The resisting power of the Oriental Churches in Turkey was largely vitiated by the lack of the true spirit of Christianity within. At the same time, it was surrounded by evil influences and by open persecutions heavy to bear even by a living, vitalized Church. The pressure of the Mohammedans, both individually and as a government, was directed to force all professing Christians to abandon their ancestral faith and become Moslems. The heavy hand of the government was constantly upon them, while faithful Moslems were not slow to let the persecuted ones know that, should they become Mohammedans, their burdens would become lighter. Under these conditions there has constantly been more or less apostatizing from Christianity. In times of unusual persecution the number of these has increased. At the same time, in order to avoid attention and thereby avert conflict, the Christians, in many cases, conformed to the outward practises of their Moslem masters. Their women veiled themselves when in public and covered their mouths at all times. Efforts to provide a general education for their children were largely abandoned and wide-spread illiteracy prevailed. The vices of the Mohammedans, some of them the vilest known to men, were practised by many of the Christians, and falsehood was so common that truth came to be almost a curiosity. To cheat or deceive a Turk was considered in itself almost a Christian virtue. In the conflict with Islam, Christianity, in its ignorance, was driven to the wall and lost nearly everything except its ancient Bible and most excellent ritual, with houses of worship, a hierarchy and a form to which it adhered with most commendable tenacity. These untoward conditions were aggravated by the fact that, in Turkey, the Church came to be a political organization, presided over by an appointee of the sultan, who was capable of being dismissed by him if he chose to exercise his power. Each Church with its political patriarch at Constantinople constituted a little state within a state. Every Church represented a separate race or nation whose rights within the empire were vested in the rights of the Church, directed by the patriarch. At the patriarchate were recorded—and it is true to-day—all births, marriages and deaths. Individual existence in the empire was recognized only through the Church. The Christian’s sole representative at Constantinople to speak for him in case of injustice, or to secure a privilege, or to obtain his legal rights, was the patriarch of his own peculiar Church.