CHAPTER IX

THE RESULTS OF AMERICAN MISSIONS

Nowhere in all the world, not even in China or Japan, are the results of the labours and influence of American missionaries more conspicuous or more generally recognized than in the Ottoman Empire. They have not confined themselves to making converts to Christianity, but their intelligence and enterprise have been felt even more extensively and effectively in the material than in the spiritual improvement of the people. The first electric telegraph instrument in Turkey was set up by missionaries. They introduced the first sewing machine, the first printing press, and the first modern agricultural implements. They brought the tomato and the potato and the other valuable vegetables and fruits that are now staples; they built the first hospitals; they started the first dispensary and the first modern schools. Before they came, not one of the several races in Turkey had the Bible in its own language. To-day, thanks to the American missionaries, every subject of the Turkish sultan can read the Bible in his own language, if he can read at all.

But a large volume would be necessary to tell what I would like to say on this subject. Mr. Bryce, the British ambassador to Washington, in one of his books, says: “I cannot mention the American missionaries without a tribute to the admirable work they have done. They have been the only good influence that has worked from abroad upon the Turkish Empire.” Sir William Ramsey, the famous British scientist, who has spent much time in Turkey, is quite as enthusiastic, and I could quote a dozen other equally competent authorities as to the character of the men and the results they have accomplished.

In the division of territory the Presbyterians have Syria, the United Presbyterians Egypt, while European Turkey and Asia Minor are occupied by the American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions, affiliated with the Congregational Church, with headquarters at Boston. There are several Church of England missions, but no central organization. The Swedish, German, and Swiss Lutherans have schools, churches, and orphanages. The French Roman Catholics have schools and hospitals in Asia Minor in charge of Capuchin and Franciscan monks, but the chief missionary work in Turkey--educational, benevolent, and evangelical--has been done by agents of the American Board since 1820, when two pioneers, Pliny Fisk and Levi Parsons, landed at Smyrna and began to prepare themselves for preaching and teaching, by learning the native languages.

The actual number of central stations of the American Board of Foreign Missions in Turkey in 1910 is seventeen, at which 159 American born missionaries are engaged. There are 263 out-stations, with 1,032 native Protestant pastors and labourers, and 46,131 adherents; and 444 schools and colleges with an average attendance of 23,846 students. This is the summary of returns for the year 1910.

The headquarters from which the campaign of evangelization is directed is called the Bible House in Stamboul, the native section of Constantinople, which was built in 1871 and is to-day the most far-reaching lighthouse in all the East. Its rays penetrate to every corner of the Ottoman Empire. Here are the offices of administration, the depository of the Bible Society, the printing plant and publication house, the treasury, the library, the information bureaus, and other branches of the work. If you ever want to know anything about missions or missionaries in the near East, individually or collectively, their personnel, their purposes, or the results they have accomplished, or anything about American education and charitable work in Turkey, write to the Bible House, Stamboul, Constantinople, and if you have any money to contribute toward the expenses of the great work that is going on, send it there to Dr. Peet.

The most far-reaching work of the American missionaries is educational, which comprehends all races, all religions, and all languages. They are educating representatives of every one of the many different races of which the Turkish Empire is composed, regardless of religious faith--Turks, Arabs, Egyptians, Armenians, Kurds, Persians, Macedonians, Bulgars, Druses, Nestorians, Greeks, Russians, Georgians, Circassians, and others too numerous to mention. Their influence is thus extended to every community, because no student leaves an American institution without carrying with him the germs of progress which must affect the family and the neighbourhood and all of the inhabitants with whom he may thereafter come in contact. This influence has been working for half a century or more and has been preparing the minds of the people for the great change that has recently come over them. The missionaries do not teach revolution; they do not encourage revolutionary methods, but they have always preached and taught liberty, equality, fraternity, and the rights of man.

The congregations of the American churches, and especially the pupils of the missionary schools, are usually reduced from 25 to 30 per cent. ever year by immigration to the United States. Having learned from their teachers of the advantages and the opportunities that exist across the water, having acquired the English language, and being able to get good advice as to location and often letters of introduction, they have decided advantages over ordinary emigrants and for the same reason they make the best sort of citizens when they reach their new homes. It had been very difficult for an emigrant to leave Turkey until two years ago, but somehow or another, there has been a constant stream running that way for a quarter of a century.

