History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions Volume II Part 1

History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches.

by Rufus Anderson.

VOL. II.

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE ARMENIANS.

1846-1855.

Several European governments, and especially England, performed an important part in securing civil and religious freedom to the Protestant Armenians.[1]

[1] This is impressively set forth in the _Correspondence respecting the Condition of Protestants in Turkey_, published by order of Parliament in 1851, pp. 154 folio.

In March, 1846, Sir Stratford Canning, English Amba.s.sador at Constantinople, reported to his government thirty-six evangelical Armenians as persecuted by the Patriarch. To this he added personal efforts to meliorate their condition, which resulted in promises from Turkish officials and the Patriarch of better treatment, promises that were by no means fulfilled.

Upon learning that the Armenian Protestants had been organized into a church, he transmitted to Lord Palmerston, the Foreign Secretary, their declaration of reasons for so doing, and their confession of faith.

The Hon. H. R. Wellesley, better known as Lord Cowley, on taking, the place of Sir Stratford during his visit to England, cordially took up the unfinished work of his predecessor, and urged upon Lord Palmerston the importance of procuring from the Porte a recognition of the Protestant Armenians as an independent community. He showed that, in spite of the liberal a.s.surances extorted from the Patriarch, they were exposed to daily injury and insult, and would continue to be so until recognized by the Porte as a distinct community among its Christian subjects. At the same time, he forwarded a copy of an able declaration by the American missionaries of their objects in coming to Turkey, which they had made to the Porte through Mr. Carr, the American Minister. Lord Cowley was instructed by Lord Palmerston, "to bring the situation of these people earnestly under the consideration of the Porte, and urgently to press the Turkish government to acknowledge them as a separate religious sect." In December the Porte freed the Protestant Armenians from the rule of the Armenian Patriarch, so far as regarded their commercial and temporal affairs, and allowed them to appoint an agent, who should manage their affairs with the government; and also to keep separate registers of marriages, births, and deaths. The Chevalier Bunsen, the well known Prussian Amba.s.sador in Paris, now entered into the work, and recommended, that their recognition be as durable and complete as that of the other Christian nationalities. To this proposal Lord Palmerston cordially a.s.sented; but the Turkish officials were, as usual, disinclined to go forward.

On the 19th of November, 1847, Lord Cowley had the satisfaction of announcing, that the Grand Vizier, wis.h.i.+ng, as he said, to do something that he knew would be agreeable to his lords.h.i.+p, before he should leave the country, had obtained the Sultan's permission to issue a vizierial letter in his Majesty's name, which would establish their independence at once.[1]

[1] This letter may be found in _Missionary Herald_ for 1848, p. 98.

At the suggestion of Lord Cowley, the Porte promised to send letters to five different pashalics where there were Protestants, requiring them to act in accordance with the letter; in which was granted the privilege of toleration to all Protestant subjects alike, whether from the Armenian, Greek, Syrian, or Roman Catholic Churches, or from the Jews.

This letter was of great importance under the existing circ.u.mstances; but the privileges it conferred might all be taken away on a change of ministry. Accordingly Sir Stratford Canning, on his return to Constantinople in 1850, lost no time in commencing negotiations for a more stable basis of protection, and succeeded in obtaining an Imperial Firman with the autograph of the Sultan, in behalf of his Protestant subjects; giving to their civil organization all the stability and permanency that the older Christian communities enjoyed in Turkey. It was issued in November, 1850; and translated into English, reads as follows:--

"To my Vizier, Mohammed Pasha, Prefect of the Police in Constantinople, the honorable Minister and glorious Councillor, the model of the world, and regulator of the affairs of the community; who, directing the public interests with sublime prudence, consolidating the structure of the empire with wisdom, and strengthening the columns of its prosperity and glory, is the recipient of every grace from the Most High. May G.o.d prolong his glory!

