Chapter VI: Part II: Out of the Depths (1)

“Oh that my head were waters and mine eyes a fountain of tears,
that I might weep day and night for the slain of my people.”

A book has been written and published in Japan, its title “Niku Dan” translated into English, reads, “Human Bullets.” This little book, a narrative of the siege of Port Arthur, after being read through the length and breadth of the empire, found translators to translate it into the best known of languages; and its young author, himself an actor in the siege, was summoned to the presence of his sovereign to be thanked and praised. The book is a graphic narrative of the most terrible siege in history, wherein is vividly portrayed the deadly struggle of the besiegers. It contains as an acknowledgement of its merit, a page on which is recorded the Field Marshal’s appreciation, and another page bearing the Commanding General’s commendation.

In simple narrative the author carries the reader through appalling scenes of horror, and as we read we are made to realize the slaughter of the enemy’s machine guns, of their ground-mines, electric-wire entanglements, and exploding shells; we are made to hear the roar of the artillery fire dealing death and destruction, and there rises before us the mental vision of the fierce hand to hand conflict, and the dead and dying lying thickly in the dark ravine.

“For hill and battle plain,
With dying men and slain,
Grew mountain heights of pain,
And mine is boundless woe.”

The grim warrior who stormed and took the most impregnable fortress in the world gives expression to his feelings on his own great achievement, in saddest words.

“And mine is boundless woe,”

For the grim warrior’s heart is cleft in twain for the human bullets that under his command hurled themselves to their death.

In the world’s greatest war, human bullets were sacrificed for the protection of hearths and homes and a nation’s existence, moreover the human bullets were made of men who fought and died for sovereign and country.

But there is a counter picture of horrors in which also there has been a sacrifice of human bullets, made not only of men but of women and children, human bullets, not of soldiers, themselves fortified and equipped with instruments of slaughter for fighting and grappling with the foe, but human bullets of unarmed men, of helpless women and children, of youth and old age, caught like rats in a rat-trap; and these human bullets have been sacrificed to the savage lusts of murder and plunder of the world’s fiercest oppressors, and to the political and commercial interests of civilized nations.

In the first decade of the civilized twentieth century, a horrible and wanton slaughter of unarmed men, of helpless women and children has been perpetrated with all the accessories of cruelties unsurpassed for their fiendishness: whole towns and villages have been desolated, homes pillaged and destroyed, not only men, but women and children subjected to hideous deaths and nameless horrors, which no pen could depict in their true realism, and the details could never go into print, and this wanton slaughter, even as the many of a similar nature that have preceded it, has come and gone like a ripple on a smooth sea.

No cry of horror has risen from the hearts of civilized nations! Turkey can butcher the helpless victims of her greed and carnivorous instincts with impunity, since Christendom and Civilization are busy only with Turkish concessions, with land grabbing and money making.

“Human Bullets”! “Human Bullets”! here are human bullets of heavier rain than at the world’s grimmest siege; here are “sure death detachments” hurled to a more pitiful fate; and the civilized world does not care, for Armenian Massacres come and go, and the civilized world is getting used to them. But in the eternal order of things, a Nemesis follows human actions, be they of individuals or of nations. Material Prosperity is a great and good thing, but Moral Prosperity is greater and better. The Armenians may be done to their death, the last remnants of an ancient civilization may be exterminated and consigned in their blood to oblivion; but to the nations grown great in material prosperity that for their own selfish interests can allow and condone this hellish extermination, history teaches a mighty lesson. The moral cancer eating into the moral sense of nations, saps moral prosperity which in its turn undermines material prosperity. Great Empires once flourishing have decayed through moral poverty. History repeats itself.

WHAT THE TURKISH CONSTITUTION MEANS FOR THE ARMENIANS.

A year has passed since the inauguration of the Turkish Constitution; since the first glad cries of “liberty, fraternity, equality” were resounded as heralds of the peace and prosperity that were to follow; but although a whole year has passed, the Turkish Constitution, thus far, has only paraded itself as a spectacular effect, and as a panorama on shifting sand.

A whole year has passed and the liberal Turks have produced neither a Prince Ito nor an Abraham Lincoln, though both were urgently needed to meet the pressing exigencies and heavy responsibilities of the times; and we may well ask now, Where is the man who is to hold the helm of the Constitutional ship and steer it over the turbulent waters?

The task of the new régime was the most difficult that could have fallen to any administration. Beset on the one hand by the jealousies, rivalries, and political intrigues of European Powers; on the other, by the machinations of that “Red Beast” the ex-Sultan and his murderous and corrupt clique, by disappointed plundering pashas and officials (compelled to grant their arch enemy the ex-Sultan a lease of life through fear of a fanatical populace), the liberal Turks on their own part have not brought to bear upon their work any administrative ability, when extraordinary powers of governing and the highest and strongest genius for administration were absolutely needed. The Turk has always shown to the world that he is a born fighter, but a puerile administrator.

For the Armenians the Constitution has resulted in two conditions--Massacre and Oppression; their hopes and aspirations have ended in the death throes of, as some accounts give, thirty thousand and others fifty thousand of their unhappy race, in homelessness and precipitation into absolute destitution of a few more thousands,[11] and in insecurity for the nation at large. An unarmed population scattered and dispersed among a hostile, murderous and fanatical populace; their position even under the new régime is to be compared to that of herbivorous animals standing at bay in the midst of ravening wolves.

