The moral and religious condition of the people of Turkey, especially the non-Moslems, was, and still is, without a parallel in any country in the world. Since Mohammedanism never encourages progress and education, and since the principles of Moslem rule in all countries and in all times have been based upon force, ignorance and fanaticism, it is not difficult to judge of the condition of these subject peoples, especially after many generations of oppression. The most of the races that refused to embrace Islam and elected to pay a regular tribute for the privilege of continuing to live, were Christians, such as the Copts of Egypt, the Syrian Christians of Syria, the Jacobites of Mesopotamia, the Armenians of Armenia and sections of northern Syria and Asia Minor, the Greeks of Asia Minor, and the Bulgarians of European Turkey. While all these were Christians by profession, they had no ecclesiastical relations with each other. Each race and Church stood by itself, entirely independent of all the rest, fostering no sympathy the one with the other except in a common cause against a dominant race. Under Moslem rule all education among the so called Rayas was discouraged, and some of the Moslem customs, like the veiling of their women, were adopted. The low estimate placed upon womanhood by the conquerors was accepted in a measure by these races, and some of the worst of the vices of the Moslems became common among the Christians. With these surroundings, the Christianity of the earlier days so deteriorated that little remained except the name and the outward observances of the Church. Because of the absence of modern literature and general education, the spoken language of the common people changed to such a degree that the Bible and the rituals of the Church in the ancient language in which they were written became an unknown tongue to the masses. Their religion became a religion of form, and the Bible a closed and sealed book. Surrounded as they were by all the vices of a Moslem society, dominated by Moslem rulers, the character of the Christianity among them did not attract their Mohammedan neighbors, while there was no hope for reform from within.