"When this sublime and august mandate reaches you, let it be known, that hitherto those of my Christian subjects who have embraced the Protestant faith, in consequence of their not being under any specially appointed superintendence, and in consequence of the patriarchs and primates of their former sects, which they have renounced, naturally not being able to attend to their affairs, have suffered much inconvenience and distress. But in necessary accordance with my imperial compa.s.sion, which is the support of all, and which is manifested to all cla.s.ses of my subjects, it is contrary to my imperial pleasure that any one cla.s.s of them should be exposed to suffering.

"As, therefore, by reason of their faith, the above mentioned are already a separate community, it is my royal compa.s.sionate will, that, for the facilitating the conducting of their affairs, and that they may obtain ease and quiet and safety, a faithful and trustworthy person from among themselves, and by their own selection, should be appointed, with the t.i.tle of 'Agent of the Protestants,' and that he should be in relations with the Prefecture of the Police.

"It shall be the duty of the Agent to have in charge the register of the male members of the community, which shall be kept at the police; and the Agent shall cause to be registered therein all births and deaths in the community. And all applications for pa.s.sports and marriage licenses, and all pet.i.tions on affairs concerning the community that are to be presented to the Sublime Porte, or to any other department, must be given in under the official seal of the Agent.

"For the execution of my will, this my imperial sublime mandate and august command has been especially issued and given from my sublime chancery.

"Hence thou, who art the minister above named, according as it has been explained above, wilt execute to the letter the preceding ordinance; only, as the collection of the capitation tax and the delivery of pa.s.sports are subject to particular regulations, you will not do anything contrary to those regulations. You will not permit anything to be required of them, in the name of fee, or on other pretences, for marriage licenses, or registration. You will see to it that, like the other communities of the empire, in all their affairs, such as procuring cemeteries and places of wors.h.i.+p, they should have every facility and every needed a.s.sistance. You will not permit that any of the other communities shall in any way interfere with their edifices, or with their worldly matters or concerns, or, in short, with any of their affairs, either secular or religious, that thus they may be free to exercise the usages of their faith.

"And it is enjoined upon you not to allow them to be molested an iota in these particulars, or in any others; and that all attention and perseverance be put in requisition to maintain them in quiet and security. And, in case of necessity, they shall be free to make representations regarding their affairs through their Agent to the Sublime Porte.

"When this my imperial will shall be brought to your knowledge and appreciation, you will have this august decree registered in the necessary departments, and then give it over to remain in the hands of these my subjects. And see you to it, that its requirements be always in future performed in their full import.

"Thus know thou, and respect my sacred signet! Written in the holy month of Moharrem, 1267 (November, 1850).

"Given in the well guarded city Constantiniyeh."

At the request of Sir Stratford Canning, thirteen of the leading Protestants called upon him, on the occasion of his procuring this charter of rights; and for nearly an hour he addressed them on their duties and responsibilities, in their present position in the empire. He told them that they ought to thank G.o.d that they were the first to be relieved from the shackles of superst.i.tion, and made acquainted with the pure Gospel of Christ. He told them that many eyes were upon them, and that they ought to excel all others in the land in faithful obedience to the government, in a brotherly deportment to those of other religious opinions, and an example of uprightness in every relation. Again and again did he exhort them to act, in all things, according to the principles and doctrines of the Gospel.

Three years after this, on the 6th of December, 1853, on his return to Constantinople as Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, the same n.o.ble friend of religious freedom, wrote to the Earl of Clarendon, that he had endeavored in vain to obtain the official transmission of the firman to the Pashas throughout the empire. This was strikingly characteristic of Turkish procrastination. But he was then able to state, that the Porte, "out of consideration for his repeated representations," had officially transmitted the firman to all Pashas where a Protestant society was known to exist.

In 1854, his lords.h.i.+p obtained the concession from the Turkish government, that Christian evidence, in matters of criminal jurisdiction, should stand on the same footing everywhere in Turkey as the testimony of Mohammedans; thus removing a great wrong, under which the rayahs of the empire had labored for centuries.

