The persecution of the Armenians by the Turks is not alone a race or national hatred; the matter of business and commercial supremacy, as well as religion, is also involved. And these European nations have not at all helped. Says H. Allen Tupper, Jr., D.D., in the New York (Baptist) Examiner of July 2: “Nor let it be supposed that the Turks as such hate the Armenians as such. The Armenians have been for centuries the most submissive and profitable subjects, and they would still be most loyal if, instead of the increasingly oppressive policy of Sultan Abdul Hamid, their lives and honor and property had been even tolerably protected. All this many Turks know very well, and regret the cruel and utterly impolitic course of the present sovereign. The Turk as a man has many excellent qualities; it is his religion which, at certain times, makes a devil of him. It is the very essence of Mohammedanism that the Giaour has no right to live save in subjection. While assured of their power, the Turks treated the Armenians and their other Christian subjects, not with equality, but with a measure of toleration. “It is Europe insisting on reforms for the Armenians that has enraged the Turks against the Armenians. The Turks know that in a fair and equal race the Armenians will outstrip them in every department of business and industry, and they see in any fair scheme of reform the handwriting on the wall for themselves. Save for this fear, the Turks would be content to tax and fleece the Armenians for an unlimited period, as they have done for the last 500 years. If the scheme of reforms had had in view the sections of the country where the Greeks predominate, the Turks would have killed and robbed the Greeks as readily as they have killed and robbed the Armenians. It is not a race fight at all; for the Mohammedan Turks cordially affiliate with the Mohammedan Slavs (formerly Christian) and with Kurds and Circassians and Lazes. It is a religious contention, and the Mohammedan Turks are resolved to keep their Christian subjects, of whatever nationality, underfoot; and in case attempts of any kind are made to give the Christians real equality and participation in government, the Turks will kill them one by one, or, occasionally, in open massacre, unless the powers who intervene for the relief of the Christians do it with armed force.” But in all these things our readers will see that it is essential selfishness which leads to persecution, and the schemes and plans of men do not help matters any. It is only the Spirit of Christ that can take away persecution.