Читать книгу Around the Black Sea. Asia Minor, Armenia, Caucasus, Circassia, Daghestan, the Crimea, Roumania онлайн

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In addition to the medical and educational work it has been necessary for the American missionaries, especially in the interior towns of Turkey, during the last fifteen years, to open orphanages for the accommodation of the great number of children that have been left wholly destitute by the frequent massacres. This began in 1895, at the time of the great massacres which swept over so much of the Turkish Empire, when more than three hundred children were gathered into an orphanage in Sivas. Our missionaries were aided by helpers sent out from Switzerland under a Swiss committee, so that the work has become international in its character. These children have been given comfortable Christian homes and a modern education. It became necessary to introduce many forms of industry for them that they might not be idle and to enable them to bear at least a part of the expense of their support and schooling. Later this work was enlarged somewhat to include relief for widows.

As missionary enterprises, all these lines of work are connected with general Christian instruction in no way hostile to the belief and thoughts of the people. The instruction given has been constructive and helpful rather than destructive and combative.