THE PROBLEM OF 
 
 TURKEY 
 
 AS 
 
 THE AMERICAN BOARD 
 VIEWS IT 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 TV/TANY members of the Board's constituency most 
 conscientiously take the stand that the Board 
 should withdraw altogether from Turkey. Others, on 
 the other hand, feel the tug of the need as never before. 
 
 This pamphlet is issued as an expression of the opin- 
 ion of the officers and missionaries of the American 
 Board. It has been written by Dr. Barton, following 
 many conversations and conferences that he has held 
 throughout America since the first Lausanne Confer- 
 ence. The appendix is written by Secretary Ernest W. 
 Riggs. 
 
 The action taken by the Prudential Committee, 
 herein referred to, has been informally approved by the 
 Woman's Boards of the Congregational denomination 
 through their representatives who met with the Pruden- 
 tial Committee, September 11. 
 
 The message, therefore, can be considered an official 
 one from the foreign mission Boards of the denomina- 
 tion. It is addressed to all interested in the problem 
 and its solution. E. F. B. 
 
 Boston, October, 1923 
 
THE PROBLEM OF TURKEY 
 
 iHE last ten years span a series of tragedies in the Near East 
 
 unparalleled in modern history. This covers the period 
 
 of the Great War, of which five battle fronts were in Turkey. 
 Nearly every part of Turkey at one time or another was an area 
 of conflict or was a base for preparation. Amid the horrors of 
 war there ran the tragedy of the deportations of Armenians and 
 Greeks. Mission work in all departments was interfered with, 
 while many missionaries gave themselves to an attempt to salvage 
 the shattered remnant of the stricken peoples. Mission buildings 
 were requisitioned by the Turkish military, while others were used 
 for orphans and helpless refugees. When the war ended, mission 
 properties taken for military purposes were returned, but condi- 
 tions were too confused in nearly all parts of the country to permit 
 the missionaries to resume normal operations. 
 
 After the Smyrna tragedy and when Constantinople had been 
 saved from a similar fate, hope centered in the conference called 
 at Lausanne to establish peace between Greece and Turkey, and 
 to settle the status of the Near East. The resulting treaty, as 
 signed, is very far from what the world had hoped. The Greeks 
 are to be expelled from the country, except from Constantinople, 
 while the Turks are left in supreme control, with most of the former 
 restraints embodied in treaties and capitulations removed. 
 
 As a result, Armenian and Greek pupils of mission schools 
 throughout the country outside of Constantinople have departed. 
 As these constituted the bulk of students in all schools, and in some 
 were the only students, the entire character of all educational work 
 has met with a startling change. 
 
 The mission churches throughout Turkey were, with few excep- 
 tions, composed of Armenian and Greek members. These have 
 all fled the country except those in Constantinople, and many of 
 the church buildings have been ruined. In a word, the people 
 among whom and for whom the missionaries had been chiefly work- 
 ing for the last century have left Turkey under compulsion, 
 including the membership of the Protestant churches and the 
 pupils in the mission schools. So heavy has been the blow, and so 
 staggering the result, that the statement has been made that the 
 work of a century has been destroyed, and one hears the question 
 raised as to whether any attempt should be made to continue mis- 
 sionary work in Turkey. But let us not confuse disaster with 
 destruction. 
 
 1 
 
The Gospel for All Turkey 
 
 There is a deep-seated conviction, I believe, among the con- 
 stituency and friends of the Board, as well as among those who 
 have contributed liberally for the care of orphans and refugees, 
 that these peoples must not now be abandoned by the American 
 Board and its missionaries. While it is impossible to continue 
 systematic missionary work among a moving refugee population, 
 the missionaries have followed them as they were able into Syria, 
 the Transcaucasus and Greece with a considerable body of native 
 preachers and teachers, and are doing what they can to comfort 
 and to aid. 
 
 In the instructions given to the first missionaries appointed by 
 the American Board to Turkey, the following commission was 
 given : 
 
 "The two grand inquiries ever present in your minds 
 will be, 'What good can be done? And by what means?' 
 What can be done for the Jews? What for the pagans? 
 What for the Mohammedans? What for the Christians?" 
 
