and uplifting, as the years and the decades have passed."

"How did the Moslems come to let the Christian missionaries get a foothold in the empire?”

"When those very able men, Goodell, Dwight, Schauffler, Hamlin and Riggs, came to Turkey, the Turks said: 'Well, these amiable lunatics cannot do us any harm; they may perhaps do the Giaours some good; they need it badly enough.' So they protected the missionaries and their converts in times of persecution from the ecclesiastics. The American missionaries proceeded to occupy strategic positions in the empire. Through schools and the press their influence was extended and consolidated. Evangelical churches were formed in the various centers of the Mohammedan population."

"How is the changed attitude of the former Sultan explained?"

"In 1895 and 1896 they asked one another: 'Who are these men who are championing the cause of the seditious Armenians whom we are disciplining?'

“American missionaries,' was the reply.

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""Why do you not send them all out of the country?' asked the Russian Ambassador. It is a fact that an edict was issued from the Palace in the winter of 1896-7 for the expulsion of the American missionaries. In the following March one of them was forcibly taken under guard from a remote interior city to the coast of Alexandretta. There, at the prompt and decisive in

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terposition of the United States Chargé d'Affaires, Mr. Riddle, he was taken under the protection of the Stars and Stripes and is still an active member of the missionary force. The Turks found in Sir Philip Currie a staunch supporter of the rights of the missionaries, and aside from the non-execution of their decree, they denied that it had ever been issued. From that time on, the American missionaries and educators resident in the country were to the Turks the 'observed of all observers.

"What was the effect on the work?"

"Note the significance of the fact that under the reactionary reign of Abdul Hamid, with his unscrupulous, minute and universal system of espionage and his hostility toward all missionary enterprises, the missionaries not only held their own everywhere, they greatly extended their work, especially in education and in the maintenance of hospitals and dispensaries." "Why was this?"

"Because the Turkish people, in the face of Palace hostility, recognized the value of what the missionaries offered them, and were bound to profit by it. Just before the close of the reign of Abdul Aziz, after a prolonged struggle, permission was obtained for the circulation of the Bible with the imperial imprimatur, and several other Christian books in Osmanli Turkish were passed through the censorship in the early years of Abdul Hamid's reign. The result was that this imprimatur made it possible for Mohammedans to defy

the creatures of the Palace, and buy and read Christian Scriptures when they chose. They did so buy and read these books by the thousand, even in the darkest years of the late despotic reign."

"What about the by-products of missionary effort?" "The purely philanthropic work, which in times of distress and calamity has sometimes, for months together, taken almost all the time and strength of the missionary force, has been profoundly impressive as illustrative of practical Christianity. Leading laymen of the Armenian and Greek nationalities have in recent years been quick to appreciate the value of the educational work done by American missionaries, and have established and conducted schools on our models. Their priests are better educated, the social conditions are improved, and a higher plane of business integrity is demanded. There is less of bare form and more of spiritual life in the old churches than in the past. "Does the Turk recognize the missionary as a philanthropist?"

"In 1896, when the Government was doing its utmost to hinder and baffle the missionaries in their relief work, the people, and many Government officers also, respected and admired their persistence in the work of unselfish charity in the face of the overwhelming obstacles. Under the old régime no Palace influence ever led a Mohammedan to go, or to take a member of his family, to be treated at a missionary dispensary or cared for in a missionary hospital. But Mohammedans

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came as much as they do now to our hospitals and dispensaries, came by thousands, and went away grateful and sympathetic.

"How have the missionaries affected the Mohammedans?"

"It will seem to some a rash and unsupported statement, but I deliberately express my conviction that the work of American missionaries in Turkey has had greater influence, in ways the beneficent and far-reaching results of which the future will reveal, upon the Mussulman than upon the Christian population of the country."

The mission work carried on by Presbyterian missionaries in Syria and that done by Reformed Church workers in Arabia would doubtless differ somewhat, perhaps in some particulars a great deal, from that presented so frankly by the Congregational brethren in Northern Turkey.

To see mission work in Constantinople at its best the visitor should spend a Sunday in the city and go from one meeting to another, as he may do almost without intermission. He will not find many large congregations or Sunday-schools, but he will find many held in various languages. In one he may hear “Praise God from whom all blessings flow" sung in Armenian to the tune of "Old Hundred," and in another, two blocks away, hear a service in Greek, and still a third service with a Greek preacher delivering an eloquent sermon, this to be followed by a service in Turkish in

The

the same chapel. In an old shed in the heart of the city he will find another congregation of Armenians with a Sunday-school following this service. Bible House and the Mission House he may see filled with classes, some learning the Gospel in Greek, some in Armenian and some in Turkish, with a Christian Association service conducted by an Armenian. If time permits, he can visit congregations far away from the center of the town, one at Hasskeuy on the Golden Horn and another in Scutari. English services for the girls at the American College in Scutari and the boys at Robert College on the Bosphorus, and still other services for Greeks and Armenians along the Bosphorus, indicate that mission work is strong and varied in the capital of the empire.

Two members of the Mission Station at Constantinople, Dr. Greene and Dr. Herrick, passed the fiftieth milestone of their missionary service not long ago. In a retrospect of those fifty years these veterans note three important changes in the conduct of the work:

1. The establishment of high schools and colleges. 2. The opening of hospitals and dispensaries. 3. The phenomenal increase in the number of women missionaries.

In summing up the work of this long period Dr. Herrick says optimistically:

"We, who together have given a century of service to evangelistic work in the Ottoman Empire, exult in the