His spiritual interests call upon the Moslem Turk and the Moslem Kurd to murder the Christian Armenian; his material interests to plunder and enrich his own idleness with the worldly goods the other has acquired by his industry and toil, and the prosperity and well-being that the Armenian labours to bring to the fairest provinces under the sun are swooped upon and devastated by the brigandage of his enemies. Religious fanaticism and lust of plunder have always been governing elements in the Turkish massacres, and against these same religious fanaticism and lust of plunder, the Armenians stand to-day in deadly peril under the new régime.

What more is to follow? Our hearts sicken to forecast, and our minds tremble to foresee. Are the balance of our striplings and our greybeards, our pen-men, and our ploughmen to be made to rot in Turkish dungeons, condemned to such loathsome horrors as can only be perpetrated in Turkish prisons? Are the balance of our women to be subjected to agonies so hideous and revolting that death at the fiery stake or on the iron rack were mercy and bliss? Are the balance of our babes and children to be exterminated like vermin? Are the balance of our people, the industrious, intelligent, clean, self-respecting element in the Turkish Empire, to be yet again hunted like wild beasts and killed like rats and flies?

We are not wild and lawless descendants of Jenghis Khan and Tamerlane: we are peace-loving, law-abiding citizens, lovers of language and literature, of the arts and sciences, energetic traders, hardworking tillers of the soil, industrious artizans and labourers, producing in ourselves all the elements that constitute the society and well-being of civilized man; and as the oldest Christians, we ask of Christian nations, if we are to be trodden out?

On the soil of our fatherland we are surrounded by a murderous, marauding, religion-frenzied populace, and neither Humanity nor Christianity will hold out to us a helping hand.

If nothing else were done for the Armenians, at least Christian governors should be appointed over the provinces inhabited by them: we do not expect the Turkish Government to do this of their own initiative, but we have a right to expect the European Powers that were signatories to the Treaty of Berlin to compel the new régime to do it. Since the signing of the famous Treaty of Berlin thirty-one years ago, the history of the Armenians has been written in blood and tears, as the history of no other nation has been written before or now; and we ask, How long? How long will the Christian Powers stand silent witnesses to the work of slaughter and oppression carried on under their eyes?

Alas! the weight of the Turkish bonds is too heavy in the scale, and Armenian life too light; the selfish interests of the European Powers involved in the Turkish Empire cannot be endangered to save the blood of three or four millions of Armenians, and the death warrant of an oppressed and bleeding nation can find no place on the table of the Hague Conference of Peace and Civilization.

THE ARMENIAN QUESTION.

In the closing pages of “Twenty Years of the Armenian Question” published in 1896, its distinguished author,[12] one of the greatest authorities on the subject, makes the following notable comment on the character and fate of the Armenian race.

“They had maintained their nationality from immemorial times, before history began to be written. They had clung to their Christian faith, under incessant persecution for fifteen centuries. They were an intelligent, laborious race, full of energy, and increasing in numbers wherever oppression and murder did not check their increase, because they were more apt to learn, more thrifty in their habits, and far less infected by Eastern vices than their Mahommedan neighbours. They were the one indigenous population in Western Asia which, much as adversity had injured them, showed a capacity for moral as well as intellectual progress, and for assimilating the civilization of the West. In their hands the industrial future of Western Asia lay, whatever government might be established there; and those who had marked the tenacity and robust qualities of the race looked to them to restore prosperity to these once populous and flourishing countries when the blighting shadow of Turkish rule had passed away. But now, after eighteen years of constantly increasing misery, a large part, and, in many districts, the best part, of this race has been destroyed, and the remnant is threatened with extinction.”

These remarks made in 1896 by a great and disinterested authority with a profound knowledge of the subject he was writing about, stand as true to-day as when they were written. From 1896 onwards, events following in succession one upon another have proved the truth and soundness of his opinions.

Can the Armenians hope now for any change in their condition under Turkish rule? To this question, we must answer an emphatic No!

The causes that must operate against any change are many and deep-seated. In the first place it cannot be expected that a few Turks of liberal ideas (or it may be French polished) at Constantinople, are going to change the thought and character of the nation. The characteristics of a people change very slowly, if they ever change at all, and the predominant national traits of the many-blooded modern Turk have been shown to the world to be, cruelty and fanaticism, combined with a fierce sensuality; and what is more than all, and which has to be remembered most, is, that they are a people accustomed to the unbridled gratification of their worst passions.

The ethnographic traits of the Turkman which history bears out, are wildness and fierceness, and it would not be incorrect to argue that with the instincts of his primitive ancestors have been assimilated the many cross currents that run in his veins, into all of which has been infused the doctrines of the religion of the sword, a religion which does not make for the peace or well being of mankind; a religion, also, which assigning one of the two sexes to the degraded position of being created solely for the gross pleasure of the other, does not make for the exaltation of mankind.

To quote again the eminent authority previously referred to: “No Mahommedan race or dynasty has ever shown itself able to govern well even subjects of its own religion, while to extend equal rights to subjects of a different creed is forbidden by the very law of its being.”

