Mr. Terrell to Mr. Olney.
Constantinople, January 25, 1896. (Received Feb. 10.)
Sir: With reference to your instruction, No. 776, of the 10th instant, inclosing copy of President GoodelFs letter to you and your answer thereto, I have the honor to request that you inform that gentleman that I have never at any time advised any missionary man in Asia Minor to quit his post. It is against me personally and not against [Page 1468] your Department that the charge to which President Goodell refers is directed.
The intermediary here of the foreign board between the missionaries and this legation was told that while I had no advice to offer about missionary men leaving the country, their women and children should leave; that boats would be ready to convey them to a Christian port, and, as you have stated, an escort for the men to return if they desired. Mr. Dwight was informed by me that I would secure a permanent guard for missionary property at every post, and if the men also desired to withdraw for a time the governor of each province would be ordered to receive the keys to missionary houses and be held responsible for their contents until the owners returned. It is easier to protect the houses than the missionaries. Only last week I was informed from Aintab that they would not live twenty-four hours without a guard.
A regiment, perhaps, of soldiers now guard our people, and those troops are in full sympathy with the populace who seek their destruction. If our missionaries covet the crown of martyrdom, they are now well situated; but their little children are not missionaries, and I do not intend to share with their parents the responsibility for their sacrifice by withholding either my advice or assistance to remove them from danger.
These American missionaries, while acting in the midst of carnage as picket guards of education, are “permitted” by their American boards “to leave in their own discretion.” Of course, under such circumstances, they will die, if need be, at their posts. And then, if the worst shall come, not a bayonet would be lifted by Christian Europe to avenge.
Whether, even for the crown of marytrdom, it is right to incur the risk of plunging their own country in war, by remaining at their posts to be slain, is a question for them to determine.
The Armenians, among whom our American missionaries labor, have been Christians for fourteen hundred years. Their education, and not their conversion to Christianity, is the chief missionary work now being done. Their bishops participated in all the early councils of Christian churches except that of Chalcedon, and during all these centuries they have had their patriarchs, bishops, and priests, and have worshiped the same one God and His Christ that missionaries do.
For the mere education of a race thus spiritually enlightened I am not willing by my silence to become a party in the work of exposing American children to butchery. I admire as much as President Goodell can the intelligence and zeal of our American missionaries here, but a decent regard for my own reputation did not permit me to remain silent regarding the safety of American children.
I have, etc.,