Читать книгу The Armenian Crisis in Turkey онлайн

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A famous London divine recently preached a sermon in connection with the Armenian Massacre, using as a text Ezra ix., 3: “And when I heard this thing, I rent my garment and my mantle, and plucked off the hair of my head and of my beard, and sat down astonied.” May I suggest that it is high time to rouse oneself from mere astonishment, as did the Hebrew prophet? If the eloquent preacher is at a loss for an appropriate text for another sermon to an English audience, he can find it in the sixth verse of the same chapter: “O my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face to thee, my God: for our iniquities are increased over our head, and our trespass is grown up unto the heavens.”

The very well informed correspondent of The Speaker wrote from Constantinople two months ago: “I fear there can be no doubt about the essential facts. We have already the official reports of the consuls at Van, Erzroom, Sivas, and Diarbekir, which have not yet been published, but which, we know, confirm the most horrible statements made in the newspapers. We have the reports of the Armenian refugees who were eye-witnesses. We have the reports sent to the Armenian Patriarchate here, and the reports of Catholic and Protestant missionaries in the vicinity of Sasun. Beyond this, and most horrible of all, we have the testimony of the Turkish soldiers who took part in the massacres. These soldiers... have talked with the greatest freedom in public places, and to all who would listen, boasting of their deeds. We have full reports from all these places of the statements made by hundreds of these soldiers, and they agree in all essential points.”^[2]