Not the Jewish conceit proclaiming itself God’s elect and chosen, and originating the name “heathen” which it scorned. Not the Christian conceit emanating from the Jewish source, and laying the flattering unction to its soul of superiority over the “heathen” of its own time. Not the unbending caste exclusiveness of the Brahman across whose path even the shadow of the despised Sudra falling would be deemed defilement. Not any of these, can equal the intolerant religious pride of the Mahommedan, or reach the pinnacle of religious self-sufficiency on which he has seated himself. To be a Mahommedan, is enough--_Cela suffit_.

To any one who has familiar acquaintance with Mahommedans, and intimate with Mahommedan thought, one fact must strike itself most forcibly, and that is, the Mahommedan is above all things a Mahommedan. His religion is the paramount question in his life, and remains its predominating feature above everything else. This should not be surprising, since to the “faithful” Paradise is secured, and all crimes and transgressions against “unbelievers” absolved.

Added to these important factors of racial characteristics, influences of religion, and long grown habits of the Turk, we have also in Turkish Armenia another evil, from which the other provinces of the Turkish Empire fortunately for themselves have been exempt; this super-added evil, is, the large neighbouring bodies of Kurds and Circassians, greater marauders and depredators than the Turks, the regular occupation of whose lives comprises murder and robbery, and who have through weary centuries unremittingly quartered themselves upon the industrious christian peasants, and lived on the fruits of their labour and toil. Indeed as the Hamidieh cavalry which was established expressly for the Hamidian massacres was composed of these Kurds, it ought to be matter of speculation what outlet these warriors, trained and practised in organized murder, can now find for those habits in which they were encouraged and trained to indulge by the Hamidian régime.

Under all such conditions no hope of better days can be forthcoming, no prospect of better times seems possible, for that unhappy portion of the Armenian race whom force of circumstances keeps on the soil of the fatherland.

The appointment of Christian governors over the provinces inhabited by them might ameliorate some of the evils, or the other alternative, of allowing the use of arms to all alike, irrespective of creed or nationality, would furnish some means of self-defence against the raids and barbarities of the oppressors; but even if such concessions were granted, life for the christian peasant subject to Turkish rule, and living in the midst of his enemies, must remain one long struggle and battle against pillage, murder, depredation, and offences of the worst nature. Not the most fertile soil, not the most favourable climatic conditions, not the most assiduous industry, not the most peace loving, law abiding instincts, can bring to the Armenian peasant under Turkish rule even a modicum of that comfort, happiness, and security of life and property, which the law of all civilized countries guarantees to the industrious labourer and tiller of the soil.

OPEN LETTER TO THE HONORABLE PRESIDENT WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT.

EXCELLENT SIR,

You are the President of the mighty Republic of the United States of America, and I am only an obscure unit of a forlorn and helpless nation, but encouraged by the intrinsic qualities of your head and heart, and also by the record of great and noble services rendered in the cause of oppressed humanity, by certain of your predecessors in the presidential chair (so encouraged) I venture humbly to address you. The annals of that presidential chair on which you sit are clear and bright as the noonday sun; turning over the pages of their brightness, I am encouraged to address you its present occupant.

Your immediate predecessor rendered a great service in the interests of Humanity, by bringing a terrible and bloody war to its close. His staunch strong hand of friendship was held out to the gallant nation fighting heroically for its national existence, whilst the might of his iron will strenuously contested and made the peace which will ever be associated with his name, but there was a peace which his great heart wished to break but could not succeed in breaking, and which his upright mind has branded as “infamous”: such are his own words “the infamous peace kept by the joint action of the great powers, while Turkey inflicted the last horrors of butchery, torture and outrage upon the men, women and children of despairing Armenia.”[13] For thirty-one years the great European Powers kept up by joint action an infamous peace, and out of regard for their own selfish interests allowed a corrupt, vicious, gangrened and blood-thirsty power to wreak its hellish atrocities not only on the men, but on the women and children of a helpless nation.

These are strong words, but they are true, and you will agree with me that the meanest and humblest of God’s creatures has a right to speak the truth, and that greatest is the right to speak the truth, when it is spoken in the cause of murdered, outraged and misery-stricken humanity.

The yoke of Turkey rivetted on the necks of the Armenians by England in 1878, was rivetted again by Russia, and yet again rivetted by Germany. The political interests and the commercial interests of Europe have trampled us under foot; we have been sacrificed on the altar of the political animosities of England and Russia, and given over, men, women and children to butchery, slaughter, imprisonment, torture; we have been crushed under the iron wheels of the Baghdad railway, a greater Juggernauth for us, while the ex-Sultan received his payment and “bartered a kingdom for the Kaiser’s friendship”; and yet again we have been crushed when British diplomacy checkmated William of Hohenzollern’s dream.

The death warrant of our bleeding nation has found no place on the table of the Hague Conference of Peace and Civilization since the selfish interests of the European Powers would give it no abiding room. President of a great and free Republic, let it be the work of your mighty hands to lay it there. The Cabinets of Europe have turned a deaf ear to the death shriek of our bleeding nation, let our despairing cry be heard now in the Senate of the United States of America.

