Armenia.

White Ribbon, Volume 2, Issue 14, 1 August 1896, Page 8

Armenia.

;y woman's heart must have

burned with indignation and throbbed with sympathy at the news from Armenia. In the words of Miss Willard :

" An ancient nation is being slowly slaughtered at the foot of Mount Ararat. Fifty thousand victims were stretched out under God s sky in the slow circle of a year; women—pure, devout, and comely-suffering two deaths, a living and a d)ing death, little children poised on the bayonets of Moslem soldiers, villages burned, starvation and pestilence the common lot. On the other

hand, four hundred millions of pro--1 followers of Christ, with m yen millions of soldiers who take

their rations and their sacraments ilarly ; statesmen who km velvet i ushions in beautiful cath h and pray ' We beseech Thee to i, good Lord ; ' diplomatists who can 1 shape the wisdom of a throne,' and shade the meaning of an ultimatum, but neither statesman, diplomat, nor soldier has wit, wisdom, or will to save a single life, shelter I single torture 1 babe, or supply a single loaf of bread to the starving Christians on the Armenian hillsides ; vested interests are against the only will in the Empire of Turkey, and all the wills or all the Christian nations cannot move it one hair The Turk is barbarous, while the Statesmen are over-civilised ; he is a fanatic, while they are craven cowards.'' What may be the precise method England should adopt to put a stop to these horrors we cannot say. But this we can say, that our sympathy in tl colonies should take a practical form. While we are quietly sympathising and passing resolutions, our fellow Christians are starving. A lundis being raised for their relief, and if every sympathiser will ask him or herself how much he or she sympathises, and sends on the cash value of the sympathy, will it not be of more present service to the Armenians than heated arguments as to whether England shall or shall not go to war ?