years ago. It is a proverb that, if two or three peasants are talking together, the subject of their discourse is sure to be either pice (farthings) or rice. But the increased prices have rather benefited a very large proportion of the people who have produce to sell. Luxuries, such as house utensils and fine clothes, are much commoner than they used to be, and I have no doubt that there has been a steady improvement in the material condition of the people since the famine of 1866. ORDINARY GENERAL MEETING WAS HELD IN THE ROOMS OF THE INSTITUTE, ON MONDAY, MARCH 18TH, 1907. MARTIN L. ROUSE, ESQ., B.L., IN THE CHAIR. The Minutes of the previous Meeting were read and confirmed, and the following candidates were put forward by the Council for election: MEMBER. Dr. George H. Martin, M.D., San Francisco. The following paper was then read by the Author : SURVIVALS OF PRIMITIVE RELIGION THE PEOPLE OF ASIA MINOR. AMONG By the Rev. G. E. WHITE, Dean of Anatolia College. (With l'iates.) INTRODUCTION. T is a pleasure to act on the suggestion of the Secretary, and submit to the Institute a brief statement of the American Mission work at Marsovan, Asiatic Turkey, and especially at Anatolia College, with which for sixteen years the present speaker has been connected. The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, the organ of the Congregational Churches of the United States, have a very extensive work in the Ottoman Empire, and have received much sympathy and direct and indirect assistance from British philanthropists and statesmen. Direct Christian effort for Turks is debarred by Mohammedan prejudice, but there are millions of Oriental Christians under the Turkish theocracy whose condition is pitiable. They are chiefly Armenians and Greeks. The language of their churches is practically dead to the common people. The common clergyare but slightly educated. The only schools for the children are those maintained by their impoverished religious communities. Agriculture, industry, and commerce are carried on under the most repressive conditions, and the scanty profits are eaten up by the tax-gatherer, legal or illegal. At the time of the Turkish conquest, and sometimes after that, the Christian population was almost swept away, but a remnant remained; it survived and multiplied on the mountain tops, it held by the name and form of Christianity, it has taken advantage of every opening to make its way forward. For several decades a growing evangelical work has been prosecuted among this old Christian stock, and there are now over 50,000 avowed Protestants connected with the native churches in Asia Minor. These are ministered to by native clergymen, who are on the whole a sound, strong, devoted body of Christian labourers, faithful to their high calling in the midst of poverty, discouragement and sometimes danger. The British and Foreign, and the American Bible Societies maintain important Levant Agencies at Constantinople, from which over 100,000 copies a year of the Holy Bible, or some part of it, are circulated. Colporteurs offer the Word of God to all the people, and the aggregate circulation of Armenian issues by the American Society exceeds an average of one for every Armenian family in Turkey. The Publication Department of our Board sends forth a steady stream of school books, sermons, tracts, hymn books, commentaries, and other volumes of religious and allied literature, and prints excellent family papers for adults and for children. Meantime a steady process of reformation and enlightenment has been leavening the old Oriental Churches. They have been making heroic efforts in behalf of their schools, and certainly the value of their community schools has easily doubled within thirty or forty years. Preaching by monks, priests or teachers is frequently heard. Some spiritually minded leaders appear. Superstitions still abound, but are waning in number and influence. Pictures in the churches are less, and less influential. A few years ago when a suggestion was abroad that the Porte might require the withdrawal of American missionaries, the Armenian Patriarch at Constantinople expressed great apprehension at the loss that such a step would mean to his people. Personally we are on the best of terms with Turks. The officials exchange friendly calls with us, religious authorities of every class, connection and garb discuss religious questions with a good degree of frankness and cordiality. The common people welcome us to their homes and tables. The sick come gladly to our hospitals for cure, and often say that they never knew before that life could be lived without quarrelling, cursing, jealousy, deceit, and other dark concomitants. Many would enter our schools, but prejudice runs high and official supervision forbids them. Latterly missionary effort has more and more taken the form of Christian education, and over 20,000 of the flower of the Anatolian children and young people are in schools connected with the mission. A few thousand of these were Armenian orphans, but these are now maturing and taking their own places in life. These schools are of all grades from the Kindergartens up to the American colleges incorporated in the United States, and conferring the bachelor's degree on their graduates. In Marsovan itself Anatolia College has an attendance this year of 316 in the four colleges, and three preparatory classes. The faculty includes six Americans, one Swiss, eight Armenians and five Greeks. The native gentlemen have pursued advanced studies, one each in Berlin, America, Athens, Constantinople, Edinburgh, Stuttgart, and one is now in Paris. One has added about eighty new species of butterflies, beetles and plants to the knowledge of scientific men. Students pay their own bills, the college making them as low as possible. About one-third, being too poor to pay wholly in cash, render some form of manual service in the Wickes Industrial for part of their dues. A little aid outright is given those who work well, and who otherwise could not be in college at all. The course of study includes languages, mathematics, natural sciences, history, philosophy, etc. Vocal and orchestral music and athletics have made a good beginning. Every student has a short Bible lesson every day, and our chief aim is from among the many aspiring young people of the country to bring forward a company filled with the spirit and power of Christ and return them with the strength of educated men to influence their people. The college is greatly hampered by lack of funds. Every additional pound means an added stroke of work, an added inch of usefulness. Some of our students pursue Theological studies: ten graduated from our course last May and are now preaching in Turkey. Others go and study medicine. Turkey has need and room for good physicians. Many of our students teach for longer or shorter terms; a large proportion enter some form of business. The girls' boarding school at the other side of the same compound is training most admirably above 200 girls who are to be teachers, nurses, home makers, and leaders in all Our those good ways open to educated Christian women. Medical Department, including dispensary and hospital with fifty beds, treated last year 2,229 cases in the clinics, and performed 354 operations requiring anæsthesia. These four institutions, Seminary, College, Girls' School and Hospital, stand side by side under one general adininistration and with one common aim. Our seal represents the sun rising over a mountain, just as seen from the front door of the College-and Anatolia means the land of the rising sun-and underneath is our motto, "The morning cometh." THE HITTITES, TURKS AND ARMENIANS. An Occidental, who naturally first enters Asia Minor through such a port as Constantinople or Smyrna, is usually profoundly impressed with the lines of national cleavage prevailing between the different peoples. In race, religion, physical characteristics, social and political customs, and in language, there are fixed and evident boundary lines which people do not pass either by intermarriage or for any other ordinary reason. Asia Minor is ruled by Turks, but they are aliens encamped upon the soil. It does not include Armenia proper, but the history of the Armenians could not be written leaving Asia. Minor out. Its boundaries do not march with Greece, but the northern and western coasts have been from time immemorial almost as Greek as Greece itself. The Hittites, perhaps, never ruled the whole, yet some of the richest Hittite finds have been made within its bounds. It is not Kurdish, yet shelters some 2,000,000 Kurds. It is separate from Mesopotamia, yet missionary children amuse themselves by picking up cuneiform fragments. It is distant from Egypt, yet its sphinxes are but one of the links of relation with the dwellers along the Nile. It is far from Rome, but for five hundred years was an important part of the Roman Empire. It has no Semitic population, but the two religions professed, Mohammedanism and Christianity, were rocked in a Semitic cradle. It does not include the Holy Land, yet at least ten books of the New Testament were first directed to its citizens. The Turkish is but one of several languages commonly spoken, and Osmanli Turkish in its three great elements, Turkish proper, Arabic and Persian, represents not only three languages, but three families of languages, Turanian, Semitic and Aryan. Before he takes ship to depart the hasty traveller is apt to avow that there is |