It remains for the historian of the future to record the Armenian Massacres as the foulest blot and the blackest stain on European Civilization and European International Morality, but in addressing you now I will turn down the pages of the hideous Past, and humbly lay open the pages of the Present, on which is clearly written the deadly peril in which our nation stands: the book is open, and who will may read. For it is not the goodwill of the new régime that has to be taken into calculation, as far as the Armenians are concerned, but the powerfulness or the powerlessness of the new régime to make for their protection.

How can we forget Adana? A whole town and villages sacked and desolated; fifty thousand of our men, women and children done to horrible deaths, and the residue left to homelessness and starvation. How can we forget that the arch-enemy of Christian and liberal Turk still lives, dethroned but not executed, and that through fear of his worshippers and his adherents the liberal Turks are compelled to pamper and support the monster assassin of the world? When such difficulties beset the path of the liberal Turks, the rulers, what security is there for a subject people, alien in race and religion?

President of a great and free Republic, we need a friend, we ask for your mighty hands to be held out to us in succour, since the number of our enemies are legion: even Nature has arrayed herself against us in the inexorable conditions of the physical geography of our country. Shall the President of a mighty Republic with noble traditions; shall the christian men and women of the United States leave us to our terrible fate?

“To serve Armenia is to serve Civilization.” These words were spoken by a great and revered statesman; the noble handiwork of his Creator (William Ewart Gladstone), now gone to his honored rest. “Do not let me be told that one nation has no authority over another” was his reply to the Armenian deputation which waited on him in 1894. Let his reply be your answer to us now, President of a mighty Republic; let it be your answer written in golden letters across the banner of that great civilization, of which you are the presiding head.

The Republic of the United States of America has been compared to that grain of mustard seed, which when planted in the earth budded forth and grew into such dimensions that the birds of the air lodged under the branches thereof. I pray that the shadow of those branches be extended over my bleeding nation.

ABDUL HAMID, THE TRIUMPH OF CRIME.

A monster assassin! Has he been brought before the bar of his country, tried and condemned to the penalty of death, such as in the days of his power he meted out to hundreds of thousands of innocents? Has he been cast into a loathsome prison, such as the many in which thousands of his victims have rotted and died? Nay! not so! it is not so decreed in Turkey.

In Turkey, a camarilla of murderous and plundering pashas, and a fanatical and marauding populace stand behind a Padishah who knew how to furnish gratification for the murdering and marauding instincts of his adherents. Nay! neither death nor imprisonment for the Padishah whose sovereignty was the most auspicious for brigandage and murder. Who dares to slay or imprison the demigod of rapine and despotism? Such things cannot be done in Turkey.

For crimes that were in comparison as light as air, those puerile tyrants, Charles of England and Louis of France forfeited their heads. Poor Charles and Louis! Your heads chopped off and your bodies trundled away in a cart: no glorifying spiritualized titles of Zeid and Imam read out in your bills of indictment; such glorifying spiritualized titles are reserved for monster assassins in Turkey.

In Turkey, a monster assassin whose list of murders rank him as premier assassin of the world, who under heel of iron and fire annihilated the rights and liberties of his subjects is pensioned off to live in purple and fare sumptuously: housed in a luxurious palace, he sits on carpeted divans, supported by silken and velvet pillows, with eleven ministering houris, the youngest and fairest of his past entourage, to solace the “dolce far niente” of his deposed Padishahdom. Ample leisure, possible opportunities to hatch plots for the subversion of law and order, and the revival of the reign of plunder and massacre. But it is so allowed in Turkey. It is enough to be a Caliph and a Padishah to be able to count victims, not by thousands, but by hundreds of thousands, and remain immune from punishment for mountains of crime.

What evil, what woe and desolation hast thou not wrought, spiritualized Zeid and Imam, Caliph and Padishah? And yet thou art allowed to live! Evil genius of thy people! thou hast worked out their moral degradation to the lowest depths that a nation could fall; but limitless evil, supremest woe, hast thou worked over the nation whose country thou turned into a charnel house of slaughter, and over whom thy reign of thirty-three years hung like a pestilence. Who can count the multitude of thy crimes against them, who can measure the height and the depth of the woe that thou laid over their lives. Hearths and homes pillaged and desolated, harvest fields turned into rivers of blood, not thousands upon thousands, but hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children tortured with devilish ingenuities of torture, imprisoned in loathsome dungeons, outraged, butchered, slaughtered, hunted like wild beasts, left to homelessness and starvation.

Enough blood to drown a leprous souled and gangrened souled Padishah and his gangrened pack of followers! Enough crime to hang a Caliph!

Out with thy Caliphate! even by the law of thy prophet, that fierce son of the desert, the Caliph is ordained protector of the weak and helpless; what didst thou with thy thirty-three years of Caliphal power, except crush the weak and annihilate the helpless.

The very earth has echoed with the dying cry of the least of them, those “christian puppies” with little bodies piled up one upon another, and little heads struck off together at one stroke; with the frenzied shrieks of mothers who have seen with their own eyes the slaughter of their children, with the anguished wail of women, with the death groans of youth and old age. Aye! the very earth has echoed with the dying gasp of that righteous man, the venerable sire of his people, the renowned nonagenarian whom thou stealthily silenced on a bloody bed into the sleep of death for trying to save his flock from thy hyena jaws.

