SOME RESULTS OF MISSIONARY WORK IN TURKEY.
By W. A. Farnsworth
BY REV. W. A. FARNSWORTH, D.D. At just this time, when nearly every missionary station in Asia Minor has been baptized in blood, the question is asked, What are the results of sixty years of missionary work in that land? In answering this question I would call attention to several points. 1. What has been accomplished in reference to the Sacred Scriptures? The missionaries found in Turkey a number of churches, such as the Greek, the Armenian, the Jacobite, the Coptic, and others, claiming to be Christian and professing to take the word of God as their sure foundation. But that word, whatever it might have been to them in ages past, had ceased to be a fountain of instruction, had indeed become, to the common people, nothing more nor less than a fetish. It did not exist in the vernacular of any portion of the people. It was indeed read in their churches but not understood. The reading was a form which it was supposed might have some mysterious influence. The book was held up for the worshiper to kiss as he passed out of the church. So far from being in common use was it that it was considered a sin for an unordained man to take it into his hands. The first work of the missionaries was to translate the Sacred Scriptures into the vernacular of the several different nationalities. This has been accomplished. The greatness and importance of this work can hardly be overestimated. It may be remembered that this land is not very far from Babel. The word is now found in some twenty-seven different languages and characters, including even Koordish. In the meantime a complete change of sentiment has been wrought in the minds of all the people as to the use of the Scriptures. So far from believing it to be a sin to take the Book into their hands, they now believe it to be their duty to have it, to study it, and to make it the guide of their lives. Despite all political changes, despite all opposition, here is this book, in all these different languages, and here is this change of sentiment; and great must be the result, both temporal and spiritual, in future ages as well as in the present time. 2. The second result accomplished to which I would call attention is the giving to the people an educational and religious literature. When missionaries began their work, there were no books, or next to none, in the vernacular of the common people. They began at the foundation. They prepared spelling books and reading books, grammars and geographies, and by these awakened a desire for a practical education. They also translated some of our best religious literature. There are now sung in that land, in I know not how many languages, such hymns as “Rock of ages cleft for me,” “There is a fountain filled with blood,” “My faith looks up to Thee,” and very many others. Many of our choicest books are doing a work among the people only second to what they have done in their original English garb. A good illustration is “Pilgrim’s Progress.” Whether he speaks in Turkish or Armenian, in Bulgarian or Greek, that “Pilgrim” is still the same that our childhood knew, and he tells the same fascinating story. This literature can not perish, much less the spirit that it has awakened. 3. I mention next the American Bible House in Constantinople. This, tho not built by the board, is an outcome, a natural, and, I might say, a necessary result of the missionary work in Turkey. It is a grand building and a center of literary and religious influence. Here presses, worked by steam, are printing newspapers in several different tongues; religious tracts, lesson helps, cards, etc., necessary for good Sunday school work, are prepared, and religious and educational books, in nearly thirty different languages, are stored, most of these also prepared here. In the same building there is a bookbindery, where work is done that will compare favorably with first-class work of the same line in Boston or New York. In other parts of the building there are offices where Americans, Bulgarians, Greeks, and Armenians are hard at work preparing material for the hungry presses and the more hungry people. Besides the weekly and monthly periodicals, the many religious tracts, Scripture cards, etc., which flow forth from this building in an unceasing stream, something more than 80,000 volumes of the Sacred Scriptures and other books go out every year for the enlightening and uplifting of the people. We are not surprised to hear that those who love darkness rather than light wish to see this Bible House razed to the ground. Even should it be so, it has already accomplished a glorious work. We trust that it has before it a glorious future.—Condensed from Missionary Herald.