Armenia and its sorrows

—
EUROPE'S RESPONSIBILITY
iii
shame. That such things should he done once is a
damning diftgrace to the jportion of our race tvhich
did them ; that a door shoidd he left open for their
ever-so-harely possihle repetition ivoidd spread that
shamie over the tuhole. Better, we may justly tell the
Sultan, almost any inconvenience, difficulty, or loss
associated with Armenia
'
Than thou reseated in thy place of light,
The mockery of thy people and their bane.'
" We may ransack the annals of the world ; but I
know not what research can furnish us with so
portentous an example of
the fiendish misuse of the
powers established by God, for the punishment of
'
evil-doers, and for the encouragement of them that
do well.' No Government ever has so sinned ; none
has so proved itself incorrigible in sin, or, which is
the same, so impotent for reformation."
These are wholesome words, and it were well if
they could be widely echoed through the land. But
words are of little use unless they bear fruit in action.
No mere words will heal the gaping wounds of
Armenia. Even while we pen these closing lines,
there come tidings that another massacre has taken
place, in which some three hundred and forty
Armenians were barbarously slain. The villages
still lie in blackened ruins, women and children
are still wandering, homeless, ill-clad, and starving,
amongst the mountains, and the much - vaunted
scheme of reform has resulted in practically
nothing.
Diplomacy has conspicuously failed ; it is time that
the Christian feeling of the nations found expression,
not in words but in deeds. To still stand idly by,
and talk vain platitudes in pulpit and on platform,
while all the time the vultures hover in the tainted
air, and feast upon the mutilated bodies of men and