The Armenian question

The

Armenian

Question

By LYMAN ABBOTT

TESTIMONY OF A UNITED STATES CONSUL.

I want to make an appeal to you, and, through you, to
others, on behalf of the thousands of children made orphans
by the massacres of last year. A conservative estimate places
the number at fifty thousand. Think of it, fifty thousand
children and in most cases without a male relative in the
world; their fathers, mothers, and all belonging to them slain,
and their only hope of living, the charity of strangers.
Thousands so young and helpless that of necessity they must
die, but thousands that can and should be saved. Thousands
of boys and girls thrown upon the streets and hundreds of
girls outraged and then cast adrift. In passing through vil-
lages burned and almost destroyed you meet girls weeping
and shrieking "We are defiled, we are defiled; our fathers and
mothers have been killed and we are become vagrants!
What shall we do? Whither shall we go? To whom shall
we turn for protection? Help us or we die!" Our mission-
aries in Erzerum, Van, Bitlis and Harpoot can give hundreds
of these girls homes where they will be carefully brought up
and taught an occupation that will make of them good and
useful women, thus saving them from the brutality of man.
Thousands can be assisted in other ways. I am a poor hand
at begging, but you can see the awful, pitiful condition of
these children, and I know you will do what you can to save
them.

Most sincerely yours,

LEO BERGHOLZ, U. S. Consul.
Erzerum, Turkey in Asia.

NOTE. — All contributions for this object should be sent
to Brown Bros. & Co., 59 Wall Street, New York, marked
" For the Orphan Fund of the National Armenian Relief
Committee." For further information, and literature for free
distribution, apply to Frederick D. Greene, Secretary, 118
Bible House. New York.

2

THE ARMENIAN QUESTION.'

BY LYMAN ABBOTT.

" And the men of Ephraim said unto him, Why hast thou served
us thus, that thou calledst us not, when thou wentest to fight with
th; Midianites? And they did chide with him sharply.''— Judges
viii., i.

Thk Children of Israel were not at this time a na-
tion. They were twelve separate peoples, each with
its separate territory. The Midianites, neighboring
pagans, had oppressed some of these tribes. Gideon
had gathered the tribes together and gone to war
against Midian. Three hundred men had put the
great Midianite army to flight. Ephraim had not
been called on to share, and Ephraim complained.
Why have you treated us thus? said this stalwart, brave
little tribe. We wanted a share in this honorable war-
fare. You have dealt with us unfairly.

Men tell us that this book of the Judges describes a
barbarous time — and so it does : and that its notions
are barbarous notions — so some of them are ; but I
think to-day, as one looks on the map of Europe and
at the attitude of the so-called Christian Powers of
Europe, he may well question whether Christendom
in the nineteenth century might not learn something
from Judaism in the days of the Judges. He who is
practically, though not nominally, the pagan of the
East is persecuting Christians in Turkey with a ran-
cor, a bitterness, a devotion of hate absolutely never
equaled before in the history of the world, and the
Christian Powers are not taking counsel with one an-
other how they may put a stop to it, but each Power

* Sermon preached at Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, N, Y.. Sun-
day. November 15, 1896. Reported stenographically by Henrv
VVinans, and revised by the author.

is interfering' with every other Power's interference ;
each Power, in its jealousy of other Powers, forbids
war against the pagan for the protection of the Chris-
tian.

I have not spoken to you before on the Armenian
problem because I have not wished to stir your emo-
tions, or my own, fruitlessly, and speak to-day only
because I think I have a little light in answer to the
question, What can we do? and wish to point out to
you, not what is the duty of England or Russia or Ger-
many, but the duty of America and Americans.

In the first place, we ought to know the facts. The
fact is that the persecution of Christians in Armenia is
the worst, the most cruel, the most barbarous religious
persecution the world has ever seen. It is estimated
that two thousand Christians were slain in the perse-
cutions of Diocletian ; that between five and six thou-
sand Protestants were put to death under the persecu-
tions of Torquemada in Spain ; that thirty thousand
were slain in the massacre of St. Bartholomew ; that a
hundred thousand Protestants were put to death in the
wars of the Duke q( Alva against the house of Orange
— but that includes those who were slain in open battle.
Those who have perished in Turkish Armenia in the
last four years nearly, if not quite, equal the sum total
of all those slain in previous persecutions. Eight thou-
sand seven hundred and fifty is the number officially
reported as massacred in three or four days in Con-
stantinople itself, while some estimates put the total
number of massacred men, women, and children at
the present time since 1894 at one hundred thousand.
And this is probably an underestimate.

