The Bible and the Koran are now the two religious books of the Empire. The Koran is in one language for one sect, and cannot be translated, and any copy of the Koran found in the possession of a native Christian or a European traveler is confiscated. The Bible is in eleven languages and is freely offered for sale to all. Sixty thousand copies of the Scriptures are sold annually in the Turkish Empire. THE OUTLOOK. 1. Russia is straining every nerve to destroy Protestant schools as endangering the political solidarity of the Greek Church and thus hostile to her prestige and future influence in Turkey. 2. Republican France, having exiled the Jesuits as intolerable at home, finds them pliant tools of her political schemes abroad and subsidizes them heavily with money and diplomatic support in thwarting Protestant missions. 3. The civil policy of the Turkish Government is "Turkey for the Turks." This means virtually filling all the offices of the Empire with Mohammedans, thus gradually closing every avenue of public official employment and promotion to the six millions of the Christian population, who are far in advance of the Muslims in education and intelligence. We do not here dispute the right or the political sagacity of this new régime. But its natural result is seen in the emigration of thousands of the most energetic and enlightened young men to foreign lands. Protestant schools are endangered by losing their trained teachers, and the churches by losing their best members and the material for their future pastors, and the cause of self-support is gravely imperilled. But though thus threatened Protestantism is secured. 1. By the wide distribution of the Scriptures. The hundreds of thousands of Bibles in the hands of the people will make the extinction of Protestantism impossible unless the people themselves are exterminated. 2. By the wide diffusion of education and the founding of so many Protestant colleges and seminaries which have come to Turkey to stay. 3. By the deep-rooted faith and personal convictions of tens of thousands who believe in the right of individual judgment in religion and in the supremacy of conscience enlightened by the Word of God. Fifty thousand Protestants in the Empire can be depended upon to hold their own, even were all foreign missionaries to be withdrawn. 4. By the vast body of Christian literature and the power of the journalistic press, which are inconsistent with a recoil into the domain of priestly tyranny and the stifling of the human conscience. Protestantism as a principle is steadily growing in every sect in the Empire. The Ark of God is safe in this land. Let us work on in patience and good cheer, with gratitude and unquestioning faith. CHAPTER X. THE KURDS AND ARMENIANS.