There was one very interesting feature of this year's
strange life and work. Some time before, the Armenians
of the city in their poverty had undertaken to establish
and maintain a Home for some of the old women alone in
life and poor. They had rented a house and received two
persons. When the deportations came, city officials,
instead of troubling to send some of the old women on
the road, told them to go to this Home. One by one
about 50 persons tottered there, each with a bag of
flour, or other food, or bedding, on her shoulder, and
there they stayed. One day one of them died and I was
asked to conduct a burial service. It was pitiful the
way those poor human waifs crowded around me and said,
"Badvelli (Reverend), won't you bury me? Won't you bury
me? I'd go gladly today if I could only go to the other
world with a Christian burial". After that, all through
the fall and winter, I went there and held a service
every Sunday. One student dared to go with me and help
in the service. He could sing; he was a Russian. I was
the minister and he was the choir. A good lady teacher
from the Girls' School, Pampish Prapione, was often at
the Home and was intimate and profoundly helpful among
the lonely old women there.
Two of them were Protestants, whether Church "members"
or not; all the rest were Gregorians, in the habit of
receiving the communion at Easter and greatly cherishing
the opportunity. They felt kindly toward me, yet I was
not sure they would regard themselves authorized to
receive the sacrament from an ecclesiastic of another
denomination. But I announced in advance that I was a
Christian minister of my church as they knew well, that
on Easter Sunday I would come to celebrate the sacrament
of the Lord's Supper, and that I heartily invited everyone
to share who wanted to do so without any question as to
church "membership", official denomination, or other such
condition. When Easter came, infinitely solemn and yet
glad, every one of those simple, kindly old women partook
of the communion at my hands. I think that was for me the
richest celebration of the Lord's Supper in all my life.