 This shows that the original purpose of the Board in entering 
 Turkey was to reach all the peoples, races, and religions in the 
 country, and that has been the policy consistently followed since. 
 While the more responsive and alert Christian races have com- 
 manded the chief attention of the Board and its missions, there 
 has been no abandonment of the original purpose to secure an 
 approach to the Mohammedans, as the reports from Turkey will 
 show, especially in the earlier and in the later periods of missionary 
 work there. 
 
 The persistent and deadly persecution of all Turks who turned 
 towards Christianity, and the eagerness of the Armenians to 
 patronize the schools and their readiness to accept evangelical 
 ideas, led the missionaries to move along the lines of least resistance 
 and to devote themselves to building up among the Armenians, and 
 to a far less degree among the Greeks, a strong, educated, evangeli- 
 cal community. The responsiveness of the Armenians, and their 
 liberality in supporting their own institutions of education and 
 religion, made the work most attractive and rewarding. These 
 conditions have given the false impression to many that the mission 
 of the American Board in Turkey was to the Armenians alone. 
 
 At the same time, while no missionaries have been appointed 
 to the Kurds, who dwell in large numbers in the eastern and 
 central part of Turkey, their language has been studied and the 
 New Testament has been translated into it. The American Board 
 and its missionaries have always maintained a hope that work more 
 directly for this interesting people might be inaugurated. Re- 
 peatedly the Kurds have urged that this be done. 
 
 After Syria had been transferred to the Presbyterian Board, 
 in 1870, there remained but a small and scattered number of Jews 
 in the American Board's field, and as there were many societies, 
 
 2 
 
especially in Europe, organized exclusively for work among them, 
 no special effort was made by our missionaries to reach that race. 
 
 These facts should be sufficient to show that from the inception 
 of its work in Turkey the missionaries of the Board have had in 
 mind, and as the end of their endeavors, the reaching of all the 
 races and religions in the country. The goal has alw^ays been kept 
 before the Armenian Protestant Church and educated Armenian 
 leaders that one of the great missions of the Protestant Church in 
 Turkey was to present, by precept and example, the gospel to 
 Mohammedans. Many Armenian preachers and colporters, as 
 opportunity has offered, have presented to them the claims of the 
 gospel. Large numbers of Armenians have agreed, and still agree, 
 with the missionaries in their desire and purpose to carry on 
 Christian work among and for the persecutors of their people. 
 
 The whole gospel to all the people of Turkey has been from the 
 first the one purpose of the American Board, its missionaries and 
 the membership of the Protestant churches of the country. 
 
 Have We a Mandate for Turkey? 
 
 The Turkey now in the public eye and under consideration 
 covers all of Asia Minor from Smyrna on the west across Anatolia, 
 to the western borders of the Russian Caucasus and Persia, and 
 from the Black Sea on the north to the northern borders of Syria 
 and Mesopotamia. It also includes Constantinople and Eastern 
 Thrace, of which Adrianople is the capital. Within these bound- 
 aries there are at the present time half a million or more Greeks 
 and Armenians, mostly in Constantinople, more than two million 
 Kurds and Circassians, and about six million Turks. All these 
 populations are classed as Moslems, except the Greeks and Armen- 
 ians. A century ago the American Board sent its first mission- 
 aries into this country, where they began planting Christian 
 institutions and producing a Christian literature for all the races 
 and religions there represented. At that time there were probably 
 from two and a half to three million Armenians, and perhaps as 
 many Greeks. 
 
 Within that entire area the only missionary organizations now 
 in the country and equipped to operate for its Christianization are 
 the American Board, and the institutions growing out of the work 
 of the Board. During the century, by common consent, the entire 
 area outlined above has been regarded as American Board territory. 
 It is true that prior to the war a German society opened a limited 
 work in Van, Mezereh, and Marash; the United Presbyterians had 
 a small work in Mersine, a port in Cilicia on the Mediterranean 
 Coast; the American Mennonites had co-operated with us for a 
 few years in work in Hadjin, and there have been a few isolated 
 cases of temporary missionary efforts by American and European 
 sects in various parts of Turkey. Nevertheless, the fact remains 
 that the entire area was generally regarded as the unique and 
 almost exclusive fiield of the American Board. 
 
