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TURKEY : THE BLIGHT OF ASIA

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OUR MISSIONARY INSTITUTIONS IN TURKEY

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    During the War and before the Turks severed diplomatic relations with the United States, the Germans were anxious to seize the beautiful and expensive buildings of the International College of Smyrna and turn them into barracks. I had much to do in preventing this. On one occasion, while talking with Rahmi Bey, the Turkish governor (vail) of Smyrna at that time, he said to me: "The only reason that I can protect that college is that I have never seen any disposition on the part of its president and faculty to convert Moslems. Should any such attempt be made I could no longer shield it." This was the argument, which the vali used with the authorities at Constantinople. It was this clean record which saved the college.

    The missionaries in Turkey now find themselves in the position of hostages. They have seen many of their buildings destroyed, their native teachers, Armenians and Greeks butchered, their pupils scattered. They have received no help from the American Government. They are in the hands of the Turks. Many of them have spent their lives in the work and not a few of them own comfortable modern homes, which they have paid for in part or entirely.

    That very shrewd and capable Scot, Doctor Alexander MacLachlan, has built up the International College at Smyrna by a lifetime of earnest and persistent effort. Its beautiful and expensive buildings, erected with money raised in America, his own substantial home, the delightful residences of the faculty, situated in charming gardens, are all resting on a powder mine. An outburst of fanaticism might sweep this idyllic picture from the face of the earth at a moment’s notice; might make it one with the desolate ruins of Smyrna but a few minutes’ distant. It would need but a tiny spark to set off the powder mine—some adverse criticism of the Turk, the conversion of a Mohammedan. The danger for this, as well as for similar institutions, is augmented by the fact that the ignorant, fanatical population of the Ottoman Empire is greatly in the majority, and there is abundant evidence that the Spirit of the Prophet is abroad, impatient of reform.

    One missionary, at least, has been in the United States loudly proclaiming Mustapha Khemal the George Washington of Turkey, and comparing the soldiers who burned and sacked Smyrna and violated its women with the veterans of Valley Forge. This has doubtless got back to Asia Minor and has produced a salutary effect. One word more: Our missionaries have been operating in Turkey for nearly a century. They did admirable work among the native Christians, but what evidence have the Turks shown in their conduct of any results obtained from the vast sums sent into their country for their enlightenment and moral uplifting? It is impossible to argue with a religious devotee of any creed. The question is put to the normal men and women of America. 

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