An explosive bomb shattered the life of thy crowned opponent, (a noble life consecrated to the welfare of his people) but no chance or opportunity directed any explosive bomb to shatter thy cadaverous body. No jeweled pistol or secret dagger like the many that have dripped with the blood of thy victims in thy Yildiz Kiosk, found its way to thy treacherous heart. No poisoned cup of coffee like the countless cups brewed in thy palaces trickled down thy throat to end thy vampire existence.

Thou hast lived! Protected from the Nemesis of thy crimes by the jealousies and rivalries of great powers which thou artfully played one against another; by the combined forces of religion and plunder which thou cunningly wielded into one. Even so thou livest! Peerless living example in the civilized twentieth century of the Triumph of Crime.

L’AVENIR.

In the foregoing pages I have directed my humble efforts to sketch out what the Powers of Europe have done in the past, and how their actions have reflected on my unfortunate race.

It is considered good policy now by a certain class of European writers to ascribe all the horrors of the Armenian Massacres to Hamid the despot, to represent him as a tyrant as unassailable and unconquerable as he was implacable, in short as a sort of superhuman being who swept everything before him to the consummation of his own despotic will. The reason for this is not difficult to perceive. They would fain disavow the part Europe has played in the tragedy, and to do this successfully it becomes necessary also to present Turkey to the world now as a paradise (from whence the tyrant once removed) peopled only by saints and angels; so we have also many roseate colored word pictures of Constitutional Turkey.

The murders, deportations and imprisonments of the Turkish revolutionaries, or more correctly reformers, were undoubtedly the sole work of Abdul Hamid and his palace clique, but Abdul and his minions could not have carried out that hellish work of wholesale extermination of the Armenians without the perpetration and participation of the Turkish people. It is true the massacres were originated and organized in the Palace, the Palace clique stirred up religious fanaticism and race hatred, but the co-operation of the people was necessary; and the people co-operated in order to plunder and enrich themselves with the worldly goods that the Armenians always knew how to acquire by their own industry and toil; the appeal to their marauding and bestial instincts met with a ready response. It was moreover easy work for a race of brigands, especially as their numbers exceeded their victims by about ten to one and who were practically unarmed.

The first Armenian Massacres of Abdul Hamid were tentative; he began by feeling the pulse of Europe; he found that the six Signatories to the Treaty of Berlin accepted the situation, he was thus emboldened to carry out that long and awful list of horrors that stands without its parallel in history. Clearly it was in the power of Europe to have prevented both the massacres and all the agonizing sufferings that came in their train, but Europe took no preventive action.

Let us ask the question, Who and what are these Turks, whom Europe for her own sordid ends has petted and pampered and helped and supported? and the answer comes with striking force to-day over the lapse of a century, in the words of one of England’s greatest sons: “I have never before heard that the Turkish Empire has been considered any part of the balance of Powers in Europe. They despise and contemn all Christian princes as infidels, and only wish to subdue and exterminate them and their people. What have these worse than savages to do with the Powers of Europe but to spread war, destruction, and pestilence among them? The Ministers and the policy which shall give these people any weight in Europe will deserve all the bans and curses of posterity.”[14]

To-day the Powers of Europe are armed to the teeth. To-day they are groaning under the burden of armaments which they are increasing with breathless speed although the burden grows heavier. To-day all Europe is trembling lest the hell-hounds of war be let loose. Has any political student put his finger on the cause which began, the beginning and the source of the evil, the Alpha of the Omega. I have put my finger on it--the beginning and the source--The jealousies and rivalries of European Politics in the Turkish Empire. According to an Eastern proverb “The flies are always round the honey,” but sometimes the flies stick in the honey.

Politicians of the Governments of Europe have said in the pride of their hearts “There is no God.” Particularly has this spirit of cynicism and heartlessness governed the actions of Russian politicians after the death of Alexander II. Since 1881, they have looked upon the extermination of the Armenians just as the pathfinder in a forest would look upon a dense forest growth, the clearing away of which would make out a path for him and lead to running streams and harvest fields. In the eyes of Russian politicians the unfortunate Armenians have been the forest growth which has stood in the way of their advance to the South and into Persia, and they have looked on with intense satisfaction at the exterminating process of the Turk, which they have regarded as the helping hand that clears away the difficulty confronting them. But precisely whether Russia can grow strong by the pouring out of Armenian blood, and whether her empire will be extended by their hellish extermination remains to be solved by the future. One thing, however, the history of the world points out, that iniquity ends, not in strength, but in dissolution; and “The wages of sin is death.”

Politicians of Europe have, in the pride of their hearts, arrogated to themselves that power, which appertains to the Creator; they have imagined that they hold the world in the hollows of their hands, and the misery or happiness of millions of human beings has weighed as nothing in their estimation, against the interests of what they have designated “our sphere of influence,” but they have forgotten what they need to be reminded that the Creator is mightier than the creature and that the eternal law of heaven and earth changeth not for politicians.

“And the First Morning of Creation wrote;
What the Last Dawn of Reckoning shall read.”

“Of old hast thou laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the work of thy hands.

“They shall perish, but thou shalt endure: yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment; as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed. But thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end.”

When the heavens and earth shall perish, shall wax old as a garment and be changed as a vesture; whence shall endure the power and principalities, the empires and spheres of influence of him who is called man?

“As for man, his days are as grass; as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more.”