 3 
 
The Board, recognizing its great responsibility, put special 
 emphasis upon its Turkey missions. The large cities and centers 
 of population were occupied by missionaries and native workers, 
 and missionary institutions — churches, hospitals, dispensaries, 
 and schools of all grades — were planted and sustained. For a 
 generation and more, approximately one third of the American 
 Board missionaries were located in the four Turkey missions, 
 which up to 1912 included the Balkan States. The number of 
 trained native leaders at the head of the churches and other Chris- 
 tian enterprises were in about the same proportion. 
 
 There gradually emerged, as the direct result of this missionary 
 work, great Christian educational institutions, some of them now 
 independent, such as Robert College, the University of Beirut, 
 Euphrates, Anatolia, Central Turkey, International, Sivas, Marash, 
 Constantinople, and Van Colleges, and St. Paul's Institute at 
 Tarsus. These institutions were open to students of all races and 
 religions. 
 
 Because of the thoroughness of occupation by the Board and 
 by these various institutions, other missionary societies turned their 
 attention to other countries and entrusted to the American Board 
 the responsibility of Christianizing the varied and mixed popula- 
 tion of the entire country. In a word, the American Board 
 seemed to hold a mandate from the foreign missionary societies 
 of the world to provide for the people of Turkey an adequate 
 opportunity to know Jesus Christ, and to become his followers. 
 The training of leaders, the organization of necessary institutions, 
 and the maintenance of all forms of missionary operations in the 
 country thus became an emphasized responsibility, since, if we 
 did not do what ought to be done, no one else would step in to help 
 out. Turkey became our sole responsibility when Syria, Palestine, 
 and Mesopotamia passed out of Turkish control. Every Board 
 in America and Europe is taxed to the limit of its capacity, and 
 beyond, to keep up its regular and expanding work in other parts 
 of the world, and none stands ready to take new responsibilities 
 in Turkey. The sole responsibility for keeping Christian work and 
 Christian institutions alive in Turkey today rests upon the American 
 Board, and the institutions it has been instrumental in planting 
 in that country. 
 
 We have a large force of experienced missionaries now on the 
 ground, with a knowledge of the Turkish language, competent and 
 ready to prosecute the work. These include business men, doctors, 
 teachers, writers, both men and women, and ordained men, now 
 occupying Constantinople, Smyrna, Brousa, Marsovan, Talas, 
 Tarsus, Adana, Marash, Aintab, with others ready to go back into 
 the interior as soon as the Government gives the necessary permis- 
 sion. There are missionaries in the Russian Caucasus who will be 
 able to go into Turkey if the Soviet Governnient denies them per- 
 mission to continue work among the Armenians there. 
 
 The American Board plants, such as missionary residences, 
 
 4 
 
school buildings, hospitals, dispensaries, etc., are practically intact. 
 The exceptions are the station at Van, which in the early stages of 
 the war was completely destroyed; the school building and teachers' 
 residence at Hadjin, which were burned when the city was wiped 
 out; and the Collegiate Institute for Girls at Smyrna, which was 
 burned when the Christian quarters of that city were laid in ruin 
 last September. While in many places, because of lack of repairs 
 and adequate care, there has been a deterioration in values, the 
 fact remains that the mission plants, with the above exceptions, 
 are either now occupied or are ready for occupation. None of the 
 properties of the American Board have been taken permanently 
 by the Turkish Government. This is also true of the various 
 independent colleges and institutions. 
 
 For the American Board to continue its work in Turkey will 
 require the opening of no new stations, or the erection of new build- 
 ings, but simply the continuation of work in the places it now owns. 
 It will mean going on as before, but with a changed or partially 
 changed constituency. It is evident that to continue work in 
 Turkey will not involve large or extraordinary expense. It 
 will mean that missionaries now supported by the Board must 
 adapt themselves to the new conditions which confront them in the 
 old stations. Some former expenditures will be diminished, 
 while others will be increased, such as the engagement of mis- 
 sionaries in operations which under the old order were performed 
 by Armenian and Greek associates. The income of schools, for a 
 time at least, will greatly fall off because of the smaller number of 
 pupils. There will necessarily be a marked change in the char- 
 acter of the work done, but undoubtedly the training of able native 
 assistants will present a paramount claim upon the time and 
 strength of the missionaries, together with the creation and produc- 
 tion of an adequate educational and Christian literature in the 
 Turkish language. 
 
