Page:Islam, Turkey, and Armenia, and How They Happened.djvu/189

Rh and Bogos, prepared the best grammars and dictionaries of the Turkish language. This, too, made the Turks jealous that giaours were better acquainted with their business and books than themselves. In an old style Turkish school the Arabic grammar was a life work, while in the Armenian schools the necessary principles of that language are simply a few months' work. Many poor and honest Armenian young men gain name and position through education, while hosts of Turkish boys are loafing in the streets and stepping over wild street dogs and building a character worse than dogs.

4. Armenians, Noble Aspiration for Christian Liberty Excited the Wicked Turk. In spite of continuous and severe persecutions of ages the fire of freedom was never quenched in the soul of the Armenian. The exiled young professor's last sighs from the depths of Siberian gloom have always and everywhere found their echo in the hearts of his countrymen: "I will be true to thee till death; yea, even upon the gallows' tree the last breath of a death of shame shall shout thy name, O Liberty!" Their contact with the civilized part of the world and their enlightenment by the dawn of Christian education added much upon this natural and holy aspiration. Aided by the American and English Bible Societies, they translated the Holy Scriptures and some other books into the Turkish language, and in some parts of the empire they evangelized and baptized the dialect of the oppressor, with the long-cherished aspiration of evangelizing them, too. When the British