The Cretans by Editor

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 12, 1868

The Cretans.

By Editor

We have received the first number of The Cretan, a sheet issued by the Greek Relief Committee, of Boston, Mass., designed to arouse an interest in behalf of Cretan women and children, now suffering in exile from their native land, or perishing with nakedness and hunger in their own mountain fastnesses, whither they have fled to escape Turkish oppression. One of the most important struggles now in progress on the face of the globe, is the contest between Turkey and Crete. Its issue will have an important bearing on the existence of that abominable Moslem power, so conspicuously noted in prophecy: and while the struggle lasts, all hearts in which a feeling of humanity dwells will beat in sympathy with those who are contending for their rights against a systematic and merciless oppression.

The reader will be interested in the following extracts respecting the island of Crete, and the present situation of its inhabitants:

What is Crete? Who are the Cretans? How came it to pass that fifty thousand Cretan women, children, and old men, have fled from their homes, and now stand houseless, half naked and hungry, upon the seashore, stretching out their hands, and crying to the Christian world for help? Why do they not get help from the surrounding nations rather than ask us for it?

Why should we help them rather than other sufferers in foreign lands?

It will be the special object of The Cretan to answer these and other like questions.

The island called Crete by the ancients, Candia by the moderns, is the largest and most beautiful of the Grecian Archipelago. Stretching diagonally across the eastern part of the Mediterranean, it makes the great southern wall of the “blue Ægean,” and forms the delicious inland sea where seem to float, “the isles of Greece,” still gilded by the eternal summer that has made them famous in song.

It is about one hundred and sixty miles long, by nearly thirty broad. A range of lofty and rugged mountains runs through the center, from east to west. These send out spurs northward and southward, which extend nearly to the shore; thus breaking up the land into picturesque variety. The mountains and hills, being calcareous, abound in caves and grottoes, some of which are large and beautiful, but very intricate. Hence, perhaps, the ancient fable of the Labyrinth, in which ranged the Minotaur, devouring the “tribute children” which were sent every year, mournfully, in black-sailed ships, from Athens. A fitting prototype of the modern Turk, who has made the whole island a labyrinth in which to run riot in beastly indulgence of sensual appetite.

Not even the vivid imagination of the old Greeks ever depicted in fable anything worse than the Turk has enacted by law, and put into practice by force. In the beginning of his domination of Greece, finding that the fire and virility of his soldiery were dying out in the repose following a long career of conquest, he devised a scheme more infernal than that which brought its yearly victims to the Labyrinth. Every fourth year, the subject Greeks were ordered to parade all their children; and the Turkish inspector selected from them the finest boys to be trained up as soldiers. They were torn ruthlessly from their parents, taken to distant homes, there circumcised, and trained up in the Moslem faith. Strong and vigorous by nature, ignorant of their own race and parents, petted by their trainers, who taught them only the art of war, they became fine soldiers. They were then enrolled in the troop of Janizaries, and were ready to burn their own native villages, and slay their own parents for the glory of God, and the honor of his Prophet. We speak now of Turkish history in modern times.

Of the Cretan question, the Boston Journal thus speaks:

Next to impeachment, the most popular topic of town-talk this week will be the Cretan question. What is it? and why should we take any interest in it? It is the latest phase of Americanism in Europe; it is the incipient stage of the final struggle between Moslem domination and the religion of our Lord. It is a subject, therefore, eminently proper for our sympathetic consideration on this Easter-week.

Crete, in itself, has no special attractions for the American student. It has an old and checkered history, to be sure; but neither more ancient nor more varied than that of every other foot of land in Eastern Europe. It is only as a battle-field between the Asiatic and the American political systems, between the Mohammedan and the Christian faiths, between brutal conservatism and enlightened progress, between immemorial barbarism and modern civilization, that it claims our sympathy and our assistance. For nearly two years, the Greeks of this little island off the Morea have gallantly contended against the forces of the Turkish Empire, led by the ablest of the Moslem generals. Army after army has been sent against them. Their fertile plains have been laid waste; their villages have been given to the torch, and their olive-trees cut down; but with a valor and persistence that would have done honor to their ancestors in the palmiest days of old Greece, they have kept up the fight, never yielding, never offering to compromise, but disdainfully rejecting every proposition of peace that has been tendered by the Turks. They know too well that the Mohammedan regards his plighted word as valueless when it is given to the Infidels. They remember Scio, which, in the long, long struggle between the Greeks and the Turks, bears the same relation to them that Fort Pillow does to our civil war. Scio, in 1821, was a prosperous and fertile island, with a population of a hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants. A battalion of Greeks landed, and captured the Turkish fortresses; upon which, the Moslem authorities let loose an army of twenty thousand men, who put to the sword a hundred and nine thousand souls, sold forty thousand women and children into slavery and for horrible uses, and left only nine hundred persons alive on the island!

