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Show Helen Stone's Captivity.. EVERYTHING ELSE in the form of sensation having had Its nine days' talk. Miss Helen M. Stone's captivity has the right of way. Miss Stone is the Protestant missFonary who courageously undertook a journey through the mountainous region of i Turkey, accompanied by a Bulgarian lady convert, the Bulgarian lady convert's con-vert's husband and a party consisting ,of probably less than a dozen people altogether. The party was surprised by brigands and despoiled of their valuables. val-uables. That was not all. Divining that Miss Stone was a person of some consequence, and as pod1- or np L quence are always good for a ransom, the brigands held her as a prize, along with the other woman. The rest of j Miss Stone's companions were allowed to pursue their way homeward as best they could. The first reports intimated that unless un-less a ransom calling for $100,000 was speedily paid to the chief of the bandits. ban-dits. Miss Stone would be compelled to marry one of the band. That was indeed awful. Sober reflection, reflec-tion, however, disputed the authenticity au-thenticity of such a report. What would a roving, light-hearted though wicked bandit do with an un- ; willing bride like Miss Stone? If the robber was out for youth and j beauty, he could find it in the huts ! along the mountain side. So the second report was more readily believed. The bandits wanted the ransom money on pain of death to the captive. And they will get it, in spite of all the ingenuity in-genuity and power of governments and states to hunt them down. Already nearly half of it has been contributed in this country by the friends and coreligionists co-religionists of . the captive missionary. Although ah American woman has been deprived of her liberty, so far nothing has been done to attach the blame upon either the Turkish or Bulgarian Bul-garian governments. The surprise and capture occurred upon Turkish territory terri-tory and the act was cbmmitted by Bulgarian bandits. The sultan will throw every obstacle in the way of proper investigation and evade the responsibility. re-sponsibility. So will the Bulgarian government. Meantime the life of an American is at stake. Nothing can be done by diplomacy or red tape against a bandit's ultimatum. Thus are the American people humiliated and held up by a nation of scrubs. What effect Miss Stone's adventure win have upon future Protestant missions mis-sions in that country is mere guess. If all Protestant missionaries are worth as much as Miss Stone for ransom, ran-som, the treasury will soon be bankrupt; bank-rupt; for, elated with their last success, suc-cess, these Bulgarian land pirates will be even more daring and impudent in future demands. This phase of the question now confronts the Trotestant missionary board. How different all this would be should a Catholic missionary be taken captive in the' way Miss Stone was entrapped. en-trapped. Would that priest or Sister send out an appeal to the Catholic world to obtain liberty through ransom? ran-som? That has not been the past history his-tory of Catholic missions. Instead, the missionary priest would cheerfully suffer suf-fer death and yield his life to martyrdom, martyr-dom, because of his vow. Church annals an-nals are full of such examples, and we can recall no effort made by Catholics to ransom Catholic 'missionaries as is now being made to rescue Miss Stone. One hundred thousand dollars would pay the expenses of.a dozen Franciscans Francis-cans for years among the heathen. What signifies one life to martyrdom alongside the good twelve might do spreading the truth among all the nations na-tions of the earth! |