Part 6

Some of these, like the Greeks, Armenians, Jews, and Arabs, had been masters of an ancient and proud civilization, in which learning had high place and religion was supreme. There was no ground for questioning native ability to grasp the principles of Christianity when once these peoples were enlisted. A modern Church and a modern civilization built upon such historic races, and propagated by such men, could not fail to become an irresistible force in that needy land. It is no wonder that the officers of the American Board of Missions early concluded that the Ottoman empire was a strategic point in which to plant modern Christianity and the institutions which it fosters and propagates.

While the sultan represents one sect of Mohammedanism, namely, the Sunni, and the Persians another, the Shiah, between whom there has existed great and often bloody hostility, yet the Persian Mohammedans make their pilgrimages to Mecca, pray towards that holy of holies, and reverence the sacred relics in the keeping of the sultan. However much the shah may bluster, he listens when the sultan speaks. His country can find outlet in the West only across Turkey, and much that comes from the outside world comes through some part of the Turkish empire. As the Nestorians and Armenians are found upon both sides of the line, and constitute the chief non-Moslem populations of Persia, it was most natural to connect the mission work of Persia directly with that in Turkey. Such a connection holds to the present time. In many respects Turkey was the key to Persia and is to-day.

At the beginning of mission operations, Russia was especially open to the circulation of the Scriptures in the vernacular. It was hoped and expected that soon the entire country would be accessible for direct Christian and educational operations among the millions of that empire. The whole Caucasus region can be easily approached by no other route than the Black Sea. The Armenians dwell in large numbers in that section of the country and are constantly passing back and forth in trade and commerce. Constantinople lies at the crossing of all roads from the Black Sea regions and beyond to the outer world and the West.

The Balkan peninsula and Macedonia, lying to the north and west, also center in the capital of the Ottoman empire. As the seat of government for Macedonia and the province of Adrianople, all political influence and movement are that way. For generations it was the capital of the Balkan provinces and even yet it is the great metropolis to which merchants, students, and workmen go for a longer or a shorter period of residence abroad. There is no other center so well calculated to be the base of operations upon all that region.

The American Board was organized in 1810 and its first missionaries were sent out in 1812. These went to the farther East, to India and Ceylon. It was not the intention of the Board to confine its foreign operations to these two countries. Christian leaders in America were surveying the world for the purpose of finding other countries in which to establish Christian missions. Explorations into the western parts of our own country resulted in beginning work among the Indians as early as 1816. It is not surprising that in their survey of the wide world, its special needs and promising openings, attention should have been early called to Turkey.

IX. A STRATEGIC MISSIONARY CENTER

In Constantinople one does not fail to meet Greeks and Armenians who are bright and entertaining and obliging, or Mohammedans who are noble and courteous, and thoughtful enough to make their acquaintance an acquisition. But every study of the people in mass is a revelation of arrested development, absence of initiative, and general uselessness by reason of narrow selfishness. The city, and with it the millions to whom the city is model, seems hostile to what is best in the world’s work. High-sounding phrases of lofty principle are heard in the city. Custom provides for this much of concession to the sensibilities of others. But the centuries seem to have frayed off the last semblance of meaning from the words. To quote a remark of a sage official in India which applies to the whole of Asia, “Whilst the mouth is proclaiming its enlightenment and progress, the body is waddling backward as fast as the nature of the ground will permit.” The bane of Constantinople is not solely poverty of resources; it is poverty of ideals. —HENRY OTIS DWIGHT, LL. D. in “Constantinople and its Problems.”

While the political and commercial importance of Constantinople is supreme, when considered in relation to the Powers of Europe and the far East, this is insignificant in comparison with its religious importance in relation to the Mohammedan world. So far as we can learn, this fact did not receive large consideration at the time missions in Turkey were begun. The truth is that it did not then hold the commanding relations to the Mohammedans of other countries that it holds to-day. The present reigning sultan, Hamid II, has done more than any of his predecessors to secure for himself recognition by all the faithful as the one supreme head, the caliph of Islam. He has sent presents with messages of sympathy and encouragement to Mohammedans in India, China, and Africa, and these have been received as from the great living head of the Moslem faith. When our government found itself in possession of a country in which a Mohammedan ruler was enthroned, it found it convenient to carry on negotiations for submission through the sultan of Constantinople. There are probably 230,000,000 Mohammedans in Turkey, Europe, Persia, Africa, India, China and other countries, who look upon the sultan of Turkey as the representative on earth of their revered prophet Mohammed. As such, he does not possess or assume temporal authority, or even well-defined spiritual prerogatives, but he does command an influence that has been secretly discussed in many European cabinets, and which has been taken into consideration in dealing with Moslem races and in administering ultimata to the head of the Ottoman empire. The sultan clearly represents a temporal and a religious power. The strength of the temporal influence lies in his relations religiously, not only to his own mediate and immediate subjects, but to all followers of the prophet Mohammed, whatever language they speak and in whatever land they dwell.