A dozen missionaries have told me that the brightest and most promising young men and women in their districts, and especially the best teachers in their schools, have emigrated. Many of them go to Massachusetts, Chicago has thousands, and there is a large colony in Troy working in the shirt and collar factories. For example, the churches at Harpoot had 3,107 members one year and 2,413 the next. The balance had gone to America. One fourth of the congregation of the mission church at Bitlis emigrated, almost in a body, last year. It would be a great deal better for Turkey if these people would stay at home and use the knowledge and the principles they have gained in the regeneration of their country, but it cannot be denied that they are among the most valuable immigrants of all the aliens that go to the United States.

Most of the mission churches are small, like those in the villages of the United States, with congregations of only twenty-five or thirty or fifty members. Those in the cities are larger, several having more than a thousand members. They are organized just like the Protestant churches in the United States with native pastors and native church officers. They have Sunday schools, prayer meetings, Christian Endeavor societies and other organizations, and they study the same Sunday school lessons as the Protestant children in the United States.

Most of them are self-supporting. Sometimes the newly organized congregations get a little help from the United States at the start, but the great majority of native converts pay more for their religion and make greater sacrifices than the Christians of the United States. For example, thirteen out of twenty-seven churches in the Central Turkish mission are not only entirely self-supporting but contribute substantial aid to weaker churches in their neighbourhood. In the entire Turkish Empire last year the native churches paid five sixths of all the expenses of education, worship, and charity.

The board pays the salaries of the missionaries, but the effort is to bring the native churches to a condition of pecuniary independence for the reason that it stimulates their pride and their ambition; it gives them confidence and self-respect, which, as everybody knows, are the strongest elements in the formation of national as well as individual character. Notwithstanding the extension of the work, the amount of money contributed by the United States for the support of native churches has been growing smaller every year. Whereas the board contributed $54,585 to assist native churches twenty years ago, in 1910 it gave less than $20,000.

The most significant feature of the statistical reports of American missions in Turkey is the column which gives the contributions of the natives for the support of their churches. In 1910, the total was $119,987, an increase from $92,937 for the year 1903.

This is very remarkable, and means ten times as much as the same amount would mean in America, because of the poverty of the people and the fact that the earnings of the great mass of native Christians do not often exceed thirty or forty cents a day. This money is given voluntarily for the erection and support of houses of worship, for the salaries of their native pastors, and for the circulation of religious literature. It may safely be said that no Christian community in the world, unless it be the Roman Catholics of Ireland, contributes so large a portion of its income for religious purposes as the native Protestants of Turkey. Because of the liberality of the people in this respect the Protestant church in Turkey has been able to enjoy the ministration of educated pastors. This accounts also for the large attendance of natives upon the American schools, which derive a larger proportion of their income from tuition fees probably than any other schools of their class in the world. This is particularly true of the American colleges. No college these days pretends to live, and few could survive without, endowments, but the American colleges in Turkey are more dependent upon their tuition fees and less dependent upon endowments for support than any similar institutions in existence.

In making a comparison of the American and Turkish schools, Dr. Crawford, a veteran missionary teacher at Trebizond, said:

“Although the Department of Public Instruction at Constantinople is making noble efforts to improve the schools of Turkey, they still are limited in quantity and poor in quality. The Mohammedan schools are taught by priests, who are themselves, with few exceptions, illiterate. The pupils sit on the floor of a mosque swaying back and forth, studying about the three ‘R’s’--reading, writing and ’rithmetic--and the Koran, of course. They pay more attention to that than to anything else, and, indeed, some of the mullahs are so illiterate that they would not be able to read anything else. Of late the Turkish officials have begun to recognize the usefulness of Christian schools and not only tolerate them, but are introducing their methods to a degree into the mosque schools. With a liberal and intelligent minister of education there ought to be a decided improvement in the Turkish system of instruction, but there will be great difficulty in securing teachers. Of course, women teachers cannot be utilized and men who have education enough to qualify them to teach properly can get positions under the government or elsewhere that pay much better salaries than teaching school.

“The Greeks have excellent schools and their people show a craving for knowledge which is characteristic of the race. The Roman Catholics have French and Italian schools for the colonies of those nations under the instruction of Jesuits and Capuchin monks, and they are usually very good. But the lack of education throughout the Turkish Empire is deplorable, and if the American schools have done nothing else than stimulate a rivalry on the part of the other religious denominations and the government, the money that has been contributed to support them has been well invested.

“As a rule, both the Greek and the Armenian clergy are uneducated. Most of them are very little higher intellectually than the Turkish mullahs. Some of them can merely read the service, and no more. There is no inducement for educated men to go into the priesthood because the pay is so small; altogether too small to enable them to live decently and to give their families the ordinary comforts of life. Educated men cannot afford to become priests, and as education is not required in either the Greek or Armenian Churches, when a priest dies the congregation select one of their own number who happens to be able to read and make him their priest. A bishop of the Armenian Church in this vicinity recently resigned to accept a government office, and gave as his reason for doing so that his salary was not sufficient to support his family and to educate his children.

