(CHAPTER X V I I )
ARABS, ARMENIANS, CATHOLICS
I looked up to heaven. "What sin have these people
committed against Thee?" I asked. "What wrongs
have my people done to deserve the millions massacred and maimed since they embraced Christianity? Are not these chapels and cathedrals and the
daily Masses and offerings of prayer sufficient proof
of their faith in Thee and Thy works? . . . Why,
then, do You oppress them thus?"
THE war had taken much out of the Patriarch since I had
seen him that last frantic day of the Mandate. His beard had
whitened during my absence. He appeared thinner, and was
haggard—his usually plump cheeks drawn tighter against the
cheek bones, his eyes weary, though still ablaze with unquenchable vitality.
His people had all gathered around him like frightened
children around their father. There were the Armenians who
fled in panic from the New City leaving their property to be
looted and appropriated by the Jews; Armenians from quarters adjoining the Jewish section of the Old City, whose
homes had long ago been picked clean by the Arabs; Armenians from near-by villages, in fear of their lives; the old
and tottering who could remember the massacres of Sultan
Hamid, the Damned; the young and vigorous, the soldier, the