THE RED RUGS OF TARSUS
the room together with the broom as she did her sweeping.
I can never think of the Armenians without a stirring of the heart in affection and admira- ation. How can Americans resist the call to help people who have the courage to die for their faith? One has to be brought to their level of suffering, to be put into the situation in which they have lived during centuries of Turkish oppression, to understand them. Mother, they are heroes these Armenians, children and grand-children of heroes. It is nothing spectacular that they have done, except in periods of massacre like this. But all along they have kept the faith, they have pre- served their distinct nationality, when an easy path lay before them, were they willing to turn from Christ to Mohammed. I see now so viv- idly what they have been born to, what they grow up from early childhood fearing. Is not the greatest heroism in the world the silent en- durance of oppression that cannot be remedied, [152]
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