THE ORIGIN OF THE ARMENIANS--THE INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY INTO ARMENIA--DECLINE & GRAND REVIVAL.

“God shall enlarge Japhet and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem, and Canaan shall be his servant.”

For the interpretation of this blessing of Noah’s to his eldest son, and of how it may or may not have met with its fulfilment, I shall leave to theologians to discuss, and only record it here as a quotation from Genesis. Beyond the story of his connection with the flood, and this blessing with which his father blessed him, and the genealogy of his sons, we read nothing more in Genesis, of Japhet, this mighty father of the Caucasian race.

The genealogy in Genesis runs thus:

“The sons of Japhet, Gomer and Magog and Madai, and Javan, and Tubal, and Meschech, and Tiras.

“And the sons of Gomer: Ashkenaz and Riphath and Togarmah.

“And the sons of Javan; Elishah and Tarshish, Kittim and Dodamin.

“By these were the isles of the Gentiles divided in their lands; every one after his tongue, after their families, in their nations.”

Only the names of the three sons of Gomer, and the four sons of Javan are given in Genesis, and by these we are told were the isles of the Gentiles divided. So much for Genesis.

Later history records that these Gentiles spread themselves over part of that stretch of terra firma which now goes by the name of Europe, developing their own families, and their own nations, and originating their own tongues, and also they spread themselves over other parts of the surface of the globe, populating where they could, ruling where they could.

But through the roll of centuries which lost themselves into the flight of thousand years, one branch of the sons of Japhet kept themselves on the land where Noah planted his vineyard, and round the base of that mountain from whence his descendants began to spread and people the earth.

Tradition has woven a romance round the names of towns and villages in Armenia. “No aighee” (Noah’s vineyard) is the name of a village supposed to be the place where the patriarch planted his vine; and “Nakhitchvan”[15] meaning (first descent) where Noah is supposed to have descended from the ark; also “Mairand” meaning (mother is there) where Noah’s wife is supposed to be buried; and “Erivan”[16] meaning (that which can be seen) supposed to be the land in the distance which could be seen when Noah descended from the ark.

Armenian history begins with Haik, the first chief or king of the tribe: he was third in descent from Japhet, and fourth in descent from Noah, and his genealogy is given thus: Haik the son of Togarmah, the son of Gomer, the son of Japhet, the son of Noah.

“They of the house of Togarmah traded in thy fairs with horses and horsemen and mules” is the designation given by Ezekiel, 27th chapter 14th verse of the merchants of Armenia trading with Tyrus.

Haik revolting from Belus, the Nimrod of Genesis, the son of Cush and grandson of Ham, retraced his footsteps from the plains of Shinar, where he with others had tried to build the tower whose top should reach into heaven, and with his followers and children settled himself round the base of Ararat.

Perhaps a nascent fire of patriotism was burning in Haik’s heart as he retraced his steps to the land of his father’s or grandfather’s childhood: perhaps owing to the circumstances under which he was placed, he had not the alternative of another choice.

We read in Armenian history that Belus sent the following message to Haik:

“Why didst thou go to that cold country? Were it not better for thee to have moderated thy pride, and submissively dwelt on my territory in any part thou wished.”

To which Haik replied:

“It is better to die bravely than to bow down in fear to that presumptuous man who would be worshipped as a god.”

Whatever causes may have influenced Haik, his choice of country was geographically most unfortunate for the race he founded, and it may truly be said that owing to its geographical conditions affording facilities for the march of conquerors, to have been instrumental in bringing about the overwhelming and unequalled adversities that through weary centuries have followed like a grim fate the footsteps of his descendants.

No geographical position on the surface of the globe could have been more unfortunate, hemmed round by larger territories, with no natural defences or boundaries, and no outlet to the sea, except the lake of the Caspian on the one side, and the lake of the Black Sea on the other, that land on which Haik chose to found a country and a nation, has been soaked with the blood and the tears of this branch of the sons of Japhet.

The animosity between Haik and Belus continued, and later, according to Armenian historians, Belus was slain in battle by an arrow from the bow of Haik.

We read the following record of Belus in Genesis: “he began to be a mighty one in the earth.” “He was a mighty hunter before the Lord: wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the Lord.”

In Armenian history, Haik is depicted as a man of powerful physique and gigantic stature; no man of his time being able to bend his bow or shoot his arrow. Moses of Chorene, the chief of Armenian historians, quoting from the learned Syrian Mar Abbas, writes of him thus:

“He was graceful and well built, curly haired, pleasing in appearance, and strong armed, and it might be remembered that among the heroes of his time he was the most remarkable of all.”

However that may be, Armenian history awards to Haik the proud distinction of having overcome and slain Belus, the mighty hunter Nimrod.

The people who retraced their steps from the plains of Shinar, and settled round the base of Ararat called themselves “Hai” after their chief, and they named their country “Haiyastan,” and these names still continue to be used in the Armenian, or “Haiyérane” as the Armenians call their own language.

I will pass over the periods when the son and grandson of Haik ruled over Armenia, and only mention that the mountain known to the world as Ararat was called by the Hai “Masis” after their king Amasia and great-grandson of Haik. To this day, Armenian peasants and others dwelling round Ararat, call the mountain “Masis.” I remember in my childhood having seen an Armenian periodical entitled “Masis,” which showed that the name had been steadily kept up.