I would not, if I could, recite the horrors of these
persecutions ; I would not repeat the tale of blood ; I
would not recount the monstrosities, the cruelties,

4

which have accompanied them. I am not here to stir
your blood to feverish heat. I try to keep my own
moderately and reasonably cool while I speak to you
on this crime of the centuries. I desire to give light,
not heat.

In the second place, we ought to know that this
persecution is not the result of sporadic acts of mob
violence. We ought to know that it is a definite,
pronounced, established policy, patiently, persistently,
remorselessly pursued. We ought to know that the
causes of it are partly race hatred, partly trade jeal-
ousy, partly religious animosity. We ought to know
that the Turk in Turkey is not synonymous with the
Mohammedan, any more than American is synony-
mous with Christian. The word Turk is significant of
a race ; the word Mohammedan is significant of a re-
ligion. The word American is significant of a race ;
the word Christian is significant of a religion. Most
Americans are Christians — that is, they are not pagans ;
and most Turks are Mohammedans — that is, they are
not Christians ; but the Turk may or may not be a Mo-
hammedan, as the American may or may not be a
Christian.

In his birthplace and cradle the Turk is Asiatic. He

came to Europe centuries ago with his drawn scimitar.

He came murdering and to murder, plundering and to

plunder. He came a barbarian, a robber, a brigand,

and he has stayed in Europe ever since, a robber, a

murderer, and a brigand. He is as barbaric to-day in

the heart of him as he was in the centuries gone by.

Whatever evolution has done for other races, it has

not done anything for him. He is a Turk still. The
Turkish Empire is composed of heterogeneous popula-
tions under the subjection of the scimitar of the Turk.
He has never made any attempt whatever to affiliate

5

these populations, to bring them into fellowship with
himself, or to do them equal justice : he has simply
held them by the throat with one hand, while he has
rifled their pockets with the other. The Turkish Em-
pire has used its power simply in taxing men; and it
has taxed them, not that it might give them a good
government, but that it might rob them for its own
purposes. It is true that the Turkish order is a gov-
ernment, and it is true that the American order is a
government, but it is a misnomer to use the same
word for both. The object of the American Govern-
ment is to protect the life and liberty of all its citi-
zens. That is not the intent of the Turk. The idea of
the Turk is the idea of the old Roman imperialism —
subjugate the province, that you may take as much
out of it as possible.

Now, this Turk has seen m successive years these
subject populations improving in spite of him. They
have grown wiser, more intelligent, more virtuous,
more prosperous. He has seen the Greek and the
Nestorian and the Syrian and the Bulgarian, and now
the Armenian, enter into places of profit, of industry,
of advantage, and his race hatred has been intensified
by his trade jealousy. This massacre of the Armenians
is not a new thing in Turkish history. " In 1822 not
less than 50,000 Greeks were massacred in the islands
of the ^Egean Sea ; in 1850 10,000 Nestorians were
butchered around the headwaters of the Tigris ; in
i860, n,ooo Maronitesand Syrians perished in Mount
Lebanon and Damascus ; in 1876 upwards of 15,000
were slaughtered in Bulgaria." That is the Turk.
That is what he has been doing all the time.

And this race prejudice, this trade jealosy, have
been intensified and embittered by what we are pleased
to call his religion. What is religion ? If it is conse-

6

cration, devotion, enthusiasm, regardless of the One
to whom the consecration is made, regardless of the
object of devotion, regardless of that which excites the
enthusiasm, then the Turk is religious. Then the
Phoenicians, who inspired themselves to lust by their
religious rites and caused their own children to be sac-
rificed to their cruel gods, were as religious as the
Israelites, Then Torquemeda, in lighting the torch
and presiding over the tortures of the Inquisition, was
as religious as the men who burned beneath the flames
or were tortured on the rack. Then the Duke of Alva,
with his unsheathed sword putting thousands and tens
of thousands to death on the plains of Holland, was as
religious as William of Orange fighting for patriotism
and his native land. Then Catherine de Medici sum-
moning to Te Deums over the slain was as religious as
the massacred martyrs whose bodies filled the streets
of the European metropolis.