“Agricultural and industrial education is needed more than anything else in order to enable the people to get the best profit from their labour and to teach them to use modern labour-saving implements and methods.

“It is the policy of the missionaries to make the natives do everything for themselves so far as practicable, and native pastors relieve them of much of their labour except supervision. But at the same time the missionary must drive new stakes and plough new ground and plant new seeds all the time to extend his sphere of influence. And he travels about for this reason, holding religious services in the native languages and drawing believers together until he gets enough material to start a church. I know a man who preaches three times every Sunday in three different languages in different places to different congregations--Turkish, Armenian and Greek. And they have all kinds of schools to look after, from kindergartens to theological seminaries. The latter are especially important because they furnish pastors for the native churches. The faculties in the American colleges are nearly all natives, but the presidents, the deans, and the treasurers are always Americans, and the boards of trustees are mixed.”

If you would attend a gathering of native pastors in Turkey you would find that they compare favourably in appearance and manners and intelligence and education with the members of any conference or presbytery or ministerial association in the United States, and that is one of the reasons why their work has been so successful. The Moslem priests and the clergy of the orthodox Greek and Armenian churches are almost universally uncouth and illiterate men and the public in Turkey is prompt and keen in detecting the difference.

President Angell, of the University of Michigan, who was United States minister to Turkey for several years, once said: “So far as Americans are concerned the missionary work in European Turkey and Asia Minor is and long has been almost exclusively in the hands of the American Board. In no part of the world has that board or any board had abler or more devoted representatives to preach the gospel, to conduct schools and colleges or to establish and administer hospitals. Wherever an American mission is established, there is a centre of alert, enterprising American life, whose influence in a hundred ways is felt even by the lethargic Oriental life.”

The vital need, however, is chapels. Every congregation ought to have a home and its own place of worship. It is not necessary to explain the advantages. They are obvious. It is just ten times as important for a native congregation in Turkey to have its own house of worship as it is for a congregation in the United States, and for the same reason. And, as a rule, the congregation in the United States has ten times the financial ability to provide its own house of worship as the little circle of native believers in Turkey.

Each of the one hundred and fifty-nine American missionaries in Turkey to-day has a district like the diocese of an Episcopal bishop, with a dozen or twenty churches under his care. He visits them regularly, advises with their pastors, superintends their schools, and exercises a paternal authority over the people. They consult him concerning their temporal as well as their spiritual welfare, not only the members of his congregation, but men of every class. No class of people in all Turkey are so trusted by the officials and the public and by every race as the American missionaries. All classes accept the word of a missionary without question. Money is intrusted to him for safe-keeping or for transmission to other hands without asking for a receipt, and it is a common thing for officials of high rank to seek counsel of missionaries when they are in doubt or in danger. As a well-known writer has said:

“They know that in times of trouble the missionary is their best friend, no matter how much they may have abused him in times of prosperity. They know that he will always do what he believes to be for their best good, even though there may be a difference of judgment as to what is the best thing. In the midst of Oriental duplicity the missionaries have established a reputation for speaking the truth. At first this was one of the severest puzzles to the Turks in the dealings of the missionaries with the government. They could conceive of no reason for telling the truth under such circumstances, so they were completely misled.”

Under the new régime, the missionaries are having their own way. They are being sought instead of seeking. Not only are they free to come and go and introduce American ideas and knowledge, but the government is taking away their best native teachers and is using them for the education of more young men and young women who are needed to take charge of the public schools.

Until the constitution was proclaimed missionary education and medical work was seriously hampered throughout the Levant by the government authorities, and the remarkable results that have been accomplished by the American missionaries have been obtained in the face of all kinds of obstacles and embarrassments. Travelling permits were refused by the police and neither the missionaries nor their native helpers were allowed to go freely from place to place. The missionaries, when buying real estate, often have been required to give pledges that it would not be used for religious or educational purposes. Twenty-nine years ago the Protestants of Constantinople purchased a site for a house of worship, and the American ambassador has not yet been able to obtain permission for them to erect a building. Places of worship and schools have frequently been closed by order of the officials. The residences and the school-houses of American missionaries have often been searched and books and manuscripts--even ordinary text books--have been seized and destroyed. Schools have been burned by local fanatics and several American missionaries have suffered martyrdom.

