THE
outstanding facts in the preceding narrative are the
following:
1.
Smyrna was burned by the Turks, as the concluding, at present, act in a
consistent policy that has been shaping Moslem history and expansion for
centuries, and especially Turkish history since the coming to power of the Young
Turks, as displayed in the “Turkifying” murders, tortures and persecutions in
Macedonia that led to the First Balkan War (1912); the killing and driving from
their homes of the Greeks of Asia Minor during the period just preceding the
outbreak of the World War and the destruction of their flourishing villages, (as
described by the Frenchman Manciet, writing of the scenes at Phocaea); the deportation of Greeks,
men, women and children in the midwinter of 1916, from the Black Sea region, forcing them to
walk in the inclement weather till many thousands perished (as mentioned by Dana
K. Getchell, in his letter given above); the doing to death of between eight
hundred thousand and a million Armenians in 1915-16; the burning of Smyrna and
the massacre of thousands of its inhabitants in 1922.
2. Smyrna was burned by Turkish soldiers at a time
when they were in full and complete possession of the city, and the fires were
applied first in the Armenian quarter, in which the Turks had been plundering,
murdering and raping for several days and where no Armenian was to be found,
with the possible exception of such survivors as might be hiding in
cellars.
3.
Credible non-Greek or non-Armenian witnesses testified to the manner of the
burning of Smyrna.
4. A Turkish soldier poured petroleum, or
petroleum mixed with gasoline, in the street before the American consular
building, causing the fire to be led up to and communicated to the building and
endangering the lives of those within.
5. The burning of Smyrna and the massacre and
abuse of its Christian inhabitants in the year of our Lord, 1922, was made
possible through the mutual jealousies and conflicting commercial interests of
certain Christian powers, and the actual aid, moral and material, furnished by
some of them to the Turks.
6. The Turks committed their fearful acts against
the Christians and humanity in general in the full conviction that they would
meet with no opposition nor even criticism from the United States. They were led
to this belief by a loud pro-Turk and anti-Christian propaganda carried on in
the American press by certain concession hunters, and other interested
writers.
7. No Gladstonian note of horror, protest or
revulsion has as yet issued from any official American source, though the Turks
have surpassed anything that Gladstone ever dreamed of.
8. The Turks can not regain the confidence and
respect of the civilized world until they repent
sincerely of their crimes and make all restitution in their
power.
9. Concealing such deeds as have been recounted in
these chapters or misrepresenting them with the purpose of obtaining material
advantages or saving property, reveals a low state of morality, consistent with
the spirit of this commercial age.
10.
One of the many reasons why Mohammedanism is outstripping Christianity in the
latter’s ancient birthplace and territory, and in general wherever the two
religions meet face to face, is that Christ has been unworthily followed by the
people who are sending out the missionaries.
11.
Church people in America should become aware of the fact that American
missionaries in Turkey can not convert Turks, nor conduct religious exercises at
which Turks are present and that the schools in the Ottoman Empire are now being
conducted on that basis; and that, if they should convert any Turks, the latter
would be killed, and the missionaries and their buildings be in danger of
attack.
But
the chief lesson of these pages is the growing feebleness of
Christianity—divided, insincere, permeated with materialism; undermined and
befuddled, in much of its old sturdy and childlike credence, by modern
scientific discovery.
Whoever
has attended, as I have done at the city of Washington, a general meeting of
missionaries, can not have failed to be impressed with the devotion, enthusiasm
and spiritual fervor of those noble men and women who carry the beautiful
doctrines of Christ to heathen lands. I saw them and heard them soon after my
return from the Near East and the Smyrna horror, and I could scarcely refrain
from rising to my feet and crying:
“Come
borne and save us, before it is everlastingly too late!”
THE
END
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