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TURKEY : THE BLIGHT OF ASIA

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AMERICAN INSTITUTIONS UNDER TURKISH RULE

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    In December of 1914, Turkish soldiers seized the American mission property of Afion Kara Hissar and occupied the church, school and pastor’s house for a period of four years, leaving the buildings with doors, windows and roofs wrecked and generally defiled with human offal. The Turks pulled the Cross down from the church and put the Crescent up in its place. In 1919, the Turks seized these buildings again and housed soldiers in them.

    The proposition under which our Christian schools may now operate in Turkey is about as follows: Will you please let us repair our buildings at our own expense with money raised in America, and reopen them in those places where enough human beings remain to furnish a few pupils, and educate Turkish boys in English, arithmetic, etc., if we give our solemn word that we will not teach them any Christianity!

    Much consolation is derived in certain quarters from the fact that no religious education of any kind is permitted in Turkish schools, and it is argued that the measure is not aimed particularly at Christian institutions. People who obtain comfort from this feature of the case are evidently not aware that the Turk is familiar with all the different ways of skinning a cat. They do not give him credit for the peculiar brand of intelligence which he certainly possesses. At any rate, the result is the same, in so far as the continuation of foreign evangelical work in Turkey is concerned.

    The above is a very moderate and unprejudiced account of what has been done, in part, to the American educational institutions in Turkey, but gives no idea of the actual ferocity shown to students and teachers and the material damage wrought.

    I was talking recently to a prominent clergyman, friend of the one-time president of one of the greatest missionary colleges in Turkey, who made the following statement:

    "Some time ago, I was talking with the President of one of the American Colleges in Turkey who told me of the frightful treatment of the people in the town where he was located. He told me the college was closed and the professors, their wives and families driven out and some sixty or seventy of them were put to death. The tears streamed down his cheeks as ho said: ‘I can see those dear, good people at this moment, as they were marched away by the heartless Turk.’ "

    Regarding the conditions under which the American missions are now operating in Turkey, Samuel M. Zwemer says, (1924):

    "Recent regulations regarding foreigners in Turkey and the prohibition of Christian teaching to Moslem children in Mission schools do not indicate a larger degree of liberty under Islamic Nationalist Government, but rather a recrudescence of the old spirit."

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