p. 14 | The Crisis in Persia

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jun 17, 1915

The Crisis in Persia

THE Christians in Persia are crying aloud to God for help, as did the children of Israel in the days of Pharaoh’s oppression. Fifteen thousand of them are in the mission compounds of Urumiah, and thousands more are facing death or worse in cities and villages. Rev. Robert M. Labaree, who went out ten years ago to take the place of his brother who had been murdered by the Kurds, now writes appealing for help for these starving thousands, who are suffering because they are Christians and not Mohammedans. Turks and Kurds are bearing down upon them, burning villages, looting property, killing men and boys, and carrying away women and children to a fate worse than death. More than fifty thousand dollars are needed immediately if these sufferers are not to die of starvation on the mission premises.

In the days of Pharaoh there were no human servants of God who could be called upon to relieve his people’s distress, and he called into operation his mighty forces of nature to effect their release. Today millions of men and women profess to be ready to follow his bidding, “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” This call comes to Christians in America most loudly and insistently. They are most free from the awful strain of war, and their missionaries have been working in Persia for eighty years, and are the only ones in a position to render the needed help.

Persia is undergoing a baptism of blood; and if the Christian church gives the needed sympathy and assistance, we may see even more wonderful results than have followed in China, where the attempt to stamp out Christianity fifteen years ago resulted in the physical death of 10,000 Christians, but has borne fruit in the awakening into spiritual life of hundreds of thousands of those who were spiritually dead in Boxer days. Truly, Christianity in Persia is at a crisis, but it may be a crisis that may be turned to victory.—The Missionary Review of the World.