 All this calls for no ostentatious announcements or spectacular 
 demonstrations, but merely the quiet continuation in some of the 
 old places by the former missionaries, re-enforced, from time to 
 time, by new appointees, a work begun long ago and going on in 
 spite of the changes in populations. The American Board has 
 as an asset of supreme value the experience of a hundred years. It 
 has seasoned missionaries already at the task. It has a home con- 
 stituency who know Turkey and have studied its problems, prayed 
 for and supported its work and honored and loved its missionaries 
 for generations. The very presence of the latter in Turkey now is a 
 token and evidence of the faith and sacrifice of the Congregational 
 churches of America for the last half century. The hundreds of 
 missionary graves, stretching across the country and consecrating 
 every mission station, proclaim a missionary daring and purpose 
 that is an inheritance of priceless value to our generation. 
 
 5 
 
How Others Feel about the Work in Turkey 
 
 The American Board can continue work in Turkey only with 
 the backing of its supporters at home. This is true of any and all 
 of its fields of action, but it seems especially important in the case 
 of Turkey that the Board and the missionaries should have back 
 of them the unqualified approval and the intercessory prayers of 
 an unusually wide circle of friends and co-workers throughout the 
 countiy. The task is too colossal to be undertaken except in soul- 
 searching and whole-hearted consecration. 
 
 To get the situation well before the Boara s constituency a 
 series of conferences or forums were held this spring with corporate 
 members and leading pastors and laymen across the country from 
 Massachusetts to Minneapolis. To these conferences, where 
 reporters were excluded, were gathered from 150 to 300 Congre- 
 gational leaders. In general the afternoon was given to a presen- 
 tation of the situation in Turkey, after which an hour or more was 
 devoted to questions, discussions, and prayer. 
 
 These conferences were held in Boston, Springfield, Providence, 
 Hartford, New Haven, New York City, Cleveland, Chicago, and 
 Minneapolis. The same subject has been laid before Congre- 
 gational Clubs in Boston, Worcester, New York, Chicago, and 
 Minneapolis. 
 
 It is of profound interest to all that in every case the voluntary 
 conclusions of the gatherings have been that there is no alternative 
 but for the Board to continue in Turkey. In some cases formal 
 resolutions were passed. 
 
 The situation in the Near East, and the difficulties which con- 
 front the work of the American Board there, were laid before the 
 Foreign Missions Conference of North America in January, and 
 a resolution was unanimously voted, expressing the opinion of the 
 conference that the American Board should continue its work in 
 Turkey, as a sacred responsibility and trust, even in the face of 
 overwhelming difficulties. 
 
 It is true that objections have been raised in the discussions 
 and many and deep-seated prejudices against doing anything for 
 Turks have been revealed, but in spite of these it has seemed to be 
 the opinion of our widely scattered constituency that to go forward 
 in Turkey, if we are permitted so to do, is manifestly the duty and 
 privilege of the Board. 
 
 At Lausanne in November, December, and January, 1923, and 
 later in the State Department, the opinion has been expressed and 
 urged that the missionaries and missionary institutions, as far as 
 possible, be maintained in action. It was under that suggestion 
 that I went to Smyrna and Constantinople in January. Diplo- 
 matically the continuance of missionary operations in Turkey, now 
 and in the immediate future, is looked upon as of far-sighted and 
 strategic importance for holding open in that country the door of 
 Christian approach to a desperately needy people. The Secretary 
 of State has recently confirmed this position with renewed emphasis. 
 
 6 
 
In January in Constantinople a group of some forty or more 
 missionaries were assembled for conference. There were present 
 men and women who had been in Turkey for from one to forty 
 years. Some were there who had faced and lived through all the 
 horrors of the war years. The marks of suffering were upon their 
 faces and the scars of years of unspeakable hardship and peril were 
 upon their bodies. This group of men and women had counted 
 their lives not dear unto themselves. One by one they had laid 
 many of their former companions and associates to rest in the soil 
 of the land for which they had died. They had stood unflinching 
 in the face of physical peril and the pestilence that stalked at noon- 
 day and at midnight. 
 
