The Test of Faith: A Chapter in Non-Resistance
I
DURING the war, in almost all the larger countries involved, there were groups of people who, for religious reasons, could not see their way clear to take part in it. These people were sometimes members of an organized religious group, such as the Mennonites, Quakers, Seventh-Day Adventists, and the like; but in other cases they were isolated individuals, who took the same position against war, but were not affiliated with any organization whose creed opposed participating in war. Many of these people suffered severe persecution for their beliefs. Some of them went to jail for considerable periods; some of them died, or were killed there; some went into noncombatant service, or into the Red Cross or relief work; some went out on the North Sea at the extremely dangerous work of mine-sweeping; and others undertook other work which they felt was suitable in demonstrating their beliefs.
I have met and talked with a considerable number of these conscientious objectors, not only in the United States, but in other parts of the world, and have heard their stories. I have found that my own story is apparently unique in one respect. All the conscientious objectors with whom I talked had certain beliefs — which varied a good deal with different personalities — concerning the Christian method of dealing with violence. For the most part, however, during the war these men were not called upon to face personal violence — at least, not in a way to test out the various supposititious cases brought forward as arguments against the non-resistant position by people who opposed the idea of pacifism as impractical. Because, to a certain degree, my case is different from the usual run of conscientious objectors, I have been led to believe that it might, be well to contribute my story, as a partial answer, at least, to these supposititious arguments. In order to do so, however, it will be necessary for me to state briefly my own position in connection with war and non-resistance.
As I understand the teachings of the New Testament and the life lived by Jesus Christ, the fundamental bases of Christianity are, first, a belief that Jesus Christ and God were, in some mysterious way, one; that is, that ihe picture of personality and character demonstrated by Christ is a true picture of the personality and character of God. The second basis is that absolute power and utter love, as combined in the character of Jesus Christ, are a fundamental fact, in which the man who is trying to follow Christ can trust. In other words, the man following Christ can rely upon a Divine Power which has powder over all things. This Divine Power is fundamentally the power of utter love. These two bases are the fundamental principles on which the follower of Christ rests his belief.
The working out, practically, in everyday life, of the above-mentioned ideas goes much deeper than the ordinary church member or religious person thinks; and in its ultimate end it goes much farther than anybody except Jesus himself has ever put into practice. In regard to war, it means that the Christian pacifist believes that the forces of love are stronger than the forces of hate, and that, in order to overcome evil, — really overcome it,— one force, and one only, can be used: that is the force of love. Such a position eliminates the possibility of partaking in war; for war fundamentally believes in the use of evil means to attain a good end — I must kill people in order to bring about democracy, freedom, self-determination of nations, and so forth. I must do what we all recognize to be evil, and what we punish men for in times of peace, and do it in the belief that good will come from it. Such a position is a contradiction of terms to the Christian pacifist who believes that the only way of overcoming evil is with good.
What then should I do, holding such beliefs, in the spring of 1917, in the United States? Many sincere men believed that the most Christian thing to do was to give their lives In the front trenches, believing that they, in that way, were helping to do away the evil of war. To hold my position honestly, and meet such men face to face, it was necessary for me to be willing to do something at least as disagreeable and dangerous, and to do it with the motive of keeping people alive, of bringing about reconciliation and goodwill between hostile factions, and to do it using only methods which were uplifting and helpful and beneficial to everybody concerned. I had to be willing to get killed, but to do so loving everybody and trying to help everybody, including the Germans, the Turks, and all other people. Then, and only then, could I meet the sincere men whom I knew, who were risking their lives in the trenches. My belief was that such a programme of the use of good means could produce only good results, and that all I had to do was to insist upon continuing the use of good means, refusing to use evil means. I feel more convinced now, in 1922, than ever, after seeing the results actually obtained by fighting, that my position in 1917 was correct; and I have met a number of people who have been pretty well brought around to my point of view by the events of the last four years. Such was and is my position as a Christian pacifist in regard to war.