I will again pass over the periods ruled by the successors of Amasia, and relate the story of King Aram, who ended his brilliant reign in B.C. 1796 after ruling over Armenia fifty-eight years.

He was a great and powerful prince, and extended his dominions, and grew to be so mighty in battle that the neighbouring nations called his country Aramia and the people were called Aramians, such names as Armenia or Armenians being no doubt later corruptions.

The first victory of Aram was over Neuchar king of Media, whom he took prisoner and put to death, and made a large part of the country of the defeated prince tributary to his own. The second victory of Aram was over Barsham king of Babylon, whom also he took prisoner and put to death. The next victory was over the king of Cappadocia; the army of the Cappadocians was pursued to the very shores of the Mediterranean, and the whole of Cappadocia fell into the hands of Aram B.C. 1796. Also Ninus king of Assyria, at one time an eager enemy, awed by the victories of Aram, sought to cultivate his friendship.

No doubt if the volumes and scripts of paper or parchment of the famous Alexandrian library, which burned for six months as fuel in the four thousand baths of the city, had escaped that most atrocious act of vandalism, and been preserved instead, vast treasures of knowledge now lost to us concerning the ancient kingdoms of Western Asia might be known in our day; and also when the tide of Islam victory rolled over the kingdom of Armenia, how much of the story and history of the people was lost and destroyed along with the destruction of their independence it would be difficult now to calculate or assert, but in taking up link by link of whatever knowledge has been left to us, there seems to be grounds for supposing that the “Aramæans” designated by foreign writers as “a people of Semitic race, language and religion, coming from Northern Arabia and settling in the region between the western boundaries of Babylonia and the highlands of Western Asia” were no other than the Hai who under their King Aram had spread their conquests and their kingdom into Mesopotamia and even to the shores of the Mediterranean.

Herodotus also rather corroborates this conjecture when he includes Northern Mesopotamia, together with the mountainous country of Ararat, under the name of Armenia, and in writing of the Armenian boats that brought merchandise to Babylon, he remarks that they were constructed in Armenia, _in the parts above Assyria_.

Archæological researches have laid the claim that the modern Armenians are the descendants of the old Hittites; the modern Armenian being supposed to be the survival of the ancient Hittite tongue, and it is asserted almost everything that is known in the Hittite language is Old Armenian in form: but who these Hittites were, or whence they came neither historian nor archæologist have been able definitely to ascertain. In the Armenian version of the Bible, we find the name “Kethosi” used for the Hittite who were known to the Assyrians and Egyptians as “Ketha,” but this can have no important bearing since the Bible was translated into the Armenian language from the Greek in the fifth century of the Christian era, and the Armenian scribe no doubt simply translated what he found in the Greek.

According, however, to all known history the Hittites were a warlike and conquering race and ranked among the foremost of the nations of Western Asia. The modern historian has come to the following conclusion concerning them: “Their primitive home is thought to have been in that part of Armenia where the Euphrates, the Halys, and Lycus approach nearest to one another; and it is even asserted that the modern Armenians are descendants of the old Hittites. From this point they began their career of conquests, probably under the leadership of some able and vigorous chief, whose ambition overleaped his native boundaries. One conquest led to another. Their leaders acquired great armies, and subdued many nations, until the Hittites became one of the most powerful peoples of ancient times, and their kings were able successfully to defy even Egypt, at that time the strongest nation on the globe.”

This description accords with Armenian history; the Hai being known from time immemorial as a warlike race, and extending their territory by conquests, until, as I have narrated, under the leadership of Aram their kingdom spread from the mountains of Upper Armenia to the shores of the Mediterranean and into northern Mesopotamia, which proves that almost all of Asia Minor was conquered by them, and according also to Armenian history the language of the Hai was introduced into Cappadocia by King Aram.[17]

Allowing, however, for the many obscurities of Armenian history, confusion comes in, when historians or archæologists ascribe a Mongolian ancestry to the Hittites, whereas Armenian history holds its unquestionable ground firmly and decidedly on the Japhetian ancestry; and the peculiar physiognomy of the Armenians; the oval contour of face, the distinctive, prominent nose, large eye, and well marked arch of eyebrow do not show any traces of Mongolian ancestry. It follows therefore that if the Armenians are the descendants of the Hittites, then the Hittites were not of Mongolian ancestry. If the Hittites were the Hai, the name must have undergone corruption during the course of centuries and it is reasonable to suppose that they shared the fate of all conquerors, and after a period of power, were driven back from the shores of the Mediterranean to their own native home.

Aram was succeeded by his son Ara, a prince of such singular and surpassing beauty that he was surnamed “Ara the Beautiful.” The famous Semiramis, wife of Ninus king of Assyria, attracted by his great personal beauty offered him her affections and her throne after the death of her husband, but her proffers of love were scornfully rejected by Ara, who according to the story related of his own love was passionately attached to his queen Nuvard. The proud Semiramis, scorned, enraged and mortified, declared war against Ara and entered his country with her armies; a battle was fought in which Ara leading his army was slain, although Semiramis had given special instructions to her troops to be careful of his life and bring him to her a living prisoner.