No Moslem can be released from his religious obligations, and when he renounces his faith and professes any other religion the only punishment is death. Hitherto the only safety for a convert was to flee from his country before his conversion became known. This is not strange when it is considered that Islam is the political as well as the religious system of the country; the judges of the courts are theologians; the shariat, or code of laws, is based upon the Koran, and both are grounded upon divine authority as set forth in the teachings of the Prophet.

In discussing this question with the late Rev. Herbert M. Allen, editor and founder of _The Orient_, the enterprising American missionary newspaper, at Constantinople, whose death in 1910 was a sad loss to the cause of civilization in Turkey, he said:

“The most imperative need of Turkey in an educational way at present is a high-class theological seminary, such as you have in Chicago and New York. Here we are in the land of the Bible. Nearly all the religions of the world originated in this section. Here the gospel was first preached. Turkey is occupied to-day with the same races that lived here then, all of them preserving their memorials. I believe that a non-sectarian theological seminary established here for the purpose of teaching Biblical history and comparative theology in a broad way would appeal to every one of these races. The schools of theology that we have to-day appeal only to those who intend to enter the Protestant missionary service, but a seminary on a university basis, like that at Chicago, would draw ambitious young men from all races and denominations, and would undoubtedly receive sufficient patronage to become self supporting with the aid of the endowments that such an institution should command.

“The weakness of the Greek and the Armenian Churches has been the absence of an educated clergy. Their lack of influence among the people; their lack of progress, and the diminishing respect that is shown to the profession is due to this cause. Such a seminary would educate leaders in thought and progress in the social and political, as well as the religious, life of the country. And what this country needs more than anything else is educated leaders.

“The several races that make up the population of the Turkish Empire are all represented in the Armenian schools,” continued Mr. Allen, “but vary according to localities. In Armenia most of the students are Armenians; in the colleges nearer the coast and the commercial cities the larger number are Greeks. As for Mohammedans, they are scattered and have been comparatively few in number until recently, but now the eagerness for education is so great that a Moslem father will send his son to a Christian college without the slightest hesitation. They have no fear that their children will be proselyted by Christian teachers, and they know they will get a good education; that their morals will be protected; that their health will be looked after, and that they will be given a broad view of things. There is no difficulty in mixing the different creeds. They all worship together and sit together in the dining-room and mingle in the playgrounds, as well as in the classroom. And they submit without the slightest hesitation to all the rules concerning prayers and divine worship and the study of the Bible.

“Outside of Constantinople, the American colleges have no competition. There are some French schools and the Greeks have contributed plenty of money for the education of their own race, but they do not seem to know how to spend it. Not long ago I visited a Greek college near Cesarea, endowed by a wealthy merchant in Constantinople. I found fine buildings, well equipped, but everybody told me the schools scarcely amounted to anything. The reason is that they have incompetent teachers and poor management and what is still worse, the lack of an ideal. The success of the American schools and their popularity is due to the high American ideal that is maintained by the faculties. It combines discipline, punctuality, truth, honour, self-control, self-respect, and other virtues that are not always found in the Oriental, but which are just as essential for good citizens and well-rounded characters here as anywhere else. We aim to make our students full men; to elevate them to the highest standard of manhood, and that is the reason of the influence and the success of the American schools. We have practically no competition in that line of education.

“Very often the same families who send pupils to us will first send them to a French school to study French, but they afterward send them to us to get what they call the American training; that standard of manhood and sterling character which most of our graduates have taken away with their diplomas.

“There is an English school in Constantinople for the benefit of English children, although other nationalities are admitted, and there are various other schools, but the American is the only nationality or religious denomination that has ever attempted general educational work in Turkey.

“What race is most responsive and appreciative of the opportunities furnished by the American schools?

“The Armenians by all means. From the beginning they have filled our schools. They are the most progressive element in the empire and they appreciate the value of education more highly than any other race. Several years ago, before Abdul Hamid showed his hostility to them, the Armenians started what was called ‘The Union Educational Society,’ which established primary schools in various parts of Armenia. When the sultan began to persecute the Armenians the schools were closed and the society was converted into a political organization, but since the revolution it has been re organized under an excellent board of managers and is doing good work, establishing schools in different parts of that province.

“They already have opened sixty to my knowledge and the number is increasing so fast that it is difficult to keep track of them. Mr. Minassian, a graduate of Yale, who took a post-graduate course in pedagogy and applied sciences at Harvard, is the superintendent of these schools--and a very competent man. He could have been an assistant professor at Yale if he had been willing to stay there, but he came over here to assist in the regeneration of his native country and is doing splendid work. He is making a special feature of agriculture and is teaching the young men, and the old men, also, how to get better results from the soil.