In 1917, I frankly expressed my convictions in regard to the Christian participating in war, and found very frequently that people wanted to push me into answering supposititious cases. Two of these, cases were as follows: —
1. ‘You say you will not use evil means, even to attain a good end. Do you mean to tell me that, if you were in a room full of women and children, and some of those wild Turks and Kurds from the mountains of Turkey should come and begin to break in the door, you would stand aside, like a coward, and let them come in, refusing to fight to protect the women and children? Would not fighting be right in such an emergency, and would not the Christian be doing the most loving thing, even toward the Kurds and Turks, by killing them to prevent their assaulting the women and children?’
My answer to this, while I was in America, was that I felt that I was a Christian pacifist, not just a pacifist, and that I believed that, if I honestly tried to follow the teachings of Christ, God would never put me in a position where I would be unable to act in a spirit of real love toward everybody concerned, including the Kurds and the Turks. As for the killing of the latter in a spirit of love, the thing in itself is an absurdity. Nobody deliberately wills to kill those to whom his loving, affectionate heart has gone out. Love is not so constituted. I have now a small boy. I love him very much. There may come a time when my son may determine to do something wrong. As his father, I have the right and the duty to urge upon him a different course of action. I may even punish him if, in so doing, the punishment may be beneficial to him; but everyone will admit that it would be wrong for me to kill my son, in order to prevent him from doing evil.
The attitude of the Christian pacifist toward the Kurd or the Turk would not be different. My position in regard to this supposititious case was that I could not guarantee that no one would be killed or injured or assaulted: that did not rest in my power; but I believed that, if I continued to act in a spirit of love toward the intruding Turks and Kurds, — mind you, not in a spirit of subservience or cowardice, — I should be using the most effective means to prevent the killing or assault from taking place. As long as I continued to use the right means, I could be sure that I was doing the very best thing that I personally could do, and I could then count on the real Divine Power of God Almighty to direct the thoughts, wills, and acts of the Kurds as He desired. Also, I could safely leave the situation in his hands. If we were killed or assaulted, in spite of any refusal to fight, I could then count on it thus being God’s will for us all to die or be assaulted, and that our death or injury would be more effective in bringing about the Kingdom of God on earth than any other thing we could possibly do.
2. The second supposititious case was this: ‘What about the drunken or crazy man running amuck? What would you do if you saw a drunken man armed and lusting for blood in the midst of a crowded street? Would you not be justified in killing him as you would a mad dog?’
My reply to this case was that a man is a man and not a dog; and that whether he is drunk, or whether he is mad, does not alter the case. He still is a man, and, if I believe in the life and death of Christ, I must believe that Christ came to save drunken, evil madmen as well as others. As he put it, ‘I come not to bring the righteous but sinners to repentance.’ I therefore can no more picture Jesus Christ shooting down a wild, drunken madman running amuck, than I could picture him in the trenches in Flanders sticking a bayonet into the stomach of a German, or squirting liquid fire into the faces of a group of Austrians. The man Christ Jesus, as I see him in the New Testament, was not that kind of person. Moreover, I believed that there would be a better and more effective way of handling the drunken madman than by killing him; because, when I killed him, I could do nothing more for his soul; and fundamentally a Christian pacifist must consider loving his enemy as well as protecting his friend.
II
These supposititious cases were very commonly brought up, and are still commonly brought up, by those who wish to show that Christianity and war can be reconciled. I felt that the above answers to the supposititious cases were adequate and right from a Christian point of view; but somehow I felt called upon to give myself an opportunity of demonstrating in action that such a method of handling the cases would work. I felt that I should be an active pacifist, not a passive one; and so I went to a friend of mine who was well posted on the Near-Eastern and the general world situation, and asked him to tell me what in his judgment was the most dangerous and disagreeable part of the world at that particular time.
