Page:Islam, Turkey, and Armenia, and How They Happened.djvu/226

220 into consideration, and act according to their responsibility; knowing that God will never do His part if human agents fail in their parts.

4. The Most Remarkable Outcome of these massacres is the manifestation of Christian life in the old Armenian church. Until recent times the majority of the civilized people had a vague idea of this Eastern nation. The last massacres taught the world about the faith and perseverance of that ancient Christian church. During the fiendish and wholesale slaughter of a few months 100,000 strong and noble men gave their lives for the sake of humanity and religion; though they knew perfectly well that by a single repetition of the short Mohametan creed they could be reckoned "Believers," and the law of Koran would protect them from every harm. The majority of the killed were offered the choice of Islam or the sword; even some were urged by their Mohametan friends and neighbors simply to repeat that one word and be saved. But they were not willing to do this. Not a single Gregorian priest among the eighty-four that were killed with most torturous deaths was willing to be an evil example before their flocks, who were waiting to follow his footsteps. Twenty-one Protestant ministers chose a martyr's destiny rather than a Mohametan name, some of them leaving their motherless children behind them. Catholic ministers were dismembered and tortured to death, still clinging to the faith of the cross. A poor, good man was seized by the mob and brought out of his shop upon the street to be