Fifteen Armenian families were murdered by Kurds in the district of Tchabakeiour, Bitlis, because, having embraced Islamism, they returned to Christianity. The authorities declined to recognize them as Mohammedans, and are said even to have advised them to remain Christians. This exasperated the Kurds, who decided to exterminate them. At many points the lives of our missionaries were in peril but United States Minister Terrell warned the Sultan that his Government would be held responsible "If even a hair upon the head of an American should be touched:" and to enforce that word--a good straightforward, understandable word, there were three American warships cruising in Turkish waters. There is not the slightest doubt but that if the fleets of the Great Powers had passed the Dardanelles in November, 1894, and demanded that the outrages against the Armenians should cease, or their guns would fire on Stamboul, silence would have fallen like that of death upon the fierce soldiers and fiercer Kurds, in Armenia. But the word was not spoken, and before God and in the sight of Christendom the blood of the slain is upon them. From every quarter of the afflicted country appeals came pouring in, saying that the suffering was beyond all description and starvation imminent. "Aid must be sent quickly if lives were to be saved." The survivors of the Erzingan massacre appealed to the Patriarch at Constantinople to lay their sore need before the world, and to "send aid quickly, quickly, quickly." But these were only a few; similar appeals, heart-moving in their terrible earnestness, kept coming in from a score of districts where continued massacres made the trembling survivors almost wish for death, that they might be spared the pain of witnessing further horrors. Noble work was done by American missionaries everywhere in Armenia. Nearly all were engaged in aiding the distressed families, and it was that fact alone that caused the Turkish officials to demand their withdrawal, in order that the homeless and destitute Armenians might be left to die. Conspicuous among the relief work accomplished was that done at Van under the direction of Dr. Grace W. Kimball. All who care for the amelioration of destitution and suffering, cannot fail to see in the following letter, the practical wisdom which characterized her work. October 15, 1895, Dr. Kimball wrote: