The Bismarck Tribune Newspaper, February 7, 1919, Page 6

REUTER AVIUACOUTAEOAUONEGEUDEGEOAAOOEEERAOAEEOO Fee TTT TIA TUTT HUEUGAOEOGUAEUG AAA UUALAHESEREEEGLELEAA RRP ARUGULA “If-ye shall ask anything of the Father in my name, He will give it you.” Bat For nineteen centuries this glorious promise ‘has been a source of comfort and of strength to ecuntless millions of the opprest, the sick, the suffering, the troubled, and the grievously bur- dened. These burning words have been a pillar of fire by night and a pillar of cloud by day to the heavily laden and the sore distrest and’to those multitudes who have passed through the Valley of the Shadow of affliction or death. And now in this latter day—nay, at this very hour—millions of women and children in and near those lands, those hills and rivers made holy by the sacred memories of our Lord, are claiming this promise and are crying out to Him in an agony of spirit ., and body beseeching Him that He will save them from starvation, from death, and from horrors worse than death. Four, million Armenians, Syrians, and other war-sufferers in Western Asia are practically without food, clothing, or shelter, the vast major- ity helpless women and children. ‘More than a million and a half have been deported. Nearly a million have been brutally murdered and mas- sacred. Four hundred thousand children are or- phaned. It can be said that there are practically no more children left under the age of five, all having perished from exposure and disease. For every hundred births there are from two to three, hundred deaths. The newly born children die almost immediately, their mothers having noth- ing to give them but tears. Deaths from dysen- tery, typhus, tuberculosis and famine are increas- ing from day to day with appalling rapidity. The homeless—a pitiful stream of women and chil- si Gyen—wander aimlessly through the streets. of ‘their wrecked villages. If you stop a child‘toward © evening andask him where he‘ is going he. will tell you; “I am searching for a place to sleep.” ‘All winter long they-have slept in nooks and corners, in alleys and by the‘roadsides, with’ no blankets, no covering whatever, their clothing the merest rags. The women clasp their wan- faced children to their breasts and on their faces is written the pitiful story of their utter despair. The scenes in these lands of grief and suffer ing are beyond the power of imagination to con- ceive or of wards to describe. Throughout the length and breadth of these countries there is no food save bread, the dry crusts of bread that they receive at the hands of charity. No meats, no soups, no vegetables, no sugar, less than a pound of bread daily, and even this poor morsel has often to be shared with others. “A poor old woman faint with hunger said to me today,” writes one of the devoted workers, “ ‘Sahib, the bread won’t .go down. I soak it: in water, but it sticks in my throat’.’”” , ie Send your check at once to Cleve . ow Seo CLK \ From the Literary Digest for January 18, 1919. reece =r CET Ui 78 ‘ / “Wheresoever I go,” a missionary reports, “I see men or women fallen on the street dead or _ dying, and little emaciated children stretching out_ their wasted hands oy just one shahie for bread,’ » tears running ‘down their cheeks, and still more awful are the little onés sitting propt against a wall, listless and torpid;\indifferent even to food, waiting quietly for death.”, ©< Vo.” _- “Just now,” says another worker, “I have been interrupted in my writing. A Jewess has come to tell me of a woman: who'staggered to her door begging late last evening. She was allowed to spend the night in a corner 6f the house and this morning she was dead. | “Won’t you please send ‘some one to bury: her,’. implored my caller.” > ‘ Such pleas are frequent now. There are more dead than buried in Armenia., Men and women once in good circumstances and self-respecting, now hungry, helpless, friendless, ‘craw! away, like animals, out of'sight, die unseen, and lie unburied. There is no joy of victory in these distraught lands: but only the cries of an agonized people to whom peace has brought neither benediction nor blessing; neither rest nor respite; lands where the war has left an awful human wreckage in its wake; a great Kingdom of Grief filled with the cries of mothers and orphans, a distrest people prostrate with desolation, numbed with ‘suffer- ing, having no partnership in the great joy of.a liberated. world. - \ t ~ No sons, no fathers, no. brothers are returning victorious to their homes in Armenia or: Syria, for: their villages and their citjés have been razed and ruined and lie in dust:and ashes, and the men:by.. the thousands and hund¥eds of thousands have been pitilessly murdered or barbarously deported, Deported? Yes, butwhatia euphemism for the most heartless and relentless cruelty. Deporta- :: tion means the loss of home, business property, and every personal possession... It means ‘being driven into desert places, forced ‘to march at, the point of the bayonet until strengt ig exhausted; it means being refused shelter, food, drink; it means being subjected to outrage and calculated cruelty. ‘ fe: \ Many such scenes of terrible and tragic stf- fering are in the very lands where Jesus walked a with his disciples; where He had compassion on \ the needy multitudes, arid fed them and healed them and'comforted them. Many of these awful sights are even in the very shadow of the Mount, of Olives, where Christ said: “Suffer the ‘little, children and forbid’ them. not to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.” Millions of “the least of these my brethren” are hungry. and naked and sick:and in terrible prisons with- out walls. In them.and through them the King - of Pity and of Love is caging to you to minister 2, ¥ ; payable to Mr. Dodge. land #1. Dodge, Treasurer, Roo nue, New York City | -ership.of Cleveland H: Dodge, is “minimyn of: thirty million dollar ith “say; the; committee, “we can," humanly “-« We feel this eausé to: be so worthy, this need: . to them just as you would do if you saw Him lying at your feet... .. aa shea : You, to whom the Christmas just past has meant a time of reunion, a time of feasting and happinegs; you, whose homes are warm and whose children are: well fed, think now of these your brothers and sisters who are perishing.’ The cries of these children must reach your ears. The prayers of these mothers must touch your hearts. These homeless and starving millions are depend- ent on charity—-your-charity—for Turkish char- ity provides’ for no:one—it begins and ends at home. 5 coe ay j It is America’s God-given privilege to feed the hungry from her great bounty and from her un- limited stores. It is her blessed. duty, to lift.the ~ \ head of fallen Armenia and pyt the cup of cold water to her lips and the morsel of bread in her»: hands, and so prove her self indeed the, protector and liberator of the opprest and subject races. We have presented the needs of the Armeni- ans twice before to our Literary Digest readers, and they have responded largely, liberally, most generously. But now the period of rehabilitation , ’ in the Near East is at hand. Vastly larger sums will be required to restore the refugees to their homes than were required merely ‘to sustain life . in: their desert exile. The American Committee for Relief ‘in the Near East, under:the able lead- save every. life”)... to‘be-so af perately arene ae even though we ew di é & this convinced, ourselves’ ‘by a careful in extending over a number of days that these funds will be wisely administered, that this work is in most capable hands, and that every dollar. given will go for relief without the deduction. of one cent for organization expenses. Send your’ own contribution quickly, and so bring new life and a new hope to some weary, broken body in the Near st. ile Now is our opportunity to show these lands made luminous by the footprints of Christ and the, Apostles what our Christianity of the West means today. “Now is'the time when these places ‘ of sacred history should receive a new sanctifica- -'tion by.the service of God’s children in the twen- tieth century... With a Christlike healing of the sick and feeding the hungry, we will make a royal highway for our Lord'into the grateful hearts of these people, along which the King of Glory may come with: his message.of love and light, SiG as Caw tee se / The above appeal is printed in The Tribune with the con- fident hope that the sympathetic hearts of its many readers will respond with checks made J appealing for.a ; Tito tt th TT