STAMPING OUT THE CHRISTIANS IN KURDISTAN.
By John H. Shedd
BY JOHN H. SHEDD, D.D.
[Missionary of the Presbyterian Board.] Two of our missionaries have just returned from a three-weeks tour in the border districts under Turkish rule. The sad story of misery and oppression and privation they tell compels us to report that the Nestorian Christians are being stamped out of their ancestral homes. The process is an old one. The people are tenacious and cling to the fields and graveyards and stone churches of their fathers; but village after village is being uprooted by the cruel taxation and misrule of the Turk and the repeating rifle in the hands of the Kurd. In the annals of the past we read how the wild mountain eastward from the plains of Assyria was Christianized, and held in the Christian name for many ages. The strong fortress and town of Arbil was captured by the Moslems six hundred years ago, and the population was driven into the mountains. The many valleys eastward, now possessed by Kurds, were once Christian, as attested by the ruins of churches in many places. The process of stamping out the Christians has been going on before our eyes in the last thirty years, especially in the districts of Zaboor and Shemisdeen. In the former two large villages were very open to missionary effort. Good schools were taught, and the whole people were being enlightened; but "the Shadow of the Kurd" was over them. Our two preachers were driven out by the Kurdish bandits. One was nearly killed; and now both these villages are deserted by the Christians except a family or two in each, who cling to the church, and are barely tolerated, in deep poverty. In Shemisdeen affairs are nearly as bad. There were eighteen villages in a fairly prosperous condition thirty years ago. At that time Sheik Obeidullah, who later became famous in his raid upon Persia, arose, in fierce hatred of the Christians. He openly proclaimed that the Son of Mary should rule no longer. One of the largest and most ancient churches was named St. Simon, for the son of the tanner, who was a distinguished martyr in the fourth century. This church was attacked by the Kurds and demolished, not a stone left to show its site. Since then the Christian population has been plundered of their flocks and grain, and every family mourns its young man killed by violence. Fear on every side, the people a prey to their enemies, the Turks practically in partnership with the Kurds—the result is a famished remnant. This beautiful valley is the home of the Mutran—the ecclesiastic next in rank to the patriarch; but the poor man is disheartened, fallen into that despair which yields to the misery upon his people without an effort. A day's journey north of this district lies the Plain of Gawar, bounded on the west by a wall of rocky ramparts under the snowy peaks of Jelu, and on the east by the hills which form the frontier of Persia. This plain is a real granary under good government, but a dismal desert now. For twenty-five years or more before the Russo-Turkish War there was good government; but since 1877 all justice and security have fled. Since then famine has been added to the terrible cruelties of Kurds and Turks. The people are scattered, or are crouching in their villages in utter destitution. Just west of Gawar is Jelu. The first valley is Ishtazin, with five Christian villages. Near them is the powerful tribe of Oramer Kurds, but both Kurds and Christians are well within the power of the Turkish Government. With the connivance of the Turkish governor, the Kurds have driven out the Christians from their own villages, and have taken possession. The poor Christians are now in the mountain pastures, unable to return to their homes, and, as winter comes on, must scatter to the world or perish. The story might go on to other districts; but this is enough to show how Moslem rule crushes the Christian population, and to show how hopeless is any steady missionary work in the midst of such turmoil and misery. How hard it is for the poor Christians, many of whom are Protestants, and all of whom might be as safe and prosperous as their Moslem neighbors are, if they would give up their faith!—N. Y. Independent.