ST. SOPHIA, CONSTANTINOPLE Once the most beautiful church of the eastern empire. Built by Justinian in A.D. 532 to replace Constantine's church. which had been burned. Dedicated to the divine wisdom; now a mosque. Christian symbols still show through the whitewash with which the Moslems covered them. THE HIPPODROME, TURKISH, ATMEIDAN SQUARE, CONSTANTINOPLE The floor of Constantine's ancient race-course is twelve feet below the present level. From the Hippodrome came the bronze horses of St. Mark's in Venice. The obelisk on the left, from fleliopolis, Egypt, celebrates the victories of Thothmes III. It was set up here by Theodosius. Drs. WASHBURN and GATES Ex-President and President Robert College, Constantinople REV. ERNEST BOURNER ALLEN, TOLEDO, OHIO CONSTANTINOPLE is the key to three continents. Its strategic position has been recognized by Roman and Saracen, Crusader and Christian. Across the old Galata bridge to Stamboul streams the life and pageantry of the the Orient. Touch Constantinople and you touch the millions of Mohammedanism. There, in the nineteenth century, came the Goodells and Schaufflers, the Dwights and Homes, to publish the "good tidings." The story of their faithful and victorious service is thrilling. men. "Select good ancestors," was Beecher's advice. It is as good for institutions as for Bebek Seminary was the forefather of Robert College, the latter a type of the most effective missionary endeavor. Christian education is a mighty factor in the evolution and uplift of nations. No man can measure the power of that little seminary on the Bosphorus. Protestant Missions have. existed here since 1831, when Dr. Wm. Goodell was sent out by the American Board. "A fool's folly" they called it then. The little group of workers faced every hardship and danger. The Bible and all textbooks had to be translated into Armenian. The influence upon the language was as great as that of Luther's Bible upon the German. ROBERT COLLEGE, PROTESTANT AND EVANGELICAL, CONSTANTINOPLE Founded 1863 by Christopher R. Robert, a S. S. superintendent of New York Cyrus Hamlin was first president, Dr. George Washburn said to the delegates, "You meet here to-day under the American flag, on American ground, under the protection of the American government, privileges conceded by H. M. the Sultan." Dr. C. F. Gates, president. They found the language clay and iron. They left it gold. And it was only recently that Mr. Arslan Sahagian, one of the first graduates of that Bebek school, left his entire estate in New York, eighty thousand dollars, to the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. It is the first large financial fruit of two generations of sacrificial missionary service. The college owes its existence to a remarkable series of providential events, before whose glory the traditions of Yale or Oxford pale. The Civil War was raging when they raised the first endowment. Christopher R. Robert, whose name. the college bears, was the real backer of the enterprise. He had the significant record of being a Sunday-school superintendent in New York for twenty years, and never once tardy. Without him and the indefatigable Hamlin that first Christian college in Turkey might have been deferred half a century. But God has his men ready at the right time. For seven years Dr. Hamlin labored for permission to buy a site and build. Diplomats and financiers, distinguished travelers and others, lent their aid in vain. "Will this Mr. Hamlin never die and let me alone on this college question?" cried the Grand Vizier, Aali Pasha, irritated by the patience and persistence of the missionary. Then came an historic day when Admiral Farragut sailed up the Sea of Marmora to Constantinople in 1867. He had a Yankee's persistent question, which he asked right and left of Grand Vizier and Pasha: Why can't the American college be built?" That question may have done more than anything else to persuade the authorities into diplomatic acquiescence. Very soon, therefore, came |