He at once answered me by saying, ‘West Persia.’ At that time, 1917, in West Persia a combination of war and a mixture of racial antipathies and religious fanaticism, which had come down through hundreds of years, existed in a marked degree. The country had been the fighting ground of the Turkish and Russian armies since the beginning of the war. Mohammedanism, with all its complications, was very strong. Massacres and flights of peoples had taken place, and were liable to occur at any time. At the same time, the country was very backward in its culture, there being no sewers in the cities, no sanitation of any kind, only a few hospitals run by American missionary doctors, and most of the worst, diseases were continually present and often raging: smallpox, cholera, typhoid, para-typhoid, typhus, relapsing fever, malaria, pernicious malaria, and a number of other diseases were not only common but were a pressing concern. On top of all this, law and order were very weak in this section of the world; and altogether I believe from experience that my friend was right when he named West Persia as the worst place in the world at that time.
I therefore volunteered to go to West Persia, to assist in the relief work. I agreed to pay all my own expenses and to accept no salary. I did not expect ever to come back again, as it did not seem probable that I could stay alive in such a country for more than a few months; so I made my will, put my affairs in order, said good-bye to my family and friends, and started for Persia. This was in May, 1917.
The long journey through Norway, Sweden, Finland, across Russia, and through the Caucasus, to Persia, was slow; but finally I arrived safely in a city of some 50,000 inhabitants in West Persia — Urumiah. Here I was put in charge of the orphans, the industrial relief, and was made secretary of the Relief Committee. During the summer, autumn, and early winter, I was very busy riding from village to village over the plains, visiting, classifying, and arranging for the feeding, clothing, and general care of the 500odd orphans scattered throughout this stricken area. I organized some of the refugee Assyrians into a cloth-industry, giving several hundred women work in carding and spinning wool, and arranged for the building of twenty-five native hand-looms. I soon had them weaving the native cloth which for countless generations has been an important material for men’s clothing in the high mountains of Kurdistan. We finally worked the production up to 1000 Turkish arshines of this cloth per week. (One Turkish arshine equals 29 inches.)
Later on, as need arose, I took charge also of cleaning up the streets of the city of Urumiah (my first and only job as street-cleaning commissioner). This developed, among other lines, into one very unpleasant task: namely, the collecting and reburying of bodies dug up by the dogs in the graveyards, and partly eaten. The cleaning-up and keeping clean (as far as possible in such an unsanitary country) of the yards filled with refugees also fell upon my shoulders, as did the complete care of the relief-transportation equipment of autos, horses, carts, harness, and the rest.
All these activities kept me very busy during the remainder of 1917, and on into the spring and summer of 1918.
In July, 1918, the situation around Urumiah was very intense. The ill-will stirred up by the war, the persecutions, the massacres, the assaulting of women and the carrying-off of girls, had intensified to a terrible degree the agelong hatred between the Syrians and Armenians on the one hand, and the Turks, Kurds, and Moslems on the other. The country had suffered terribly from the destruction of property. There were thousands of people who had been driven from their homes and were refugees. By far the most destitute and miserable of these were the refugee Kurds, who were Mohammedans, in the streets of the city; and the great, majority of people throughout the region were by no means beyond the need of relief.
The Russian army had been withdrawn following the Bolshevist revolt, and with their withdrawal the two factions in the city of Urumiah — on the one hand, local Mohammedans, and on the other hand, the Armenians and Syrians — had each determined to gain military and political control over the country. In this the Syrians and Armenians were greatly assisted by the Russians, who not only armed them but organized them into battalions, and even left some officers to drill and direct them. The Moslems also secured what arms they could; and on the twentysecond of February, 1918, there was a clash ending in the capture of the city by the Armenians and Syrians. This control spread over the great part of the Urumiah plain and, as it spread, the most disorderly element among the Syrians and Armenians took advantage of the situation to take revenge on the Mohammedans. This resulted in so much massacre, robbery, and indiscriminate killing, that the great mass of Moslems of the surrounding regions got together an armed force, to overthrow the control of the Armenians and Syrians in the city.