This gigantic crime has been repeated in detail wherever Greeks and Turks have fought; and they have fought wherever the Mohammedans have exercised domination over the Christian populations of the old classic land on the isles of Greece. It is idle to talk of compromise between foes so irreconcilable. The religion of the Turk makes it impossible for him to regard a Christian as a being entitled to any rights whatever. It teaches him that he is an outlaw, whom it is neither criminal to kill, nor expedient to endow with civil rights. The Christian, in the eyes of the Turk, is only tolerated as a beast of burden is tolerated; because he can be taxed to support Moslem power, but with no higher rights. Turks in independent Greece have all the rights of native citizens—they are neither molested in their property nor persons; but under Turkish domination the case is entirely reversed. The genius of the two faiths is strikingly exhibited in these facts.

Diplomacy alone has kept Crete under the power of Turkey. The Cretans won their independence as bravely as the Greeks, whose independence was recognized in 1829; but they were mercilessly handed over to Egypt by the Great Powers, for purely political reasons; and ever since, as before, they have been subjected to the most intolerable oppression. Again they have appealed to arms, and are likely now to gain their independence.

We are not asked to help the fighting men; they are competent of their ability to achieve their great object. We are asked only to feed the famishing women and children, who have fled in terror of Turkish outrage, from Crete to the mainland; and are now dependent on the charity of Christendom. Their sad plea has a double claim on every Christian American; for both as needy and helpless poor, and as the families of the soldiers of the Cross against the Crescent, they have a right to expect that we shall hear and aid them. Boston has never yet heard such a plea with indifference; and it is not likely to do so in Easter-week.

For contributions already received, the Cretans have very strongly expressed their gratitude as the following extracts will show:

The result of this distribution of your contributions in Crete was very satisfactory. Thousands of hungry and naked women and children were fed and clothed, and tens of thousands of hearts were gladdened and strengthened. The following letters came unsolicited from their regularly-organized municipal and general authorities, and, allowance being made for the hyperbolic style of the Easterns, will show, not only the feelings of the people, but also the character of the writers. The original can be examined by the curious, who will see how nearly the language conforms to the ancient Greek.

The first is an outbreak of feeling on the part of simple religious people, reduced to sad extremity, and expressed with more zeal than taste:

Glory to the triune God, the Bestower of all blessings! And God save our Heaven-sent benefactor and supporter, Dr. Howe! And God save the illustrious and philhellenic people of glorious America! And best wishes for our brother and genuine compatriot, Stekoulis!

In our despair, at a moment when we were expecting that all, not only our wives and children, but our warriors would die of hunger; at a moment when our bloodthirsty enemy was preparing to invade our province with all his force, to decimate and ruin it, the Heaven-sent “Arcadium” arrived, bringing the precious gift sent us by illustrious and freedom-loving people of America, through our most beneficent father, Dr. Howe, and transmitted to us under the direction of our kind brother Stekoulis.

The day this donation arrived was to us a day of regeneration, a day of freedom, a real festival; because then a perishing multitude was fed and revived. Women and children, who for many months had been exposed to the extremity of cold and of heat, were comfortably clothed. Warriors, after suffering the hardships of want and warfare, were cheered and encouraged, so as to be prepared again, please God, to repel the foe, and all to contend as long as we have a drop of blood to shed in our country’s cause.

Had this precious donation not arrived in the very moment of our extreme need, we might have all perished from hunger and hardships; might have all been victims of our ferocious and sanguinary enemy, the apostate Omar Pacha. In fact, the insurrection might have been extinguished in our province, which God forbid!

In a word, the benefit conferred on us by this contribution, and the courage with which it has inspired our hearts, are beyond all power of description.

We deem it, therefore, our bounden duty to offer up, day and night, our united prayers to the Almighty for our most beneficent father, Dr. Howe, for the illustrious and philhellenic people of America, and for our kind brother and true patriot, Mr. Stekoulis.

