In a Typical Armenian Village by C. D. AcMoody

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Nov 26, 1908

In a Typical Armenian Village

By C. D. AcMoody

We have only one brother and one sister in the faith in this village of Laleders. These were very anxious that I should visit them, and speak to some of the village people. Last evening between sixty and seventy persons gathered to talk, ask questions, and hear a lesson from the American who had come to their village. Through my faithful interpreter the Lord blessed as I opened to them the simple, practical truths of the gospel. Buried in the dark superstitions of the old Gregorian Catholic Church, many being unable to read, only the simplest lessons can be grasped by them.

My interpreter and myself were seated each on a minder (the cushion placed on the floor of a Turkish house, which serves in the place of a chair) at one end of a room, with a low table about eighteen inches high before us. Upon this were placed a lamp and a large ancient Armenian Bible. At each side of the room, and across the center, minders were laid, which were occupied by the Armenian villagers.

Though this village is but about forty-five miles from Constantinople, the people, in common with many other villagers within a short radius from Constantinople, seem nearly as far removed from the world of affairs as they would be if the desert of Sahara intervened. Villages of two and three thousand inhabitants have no postal service.

To all who could read the Armenian we gave some of our Armenian

tracts. There are hundreds of these places, which have never been entered by Protestants, to which we long to send workers. Of course progressive work in any place is liable to be interfered with by the government, but with care one can go ahead even under difficulties.

C. D. AcMoody.

Constantinople.