The official title of the sultan is padishah, father of all the sovereigns of the earth. This is the name exclusively used by the Turks in official communications. He is also called Imam-ul-Musselmin, the supreme pontiff of all Mussulmans or Mohammedans; Zilullah, the shadow of God; and Hunkiar, the slayer of infidels. By these and other similar titles he is known as far as the Mohammedan religion has gone. No one else claims such honors and to him they are conceded. Destroy his religious power and he would be the most impotent of monarchs, but with it he has defied for three generations the efforts of the Powers of Europe to secure some degree of justice and freedom for his oppressed subjects.

The sultan holds his religious power through two important facts. The first is that the two sacred cities of Islam in Arabia are within his empire and under his control—Mecca, the birthplace of the prophet, and Medina, which contains his tomb. This sacred territory is prohibited to infidels, but is the goal for tens of thousands of Moslem pilgrims each year. There is no faithful follower of Mohammed who does not dream of the time when he will be so blessed as to kiss the black stone of the Kaaba, drink of the well of Zemzem, or have a part in the prolonged ritual which shall entitle him during the rest of his life to the honored name of _Haji_.

The Mohammedans believe that the black stone came down from heaven and was connected with all the patriarchs and prophets, beginning with Adam. This is the great destination of all pilgrimages, as well as the earthly center of the Mohammedan world. To this point all faithful Moslems turn five times each day when they pray, and the lips which are permitted to kiss it are thrice blessed. Around this have grown up the Kaaba, the enclosing mosque, and other accessories too many even to name, all together constituting the holy temple of Islam where no infidel foot is permitted to tread, and upon which no vulgar Christian eye may look.

Medina, which contains a mosque supposed to cover the burial-place of Mohammed, is some seventy miles away. All faithful Moslems should visit Mecca once during their lives, but to add a visit to Medina increases their merit in the world to come. Outside of these sacred precincts all may travel, but woe be to the bold investigator who seeks to penetrate to the holy of holies of Islam. For the protection of these sacred cities the sultan of Turkey makes provision. He guards their sanctity against infidel invasion, and provides, as occasion may demand, a holy carpet for the holiest place. His soldiers safeguard the pilgrims, and his name is constantly appealed to as the slayer of infidels and shadow of God. The pilgrims from Africa, from Mindanao, from China and India and Ceylon, all return from these shrines of their faith indelibly impressed with the mighty power of him who rules at Constantinople.

The other fact which gives the sultan power over all Mohammedans is his custody of the Hall of the Holy Garment, which is next to the Kaaba, and perhaps upon a parity with it for sanctity. This hall is in the seraglio, upon the point of old Byzantium, which projects out into the Bosporus, dividing it from the Sea of Marmora. In it lie the mantle of the prophet Mohammed, his staff, his saber, his standard, and other relics. Among these, enclosed in a casket of gold, are two hairs from his beard. The sultan is supposed to make an annual visit to these sacred relics, of which he alone is keeper and guardian. The standard of Mohammed is the standard of Islam, consisting of a green silk flag about two feet square, embroidered with the inscription “There is no God but Allah and Mohammed is his prophet.” It is said to have been carried by Mohammed himself and has since been regarded as the sacred standard of the entire Moslem world. If publicly borne by the sultan in the great mosques of Constantinople it would, it is said, be the signal for a general religious war. It is thought by many that should the sultan choose to use the power he possesses in this standard he could with it summon to his assistance all true Moslems and hurl them in fanatical zeal and fury against any infidel force. It is known everywhere that this standard and these relics are in the possession of the ruler of the Ottoman empire, and thus the sultan stands almost in the place of the prophet himself.

When Moslems pray they pray towards Arabia under the rule of the sultan, and when they think of their holy prophet their minds turn to the relics at Constantinople. In the face of these facts, it requires no demonstration to show that Constantinople and the Turkish empire constitute the political and religious center of Islam. Other countries may be important, this is supreme. Mecca and Medina cannot yet be entered, but Constantinople and all the rest of the Turkish empire is, by treaty, accessible for residence to the Christian of every race and name. To begin mission work here was to start at the fountainhead.

