Photo by Stephen Van R. Trowbridge 



A TURKISH VILLAGE CHIEF (FOURTH FROM THE EEET) AND HIS RETAINERS 



Probably no people in history, not even barring the Jews, have been the victims of such 

 a relentless persecution as the Armenians in the past third of a century. Sometimes the 

 storm has abated its fury, only to start up again with increased energy, and the present 

 terrible era in Armenia is but the climax of a generation of terror. In 1893 some of the 

 Armenians sought to throw off the Turkish yoke. The revolt was quelled, and thereafter 

 followed a brutal massacre in which thousands of lives were lost. In June, 1896, a dis- 

 turbance in Constantinople, carefully planned and engineered by Moslems, broke out, and 

 before it wore itself out between 6,000 and 7,000 Gregorian Armenians had been slaughtered 

 in Constantinople, and from 20,000 to 25,000 outside of the Turkish capital. The actual 

 perpetrators of the massacre were the local Moslems, aided by Kurds, Circassians, and Lazis. 

 The best Moslems opposed it, but the ignorant and fanatical masses were stirred by a report 

 that the Powers were going to cooperate with the Armenians in driving them out. Further- 

 more, their cupidity was appealed to by the fact that they would thus be able to wipe out 

 the heavy debts they owed to Armenian peddlers and merchants. Horrible as have been the 

 Armenian massacres of previous years, they are surpassed by the terrible conditions of 1915. 

 The world has never seen a more furious effort to drive out a people, or more cruel methods 

 in their execution, than are now being employed against this unhappy race. 



Mesrob, aided by Sahag, next trans- 

 lated the Bible into Armenian and fur- 

 nished the translation that is still used in 

 the Gregorian Church. 



Sahag also wrote epistles to many- 

 knights and emperors, all of whom, we 

 are told, reverenced him and were greatly 

 influenced by the saint. He wrote a large 

 part of the Armenian Church history and 

 composed many hymns. Another great 

 name of this period is Moses of Khorene, 



who wrote a history of Armenia which 

 presents tradition, old stories and bal- 

 lads, and some real history. Although it 

 is full of mistakes, it was the only source 

 of Armenian history for a thousand years 

 and has much real value. 



Another valuable contribution to the 

 learning of the Middle Ages was the 

 translation from the Greek of many clas- 

 sics, some of which, notably a part of the 

 writings of Eusebius, were lost in the 



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