Religion is of two kinds — the aggressive and the
non-aggressive. And of the aggressive, religions there
are two — the Mohammedan and the Christian. The
Jewish religion did not seek to make converts ; it sim-
ply built a wall around itself and protected itself
from other religions. The Brahmanical religion does
not seek to make converts ; all the Brahmans desire is
to be left alone. But the Christian and the Moham-
medan religions do seek to make converts. The one
does it by the cross, the other by the sword ; the one
by love, the other by hate ; the one by assimilation,
the other by subjugation ; the one does it for the pur-
poses of service, the other does it for the purposes of
selfishness. Now, you may call them both religion if
you like, but they are as far apart as heaven is from
hell.

Savs James Freeman Clarke in his account of Mo-

7

hammedanism: " When God — so runs the tradition —
I had better said the blasphemy — resolved to create
the human race, he took into his hands a mass of
earth, the same whence all mankind were to be
formed, and in which they after a manner pre-existed;
and, having then divided the clod into two equal por-
tions, he threw the one half into hell, saying, ' These
to eternal fire, and I care not ; ' and projected the
other half into heaven, adding, 'And these to Para-
dise, and I care not.' " That is the theology of the
Mohammedan. That is the God who is the center of
their religion. Calvinism was serene and lovely and a
flowering spring as compared with the theology of
Mohammedanism, which is based upon a faith in a
remorseless God who cares not whether this half the
human race lives in eternal torment and this half in
everlasting paradise. The Mohammedan religion
knows nothing of the fatherhood of God, and it knows
as little of the other fundamental truths of Christianity.
" Stress is laid on prayer, ablution, fasting, almsgiv-
ing, and the pilgrimage to Mecca. Wine and gaming
are forbidden. There is no recognition, in the Koran,
of human brotherhood. It is a prime duty to hate in-
fidels and make war on them. Mohammed made
it a duty for Moslems to betray and kill their own
brothers when they were infidels ; and he was obeyed
in more cases than one."

Thus we have these three elements together in the
Turkish heart : first, race prejudice ; second, trade
jealousy ; and, third, religious rancor and hate. The
Mohammedan knows only one way by which to ex-
tend his religion — this : kill the men, kill the women,
kill the older children, and educate the babes into
Mohammedans. Mohammedanism has never varied
from its first starting-point in Asia. It has always
run this one consistent course : a persecuting power
because it is an aggressive power, believing in a God
of indifference, making a worship of lust and cruelty.

Now, we ought to know these facts. We have no
right to shut our eyes to them. We have no right to
be ignorant of them. And, knowing them, we ought

8

to be intolerant of all apologies, excuses, distinctions,
or eulogies. I mean exactly what I say — intolerant.
I hate the tolerance that is indifferent respecting moral
character and moral distinctions. I hate the tolerance
that knows no difference between virtue and vice,
cruelty and humanity, honor and dishonor, courage
and cowardice. Purity ought to be intolerant of im-
purity. Honesty ought to be intolerant of dishonesty.
Heroism ought to be intolerant of cowardice. Love
ought to be intolerant of hate. Consider for a moment
the defenses offered for the murdering, massacring
Turk. The Armenian has provoked it all : it is all his
fault. O ^sop, come to life again, and tell us the
story of the Lamb and the Wolf ! I have heard this
charge before : negroes provoking the massacres of
the Ku Klux Klan in the South, and always the ne-
groes the victims, and always the white men safe.
How many Turks have been killed by Armenians ?
Whose sword is red with blood? The lamb has de-
voured the wolf. The lamb has muddied the water
the wolf was drinking. The Turk is a gentleman !
Ah, this Turk is a gentlemen ! I have met that, too,
before. This corrupt politician, it is true, bribes con-
gresses, buys votes, manipulates primaries, miscounts
votes — he does all that ; but then he is a good father,
and he is a good husband, he does not beat his wife,
and he does not maltreat his children ! This Turk has
killed Christians — unoffending Christians — by the
thousands and the tens of thousands, but he is a gen-
tleman. Yes, so Mephistopheles is a gentleman. So
the Duke of Queensberry was a gentleman ; in his
veins putridity instead of pure blood, but he was one
of the finest gentlemen of England. Probably the
Duke of Alva was a gentleman. Doubtless, Torque-
mada was a gentleman. O Rachel, Rachel, mourning
for thy children and will not be comforted, for they
are not, weep not. Herod is a gentleman ! O Arme-
nian exile, with thy cottage in ashes, and thy wife
violated before thine eyes, be not wrathful : if he that
did it was not a gentleman, he that set him on was
one ! O childless widow, who cannot close thine eyes
in sleep without seeing thy husband brained before
thine eyes and his blood spattered on thy robes, weep

9

not : he that did it was a gentleman ! "And we hear
these things and our blood does not boil !

