The latest news is that Mush, a prosperous Armenian village that had
escaped the desolation of the massacres, has been plundered in a night
attack by armed Kurds, and the villagers are now reduced to extreme
distress. Before the outbreak the Armenian patriarchal vicar at Mush
had repeatedly appealed to the Armenian Patriarch at Constantinople,
and the Armenian Patriarch had repeatedly appealed to the Authorities
at Constantinople asking protection for the villagers of Mush as a
Kurdish attack was apprehended. It is evident that the authorities at
Constantinople are unable to protect thriving Armenian villages from
Kurdish and Turkish raiders.
PREFACE TO 2ND PRINTING.
The first and second parts of this little book were written and printed
in pamphlet form for circulation in the United States, shortly after
the Adana Massacres of April, 1909. I have now thought it advisable to
add a Supplement of a short history of the Origin of the Armenians and
the Introduction and Revival of Christianity in Armenia.
The illustrations and the extracts from the periodicals “Harper’s
Monthly,” “The Wide World” and the “Cosmopolitan” have been added to
the 2nd printing.
INTRODUCTION TO 2ND PRINTING.
My object in writing this little book is to lay the hard case of my
unfortunate race before the men and women of the United States; since
it is from the United States that the American Missionaries have gone
forth, who have been the only helping influence from without for my
suffering people in Asiatic Turkey. To the earnest and devoted men and
women of the American Missions, we Armenians owe a debt of gratitude
which we can never repay.
If in the contents of the pages of this little book I have exaggerated
Facts by one whit or one iota, if I have deviated by one hair’s breadth
from the Truth, I stand to be judged.
“God save us from another Adana, but the sword of Islam has not been
dulled” was one of the clarion notes sounded at the Sixth International
Convention of the Student Volunteer Movement, which was held at
Rochester, New York. The man who sounded that clarion note knew Islam,
and because knowing of my own knowledge that the sword of Islam has not
been dulled, I tremble lest its sharp edge fall once more on the neck
of my helpless race. If I knew and felt sure in mine own heart that
the sword of Islam was dulled, I would be content to let bygones be
bygones, and to hold my peace and be silent for ever.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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