“The missionaries in Armenia are considering the question of placing their common schools under his direction, and I think within a few years it will be an accomplished fact, provided they can come to some satisfactory understanding concerning the regulations. Armenia will be the most progressive and prosperous part of the Ottoman Empire before many years. The ambition of the people is unbounded; their national pride is stronger and their industry is greater than that of any other race. No people have suffered so much, but none has gained more than the Armenians.”

“Has there been any change in the policy of the government toward education?”

“Decidedly. The new government seems to be working very hard to organize an educational system throughout the empire and is copying European methods. It is sending boys to foreign countries to be educated for teachers, and is also placing students in almost every one of the American colleges and high schools. Five government students have matriculated at Robert College and five young women entered the American College for Girls last winter to be educated at the government’s expense as instructors in the national schools. When the American College for Girls moves to its new location next year, the imperial government will start a school in their old building, with the American college as its model. Normal schools and high schools are being opened as fast as competent instructors can be found, but the great obstacle to the extension of the school system is the lack of teachers and the inability to pay such salaries as will tempt educated men to undertake the work.

“The most significant and satisfactory feature of the new régime is the recognition of Christian schools on the same basis as Moslem schools by the Department of Education. In the allotment of the funds appropriated for education the American missionary schools are receiving the same assistance as those recently organized by the government.”

In the work of the American missionaries in Turkey, as in other parts of the world, printing presses are of importance. Without them little could have been accomplished; slow progress would have been made. There are two great publication houses in the near East, one under the direction of the Presbyterian board at Beirut, and the other under the Congregational church in Constantinople. They are the most complete and modern printing plants in that part of the world, representing an investment of many thousands of dollars and equal to any of their size in the United States. The presses are going all the time, turning out an average of fifty million pages each a year in not less than ten languages. The output, since the presses were established in 1833, has undoubtedly been as large as that of any other printing house in the world, and indeed there are few of longer or greater age or better record.

The entire plan of missionary work in Turkey at the beginning was based upon the use of these presses, and within three years after the first missionaries arrived in that field, a plant was set up on the island of Malta to furnish literature for Palestine and Turkey. It was considered unsafe to attempt at that time to do any printing on Turkish soil, and Malta, being under the British flag, was the nearest locality where the presses could run without interruption. In 1833, the political atmosphere having cleared, the Arabic outfit was transferred to Beirut in Syria, while the Greek, Turkish, and Armenian branches were set up in Smyrna. During the ten years at Malta, more than twenty-one million pages were printed for the benefit of Greeks, Armenians and Turks. This included text-books for the elementary schools, which were chiefly translations of standard American editions. Then came the Bible, which has since been translated and published entire in four different languages, and partially in several more, and distributed by millions of copies throughout the East.

The Bible was translated into Turkish and published at Smyrna in 1836. Dr. Elias Riggs’s translation into Armenian was published in 1852, and his translation into Bulgarian in 1871. The Arabic Bible, translated by Smith and Van Dyck, has since been issued from the Beirut press, and more than 1,500,000 copies have been circulated.

In a single year the American press at Beirut issued 152,500 volumes of distinctively Biblical literature, with a total of 47,278,000 pages, in addition to nearly 9,000,000 pages of text-books and other literature, making a total of 56,000,000 pages from that one plant.

This other literature consists of hymn books, school books of all kinds and of all grades, from kindergarten material to theological and medical works; picture books for children, Christmas cards, Sunday-school lessons, story books, translations of standard works, and several original works by both native and American authors.

The work of Bible publication has since continued under the patronage of the American Bible Society and the British and Foreign Bible Societies, until the entire Scriptures are now available for all Turkish, Arabic, Syrian, Persian, Armenian, Bulgarian, and Greek speaking peoples, and the New Testament, the Psalms and other parts are available for Kurds and Albanians. It is bound in cheap form and convenient size and sold at cost. Very few copies are given away.

Although the Armenian claims to be the oldest branch of the Christian church, yet when the American missionaries came, they had only a few manuscript copies of the Bible, kept in monasteries or in the larger churches, carefully guarded by priests who were themselves unable to read the text, while the people were permitted only to kiss the covers which were often of solid silver. To-day, thanks to Dr. Elias Riggs, one of the veteran American missionaries, every Armenian can have his copy of the Scriptures in his own language at a nominal price. It is a significant fact that the editions are disposed of as rapidly as they are turned off the press, and it is asserted by competent authority that this book has done more to unify and simplify the modern Armenian language than all other influences combined.