The fact that Christian preachers and teachers are permitted to reside at Constantinople and freely preach their faith, cannot but have favorable influence over intolerant Moslems in remote parts. They all have faith in the power of the sultan as well as in his supreme wisdom. If _he_ permits this, why should _they_ object? In several instances in India, when the writer was conversing with Mohammedans, it was almost amusing to see the keen interest they manifested in the progress of Christianity in Turkey. They were ignorant but were ready to listen, and undoubtedly went away to ponder upon what they had heard. Evidently one thing that impressed them was that while the sultan of Turkey is a mighty ruler he does not prohibit the teaching of Christianity, even within the Throne City. If he does not prohibit it, perhaps it is not so bad a religion after all.

It is also of no little value to print and send out from Constantinople large quantities of Turkish literature, and from Beirut, Arabic literature, the two languages which are most widely read by the Mohammedans. Every volume thus printed bears the stamp of approval by the government of his imperial majesty the sultan, assuring all who read that the book was issued with his sanction and authority. Under these circumstances a publishing house at Constantinople is calculated, by its very location, to reach millions who might otherwise refuse to read what is printed. In Arabia an Arabic Bible, at first rejected because it is an infidel book, is later accepted because it bears upon its title page the authoritative permission of his imperial majesty. As a strategic center for Christian work, calculated directly and indirectly to reach the two hundred and thirty million who bear the name of the prophet of Arabia, there is no place that can compare with Constantinople, resting upon two continents and swaying the most mighty religious empire on earth.

X. SOCIAL, MORAL AND RELIGIOUS CONDITIONS

The second cause of the continuance of the Ottoman dominion has been less accidental. Like the early caliphs, and indeed all able Mussulman dynasties except the Persian, the ruling house of Turkey has for all these centuries maintained unbroken the principle that, apart from creed, ability is the only qualification for the highest service. Outside the navy, a Turkish grandee must be a Mussulman; but that granted, there is no obstacle of birth, or cultivation, or position standing in any man’s path. Even slavery is no barrier. Over and over again, a sultan apparently at the end of his resources has stooped among the crowd, clutched a soldier, a slipper-bearer, a tobacconist, a renegade, given him his own limitless power, and asking of him nothing but success, has secured it in full measure. Equality within the faith, which is a dogma of Islam, and next to its belief in a “sultan of the sky,” its grand attraction to inferior races, has in Turkey been a reality as it has been in no other empire on earth, and has provided its sovereigns—who, be it remembered, fear no rival unless he be a kinsman, an Arab, or a “prophet”—with an endless supply of the kind of ability they need. The history of the grand viziers of Turkey, were it ever written, would be the history of men who have risen by sheer force of ability—that is, by success in war or by statesmanship, or, in fewer instances, by that art of mastering an Asiatic sovereign and his seraglio in which fools do not succeed. The sultans have rarely promoted, rarely even used, men of their own house,—which is the Persian dynastic policy,—have hated, and at last destroyed, the few nobles of their empire; and capricious and cruel as they have been, have often shown a power of steadily upholding a great servant such as we all attribute to the founder of the new German empire. This equality, this chance of a career of great opportunities, great renown, and great luxury, brings to Constantinople a crowd of intriguers, some of them matchless villains; but it also brings a great crowd of able and unscrupulous men, who understand how to “govern” in the Turkish sense, and who have constantly succeeded in restoring a dominion which seemed hopelessly broken up. Every pasha is a despot, an able despot is soon felt, and he has in carrying out the method of Turkish government, which is simply the old Tartar method of stamping out resistance, an advantage over Europeans which is the third cause of the continuance of the Ottoman empire. He is tormented with no hesitations in applying force as a cure for all things. The man who resists is to die, or purchase life by submission. —MEREDITH TOWNSEND in “Asia and Europe.”

The moral and religious condition of the people of Turkey, especially the non-Moslems, was, and still is, without a parallel in any country in the world.

Since Mohammedanism never encourages progress and education, and since the principles of Moslem rule in all countries and in all times have been based upon force, ignorance and fanaticism, it is not difficult to judge of the condition of these subject peoples, especially after many generations of oppression.

The most of the races that refused to embrace Islam and elected to pay a regular tribute for the privilege of continuing to live, were Christians, such as the Copts of Egypt, the Syrian Christians of Syria, the Jacobites of Mesopotamia, the Armenians of Armenia and sections of northern Syria and Asia Minor, the Greeks of Asia Minor, and the Bulgarians of European Turkey. While all these were Christians by profession, they had no ecclesiastical relations with each other. Each race and Church stood by itself, entirely independent of all the rest, fostering no sympathy the one with the other except in a common cause against a dominant race.

