Through many vicissitudes and misunderstandings and misconceptions the missionaries have quietly continued their labors until, without doubt, it would be hard to find an intelligent man of any race or creed in the empire who does not believe them to be earnest, sincere, altruistic in their life and work. All classes have learned that in times of trouble the missionary is their best friend, no matter how much they may have abused him in times of prosperity. They know that he will always do what he believes to be for their best good, even though there may be a difference of judgment as to what is the best good. In the midst of Oriental duplicity, the missionaries have established the reputation for speaking the truth. At first this was one of the severest puzzles to the Turks in the dealings of the missionaries with the government. They could conceive of no reason for telling the truth under such circumstances, so they were completely misled. The missionaries applied to the government, in an interior city, for permission to erect a schoolhouse. All school buildings were at that time opposed by the Turkish officials. The governor asked, “For what is the building to be used?” “A school,” replied the missionary. “What are you going to keep in it?” asked the governor. “Scholars and teachers,” was the reply. “Why do you want so large a building?” was the next question. “Because we are going to have many teachers and many pupils,” said the missionary. “What are you going to manufacture there when it is done?” was asked. “Scholars,” was the answer. The missionary was dismissed and for hours the council discussed the question. Not a man present believed that the proposed building was to be a school. They said, “Surely if he were building a school he would not have acknowledged it; it must indeed be something else.” It was afterwards learned that they thought the building was to be an armory for manufacturing guns. When Dr. Hepworth of the New York Herald took his famous journey through Armenia in 1896, he was given, by a Turkish governor, a letter of introduction to one of the American missionaries, Dr. H. N. Barnum at Harpoot, with the added statement, “He knows more about the conditions of the interior of Turkey than any living man, and you can depend absolutely upon what he says.” There is no class of people so trusted by the Armenians in Turkey, as well as by all other races, as are the American missionaries. Men who have been hostile to missionary work bring their daughters to the missionary boarding-school because, they say, “We know they will be safe here.” All classes take the word of a missionary as absolutely true and without question. Money is put into their hands by the people for safe-keeping or for transmission to some other part of the country or out of it, without hesitation and without asking for a receipt.