 Of these the question was asked: Shall the American Board 
 continue work in Turkey? For two days the question was con- 
 sidered from all sides, and yet not one expressed any other opinion 
 than that the work must go on. We can do no better than to quote 
 freely from the findings of that conference. We must not forget 
 that those who produced these conclusions were the ones who must 
 carry out the program of continuation. They were making these 
 decisions for themselves, and they knew what the cost would be. 
 They said: 
 
 "We believe that the abandonment or serious curtail- 
 ment of the efforts of the American Board in Turkey 
 would be a betrayal of the trust laid upon us by God and 
 by the Christian Church; it would be a denial of the 
 vital power of the Gospel of Christ to meet the needs 
 of the Moslem world; it would mean the abandonment of 
 the accumulated value of missionary lives and deaths 
 in the past century at a time when that inheritance of the 
 Board's sacrifices in the past is a mighty asset, and 
 is the assurance of a successful reopening of the work 
 temporarily suspended. 
 
 "While we recognize that the events of recent years 
 will make missionary operations extremely difficult and 
 that the attitude of the ruling class of Turks compels us 
 to expect serious restrictions and handicaps to our work, 
 yet, trusting in the winning power of the Love of God in 
 Christ Jesus, we are not dismayed by the difficulty of our 
 task, and we are willing to work on under any restriction 
 likely to be laid upon us by an unfriendly government, 
 convinced that, however restricted, the influence of 
 missionary lives and personal contacts during the next 
 few years will have a potency that will abundantly 
 justify the patient sacrifice involved. 
 
 "We are further convinced from our personal knowl- 
 edge of the people that while there is, it is true, a large 
 class of Turks who do not want us and who are bitterly 
 opposed to our work, there are far larger numbers of 
 Turks and Moslems in this land whose need and sense of 
 
 7 
 
need is greater than ever before. Many of these are 
 immediately approachable and will welcome the help 
 that we can offer them. In educational, medical, and 
 social lines this welcome is already outspoken and urgent. 
 And we are convinced that the opportunity for direct 
 evangelistic approach, through the spoken and printed 
 word, is also a challenge to the Board and to us to go 
 forward. 
 
 "Even if the Church in America should not rally to our 
 support, as we firmly beheve it will, we, individually, 
 are fully determined, whether with or without large rein- 
 forcements and financial backing, to put our lives into 
 friendly approach to the peoples of this land, believing 
 that to be the largest service which we can render to 
 our Master in the coming years." 
 
 This from the missionaries in Turkey! It is of such that 
 the poet wrote: — 
 
 "They climbed the steep ascent of heaven. 
 Through peril, toil, and pain; 
 O God, to us may grace be given 
 To follow in their train." 
 
 The Present Outlook 
 
 No one would venture to predict the extent and form of work 
 the American Board will be able to carry on in Turkey under the 
 new treaty. The old capitulations are abolished and there is little 
 to take their place. 
 
 At Lausanne, General Ismet Pasha, the spokesman for the 
 Turkish Government and Minister of Foreign Affairs of that Gov- 
 ernment, declared to Ambassador Child, as well as to representa- 
 tives of the American Board, that they desired American mis- 
 sionaries, educators and physicians to remain in the country and 
 carry on their work as before. He went so far as to put into 
 writing: "I hope above all things that Americans will not worry 
 about the future of their educational and philanthropic institu- 
 tions in Turkey. We want these institutions to stay, and have no 
 intention of adopting laws that will embarrass the continuation of 
 the admirable American altruistic work among our people." The 
 same sentiment was expressed by Dr. Fouad Bey, a Turkish 
 unofficial representative recently in the United States. 
 
 The attitude of some officials in Turkey has not been wholly 
 friendly. Dr. Adnan Bey, governor of Constantinople and former 
 Minister of the Interior at Angora, has shown himself to be hostile 
 to the continuation of American missionary medical work in the 
 country, on the ground that they have more doctors now than can 
 find employment. It is not known whether he speaks the mind of 
 his government. 
 
 8 
 
An official note prepared at Lausanne by the Turkish delega- 
 tion states that American religious institutions, schools, and 
 hospitals, as well as relief organizations recognized as existing in 
 Turkey before the war, are fiscally to be treated upon a footing 
 of equality with similar Turkish institutions and organizations. 
 Property rights are recognized in the treaty, and the representatives 
 of the two governments are discussing the methods of presenting 
 claims for indemnity. 
 