But the persecutor is religious. And he has as much
enthusiasm for his religion as the Christian has for
his religion. The Christian missionary believes in his
religion of the Cross, and this Turk believes in his
religion of the Crescent. Why sit in judgment between
them ? Fanaticism harnesses its two steeds of lust
and cruelty, flings the reins of self-restraint upon
their backs, lashes them with the devil's own con-
science, and as the wheels go over the crunching
bodies of its victims, tolerance stands by the side of
the course, takes off its hat, and honors — religion !
We ought to know the facts, and in the knowledge of
those facts we ought to be intolerant of every excuse
and apology that is made for them.

We, as an American nation, can do something more
than know the facts, and something more than feel
rightly about them. We either ought with the whole
power of our Government to protect American citi-
zens on Turkish soil, or we ought frankly, publicly,
openly, to declare that we have not the strength to do
it, and call our Ambassador home.

Nations, like individuals, are sometimes too weak
to do what they ought to do if they were strong
enough. Poland could not resist Russia. But we
ought to look the question fairly in the face. We have
in Turkey over two hundred Americans engaged in
what is ordinarily regarded as lawful business. I
know they are missionaries ; I know they are teachers;
I know they have not gone there to make money.
They are not consecrated to the work of getting on in
the world. That much may be said against them. But
still Americans generally will recognize the fact that
a man who has gone to another country, inspired by a
desire to aid the men, women, and children there, is
entitled to as much protection as the man who goes
there to sell them scimitars or rum. I am not going
to enter into the question to-day whether the mission-
ary service is right and wise, or wrong and unwise.
It is an honest and an honorable vocation, and Amer-
icans have gone into it. We have 621 schools, includ-
ing five colleges. We have 27,400 pupils in those

10

schools. We are spending half a million dollars a
year in the work of civilization. Those are American
interests. I will not say Christian interests ; I will
not say missionary interests. They are American
interests. And the men engaged in this work are en-
titled to have this country say one of two things —
either, We cannot protect you, you are at your own
risk, or else, God helping us, we will spend our last
dollar and our last man, but we will protect you. And
that is what I would like to have the United States
say. We are strong enough to think of putting back
on her throne in Hawaii a recreant queen who had
undertaken to tear in tatters the constitution. We are
strong enough to say to Great Britain, The interests
of Venezuela are our own ; you must not encroach on
them. We are strong enough to threaten war when
there is a possible danger to a few American interests
in a South American republic. But we let our prop-
erty be burned, our schools and colleges be closed,
our men and women live in terror of their lives, and
have as yet done nothing more than present a gentle
protest.

In 1815 the Algerian pirates had for twenty years
been preying on the commerce of Christendom in the
Mediterranean Sea, and the Christian Powers did not
dare to do anything to prevent them, because England
had made a treaty by which practically she pledged
herself not to interfere, that France might be injured.
Each government was afraid to interfere with the
status quo, and the commercial interests were helpless.
In 1815 this then little United States said, We will
stand this no longer. We had stood it ; we had paid
thousands of dollars in ransoms for the American. We
had submitted because we could not help ourselves.
But when the War of 1812 closed, we sent out one of
our commodores ; we engaged the fleet of Algiers, we
defeated it ; we took the chief robber, the Sultan of
Algiers ; we made him there give his submission ;
we made him there pay back damages ; and the rob-
bers were swept from the Mediterranean Sea. O for
an America like the America of 1815 ! I believe my-
self that if this American Government were to say to
Turkey, You shall not threaten the peace, the prosper-

1 1

ity, the lives, the well being of American citizens on
your soil — you shall not — I believe if America were to
say that to the murdering, massacring Turk, America
could do to-day what America did in the same section
of the globe in 1815. And if a gun was fired at our
flag, or a drop of American blood was shed, that gun
would unite all America, as the guns on Sumter
united the North, and that blood would cement in one
great national party all Americans, as the blood that
reddened the streets of Baltimore united all the North,
and this Nation would move to the consummation of
its purpose, unbroken, a united people ; and the con-
science of Europe would respond. It is not true that
Germany or France or England or Austria would set
itself up in armed defense of murder, when the
United States Government, having no territory to ac-
quire, no prestige to win, no advantage to gain, no
balance of power in Europe to break, had interposed
and said. " This crime shall go on no more."

