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The Christian population was at the mercy of Turks and Kurds and Persians. Dr. Shedd hastened to the Russian Consulate and found it already dismantled and everybody getting ready to leave. It was evident there was no help from the Russians and taking leave of the Consul with the words, ''Panah ba Khuda,” ''Refuge with God," he returned to the city. — Mary Lewis Shedd, writing of her husband in the midst of events in Urmia, Persia (now Iran), on January 1, 1915, as the Armenian genocide was unfolding, in The Measure of a Man: The Life of William Ambrose Shedd, Missionary to Persia (1922), p. 141.
American Presbyterian missionaries to Persia were deeply affected by the events connected with the political situation resulting from World War I, including what has come to be known as the Armenian Genocide, a term first used officially today (April 24, 2021) by an American President, Joseph Biden, on Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day.
The story is told from the perspective of missionaries on the ground, such as William Ambrose Shedd and his wife Mary Lewis Shedd, and others including Mary A. Schauffler Labaree Platt, author of The War Journal of a Missionary in Persia (1915), and Frederick G. Coan, author of Yesterdays in Persia and Kurdistan (1939) [not yet available on Log College Press, but hopefully soon]. Coan’s 1918 account of some aspects of the genocide is particularly gripping.
Simonetta Carr published a very helpful sketch last year of these tragic events as they relate to the Shedds which is available here. The atrocities are heart-breaking to read about. It is estimated that around 1 million Armenians were slaughtered. Many American Presbyterians were eyewitnesses to the horrors of massacre and war resulting in the shedding of much innocent blood. It was a time of grief and sadness, but also a time of courage and of prayer in the midst of suffering. But we do well to harken to the words (which Simonetta has highlighted, found in Mary L. Shedd, The Measure of a Man: The Life of William Ambrose Shedd, Missionary to Persia (1922), p. 280) of Rev. Shedd, who wrote in 1916:
It lies with us to see that the blood shed and the suffering endured are not in vain. May God grant and may we who know so well the wrongs that have been borne, so labor that the cause of these wrongs be removed. That will be done when Christ rules in the hearts of those who profess His name and is acknowledged by all, not merely as a great prophet but as the Saviour for Whose coming prophecy prepared the way, Who is the fulfillment of revelation, and in Whom human destiny will find its goal.
