One of the hindrances to the work of still greater progress of reformation was, and is, the poverty of the Protestant community. The condition of the Protestant Armenians was very much like that of a young man falling in love with a pure, virtuous, and noble yet poor girl. The rash youth, disregarding the opposition of his parents, married the woman he loved, and on account of this he has been disinherited. Those who espoused the cause of reformation were driven out, not only from their homes and employments, but also from the use of the churches and school-houses, and even were not allowed to bury their dead in the old cemeteries. It was not very difficult for the American Board to meet some of the needs of the Protestant community, while that community was small and its needs few. But by the increase of the community its needs also multiplied. However, knowing the people as we do, their poverty was not a great hindrance. For the generous poor man is richer than the rich miser. “Many a poor Armenian in the Koodish mountains, many a tattered villager on the Harpoot plains, used to the suffering of robbery and inured to want, brings for the support and propagation of the gospel his poor pittance, more munificent, measured by the sacrificing devotion of it, than the gifts of princes sounding aloud as they fall into the treasury. In other parts of the country there are those so humble that the dwelling of the family would hardly be valued at $25, who yet bring $25 to help build the house of worship, where they and their poor neighbors may hear the sound of the gospel.”[103] The most prolific source of all evil influences and hindrances against the progress of reformation in the East is the Mohammedan Government. Prof. Vambery’s words might have been heeded twenty-five or thirty years ago, and many hundred thousands of lives would have been saved: “The conviction is inevitable that until the power of Islamism is broken the true reformation of this land is an impossibility. At whose door shall we lay the blame of cherishing such a viper? That the solution of the vexed question of the political _status_ of Turkey involves great difficulties cannot be denied. But those [the European powers] that are pleased to preserve the existing state of things, as a barrier for themselves against the encroachments of an already overgrown European power, ought to take into consideration the result of encouraging the continuance of a power at once _so poisonous and so suicidal_ as that of the waning crescent.” FOOTNOTES: [93] Primce, “Memoirs of Rev. William Goodell, D.D.,” p. 282. [94] The coffee-houses in the East are much like the saloons in this country, except that no alcoholic liquors are sold. People go there to smoke and sip coffee in small cups and while the time away. [95] Wilder, “Mission Schools of the A.B.C.F.M.,” p. 375. [96] Hamlin, “Among the Turks,” p. 275.