 Under the new order, as provided by the treaty, the relations 
 of Americans to the Turkish Government will be changed from 
 what they were prior to the war. The capitulations are abrogated 
 and the status of Americans in Turkey, as fixed by the treaty, will 
 be like that of Turkish subjects, in respect to the laws of the coun- 
 try. It will not be an easy matter to make the necessary readjust- 
 ments in the conduct of missionary, educational, and philan- 
 thropic work. 
 
 It is impossible to measure the import of the separation of 
 Church and State by which the religious establishment of Islam 
 heads up in the Caliph at Constantinople, while the affairs of 
 State center in the Grand National Assembly in Angora. The 
 Turks repeatedly affirmed at Lausanne that Church and State 
 were now separate, and that there was absolute religious freedom 
 in Turkey. It is impossible to believe that such a fundamental and 
 even revolutionary change can be practically perfected without a 
 long period of trial. And yet the attempt is in itself of startling 
 significance and may mean much or little. 
 
 At present seventy-eight missionaries of the American Board 
 are continuing their work under the laws of the Angora Govern- 
 ment. Six important high schools, one school of religion and one 
 college are carrying on full work. In Smyrna, where the Inter- 
 national College closed for a few months after the tragedy of the 
 fall of 1922, was reopened in January, 1923, a large enrollment of 
 Turkish pupils seems assured. The missionary hospitals, long 
 functioning in Aintab and Adana, were never more pressed with 
 eager patients. These are almost all Turks who cannot fail to 
 receive new impressions of the living message of Christianity. In 
 Marash a smaller hospital, formerly controlled by a German mis- 
 sion, and now temporarily under the American Board, reports 
 7,000 treatments, 90 per cent of the patients being Moslem. 
 Permission has just been granted by the Turkish Government for 
 another doctor to go to Talas in the far interior, there to reopen 
 a hospital for some time closed. 
 
 Cast Down but not Destroyed 
 
 The work of the American Board in Turkey has not been 
 destroyed, although it has met with disaster. 
 
 The work of Jesus Christ was not terminated when he had been 
 betrayed by one of his disciples, denied by another, forsaken by all, 
 and crucified by Homan soldiers. 
 
 9 
 
The early church was not destroyed when the powerful emper- 
 ors of Rome in close succession arrayed against the infant church 
 all the forces of the empire, backed by enraged jealousy and 
 implacable hatred. 
 
 The Christian Church in the island of Madagascar was not 
 destroyed when the hostile queen brought against the church and 
 all Christians the imperial persecuting forces apparently so suc- 
 cessful that no visible indication remained of a vestige of Chris- 
 tianity. At the death of the persecuting queen, it was found that 
 the church membership had doubled during the period of persecu- 
 tion and martyrdoms. 
 
 Christianity in China was not destroyed and the efforts of a 
 century of Christian missions wiped out when the Empress Dow- 
 ager essayed, with the agencies of government under her control, 
 to eliminate from the empire all foreigners, and especially the for- 
 eign religion. Hundreds of missionaries and missionaries' children 
 and tens of thousands of Christian Chinese were put to death. 
 Subsequent history shows that this was but the beginning of the 
 Christian conquest of China. 
 
 In all history persecutions have scattered believers who went 
 into exile preaching the Gospel. Apparent physical defeat has 
 again and again proven but the beginning of a new era of spiritual 
 advance. Barriers to Christian progress have repeatedly been 
 burned away by the fires of persecution. New doors of oppor- 
 tunity have been opened by the shock of the forces of evil in their 
 destructive onslaught. By the blood of martyrdoms the church 
 of Jesus Christ has risen from the ashes of its destruction into a new 
 physical and spiritual resurrection. 
 
 The work in Turkey has been swept as with a besom of destruc- 
 tion, but we can even now see tokens of new life and power and of 
 possible opportunities not before realized. We do not attempt 
 to explain the providences that have produced present physical 
 conditions; they are beyond the reach of the human mind. 
 
 We turn to history for our encouragement, to the promises for 
 our assurance, to the God of missions for our spiritual equipment, 
 and to the command of our Lord Jesus Christ for our marching 
 orders. 
 
 That which is seen is temporal, but that which is unseen is 
 eternal. 
 
 10 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 Our Policy in Turkey 
 
 iHE secretaries of the Board and the members of the Pruden- 
 
 tial Committee have followed with the deepest anxiety 
 
 developments in Turkey. At Lausanne during the confer- 
 ence Dr. Barton and Dr. Peet were in daily contact with the official 
 representatives of the United States, keeping before them the 
 importance of safeguarding our missionary interests in the Near 
 East. 
 
