Page:Islam, Turkey, and Armenia, and How They Happened.djvu/83

Rh that reduced the country almost to a desert, describes the condition of the Armenian women at that time, saying: "I cannot enumerate all the wives of the heroes, both of those who were in fetters and those who had fallen in battle. All of them being kindled by a holy ambition, put on the same virtue of fidelity. The delicately reared women went untiringly to the houses of prayer on foot and bare-footed, asking by vows that they might be enabled to endure their great affliction. The everlasting Psalms were the words of their lips, and their complete comfort was in the reading of the prophets. With their eyes they saw the spoiling of their goods, and with their ears they heard the moans of suffering of their dear ones. With prayers they opened the closed doors of heaven, and with holy petitions caused the angels of redemption to descend. With their hands they worked and were fed, and the pensions granted then by the court they sent year by year to their husbands and sons for their comfort. The snows of many winters melted, the springs came, the life-loving men saw and rejoiced; but they never could see those for whom they longed. To outsiders they appeared mourning and sorrowful widows, but in their own souls they were adorned with heavenly love. Their desires and prayers to God were only that they might finish their course with faith and courage, filled with heavenly love, even as they had begun."

3. Persecutions From the Mohametans. After the fall of the Persian kingdom in the seventh