There is another thing we can do. We can follow
the precedent of 1824. In 1822 the Turks were massa-
cring the Greeks. The Greeks were not like lambs led
to the slaughter. They unsheathed their swords and
rose in rebellion. There was a revolution against
Turkish authority in Greece ; and then, as now, all
the Christian Powers kept off. Every Power was
jealous of every other Power. Christian Powers, we
call them ! What is a Christian Power ? You remem-
ber in " Faust" how men with raised swords in the
form of a cross advance upon Mephistopheles, and be-
fore the raised cross he retreats and falls upon the
ground, apparently vanquished by the mere symbol.
Ah ! it is a pretty picture, but it is not a true one.
The. devil does not retreat before the mere raised
cross. A Power is not made a Christian Power be-
cause it has cathedrals with crosses on them, or
crosses on the priests' robes, or crosses on the breasts
of the women, or crosses on the covers of prayer-
books. The cross in the heart and in the life makes a
man a Christian ; the cross in the heart makes a na-
tion Christian. Only those Powers are Christian that
dare risk something, that dare endure something, for
Christ's sake and for humanity's sake. These Chris-

12

tian Powers did not dare in 1824 ; they do net dare

now. Then it was that one of America's greatest

statesmen pronounced one of his most statesmanlike

utterances. He called on America to issue its protest

against the wickedness that was oppressing Greece. I

read from Daniel Webster :

The time has been, indeed, when fleets and armies and subsidies
were the principal reliances even in the best cause. But, happily
for mankind, a great change has taken place in this respect. Moral
causes come into consideration in proportion as the progress of
knowledge is advanced ; and the public opinion of the civilized
world is rapidly gaining an ascendency over mere brutal force. It
is already able to oppose the most formidable obstruction to the
progress of injustice and oppression ; and as it grows more intelli-
gent and more intense, it will be more and more formidable. It
may be silenced by military power, but it cannot be conquered. It
is elastic, irrepressible, and Invulnerable to the weapons of ordinary
warfare. It is that impassable, inextinguishable enemy of mere
violence and arbitrary rule which, like Milton's angels,

Vital in every part.

Cannot, but by annihilating, die.

Last spring our Congress passed resolutions of pro-
test againsi the Turkish atrocities in Armenia. They
were sent to the President of the United States. He
was to communicate them to the Powers — the Chris-
tian Powers — of Europe. Is there any man in this
audience who knows whether he has done it or not?
If he has, he has not let his right hand know what his
left hand has done. Those resolutions should have
been so uttered to the Christian Powers of Europe that
the sound of our voice would have gone round the
world. We ought not to have spoken our condemna-
tion of wholesale massacre in a whisper — we should
have spoken it with thunder tones. At least we may
speak to the consciences of mankind. It is time we
did.

Finally, we can afford relief and succor to those who
have suffered from this wholesale persecution. We
can open our gates to all fugitive Armenians. I do not
find fault with our Administration that it closed them
the other day and left the fugitives waiting on Ellis
Island until bonds should be given. It is not the
business of the Administration to make laws or set
them aside. But we should so alter our immigration
laws as to provide clearly, definitely, and positively
that this land is the harbor for the politically oppressed

13

of all countries, however empty their purses, and we
ought to reach out a helping hand to the widows and
the orphans on Turkish soil.

The American Board has indicated the presence of a
statesman as its practical administrative head in its
ready adaptation of its methods to the changed condi-
tions. I received last week a letter from its Foreign
Secretary, Dr. James L. Barton,* saying that it is pro-
posed to take the dismantled and unoccupied houses
of the Armenians and gather in them, so far as it can
be done, the orphans whom the Turkish scimitar has
spared, under the care of Armenian widows, and thus
save the girls from the harem and the boys from beg-
gary, and both, by Christian education, to the faith of
their fathers.

I am proud of the Christian ministry. I thank God
to-day that in all this time of terrible torture and hor-
rible experience not one single man or woman in the
missionary service in Turkey has fled. Our own Amer-
ican Minister there has advised them to leave their
posts; such counsels have gone to them from America;
but one and all they have said, We will stay with
those who are themselves martyrs for our faith; we
will live with them; if need be, we will die with them.
The Christian Church can at least do this: It can say
to every brave Christian Minister and every brave
Christian woman in Turkey, You are right; stay
where you are; our prayers shall go with you; our
contributions shall go with you; our help to the en-
largement of your work shall go with you. If I were
both Government and Church, I would buy every
house in Armenian Turkey that could be bought; I
would wrap the American flag around it, or hoist the
American flag above it; I would gather as many or-
phan children and as many widows into those homes
as I could; and I would say to the massacring Turk,
You lay your finger on one of them at your peril. '

What will Plymouth Church do? How many such
homes will it take? For how many orphans will it
provide ? What word of greeting will it send across
the sea to its martyred kinsmen in Christ?