While gratefully acknowledging our obligations to the representatives of other nations, I should also record, that our brethren, both in the Armenian and Syria missions, were under continued obligation to Mr. Carr, our Minister at the Porte, for personal protection as American citizens. He acted with decision whenever their rights were invaded. In the repeated efforts made to remove them from the country, his reply to the formal demands of the Porte was, that he had power to protect the missionaries as American citizens, but not to remove them; and furthermore, that while papal missionaries from France and Italy were permitted to reside in Turkey, Protestant missionaries from America must also have the same privilege.

Here we may properly pause, and consider what G.o.d had wrought, not alone through the agency of the churches, but with the cooperation of the great powers of the earth. Twenty years before, Messrs. Smith and Dwight did not find a single clear case of conversion in their extended travels through the Turkish empire. How many and great the subsequent changes! First came the national charter of rights, given by the Sultan in 1840; which, among its other results, destroyed the persecuting power of the Armenian aristocracy. Next came the abolition of the death penalty, in 1843, and the Sultan's pledge, that men should no more be persecuted for their religious opinions.

Then, after three years, came the unthought of application of this pledge to the Armenian Protestants, when persecuted by their own hierarchy. In the next year followed the recognition of the Protestants as an independent community. Finally, in 1850, came the charter, signed by the Grand Sultan himself, placing the Protestants on the same national basis with the other Christian communities of the empire.

How wonderful this progression of events! So far as the central government was concerned, missionaries might print, gather schools, form churches, ordain pastors, and send forth other laborers, wherever they pleased. Attention had been awakened, and there was a disposition to inquire, renounce errors, and embrace gospel truths.

There was a progressive change in fundamental ideas; a gradual reconstruction of the social system; a spiritual reformation. At least fifty places were known, scattered over Asiatic Turkey, in all of which souls had been converted through the truth, and where churches might be gathered. Ten churches had been formed already, and in part supplied with pastors. Aintab, scarcely known by name five years before, numbered more Protestants than even the metropolis, and was becoming one of the most interesting missionary stations in the world.

In this remarkable series of results we recognize the hand of G.o.d, who makes all earthly agencies subservient to the great work of redemption; so that secular agencies come as legitimately into the history of the republication of the Gospel in Bible lands, as do the labors of the missionaries. They were among the ordained means; and the leading agents cannot fail to command our grateful admiration.

The danger at this time was, that the reformation so auspiciously begun, would pa.s.s its grand crisis before the central lights had grown bright enough, and a knowledge of the Gospel been sufficiently diffused in the empire. There was everywhere a curiosity to know what Protestantism was, and to hear what the missionaries had to say; but this curiosity, regarded as a national feeling, was in danger of dying out. In the year 1851, the President of the National Council of the Armenians said to Mr. Dwight: "Now is the time for you to work for the Armenian people. Such an opportunity as you now enjoy may soon pa.s.s away, and never more return. You should greatly enlarge your operations. Where you have one missionary, you should have ten; and where you have one book, you should put ten in circulation." Constantinople, Smyrna, Broosa, Trebizond, Erzroom, and Aintab, were already occupied as stations. It was proposed at once to occupy Sivas, Arabkir, Diarbekir, and Aleppo. Mr. Adger, after a laborious and most useful service in the literary department of the mission, was constrained, by his health, in 1847, to retire from the field.

The statement of Lord Stratford, that three years were allowed to pa.s.s before the Sultan's firman was transmitted to the provinces, will account in part for the fact that persecution did not cease. In general, whenever evangelical views entered for the first time into a place, a battle was to be fought, and the first recipients of these views were sure to suffer more or less from the hands of their former co-religionists. But relief was almost sure to come on an appeal to the capital; and thus there was a gradual progress towards the full protection of the Protestants as a distinct community.