For months this fight kept up, the city and plain being practically surrounded by hostile Moslem bands, while, in the centre, all sorts of evil things were being perpetrated by those in control. Finally, the assistance of the regular Turkish army was obtained by the surrounding Moslems, and with their advent on the scene, with artillery and a better organized body of men, the Armenians and Syrians were finally forced out and compelled to run away to the south, hundreds of miles over the Persian mountains, to the English forces operating from Mesopotamia and Southern Persia. On the morning of July thirtieth, this great flight to the south of 75,000 to 100,000 people began, and the test, of the first supposititious case took place about ten o’clock in the morning.
All the Americans except Dr. and Mrs. W. A. Shedd decided to stay in Urumiah, rather than to attempt to go with the Syrians and Armenians. We had been living in the College Compound, — an area about the size of an ordinary city block, — surrounded by a mud wall varying in height from five to fifteen feet, and situated about two miles from the city. Inside this area were the dwelling-houses of the missionaries and some of the native assistants, a boys’ college, and the hospital, together with outhouses, stables, and so forth. With the exception of myself, all the Americans were missionaries, the relief work being carried on practically altogether through their efforts.
Throughout most of the period when the Armenians and Syrians were in control, a number of Mohammedans, both Kurds and local Persian Moslems, had come into the College Compound, to seek protection from the disorders which reigned outside. At the time of the flight the number of these refugees was only a few hundred. These were camped out under all sorts of shelters, or no shelter at all, in different parts of the yard. A road coming down from the mountains of Turkey passed directly in front of the College Compound and continued on to the city.
III
When the news was telephoned out in the middle of the night that the Armenian and Syrian populations were starting to flee to the south, we Americans made what preparations we could for the coming change of control. As soon as it was daylight, I took Dr. Packard and Dr. Ellis into the city in the Ford, and left them there, busying myself by carrying food and people back and forth, until about ten o’clock, when the advance-guard of the Turkish army arrived. I had expected to bring Dr. Ellis and Dr. Packard back again before the Turks came; but their sudden appearance prevented this being done.
The first men to arrive were the Kurdish horsemen, with an occasional Turkish soldier. It was apparent that they must have been ordered to leave us, the Americans, alone, for the great majority of them rode right by the gate, and on toward the city. At this time we were assisted greatly by the Moslem refugees, who had been receiving protection in our yards for so long. Most of these Kurdish and Moslem fugitives stood at the open gate, their faces wreathed in smiles, and welcomed the oncoming horsemen with joy; but they did not do anything to turn their attention toward the Compound, but quietly allowed them to pass on toward the city. It happened, however, that a few of the Kurds gained entry through a small back gate, and it was these irregular stragglers who raided us and put me through the supposititious case number one.
Dr. Dodd and I sat on the long music seat, in front of Mrs. Ellis’s piano. In the living-room with us were Miss Lamme, Miss Schoebel, Mrs. Ellis and her two little children, and a number of native Syrian servants. Dr. Dodd and I had just come in from the yard outside, where both of us had nearly lost our lives at the hands of some of the raiding Kurds, mine being saved twice — once by a Moslem hostler and once by a friendly Kurd. I did not know what was going to happen next, as things outside were in great disorder, and we could hear shooting all around us.
The setting for the supposititious case was practically complete. Here I was, a Christian pacifist. In the room with me were a number of helpless women and children. Dr. Dodd had only recently got out of bed, and could scarcely be considered as an able-bodied man. I therefore was the only one present physically fit to defend this group of helpless people. At any minute the floor might open and the Kurds might enter. Truly, the setting was complete. But I had been holding in my mind the fixed determination that, under no circumstances, would I use violence, to protect either myself or others; and I trusted that in some way I should be able so to act that the best results for all would be achieved.
As Dr. Dodd and I told the ladies of our experiences of a few moments before, there suddenly came a tremendous pounding on the door leading from the dining-room, which was next to the sitting-room where we were, out into the kitchen and the back yard. The time had arrived. The Kurds were at the door. What should I do?
The thought came into my mind that it would be better to open the door and let the Kurds in, than to stay away from it and allow them to smash their way in. If they broke down the door, they would come in in more of a rage than if we opened the door and let them in. I suggested this to Dr. Dodd, and he and I together walked into the dining-room and over toward the door leading to the kitchen. I remember, as I approached it, seeing one of the panels bulge from the blows of the gunbutts from without. A small bolt was all that held the door closed, and I reached over and pulled this and opened the door, saying as I did so, ‘ Buyurun ’ — meaning ‘ Come in.’
As the door swung open, we found ourselves looking into the business end of three rifles, backed up by the dusky faces of three Kurds. They had made themselves up, with their fringed turbans, to appear particularly ferocious, and they certainly looked the part. My judgment, however, is that they were surprised at having the door opened and being invited to come in. In any case, they did not shoot; and, as they entered, in voices of intense excitement they demanded ‘Pool! Pool! Pool!' (money! money! money!) This was a decided relief, as we had some money, and possibly, if we gave it to them, they would go away. With this in mind, Dr. Dodd and I led the way out of the dining-room back into the sitting-room, where the ladies were. I remember walking as rapidly as possible, with the thought of getting the Kurds past the ladies without any unnecessary delay. This scheme worked, and we entered Dr. Ellis’s study through a little side door, leaving the ladies and the children behind us.
It so happened that Dr. Dodd had the key of the top drawer of Dr. Ellis’s desk. He opened it, and I remember standing close by and watching two brown hands grab for the small bag of coin lying in the bottom of the drawer. Following this, the three Kurds began rummaging around the room, looking for valuables. I recall about this time noticing Dr. Dodd, as he slipped out of the room back to the sitting-room, to look after the ladies. This I considered as a good thing, and I then realized that it was my task to entertain the three Kurds and keep them away from the ladies.
Dr. Ellis had removed to his study the relief money of which he had charge. There were two Russian safes in the room. One was empty, while the other contained several thousand dollars in money. While the Kurds were rummaging around the room, I walked over to the safe that had the money in it, and tried to open it. Like all Russian safes, it was an iron box with a lid like a trunk, the keyhole being in the top of the lid. Finding the safe was locked, I stood there for a moment, and a horrible sinking feeling began to creep over me as the realization of the situation came to me. There was nothing to do, however, but to play the game; and so I turned back to the Kurds, who were on the other side of the little room. They had pulled the rug off the lounge, had looked under it, had emptied some of the stuff out of the drawers of the desk; and, as I turned, one of them suddenly threw up his rifle, covering me, and, speaking in Turkish, demanded the key to the safe. Now, I honestly did not have the key, and I looked him in the eye over the sights of his rifle and told him so. Recognizing that I was speaking the truth, he put his gun down and began to rummage around again.
About this time one of them found Dr. Ellis’s Corona typewriter in its case. It was heavy and looked like a small bag or box, which, of course, led the Kurd to think that it contained coin of some sort. I moved over to open it for him; but before I could reach him, he had thrown it on the floor and broken the box open. The three men gathered around and peered with wonder at the little metal bars and shiny parts; and I stood there, speaking in English, and tried to demonstrate with my fingers what the typewriter was for. But in a moment they had turned away, looking elsewhere.
I now realized that I must hold their attention and keep them occupied. The thought came to me that I must adopt the principle of going the second mile with these men. Here they were, compelling me to go a mile with them, and now I must also go the second mile. They were taking away my coat, and I must now give them my cloak also; and so I entered into the looting myself and sincerely desired to get the safes open. With this in mind, I began aggressively to direct the attention and activities of the three men toward the opening of the safes. The thought came to me that, possibly, if we shot into the keyhole of the safe, we might spring the lock. (The use of the word ‘we’ comes perfectly natural, because I really joined their party in their efforts to smash the safe open and considered myself as one of them for the moment.) I therefore took hold of the arm of one of the men, and shook it enough to attract his attention; then I put my finger on the keyhole of the safe and, talking to him in English, explained to him that I wished him to fire at the place where I had my finger. He got the idea and raised his rifle; I took my finger away, and he fired. All the people in the next room, of course, hearing the shot, thought, ‘Well, there goes Richards—the Christian pacifist is through.’ But the lock did not spring, and the safe did not open; so he fired a second time, at my suggestion, without result. I then tried to open the safe by pulling and overturning it; but this did no good either.