Under Moslem rule all education among the so called Rayas was discouraged, and some of the Moslem customs, like the veiling of their women, were adopted. The low estimate placed upon womanhood by the conquerors was accepted in a measure by these races, and some of the worst of the vices of the Moslems became common among the Christians.

With these surroundings, the Christianity of the earlier days so deteriorated that little remained except the name and the outward observances of the Church. Because of the absence of modern literature and general education, the spoken language of the common people changed to such a degree that the Bible and the rituals of the Church in the ancient language in which they were written became an unknown tongue to the masses. Their religion became a religion of form, and the Bible a closed and sealed book. Surrounded as they were by all the vices of a Moslem society, dominated by Moslem rulers, the character of the Christianity among them did not attract their Mohammedan neighbors, while there was no hope for reform from within.

Jealousies and discords sprang up between the Christians of various sects whenever they came into contact, like that between the Greeks and Bulgarians in Macedonia, and the Greeks and Armenians in Asia Minor, and the Syrians and Armenians in northern Syria. The reigning sultans have not been slow to note these jealousies and to take advantage of them in dealing with the various sects. Had the Christians of Turkey during the last century been united, they might have accomplished much by way of securing privileges for themselves. But even the people of a single national Church have not been able to agree upon many important questions, so that the sultan and his subordinates have not found it hard to control these superior races, superior in themselves in many respects to their masters. If any one seemed to be giving more trouble than usual, methods were found to divide still more, and so weaken and subdue them. The same methods have been constantly employed with the various religious bodies of his empire that have been successfully used with the European nations who have caused him trouble by interfering with his peculiar views of government or unjust methods of administration. He has usually succeeded in playing off the jealousies and cupidity of one against another so that concerted action became impossible and he has been left to work his own will in his own way. While the sultan has learned cunning by these conditions and gained no little advantage to himself, neither the subject Christian races of his empire nor the European nations outside have seemed to learn a lesson which is of service to them in changing existing conditions.

Under these circumstances, religion to most of the people of the country became but a form and a mark of nationality. No conversion, in the ordinary sense of the word, was required for admission to the Greek, Armenian, Bulgarian, or any of the Oriental Churches. All children were baptized in infancy and so grew up within the Church, with no religious instruction except as to fast and feast days and the proper forms to be employed in the ritual observed in the Churches. In all services the language used was no more understood by the people as a whole than Latin would be comprehended by an ordinary country audience in England or America. There was no educational or moral test for the priests except that they should be able to pronounce the words of the regular Church services and find the proper places from which to read. The writer once asked an Armenian priest where he studied. He said he was a baker and when he decided to become a priest he went to a monastery and studied for forty days. That comprised all of his schooling, except that he knew how to read simple narrative when he began. I asked him if he understood the ritual and the Scriptures that he read. He replied, “How should I know? This is the ancient Armenian.” Even as late as fifteen years ago it would have been difficult to find a Christian priest of any kind or class in the interior districts who clearly understood the ritual of the Church or the Scripture read in the service. Ordinarily the selection of priests was not based upon special ability, education, or moral worth. There were, of course, noble exceptions to this most general rule.

The priests being such, and some of them most grossly ignorant and unfit, and there being in the Churches no religious instruction, it is easy to understand how the moral tone of these Oriental Churches sank rapidly under the rule of the Turk, with no power in themselves to rise above these conditions and institute a reform. A Church without a Bible, with an ignorant priesthood, with a ritual beautiful in itself but dead to the people, with no religious instruction and no test for church-membership, could not be expected in any land or in any age to keep itself unspotted from the world. Under these conditions Christianity came to be largely a name and the practises of religion only a form.

The resisting power of the Oriental Churches in Turkey was largely vitiated by the lack of the true spirit of Christianity within. At the same time, it was surrounded by evil influences and by open persecutions heavy to bear even by a living, vitalized Church. The pressure of the Mohammedans, both individually and as a government, was directed to force all professing Christians to abandon their ancestral faith and become Moslems. The heavy hand of the government was constantly upon them, while faithful Moslems were not slow to let the persecuted ones know that, should they become Mohammedans, their burdens would become lighter. Under these conditions there has constantly been more or less apostatizing from Christianity. In times of unusual persecution the number of these has increased.