The accession of missionaries during the time now under review, was as follows: Joel S. Everett, in 1845; Isaac G. Bliss, in 1847; Oliver Crane, in 1849; Joseph W. Sutphen, in 1852--who died before the close of the year; Wilson A. Farnsworth, William Clark, Andrew T. Pratt, M. D.; George B. Nutting, Fayette Jewett, M. D., and Jasper N. Ball, in 1853; Albert G. Beebe, George A. Perkins, Sanford Richardson, Edwin Goodell, and Benjamin Parsons, in 1854; and Alexander R. Plumer, and Ira T. Pettibone, in 1855. All these were married men, except Mr. Pettibone. Mary and Isabella, daughters of Dr. Goodell, returned to the mission within the last two years.

In June, 1848, Pera was again ravaged by fire, and Messrs. Dwight, Homes, and Schauffler lost their houses, and most of their effects.

In October of the same year, seven persons were added to the church at Aintab, five of whom were women. In this month, Dr. Azariah Smith returned to that station with his wife, and made it his permanent abode.

The church at Aintab had a commendable zeal for the spread of the Gospel in the surrounding villages; but their colporters were never suffered to remain long in a place, the Armenian magnates persuading the Turkish authorities to send them away as vagabonds. They now resorted to an ingenious expedient for protecting themselves with the authority of law. Five men, who had trades, went forth to different towns, with their tools in one hand and the Bible in the other. Wherever they went they worked at their trades, and at the same time preached Christ to the people. The experiment succeeded wonderfully. They could no longer be treated as vagabonds, and the spirit of religious inquiry spread in all directions. The congregation in Aintab became so large that two houses were opened for wors.h.i.+p at the same time, and urgent appeals came from Killis, Marash, Oorfa, Diarbekir, Malatia, Harpoot, Arabkir, and other places near and remote.

Mr. Crane succeeded Mr. Schneider at Broosa. Mr. Benjamin made a missionary tour from Smyrna to the interior of Asia Minor; Mr.

Schneider made one to Aintab, on a temporary mission; Messrs.

Goodell and Everett to Nicomedia and Adabazar; Mr. Peabody into the province of Geghi; Mr. Homes to Nicomedia; and Mr. Johnston to Tocat. The building occupied by the Seminary at Bebek became now the property of the Board. The printing at Smyrna, in Armenian, Armeno-Turkish, Hebrew-Spanish, and Modern Greek, amounted to twenty-one thousand copies, and five million five hundred and eighty-two thousand pages. There was printing done at Constantinople, but the amount was not reported. Among the works in process of publication was D'Aubigne's "History of the Reformation."

The persecuting Matteos had now finished his career as Patriarch.

Before the close of 1848, he was convicted of frauds upon the public treasury, and of forgery, and was degraded, and pa.s.sed into retirement on the sh.o.r.es of the Bosphorus.[1]

[1] _Missionary Herald_, 1849, p. 42; _Report_, 1849, p. 115.

Three additional pastors were ordained during the year which closed with May, 1849; Baron Mugurdich, at Trebizond, Baron Hohannes Sahakian, at Adabazar, and Baron Avedis, as co-pastor at Constantinople. The reader is aware that Hohannes received the greater part of his education in the United States. He possessed a delightful spirit, and developed far more talent than he was commonly credited with in America, where he could communicate his thoughts only through the medium of a strange language.

The mission suffered a painful bereavement on the 14th of November, 1850, in the death of Mrs. Hamlin, at Rhodes, whither she had gone with her husband in the hope of relief.[1]

[1] See an account of her last sickness in _Missionary Herald_, for 1851, p. 82; also in her Memoir, _Light in the Dark River_, by Mrs.

Lawrence.

Another bereavement occurred at Aintab in the death on the 3d of June, 1851, of the Rev. Azariah Smith, M. D. Such was his peculiar adaptation to different fields, that he had labored in many places, but had a special attachment for Aintab. The uncommonly rapid development of the active Christian graces at that station was largely owing, under G.o.d, to his skillful efforts, and he wished there to spend the remainder of his days. In this he was gratified.

He returned from laboring at Diarbekir greatly in need of quiet. But finding so much to be done in the absence of Mr. Schneider at the annual meeting in Constantinople, he allowed himself no relaxation.