The same is true of the Bulgarian language. There was no Bulgarian literature until American missionaries began to write it, and the missionary presses began to publish it. Of the first one hundred books in the Bulgarian language seventy were issued by the missionary press at Smyrna and Constantinople.

The Kurds, a powerful and populous element of the Turkish Empire, had no written language and no literature of any kind until the American missionaries created one for them and translated the New Testament into the local dialect written with Armenian characters.

The Albanians had no literature when the Americans came, and it would not be far from the truth to say that they have none now except what the missionaries have given them.

Although every Turk is a Mohammedan and the sultan of Turkey is the recognized head of that faith, the Koran, the Moslem Bible, written by the prophet Mohammed, has never been printed in the Turkish language, but remains exclusively in the Arabic tongue, in which it is written, but the Bible has been printed in Turkish for nearly seventy-five years, and may be read to-day in his own dialect by every one of the many races which constitute the Mohammedan world.

When the Americans first began to issue literature in Arabic the scholars of that race criticised the type, which had been made in Europe and was about as perfect as English type would be if it were made by an Arab. Rev. Eli Smith, who was in charge at that time, realized that half the value of the American publications would be lost unless their typographical appearance met with the approval of the artistic taste of Mohammedan scholars. The type did not exist and it was his duty to create it. He made models of the letters of the alphabet by copying them from choice Arabic manuscripts, and in 1836 he took them to Germany to be cast. The voyage ended in a shipwreck and all his work was lost in the waters of the Mediterranean. Dr. Smith, however, was a patient and persistent man. He began again at the beginning and did it all over with the greatest care and fonts of type were cast in the Tauchnitz establishment at Leipzig under his supervision. After five years of patient labour, the first book was issued from the mission press at Beirut in 1841, and it was not only a model of the “art preservative,” but was undoubtedly the most perfect and beautiful specimen of Arabic printing ever seen.

Then the work of printing the Bible was decided upon and Dr. Smith was detailed to superintend it. It was the labour of his life, and no literary task was ever conducted with such conscientious care. As soon as he had completed one of the books it was put into type, and a hundred proofs were struck off and sent to educated Syrians and Arabs and British, American and German scholars, whose criticisms were carefully considered, and, after twenty-eight years of hard work by Dr. Smith and his successor, Dr. Van Dyck, the American press at Beirut issued a translation which has received the approval of all the real Arabic scholars of the day.

The next step was to electrotype the pages and secure duplicate plates that would insure its preservation forever, and that long and costly labour, which involved probably the hardest task of proof-reading ever undertaken, has recently been completed by Dr. Franklin P. Hoskins of Beirut.

The mission press of Beirut, under Dr. Hoskins’s direction, had already issued 1,535,266 copies of the Arabic Bible up to December 31, 1909, which have been distributed among the Mohammedan races from the Adriatic to the Yellow Seas. Thousands of copies have gone to our Mohammedan wards in the Philippines. They are to be found in Yucatan, in Brazil, in the Argentine Republic, and at the Cape of Good Hope. There is a regular demand from every section of Asia and Africa, where most of the followers of Mohammed live. They generally accept the Old Testament as history and claim the patriarchs and the prophets as their own.

Next in importance to the publication of the Bible, has been the work of producing text-books for the schools in the East. Like the general literature, they are mostly reprints and translations of American editions, but they have to be adapted in a measure to local conditions. The courses in the American colleges in Turkey are conducted in English, but French, German, Turkish, and other languages are taught. For these American text-books are used, the same as in our own colleges, but for the common schools of the Turkish Empire an entire set of school books had to be created by the American missionaries, which have since been adopted by the government for local use.

No geography, or history, or arithmetic, or anything else in Turkish or the other ten languages in common use in that empire existed when the Americans undertook their campaign of education seventy-five years ago. They had to be prepared and printed with the sultan’s stupid and malicious censors looking over the shoulders of the writers and the printers and the proof-readers to prevent the publication of anything that might reflect upon the benign policy of “the great assassin,” as Mr. Gladstone called him, or suggest to the people ideas inconsistent with their poverty and retrogression. Many amusing stories are told of the ridiculous rules and corrections made by these censors. Even the text of the Bible had to be changed and certain passages omitted because they taught the doctrine of human rights and referred to penalties visited upon unjust rulers by God and man. The word Armenia, the name of one of the largest provinces of the Ottoman Empire, was forbidden, and the name of Macedonia, another, was also placed upon the list of terms that could not be used. The same rules that were applied by the censors to daily newspapers were applied to the Bible and all other books, but nevertheless the presses have never been stopped and the influence of the literature they have issued is incalculable.

