Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 January 1915 — Smyrna, the Faihlul City [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Smyrna, the Faihlul City

A SINGLE mention of the name of a person or place in the Bible Is surer guaranty of Immortal fame than to be the subject of- whole libraries of classic literature. With a brilliant hltory for three millenniums, the city of Smyrna, which of late days has become a center of news because one, of its forts fired upon the American flag, is better known for the allusion made to it In the New Testament than for all its other distinctions. Even Its claim to have been the birthplace of Homer is known to relatively few educated persons, says a writer in the Buffalo Express. The romance of religion entwines about Smyrna, called in the days of the Roman empire “the faithful city,” and still loyal, through countless vicissitudes, to Christianity. It is the second' city in the Ottoman empire, having 250,000 inhabitants, and the majority of its people are Christians, chiefly members of the Greek church. Riots and outbreaks from religious causes have always been frequent in Smyrna, down to these later days. The closing book of the Bible is the Apocalypse, or Revelation of St. John the Divine. This book declares, in its prologue, that the revelation

which came by the angel should be addressed to “the seven churches that are in Asia,” of which Smyrna was one of the foremost. While criticism is made of the other churches in the cities of Asia Minor, founded by the apostles, none is uttered against Smyrna. The fame of Smyrna has persisted, in altered form, throughout the centuries. It was often called the most beautiful oity in the world- —a title no longer merited. In Its harbor all the navies of the world could anchor. More than seven thousand steamships pass through its roadstead every year. The Christians have made Smyrna a great commercial center, and more than one thousand European and American business men are numbered among its cosmopolitan population. The principal business thoroughfare — a narrow highway through which carriages and caravans of camels pass with difficulty—is called the Street of the Pranks, or foreigners; a name which probably goes back to the time of the occupation of Smyrna by the Crusaders. The more modern buildings, including the consulates, arc directly on the water front, on the great Bund. ■ Every stick of licorice that American youngsters chew and all the licorice that goes into American chewing tobacco, medicine and confectionery comes from Smyrna, where one of the "Wubsidiary corporations of the American Tobacco company has Its headquarteTA Smyrna figs are the most celebrated exports, although rugs and tobacco bulk large in the consular invoices. American trained Greeks have given new prestige to the fig industry by introducing .Western methods of sanitary preparation* and packing of the •Produof; Gateway to Asia- Minor. Smyrna is still, as of yore, the principal gateway to Asia Minor, and most \

American missionaries working in the interior enter and leave via Smyrna. From this city one may go by rail in two hours to ancient Ephesus or to the original city of Philadelphia. There is railway connection at Aflum Kara Hissar with theJßagdad railway and Constantinople. Our present concern with the hustling and rather quarrelsome old city is religious. Here most of the sects of the East and West impinge. An hour’s stroll along the Bund or amid the bazaars and foreign shops of Frank street makes this plain. Most of the men wear the red fez, but that is a sigirCf Ottoman citizenship and not of religion. Christian and Moslem both wear it. These men with the big white or green turbans, however, we know as hadjis, or Moslems who have made the pilgrimage to Mecca. The very closeness of the' contact in Smyrna between the followers of the Carpenter of Nazareth and of the Camel Driver of Mecca has led to frequent clashes and a sort of religious irritability. Greek /priests, in flowing black robes and with tall circular black hat, with a projecting rim at the top, are numerous. They are eager champions of the civil as well as the religious rights of their people. The

Armenian priests, also dressed In black, but with smaller headgear, are seen less frequently. The Latin church, as the church of Rome is called in the Levant, is represented by the three missionary bodies, the Jesuits and Dominicans in black and the Franciscans in brown. They do an extensive missionary and educational work in Turkey. Their headquarters are in Europe where they are taught before beginning their work. American Missions Thera. American missions at Smyrna are maintained by the American board of Boston. Their chief plants are the International institute and the Girls' school. Owing to the troubled conditions brought about by the war, all the foreign schools have been seriously hampered. The International institute has now between 150 and 200 students, of various races and This is far below normal, but the other four largest foreign Behoofs have less than a dozen boarders among them all. The neutrality and popularity of the American flag in this crisis is tiie reason for this disparity. A company of boy scouts is maintained in the institute. In the subapoßtolic age the city of Smyrna won the name among the early Chrißtians of “the gateway of the martyrs,” because so many Christians from the churches of Asia Minor passed through it on their way to suffer martyrdom at Rome. The tomb of Polycarp is today the most celebrated sight tof the city. Polycarp, who was a disciple of Saint John, suffered martyrdom here in the year 156. ' ■' Because of the religious sensitiveness of the community and the danger of a clash between . the Moslems and the foreign warships have usually found it necessary to proceed to Smyrna whenever there BAs bee trouble in the Levant