With hearts full of gratitude, we shall all, small and great, unceasingly continue to exclaim, God save the illustrious, humane, and freedom-loving people of America! God save our most kind benefactor and father, Dr. Howe! God save our brother and sincere patriot, Mr. Stekoulis, intrusted with the distribution of the American bounty!

JOANNES SAKELIARIOS, Priest. GEORGE DASKALAKIS, Commandant. JOANNES ZACHARENDANIS, Lieutenant. DEMETRIUS PAPADIS, Deputy. And eighty-one other inhabitants of the Province of Sphakia.

Other acknowledgments came from the regular authorities, couched in more moderate language, but expressing the same sentiments of gratitude to the American people. The following is a specimen:

‘The Commander of the section of Heraclion to the Honorable MR. SAMUEL G. HOWE, President of Cretan Committee in Boston.

HONORED SIR: A multitude of innocent sufferers having received at a most critical moment the supplies sent by you through Mr. Parthenios Kelaidis, shed tears of joy, and blessed God who does not abandon them. Witness of this, and interpreter of the sentiments of the Cretan people, the General-in-Chief of the Province of Heraclion transmits to the American people the thanks and gratitude of all Crete for their timely and truly Christian charity. With all respect, &c., M. KORAIAS, General-in-Chief of the Section of Heraclion.

In their circular the committee say:

The dreadful struggle between Christians and Mohammedans

is still going on in Crete. Turkey, conscious that the issue will settle the question of her ability to maintain her foothold in Europe, has gathered fresh hordes of barbarians from all parts of her empire, and let them loose upon the island. They have overrun and ravaged all the open country; burned the villages; desecrated the churches; destroyed the gardens; cut down the olives, the oranges, and lemons; pulled up the vines; and as far as possible, trampled out all plants and green things fit for human food.

The Christians, after gallant resistance (which has cost the Turks several armies), being without cavalry or artillery, have retreated to the mountain fortresses with their women, and children, and their flocks. There, in the language of Job, “they are wet with the showers of the mountains, and embrace the rocks for shelter.”

European war-vessels have taken off more than forty thousand women, children, and old men, in a famishing condition, and landed them upon the neighboring islands, or shores of Continental Greece. There they are dependent upon the charities of the world; for the Greeks are too poor to feed such a multitude.

Meanwhile, the Cretan men, with a few heroic women, refusing to leave the island, or to submit to any terms short of independence, uphold the flag of the cross upon the mountain ranges, and defend, with desperate courage, the interior of the island. They say, that, with God’s grace to give them the martyr’s spirit, and with man’s help for their exiled wives and little ones, they will fight out this last battle between Christianity and Mohammedanism until either the Cross or the Crescent shall utterly disappear from the island.

Shall we not continue to give them our sympathy, our prayers, and our help?

Our Chairman has visited Greece and Crete since our last appeal to you, and seen with his own eyes that all we had heard of the suffering of the people was true.

Food and clothing were distributed, not only among the exiles, but even in the mountains of Crete; and at this moment thousands of mothers and children are kept from cold and nakedness by garments made by the hands of American women.

The material effects of this distribution have been great; the moral effects marvelous. Your sympathy has not only sustained the fainting hearts of women, but invigorated the arms of fighting men.

THE CROSS AGAINST THE CRESCENT.—The existing rebellion in the Island of Crete is one of the most important movements of the age from the point of view of Christian progress. The Cretans are Greeks, and of the Christian faith; their oppressors are Mohammedans, who believe, both in creed and practice, that the Christian has no rights which a Turk is bound to respect. The same forces which fought in our civil war, under another name, are to-day contending in Crete,—again it is the Cross against the Crescent. The Greeks represent progress, Christian civilization with its future of infinite development and happiness for all men; the Turks represent retrogression—Mohammedan idolatry, its past of remorseless cruelty, and its contempt for human rights. If the Cretans conquer, Mohammedanism will receive a fatal blow; if they fail, it may still survive for a century. Hence it is our duty to sympathize with the Cretan patriots, and to aid them. They ask no military assistance; they pray only that we shall feed and clothe their helpless wives and children who have fled from Crete to escape outrage in its worst forms, and death by torture. There are forty thousand of these exiles in Greece and the Isles of Greece to-day. The Greek Relief Committee are appealing for money to aid them. Let all of our friends who have a dollar to spare for this holy cause send it to Dr. Howe, of Boston. The Fair which is held in our city this week is for the aid of these refugees. We most cordially commend this cause to our readers.—Boston Journal.