For two generations the two publishing houses of the American missions have issued newspapers in Armenian, Greek, Bulgarian, Arabic, and other languages used in the Turkish Empire, which have had a wide circulation and a permanent influence among all classes. These papers contain reviews of current events, religious intelligence, stories and poetry, miscellaneous information, and have been the only newspapers that have been allowed to circulate in certain portions of the empire.

_The Orient_, a weekly founded by Herbert Allen and published by the Bible House in Constantinople, for example, contains items of interest to the native Christian communities all over the empire. Among other things I have found in it the best reports of the proceedings of the Turkish Parliament I have seen anywhere.

Monthly magazines containing religious and general literature are issued regularly and have a large circulation. Theological and scientific discussions and the news of the scientific world are published for the benefit of professional readers. In other words, the missionary presses have been putting out for circulation throughout the Turkish Empire the same sort of literature that is expected from our own first-class publishing houses in the United States, to supply the needs of people whose intellects are gradually awakening, to develop native writers, and to create a demand for their writings, so that they may live by their pens.

There have been many eminent and remarkable men among the American missionaries in Turkey, and several of them have had remarkable experiences. The career of the Rev. Dr. Elias Riggs stands unique in missionary annals. For sixty-nine years he laboured in the Turkish Empire, with only one visit to the United States. On that occasion, he was invited to accept a professorship at Yale University, which he promptly declined in order to continue his missionary work. Doctor Riggs was a genius in languages. He was one of the most learned men of his time. He was the King of Translators. He translated the Bible and other books into all the languages of Turkey and Bulgaria. He translated many hymns into those languages, and many of his own verses are still sung in the Christian churches of the East. His entire life was devoted to the labour of bringing Christian literature within reach of the numerous races which composed the Ottoman Empire, for no foreigner has ever known their complex dialects so well as he.

At one time there was a very stormy meeting of missionaries at Constantinople. Good men often differ in opinion and sometimes do not hesitate to criticise the opinions of others. If everybody thought alike this world would not make much progress. We all know that friction makes the wheels go round. It was one of those occasions when good men of strong character differ as to the proper course that should be adopted, and the discussion was long and earnest, and sometimes so earnest that some of the wise and good men lost their tempers. A new-comer, who was deeply interested in the debate and sat through the sessions for several days, asked one of his colleagues the name of “a little old man who has been present from the beginning and has never said a word.” The reply was:

“That is Dr. Elias Riggs, and he is able to keep silent in seventeen different languages.”

At the dedication of a new church in Smyrna, several years ago, the programme of exercises was made up so that every community in that polyglot city should be represented, and Dr. Riggs, who presided, introduced each speaker in the language he was to use.

Dr. Cyrus Hamlin, founder of Robert College at Constantinople, was a master of colloquial conversation, which he picked up by contact with his fellow men rather than from books, and, while he was not always correct in his moods and tenses, he never failed to make himself understood. He used to tell a good story on himself to illustrate the difference between his own linguistic accomplishments and those of Dr. Riggs. He said that a learned Armenian, complimenting him upon the freedom with which he spoke that language, remarked:

“Dr. Riggs, he speaks the Armenian grammatic; but you speak Armenian idiotic.”

Dr. Riggs was never detected in a grammatical error in the use of the seventeen languages with which he was familiar. Whether he was speaking, writing, or translating, he used each language “grammatic.”

When Dr. Riggs was in the prime of his usefulness, a committee previously appointed, finished a translation of the New Testament in the Komanji language, which is spoken by a barbaric klan of Kurds in the mountains of northern Mesopotamia and the eastern section of Turkey. When the committee brought their manuscript to the printing office at the Bible House in Constantinople, they were asked if they had submitted it to Dr. Riggs. They replied promptly:

“Dr. Riggs has never been in the Kurdistan mountains; he knows nothing of the Komanji language, and, therefore, we have never thought of consulting him.”

And they were very much annoyed at the pressure brought upon them by people at the Bible House who insisted that the manuscript ought to be submitted to the criticism of the greatest translator in the world before subjecting the board to the expense of putting it in type. The committee was finally compelled to yield, and asked Dr. Riggs if he would spare them a few hours to listen to a reading of their translation. He readily consented, and came into the conference with his well-worn old copy of the Greek Testament under his arm. As one of the committee read the Komanji version of the Gospel of St. Matthew aloud, Dr. Riggs followed him in his Greek text, and, in the middle of the second chapter, asked why they had translated a certain phrase differently from that given in the first chapter. The translators made a note of the criticism and said they would look it up. They made a similar note of another criticism a short time later, and then several more, and before they had finished the Gospel of St. Matthew, they turned the whole manuscript over for Dr. Riggs to review and were finally compelled to put it through another thorough revision in which they were guided by his advice.