 After the first conference was over our senior secretary went 
 himself to Athens, Smyrna and Constantinople where he conferred 
 with the missionaries actively engaged in the work. He sought 
 to secure more perfect knowledge of conditions and to test the 
 readiness of the Turkish authorities to put into practice the declara- 
 tions made at Lausanne. 
 
 In July a number of missionaries from Turkey, now in America, 
 met with secretaries of the American Board and the Woman's 
 Board, and representatives of the Prudential Committee for con- 
 ference in regard to present problems and future pohcies of the 
 missionary enterprise in Turkey. 
 
 In all of these efforts to get to the bottom of the problems 
 involved the uncertainty as to the final treaty agreement between 
 Turkey and the nations of Europe and America stood as a serious 
 hindrance to the making of permanent plans. With the signing of 
 Turkey's treaty of peace with the Allies on July 24, and on August 
 6 the treaty of amity and commerce with the United States, more 
 definite plans seemed possible. Though the ratification of this 
 latter document by the Senate must be postponed for some months, 
 several points have become clear. 
 
 Turkey has been given a new place among the nations, and no 
 punishment for past offences against humanity and international 
 order has been decreed. The safety of the minorities yet remain- 
 ing in Turkey is guaranteed and their freedom to maintain their 
 own language, schools and religion is pledged in most explicit terms 
 in the treaty of peace. The League of Nations is appointed to 
 enforce these provisions. Foreigners in Turkey will receive no 
 special exemptions or safeguards, but in general will receive the 
 same treatment as that given to Turks resident in other countries. 
 Though in the treaties missionary and philanthropic organizations 
 are not given the same encouragement and consideration as are 
 given to commercial and financial concerns, they are recognized as 
 existing, and will be allowed to continue under Turkish law. 
 
 With these now definite prospects in view, and with full reports 
 in hand from the missionaries regarding the work now going on, 
 and the present attitude of the Turkish authorities towards this 
 work, the Prudential Committee invited the representatives of the 
 Woman's Boards to meet with it on September 11 to discuss our 
 future policy in Turkey. Previous to this meeting there was much 
 
prayerful consideration of the matters in question by groups in 
 committee and by correspondence. On September 11, after sev- 
 eral hours of most careful deliberation, the following conclusions 
 were arrived at : 
 
 First: That we should continue missionary work in Turkey. 
 
 Second : That we should continue to provide moral and spiritual 
 help and leadership for the refugee populations in Greece, Syria 
 and the Caucasus. 
 
 Third: That we do not consider the changed conditions, gov- 
 erning our educational work in Turkey, so fundamental as to pre- 
 vent the continuation of our schools under the laws of the Grand 
 National Assembly at Angora. 
 
 Fourth: That we regard the period of drifting uncertainty in 
 respect to our efforts in Turkey as ended, and we consider the work 
 now being carried on as estabhshed and important and worthy of 
 consideration equal to that given to any mission of the Board. 
 
 It would be folly to think all uncertainties at an end. Baffling 
 problems and bitter disappointments are still before us. Detailed 
 plans cannot be fully elaborated, and must be subject to change. 
 But we believe the period of retrogression in Turkey has ended; 
 the corner has been turned. The missionaries on the field, forced 
 into constant and immediate contact with the Turks, see real 
 opportunity before them and call urgently and insistently for 
 reinforcement. The Board at home accepts the challenge, and 
 while unable to grant all the requests for advance has definitely 
 committed itself to carry on in Turkey. 
 
FROM A MODERN PAUL 
 
 A BANDON TURKEY? Some Amer- 
 icans are urging it. But American 
 business firms are already increasing 
 their efforts. In May we welcomed a 
 splendid Philadelphia company, which 
 is introducing agricultural implements. 
 Reapers, binders, Fords, Fordsons, etc., 
 are coming in to help the farmers. When 
 business firms adventure shall missionary 
 forces back out? Shall the agents of 
 Christ for brotherhood and the Gospel 
 withdraw from Turkey when man's agents 
 push forward? 
 
 Rev. Paul E. Nilson, 
 St. Paul's College, 
 Tarsus, Turkey.