* See this letter, published in full in The Outlook for November
21, page 924.

'4

HOW THE REFUGEES WERE SAVED.

BY ELLEN KNIGHT BRADFORD.

The sun had dropped low down the Western sky,
When a ship at her anchor lay straining close by
Old Smyrna, the land where Homer once sung,
Where Cybele ruled when the gods were young.
The British ship Boyne, with her fragrant freight
From the land of the olive, the fig and the date.
Was waiting her papers, when over the hills,
Grown red with the blood that the Moslem spills,
Came the noise of the conflict — the cloudburst of pain,
That told yet again of Armenia's slain !

Redoubling his watch, the brave Captain espied*
A frail little bark close to starboard side
Of his own great ship, while an aged man
By terror made fleet, up the gangway ran.

O, Captain, good Captain, have mercy," cried he,
" Six others are with me, O, put out to sea—
Away from this hell and the Turk's bloody hand,
O, carry us anywhere far from this land !

The blood of the Briton within him was stirred.
"Aboard with them, drift their boat loose," was his word
To his mate. To his steward, " Now give them relief
In the shape of a meal on our good British beef."
The words were scarce uttered when, scenting their prey.
Twelve broad-turbaned Turks rushed up the gangway.
And one of. them gruffly, " Now give us, cried he, ■
"The Armenians aboard, ere you put out to sea."

Then up spoke the Captain, " No, never will I
While the British flag floats o'er my ship, I will die
And so will my men, every man of my crew.
Before we'll surrender these victims to you."
They insisted, entreated and talked themselves hoarse,
And swore if denied them they'd take them by force.
The limit of time they would fix at next day
Precisely at sunrise, and then rowed away.

Alone in the harbor, no friendly ship nigh,

With night on the water and clouds in the sky,

The Briton bethought him of help down the bay,

Where at anchor a cruiser from Italy lay.

So he manned up his gig and he muffled his oars,

And out in the darkness, away from the shores

Of Smyrna he sailed till he lay at the last

Where the ship of King Humbert her anchor had cast.

Then he spoke to her captain, "Commander," quoth he,

" I have here refugees from Armenia with me ;

In the name of the flag of my country, and more,

In the name of humanity, help I implore ! "

" I am here, sir," the haughty commander replied,

" To care for the subjects of Humbert, beside

His interests no other have I, As for you.

Your queen must protect her own subjects, adieu !"

Dawn broke, the Boyne's furnaces reddened like gore,
The steam from her safety valves hissed, and before
The sun's rising the ship's crew were all on the deck.
Soon out through the mists, they discovered a speck
Pricking out from the haze, fast it grew, 'mid the din. _
" Bring my glass," cried the Captain. "'A ship's coming in ! ,

He leveled his glasses—" Now, Heaven be praised,
'Tis the white Minneapolis." Then how they raised
Three wild British cheers for the Stripes and the Stars
O'er America's warship, those brave British tars !

Then quickly the gig from her davits was swung.
And their ensign reversed from the halyards was hung,
It wis all understood ere the rippling tide
Brought the Captain along to the great warship's side
Where the strong " Jacob's ladder was dropped, and it
seemed

Like the vision of old, when the Patriarch dreamed
Of the succoring angels. His story was told.
And a friend he soon found in the Admiral bold.

" Those men, every one, you shall carry from port

If I bombard the town and riddle their fort,"

Spake the Admiral. Then, " Man a barge, let all join "

(Was his order) " to save refugees on the Boyne."

Soon the Boyne shipped her cables, and sailing forth free,

The white Minneapolis bore her to sea.

Till safely from port she could trust her to go

To the land where th' oppressor no harbor can know.

Then a farewell she gave, and three loud rousing cheers

Rose over the waters to gladden the ears

Of England's brave sailors, and then three times three

For America's braves wafted over the sea !

But as good Captain Fisher steamed up New York Bay

His papers were wanting, and all he could say

Was to tell just this story— how Self ridge and he

Brought the stricken Armenians over the sea.

Old England, we all know, believes in Free Trade,
But we're sure that whenever request shall be made
For American Protection 'twill ever be given
As freely as air or as sunshine from heaven !

— The Congregationalist, Dec. 3, 1896.

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