When he was quite a young man and shortly after he entered the field, Dr. Riggs was thrown in with a party of Albanians for several weeks while travelling in that province. Twenty-five years later at a meeting of the American missionaries in European Turkey, a committee was appointed to arrange for the preparation and publication of an Albanian grammar. During the discussion, Dr. Riggs said nothing, but after a decision had been reached and a committee had been appointed, he remarked quietly to the chairman that several years before, while in Albania, he had taken a few notes concerning the language and would be glad to put them into the hands of the committee, who might find them of some aid in their work. The chairman took the manuscripts and thanked him. When the committee met and came to examine the “few notes” of Dr. Riggs, they were astonished to find that they comprised an almost complete grammar of the Albanian language, the fullest that had ever been undertaken, and it was the foundation of the text-book that was shortly afterward published.

The value of the services rendered by Dr. Riggs to the people of the various races which compose the Ottoman Empire can never be overestimated. He not only gave them translations of the Bible and other Christian literature, but furnished them the means of recording their spoken languages. By his translations of the Bible he accomplished for the Armenians, the Bulgarians, and other Turkish races, what the King James Version of the Holy Scriptures accomplished for the English language and the English-speaking people, and what the translations and dictionary of Dr. Hepburn did for Japan. He made the literature of these races accessible to other scholars.

Another remarkable linguist among the American missionaries in Turkey was the Rev. Dr. William Gottlieb Schauffler, a native of Stuttgart, Germany, and a graduate of Andover. He was a very versatile man, being not only a great scholar and linguist, but a powerful preacher, a skilful musician, a fascinating conversationalist, and a man of brilliant social attainments. He translated the Old Testament into Spanish, and his work was published in Vienna. He also translated the entire Bible into the Osmanli-Turkish. His son, Rev. Dr. Henry Albert Schauffler, who was born at Constantinople, and educated at Williams College and Andover Seminary, was engaged among the Slavic population of Cleveland, Ohio, during the later years of his life.

Rev. Dr. Edwin Elijah Bliss, a graduate of Amherst College and Andover Seminary, went to Trebizond in 1843, and spent his life in missionary work there and at Erzeroom, Marsovan, and Constantinople, where he died at a ripe old age in 1892. His principal and widely influential service was the preparation and publication of books for other missionaries to use among the natives; and he edited the mission periodical called the Avedaper for many years.

There was another famous missionary of the same name, Dr. Isaac Grout Bliss, also a graduate of Amherst and Andover, who represented the American Bible Society at Constantinople for many years. He raised the funds and built the Bible House at Constantinople, which is the headquarters of American missionary and educational work in Turkey.

Dr. Wilson Amos Fornsworth, a graduate of Middlebury College and Andover Seminary, and his wife, Caroline Elizabeth Palmer Fornsworth, were, perhaps, next to Dr. Riggs, the longest in the service. They were at Cæsarea from 1852 to 1903, a period of fifty-one years. During this time, he travelled 75,000 miles in his missionary work, including 30,000 miles on horseback.

Harrison Grey Otis Dwight, D.D., who was one of the earliest missionaries in the field, was a graduate of Hamilton College and Andover Seminary, and went out to Turkey in 1830, where he remained until his death in 1862. Doctor Dwight’s explorations in Asiatic Turkey and in Persia in 1831–32, led to the establishment of the American missions in Armenia and Nestoria. He was a man of remarkable talent, judgment, and discernment, and an intrepid explorer and pioneer.

The late Justice Brewer of the United States Supreme Court, was the son of Rev. Josiah Brewer, one of the earliest American missionaries in Turkey, and was born at Smyrna in 1837. His mother was a member of the famous Field family of Stockbridge, Mass., a sister of David Dudley, Cyrus, Henry, and Stephen J. Field.

The pioneer of the education of women in Turkey was Eliza Fritcher, a native of Millport, N. Y., and a graduate of Mt. Holyoke Seminary. She set in operation and for more than thirty years managed a boarding-school for girls at Marsovan, which is now a large and influential institution.

Charlotte Elizabeth Ely, and her sister, Mary Anne Ely, both graduates of Mt. Holyoke, also did very important work in the education of girls.

Maria Abigail West, another pioneer, spent her life in strenuous service among the women and children of Armenia. And there were many others equally earnest and equally useful in the early days. It is a remarkable fact that no American missionary in Turkey has ever retired from that field because of a lack of interest or encouragement in the work.