And here an interesting point arose. The Kurds were growing impatient. The safe had not opened; and suddenly one of them, without a moment s notice, lost control of his temper, threw up his rifle, and hit me on the shoulder with the butt of it. Then a curious thing happened. I had been honestly sincere in trying to help them open the safe; I had joined them in their efforts, and considered myself, for the time being, one of them. This sudden blow on the shoulder, therefore, was a real surprise to me, and I remember turning and looking at the man who struck me with an expression which must have said to him, ‘What are you hitting me for. I am doing everything I can to help you.’ I spoke no word, but he must have read my look; for he put his gun down, and paid no further attention to me.
We continued our efforts with the safe, and finally one of them fired again into the other safe, without springing that lock either. Things were getting more intense for me in my efforts to keep these three men out of the other room. With these failures to open the safes, one of the Kurds again threw his rifle up, and threatened to shoot me if I did not give up the key. But once again I looked him in the eye, and told him what was the truth, — that I did not have the key, — and the shot was not fired.
Finally, this same man came forward, reached down, and began to take off one of my shoes. Thinking that he imagined that I had money in them, I helped him, and also took the other one off for him. Much to my surprise, he took both the shoes and walked into the room where the ladies were, following his two companions who had preceded him. In order to continue to exert my influence on the Kurds against violence, it was necessary for me to continue to play the game with them; and so I followed into the room where the ladies were, and found them all standing up and Dr. Dodd in his shirt sleeves and stocking feet.
It seemed that other Kurds had followed the first three into the house, and had come in to where the ladies were, had demanded their jewelry, and had looked around for what they could carry off. One of them proceeded to go around and open the cupboards and boxes, and some of the ladies and myself, in order to prevent him from breaking things, helped him. The man who had taken my shoes sat down on the piano-stool, took off his own charicks (rawhide sandals), and proceeded to put on my shoes. Finally, after taking a raincoat, an overcoat, Dr. Ellis’s small traveling medical case, and other odds and ends, they all went out,—passing right by the Ellises’ sideboard, on which stood some of their silverware, — and left us alone. It was then that I discovered that Mrs. Richards had entered the sitting-room just as Dr. Dodd and I had passed through it with the first three Kurds, on our way into the study where the safes were. I had not known where she was; but she knew that I was in with the Kurds and, of course, had feared that the firing was directed at me. After a short time, some friendly Kurds came into the room; and before long some of the regular Turkish soldiers appeared to take charge.
I had been through the Kurdish raid, and the first supposititious case. I had been able to act in a general way along the plan outlined theoretically by myself before I left America, and the plan of action had worked. Mrs. Ellis, in her story of the raid, published in the Allantic Monthly for September, 1919, speaks of the situation in these words: ‘I shall always be thankful that Wilder [Dr. Ellis] was kept in the city that morning, for I fear he might have resisted the attack, and in that event he would certainly have been killed.’ Looking back at it, it seems at least a reasonable supposition that, if I had started in to resist, I not only should have been killed myself, but that, in all probability, Dr. Dodd also would have lost his life, and in the excitement even some of the ladies might have been shot.
There is another point in this connection of which I think it worth while to speak. I am temperamentally more or less hot-headed, and when asked in America whether I thought I could stand the strain of watching some Turk or Kurd abuse my wife, or someone whom I loved, without flying into a rage, I had answered that, being a Christian pacifist, I did not believe I should ever be called upon to endure anything beyond my moral strength. I learned after the raid was over that one of the Kurds, coming into the sittingroom while I was occupied with the three men and the safes, had pointed his rifle at Mrs. Richards and threatened her, and that another one had talked about carrying her off to the mountains with him, and had taken her wedding-ring. None of this was I called upon to witness, or even to know about until it was all past. To me this is a striking coincidence, to say the least.
IV
But what about the case of the drunken man, armed and lusting for blood—this being supposititious case number two?
