Page:Islam, Turkey, and Armenia, and How They Happened.djvu/151

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TURKISH CENSORSHIP.
145

secret emblem against the Turkish Government, and after long meditations and consultations he solved it to mean "Hamid the 2nd (present Sultan) is zero!" and he insisted that he was correct in his discovery.

The dark shadow of ignorance, the nest of all iniquities, is the resting place where "the pearl of ages" is very anxious to hide himself and his subjects, in spite of the enlightenment of this century. The Moslem population is the same stupid and lazy Tartaric race—only they so surpass their fathers in the addition of hellish horrors upon horrors as to put the devil in the shade. They show no sign of consciousness of their wretched condition. Some individuals sparks glowing here and there are at once put out and the national suicide still goes on, and the suffering of the Christian subjects can never be realized. Under all their bondage, intellectual slavery, blackmailing, poverty and persecution they are groaning for liberty. But, alas! the world seems totally deaf to their cries and sighing! It is a mystery of Divine Providence how the Darkness should be permitted to rule the Light, and a greater mystery that the most civilized nations and governments—the supposed champions of Liberty—would take such a barbarous nation as the Turks for their friend, and such a tyrant, the greatest enemy of Christian civilization, for their ally!