises, by which the Turk succeeds every time in saving the poor moon from being swallowed. ”

“ The most bloody tyrant may erect a mosque or a bridge with one part of the money he has plundered from the Christians, and he is noted as one of the benefactors of the human race. On his funeral day his coffin is carried over the shoulders of thousands, and every believer passing by his grave stops a moment with high reverence and deep admiration and repeats his prayer for the illumination of that grave, the owner of which is already enrolled among the saints and authorized to mediate for the mortal creatures here below. ”

“ While the population of Armenia proper was in this condition, other Armenians in Lower Armenia and Cilicia were subjected both to the central government and local Turkish beys or agas, every one of whom was a king in his own circle and dealt with their rayas (subjects) as a rule very unjustly and, in many cases, very unwisely for themselves. None of these local governors had any project for the future welfare of the country. Every one acted as if the end of the world was at hand; their motto was, "Impoverish the people in order to enrich yourself." ”

“ The Situation of Turkish Women. A man may divorce his wife by simply desiring to do so; no reasonable cause is demanded of him. A woman can never demand a divorce, no matter how cruel and unfaithful her husband may be; she may be permitted to live separate if she can afford it. Hence, the only possible way to get rid of a bad husband is to irritate him until he asks for a divorce. ”

“ They never believe that Jesus was actually held, crucified and murdered by the Jews, but simply they were deceived by a divine trick in taking Simon, the betrayer, for Jesus, because God has given, him the resemblance of his master in order to punish him for his treason, and to annul the bad intention of the enemies while he took Jesus into heaven, whence he shall come in the last day to testify for Mohamet. In that day God shall say unto Jesus before all Christians, "O Jesus, son of Mary, hast thou said unto men to take thee and thy mother for two gods beside God?" ”

“ What have the Christian nations of the world done to save those who have suffered because of their Christianity; and what are they going to do to-day to better their condition, which is more dangerous and deplorable now than ever? Experience of the last Greek war encouraged the Turk in his bloodshed and brutality, and discouraged the Christian element of the country, especially the Armenians who, living largely in the interior, have little connection with the surrounding countries. "Well, it is the business of the governments to act," is the answer of Christian people and ministry. ”

“ The genius of Mohametanism, by the vain claims of superiority and its stern fatalism, contributed much to retain the Turks in a stationary condition, which necessarily became one of increasing inferiority in comparison with the other nations of Europe. Educated in a creed which confines the intellect to the Koran and inspires sovereign contempt for nations, arts and institutions without the pale of Islam, resigned to the belief that all events happen by inevitable necessity, an arrest was laid upon intellectual cultivation. ”

“ Twenty-one Protestant ministers chose a martyr's destiny rather than a Mohametan name, some of them leaving their motherless children behind them. Catholic ministers were dismembered and tortured to death, still clinging to the faith of the cross. A poor, good man was seized by the mob and brought out of his shop upon the street to be butchered like a sheep. The Turkish neighbors tried to persuade him to accept Islam and be saved. "You are a harmless, meek man; we will take you from the mob if you will only say that you accept Islam, and afterwards you can pursue your Christian life." ”

“ On the ordinary business days the members of the Turkish court come late and irregular. The ice cream sellers are always ready at the hall of the court in hot weather and the coffee pot is there in the winter. The shoemaker comes at the office hour to get the measure of the cadi's foot; the tailor comes to fit the coat of the chief clerk. Soon a dervish enters the courtyard and begins his work of singing, as "Padishah does not lodge in a palace unless it is well finished; no man can reach to the truth unless he is far from the world." ”

“ The river Tigris bursting its bounds, overflowed the neighboring lands; the palace of the Persian monarch shook to its foundation, several of its towers falling down, and the Judge of Persia saw in his dream a ferocious camel conquered by an Arabian courser. ”

“ Hence the more zealous and intolerant a sultan the nearer the ideal of a Mohametan ruler, and more respected and obeyed by the bigoted people, officers and the army.
Another phase of the Turkish Government is its dualism. It is a government within a government. Two words, porte and palace, express these elements. The whole machinery of government exists at the porte, Council of Ministers and Council of State. All business is supposed to pass through their hands, and the whole administration subordinates to them; still all being subject to the supreme will of the Sultan. ”

“ Until recent times the majority of the civilized people had a vague idea of this Eastern nation. The last massacres taught the world about the faith and perseverance of that ancient Christian church. During the fiendish and wholesale slaughter of a few months 100,000 strong and noble men gave their lives for the sake of humanity and religion; though they knew perfectly well that by a single repetition of the short Mohametan creed they could be reckoned "Believers," and the law of Koran would protect them from every harm. The majority of the killed were offered the choice of Islam or the sword ”