One day in the spring, it must have been some time in May, I was busy in the rear of the yard in the city, supervising the shoeing of a horse. Dr. Ellis was up in the treasury-room, and we two were the only American men in the yards. Mrs. Shedd and Mrs. Richards were in their respective houses. There was the usual crowd at the big gate opening on the street; and scattered through the yards were various people occupied with many kinds of business. Among them were the Kurdish and Moslem refugees, who here, as in the College Compound, were seeking safety from their enemies, the Syrians and Armenians. One of these refugees, a rich and prominent local Moslem, was a particularly bad character, who had aroused the special hatred of the Armenians and Syrians by his abuse of them three years before, when the Turks were in control.
Suddenly I heard an excited roar go up from out near the gate. Leaving the horseshoeing, I ran to see what was going on, and found a panic-stricken group of Syrians and Armenians peeping into the large main yard through a narrow little door. From them I learned that a young Armenian, wilddrunk and armed, had rushed into the yards from the street, crying that he had come to kill Agha Sader — the wealthy refugee rascal. He had entered the main yard through the little door, everybody fleeing before him, and was now alone in the centre of it, crying out to Agha Sader to show himself.
Here was supposititious case number two—the wild drunken man running amuck. What was the Christian thing to do? I could easily have snatched a rifle from someone in the crowd, — a very large proportion of the people were armed, — and shot the drunkard from behind the cover of the wall; but that would not be a loving way of treating him. He was drunk, and I was used to dealing with drunks in the rescuemission work I had done in New York. Also, he had no grudge against me personally. If, therefore, I treated him without showing fear, and very decidedly showing friendliness, there was a good chance that I could persuade him to go home. Of course, there was a serious chance that he might shoot; but if I was a Christian pacifist, I could count on the power of God to control the drunken mind of the young Armenian as long as I held nothing but love for him in my heart.
With this in mind, I entered the little gate and walked quietly but directly toward my man. He was looking for Agha Sader, and holding his gun ready to shoot, crying out as he did so. To reach him I had to walk perhaps one hundred feet in plain view. If I could get up close to him before he saw me, he would perhaps recognize me as not being an enemy. But could I get up close before he turned? I went ahead, passing my house, and saw Mrs. Richards open the door and look out. I motioned to her to keep back as I went on.
I had got about half-way to the Armenian when Mrs. Shedd, who was looking out of a second-story window of her house, spoke to the Armenian, and he swung around to see where the voice came from. This enabled me to come even closer without his seeing me; and when he finally turned toward me, I was only a short distance from him. I smiled and held out my hand, offering to shake hands with him. Here was the test. I strove to appear to this poor drunken mind as a friend who was not afraid. He swung around and caught sight of me, hesitated a moment, and then, drawing himself up to attention, he grounded his rifle and saluted me in unsteady, drunken seriousness. As I came up close to him, I continued to hold out my hand; and much to my surprise, he handed me his gun, saying as he did so, ‘A present.’ Taking the rifle in one hand and his arm in the other, I quietly walked with him to the gate, Dr. Ellis joining me.
Next day the Armenian came around to see me, sober and shamefaced, and apologized for his conduct the day before. I had kept his rifle for him over night, and gave it back to him, along with some very straight talk. I had been through the second supposititious case. The wild, drunken ‘mad dog turned out to be a man, and not a dog at all; and instead of shooting him down the day before, I shook hands with him and we parted on excellent terms. Incidentally, throughout this entire affair, nobody was killed or even injured.
In telling of these two tests, I make no pretense of claiming that they cover completely every possible detail of what might have happened, but they do, at least to a degree, cover some of the ground of the supposititious cases. They both tested out my belief in Christian pacifism; and my theoretical answers to each supposititious case, uttered while I was in America, proved workable in practice nearly nine thousand miles away, among wild, uncivilized, and even drunken people, in Western Asia. I was not tested beyond my ability to hold true to my ideal of action; but so far as I was able to hold fast to the attitude of good-will toward everyone, I found from experience that the results actually obtained amply justified my faith.