NOT CHRISTIANITY | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Aug 6, 1896

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 22, No. 31.

NOT CHRISTIANITY.

Miss Rebecca Kirkariam, of Anitab, addressed the Washington Christian Endeavor convention in behalf of Armenia. After reciting some of the brutal persecutions and cruel outrages of the Turks, she appeals to the civil power of America in the following:—

Now I will propose to you an alternative: either take this Bible from our hands or assist us to keep it firm. If you have no power or desire to protect your converts, your teachers, your work and interests, take away this seed from the field; pierce our hearts, and take out the hope, the faith, the love you put there, and then it will be easier for us to cry, “There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is the apostle of that Allah.” Then the long, troublesome eastern question will have come to an end, and we will sink to the bottomless depths of despair, and not trouble you any more.

Now all of this may have been taught the lady as Christianity, but it is not Christianity at all. Christianity, and its Book, the Bible, are not dependent on any or all earthly powers. No civil power on the earth gave the people the Bible, no civil power can assist them to keep it firm. All civil powers may be against the Gospel and church of Jesus Christ, yet will his truth prosper if the church holds fast her fealty to him. Men may die in his service, but they die not in despair. The eastern question, however it may be settled, can not destroy one soul who has hope in Jesus Christ. And no civil power in the world can help on to God a single soul. Christianity is a life, a power from on high. Its devotees may lose life; but they find it again in Jesus Christ at the last day.

If all the hope and faith and love that are possessed by the Christians of Armenia is that put there by men, their case is indeed deplorable, and their cry to men logical; but if the hope, the faith, the love, are of Jesus Christ, no force of men may keep these spiritual forces in the heart or take them away. But we are persuaded better things of many, some of whom have witnessed to the heaven-born hope with their life. But faith or lack of faith on the part of the Armenians does not justify their persecutors, the Turks, nor the powers of Europe, notably England, which might stop the persecution if they would. As Christians we sympathize with the persecuted of all classes; we bid them to be of good courage in witnessing for Christ and suffering for his name; we pray for them, that they may be sustained and their persecutors be stayed, and converted; but their avenging we leave to him who has said, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” He will do eternal justice.