“ Mohametans assert that many Giaours, however obstinate in their lifetime, are compelled to submit at last to the true religion and make this significant sign of the finger on their death-bed without letting their friends know anything about it, and many are so afraid of the flames of hell that they are obliged to cry aloud, "There is no deity but Allah, Mohamet is the apostle of Allah!" ”

“ The young men, more vigorous than their conservative fathers, took out the buried treasures and began a strong competition with the Moslems, and succeeded. The big-turbaned Turk and the ragged Kurd, together with the barefooted Arab, began to ask the way to the Armenian banks to borrow money for their antediluvian plowing work, at the same time sighing in their souls and murmuring in each other's ears, "I wish I had the giaour's mind and wealth." ”

“ Armenians Are an Exceedingly Religious People. You cannot find a single member in that communion who has not been baptized in the sacred fount of the church and in the name of the Holy Trinity; not one in ten thousand whose marriage is not performed under the authority of the church. If there be any they are refused to approach the Lord's table and their children are not admitted to baptism, and their dead are not buried with christian ceremonies. In every Armenian town the best building is the church, with the sign of the cross on its top. ”

“ A language full of unimaginably corrupt expressions, a home discipline full of shameful inducements of hellish practices, a street life more wicked than that of Sodomite character, a religious teaching nothing more than a diabolic mechanism of cruelty, a pulpit advocating hatred and malice, a religious system of bloodshed and robbery, a book demoralizing the human likeness. ”

“ As the natural result of Christian civilization, the Armenians could not help cherishing in their hearts the sacred ambition of freedom, as a living plant could not help bursting into life under the necessary conditions of nature. Being oppressed and deprived of this human privilege, they could not help sighing under the heavy burden of Turkish persecutions and Kurdish outrages. ”

“ But after the overthrow of his temporary dominion the Armenians suffered more from the vengeance of the Egyptian caliphate. The exact cause of this vengeance was the hospitality the Armenians showed to the Crusaders, sheltering and feeding them a whole winter on their way to the Holy Land to recover it from the hands of Mohametans. The cruelties of Timourlane, the Tartar, devastated Armenia at the close of the fourteenth century; his bloody soldiers being tired of killing, buried many Armenians alive, or drove them into the rivers, and many children and women together were drowned. ”

“ No Moslem can change his faith without infliction of the death penalty. Especially those who are proselyted to Islam can never return to their original faith without being murdered for the supposed treason, while Christian men and women are induced, forced, and very often tortured to accept Islam. To marry such a convert woman is regarded highly virtuous. ”

“ The next summer the Turkish army, upwards of 200,000 strong, advanced in the direction of Vienna, capturing castles and towns and devasting the country, till from the walls of the Austrian capital the gloomy light of burning villages were seen round half the horizon. The Turks reached Vienna and the siege immediately commenced, but notwithstanding the numerical inferiority of the garrison they were repulsed at every assault and suffered severely from the sallies. ”

“ This, too, made the Turks jealous that giaours were better acquainted with their business and books than themselves. In an old style Turkish school the Arabic grammar was a life work, while in the Armenian schools the necessary principles of that language are simply a few months' work. Many poor and honest Armenian young men gain name and position through education, while hosts of Turkish boys are loafing in the streets and stepping over wild street dogs and building a character worse than dogs. ”

“ The only son of a widow was killed and the headless body was brought home after three days by a few neighboring friends; and, when the mother learned that her son was slain because he would not deny his Lord, she knelt beside him and kissed his blood-stained hand, and said, with flowing tears: "Rather so, my beloved son, than to see you deny our blessed Jesus!" "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord." ”

“ So far as we know, polygamy, human sacrifice and immoral practices in worship were not introduced nor practiced among the Armenians; on the other hand, the sacredness of family life, the fidelity in marriage, the obedience to parents, national enthusiasm, attachment to the "fatherland," social habits, industry, peacefulness, hospitality, and most of all religious zeal and piety—still prevailing characteristics of the race—are traced back to those remote ages. ”

“ Socialism, anarchism and nihilism are new words and strange ideas for a peaceful, industrious and religious nation like the Armenians. What they demanded from their own government and from the European Powers was safety of life, regard of honor and protection of property and religious liberty—the points which were promised in the schemes of reforms and guaranteed by the Christian governments. ”