The death of Ara was evidently a grief to Semiramis, for she established his son Kardos on his father’s throne. She also built a town and fortress on the shores of Lake Aghthamar, now called Van, the battlefield on which the beautiful Ara pursued by her fatal love lost his life. The town and fortress were named “Semiramakert” meaning “built by Semiramis.”

The name of the highest mountain in Armenia which the people of the country called “Masis” came to be known as Ararat, it is supposed to be derived from the Armenian words “Ara-i-jard” meaning “the defeat of Ara” or “the undoing of Ara.” If this version is correct, the name is likely to have been used in derision by the Assyrians. According to another version the name of Ara was converted into Ararat, and the country called after him. Thus we read in the account of the flood given in Genesis:

“And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat.”

In the Armenian version of the bible, we read “on the twenty-seventh day of the month,” but likewise as in English “upon the mountains of Ararat.” This is not surprising since the designation “thaghavoroothune Araratian” meaning “the kingdom of Ararat” is in use in the Armenian language.

I have alluded to the reigns of Aram and Ara to show how the Hai have come to be called Armenians and how their country has come to be named Armenia; also whence the name, Ararat; and as I purport here only to treat of the origin of the Armenians, I shall now pass on to the no less interesting period of their history: THE INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY.

When that great event bearing the message “on earth peace, goodwill toward men” celebrated throughout the Christian world as the divine birth, took place in the city of Bethlehem; Abgar the son of Arsham reigned in Armenia.

That country was now broken in strength, the severe blows dealt on the one side by the Roman Empire, and the incessant warfare of the Persian on the other, had greatly curtailed her former independence and power; the talons of the Roman Eagles were already felt in her vitals, and the king of Armenia subsisted under the favor of the Roman Emperor, whilst it became necessary for him to cultivate the friendship of his powerful neighbour, the king of Persia.

Whilst in Persian territory, whither he had gone to settle the dispute that had arisen on the death of the Persian monarch between his sons, Abgar had contracted a severe disease, evidently leprosy.

Converted to Christianity in A.D. 34. Baptised by the Apostle Thaddeus.]

The wonderful cures and miracles of Christ were reported to him by the representatives he had sent to the Roman General Marinus in Jerusalem. These representatives had gone to refute the charges brought against him by King Herod, and to propitiate the Roman Power; they came back to tell what they had witnessed in Jerusalem, of the singular wisdom and wondrous works of a marvellous man named Jesus, who was of Nazareth, but whom his own followers persisted in calling the Son of God.

The story relates that Abgar was deeply impressed by what he heard, and expressed his own belief that man could not do such wondrous works as were related of this Jesus the Nazarene. Thereupon the King sent messengers to Jerusalem with a letter to Jesus. What a touch of human nature is here displayed; the king is suffering from a loathsome disease, the medical skill of his country and of neighbouring countries has been exhausted, all in vain; the royal heart is stricken as well as the royal body, for his disease is so loathsome, that although he is king, his subjects would rather shun than approach him; he hears of this wonderful man Jesus, his representatives have come back from Jerusalem to tell him that “he cleanseth the lepers.” Hasten to him, said the king, take unto him my greetings, carry my messages and my letter and bring him unto me that I might honor him and if so be that he may heal me.

The messengers of Abgar were headed by Anany the Greek scribe of the king and they are supposed to be present in the procession of Christ’s entry into Jerusalem. The twentieth and twenty-first verses of the Gospel of St. John are adduced by Armenian historians as corroborative testimony:

“And there were certain Greeks among them that came up to worship at the feast;

“The same came therefore to Philip, which was of Bethsaida of Galilee, and desired him, saying, Sir, we would see Jesus.”

Anany and his companions are supposed to be the “certain Greeks” who came to Philip asking to see Jesus. And here I have to explain that the letters of the Armenian alphabet were invented by St. Mesrope in the beginning of the fifth century of the christian era; previous to the time of Mesrope there were no special Armenian letters, and as this invention was hailed as a signal national boon we have to conclude that there was no written Armenian language previous to the fifth century. One thing however must be certain, that this letter carried by the king’s Greek scribe, the leader of the messengers, must originally have been written in Greek. This letter has already been translated from the Armenian into English; the translation reads thus:

“Abgar the son of Arsham, Prince of Armenia, sends to Thee, Saviour and Benefactor, Jesus, who didst perform miracles in Jerusalem, greeting.

“I have heard of Thee, and of the cures wrought by Thee without herbs or medicines; for it is reported that Thou restoreth the blind and maketh the lame walk, cleanseth the lepers, casteth out devils and unclean spirits, and healeth those that are tormented of diseases of long continuance, and that Thou also raiseth the dead:--hearing all this of Thee I was fully persuaded that Thou art the very God come down from heaven to do such miracles, or that Thou art the Son of God and so performeth them; wherefore I write to Thee to entreat Thee to take the trouble to come to me and cure my disease. Besides, I hear that the Jews murmur against Thee and want to torture Thee. I have a small and beautiful city--sufficient for us both.”

The story goes on to relate that among the messengers was an artist by the name of John who had been commissioned by the king to bring back a portrait of Christ; the artist however failed in his efforts to portray the divine features, whereupon Christ gave him a veil which he had laid to his face and on which his features had become imprinted, to carry back to his master.

We are also told that the apostle Thomas was commanded by Christ to write a reply to Abgar. The reply has also been translated into English and the translation reads thus: