In the assembly-room of the big school-building, some of the refugees had gathered around the pastor of the Protestant Church. It was an impromptu prayer-meeting. They were singing hymns. I do not understand Turkish, but, as they use our tunes, I knew the hymns. It was a comfort to steal in, and sit down for a while among my fellow-sufferers. Only eight months ago, when we first came to Cilicia, and went to church up in the Taurus Mountains summer place, I remember how queer these people looked to me. They belonged to another world. I was an outsider. I had difficulty in understanding some traits of their character. I was hasty in my judgment of them--hasty through ignorance. I was impatient with their constant fear of what "might happen any time" to Christians living under Moslem rule. I had no conception of what "might happen any time"--that was why. During the singing, I looked up to the ceiling. The trap-door brought back vividly the day when Daddy Christie had showed it to me, saying, "We have that for use in time of massacre." I had laughed. The constitutional era was here. Those were things of the past. Probably it is a mercy that youth and inexperience make one refuse to believe that bad things--horrible things--which have happened to others may come in one's own life. We sang softly (for the sound must not get outside) "Lead, Kindly Light." The hymn had never meant so much to me. For, until now, there never had been "encircling gloom." I understand now. Because I need the Light, I ask for it. THE STORM BREAKS _Tarsus, Friday, April sixteenth, Nineteen-Nine._ Mother dear: Men came here to tell Mrs. Christie trouble was coming. Offered to send a guard for our gate. They knew that Dr. Christie and Miner Rogers and Herbert--three of the four men of the mission family--had gone away to Adana. The fellows were Kurds. They looked like brigands. Mrs. Christie put them off, saying we were not afraid. This with a calm little air as if she didn't quite realize. When I asked her about it, she replied: "Didn't you see? They wanted to get hold of the college gate." What a woman she is! To-day with Armenians coming to us in greater numbers every hour, I say to myself: What if the Kurds had possession of our broad gate? From our study window I can see the Cilician Plain stretching on and on to the Taurus. The Plain to-day looks like a monstrous Turkish rug. It is a riot of color, quantities of poppies and irises and other spring flowers. _Did you ever think of this: red predominates in Turkish rugs?_ * * * * * Last night we learned that the train going through towards Adana had turned back at Yenidje. By this time one hundred refugees had come to us. Massacre seemed imminent. Socrates barricaded all my shutters, and watched outside my door.