Chapter II: The Turk

THE TARTAR AND THE TURK

You may think, Gentlemen, I have been very
long in coming to the Turks, and indeed I have
been longer than I could have wished; but I
have thought it necessary, in order to your taking
a just view of them, that you should survey them 5
first of all in their original condition. When they
first appear in history they are Huns or Tartars,
and nothing else; they are indeed in no
unimportant respects Tartars even now; but, had they
never been made something more than Tartars, 10
they never would have had much to do with the
history of the world. In that case, they would
have had only the fortunes of Attila and Zingis;
they might have swept over the face of the earth,
and scourged the human race, powerful to destroy, 15
helpless to construct, and in consequence
ephemeral; but this would have been all. But this has
not been all, as regards the Turks; for, in spite
of their intimate resemblance or relationship to
the Tartar tribes, in spite of their essential 20
barbarism to this day, still they, or at least great
portions of the race, have been put under
education; they have been submitted to a slow
course of change, with a long history and a profitable
discipline and fortunes of a peculiar kind;
and thus they have gained those qualities of
mind, which alone enable a nation to wield and
to consolidate imperial power.

I have said that, when first they distinctly 5
appear on the scene of history, they are
indistinguishable from Tartars. Mount Altai, the
high metropolis of Tartary, is surrounded by a
hilly district, rich not only in the useful, but in
the precious metals. Gold is said to abound 10
there; but it is still more fertile in veins of iron,
which indeed is said to be the most plentiful in
the world. There have been iron works there
from time immemorial, and at the time that the
Huns descended on the Roman Empire (in the 15
fifth century of the Christian era), we find
the Turks nothing more than a family of slaves,
employed as workers of the ore and as blacksmiths
by the dominant tribe. Suddenly in the course
of fifty years, soon after the fall of the Hunnish 20
power in Europe, with the sudden development
peculiar to Tartars, we find these Turks spread
from East to West, and lords of a territory so
extensive, that they were connected, by relations
of peace or war, at once with the Chinese, the 25
Persians, and the Romans. They had reached
Kamtchatka on the North, the Caspian on the
West, and perhaps even the mouth of the Indus
on the South. Here then we have an
intermediate empire of Tartars, placed between the 30
eras of Attila and Zingis; but in this sketch it has
no place, except as belonging to Turkish history,
because it was contained within the limits of
Asia, and, though it lasted for 200 years, it only
faintly affected the political transactions of
Europe. However, it was not without some sort 5
of influence on Christendom, for the Romans
interchanged embassies with its sovereign in the
reign of the then Greek Emperor Justin the
younger (A.D. 570), with the view of engaging
him in a warlike alliance against Persia. The 10
account of one of these embassies remains, and
the picture it presents of the Turks is important,
because it seems clearly to identify them with
the Tartar race.

For instance, in the mission to the Tartars 15
from the Pope, which I have already spoken of,
the friars were led between two fires, when they
approached the Khan, and they at first refused
to follow, thinking they might be countenancing
some magical rite. Now we find it recorded of 20
this Roman embassy, that, on its arrival, it was
purified by the Turks with fire and incense. As
to incense, which seems out of place among such
barbarians, it is remarkable that it is used in
the ceremonial of the Turkish court to this day. 25
At least Sir Charles Fellows, in his work on the
Antiquities of Asia Minor, in 1838, speaks of the
Sultan as going to the festival of Bairam with
incense-bearers before him. Again, when the
Romans were presented to the great Khan, they 30
found him in his tent, seated on a throne, to which
wheels were attached and horses attachable, in
other words, a Tartar wagon. Moreover, they
were entertained at a banquet which lasted the
greater part of the day; and an intoxicating
liquor, not wine, which was sweet and pleasant, 5
was freely presented to them; evidently the
Tartar _koumiss_.[32] The next day they had a
second entertainment in a still more splendid
tent; the hangings were of embroidered silk, and
the throne, the cups, and the vases were of gold. 10
On the third day, the pavilion, in which they were
received, was supported on gilt columns; a couch
of massive gold was raised on four gold peacocks;
and before the entrance to the tent was what
might be called a sideboard, only that it was a 15
sort of barricade of wagons, laden with dishes,
basins, and statues of solid silver. All these
points in the description--the silk hangings, the
gold vessels, the successively increasing splendor
of the entertainments--remind us of the courts 20
of Zingis and Timour, 700 and 900 years
afterwards.

[32] Univ. Hist. Modern, vol. iii. p. 346.

This empire, then, of the Turks was of a Tartar
character; yet it was the first step of their
passing from barbarism to that degree of civilization 25
which is their historical badge. And it was their
first step in civilization, not so much by what
it did in its day, as (unless it be a paradox to
say so) by its coming to an end. Indeed it so
happens, that those Turkish tribes which have 30
changed their original character and have a place
in the history of the world, have obtained their
_status_ and their qualifications for it, by a process
very different from that which took place in the
nations most familiar to us. What this process 5
has been I will say presently; first, however, let
us observe that, fortunately for our purpose, we
have still specimens existing of those other
Turkish tribes, which were never submitted to
this process of education and change, and, in 10
looking at them as they now exist, we see at this
very day the Turkish nationality in something
very like its original form, and are able to decide
for ourselves on its close approximation to the
Tartar. You may recollect I pointed out to 15
you, Gentlemen, in the opening of these lectures,
the course which the pastoral tribes, or nomads
as they are often called, must necessarily take
in their emigrations. They were forced along
in one direction till they emerged from their 20
mountain valleys, and descended their high
plateau at the end of Tartary, and then they had
the opportunity of turning south. If they did
not avail themselves of this opening, but went on
still westward, their next southern pass would 25
be the defiles of the Caucasus and Circassia, to
the west of the Caspian. If they did not use this,
they would skirt the top of the Black Sea, and
so reach Europe. Thus in the emigration of the
Huns from China, you may recollect a tribe of 30
them turned to the South as soon as they could,
and settled themselves between the high Tartar
land and the sea of Aral, while the main body
went on to the furthest West by the north of the
Black Sea. Now with this last passage into
Europe we are not here concerned, for the Turks 5
have never introduced themselves to Europe by
means of it;[33] but with those two southward
passages which are Asiatic, viz., that to the east
of the Aral, and that to the west of the Caspian.
The Turkish tribes have all descended upon the 10
civilized world by one or other of these two roads;
and I observe, that those which have descended
along the east of the Aral have changed their
social habits and gained political power, while
those which descended to the west of the Caspian 15
remain pretty much what they ever were. The
former of these go among us by the general
name of Turks; the latter are the Turcomans
or Turkmans.... At the very date at which
Heraclius called the Turcomans into Georgia, at 20
the very date when their Eastern brethren
crossed the northern border of Sogdiana, an event
of most momentous import had occurred in the
South. A new religion had arisen in Arabia.
The impostor Mahomet, announcing himself the 25
Prophet of God, was writing the pages of that
book, and molding the faith of that people, which
was to subdue half the known world. The Turks
passed the Jaxartes southward in A.D. 626; just
four years before Mahomet had assumed the royal
dignity, and just six years after, on his death,
his followers began the conquest of the Persian
Empire. In the course of 20 years they effected
it; Sogdiana was at its very extremity, or its 5
borderland; there the last king of Persia took
refuge from the south, while the Turks were
pouring into it from the north. There was little to
choose for the unfortunate prince between the
Turk and the Saracen; the Turks were his 10
hereditary foe; they had been the giants and
monsters of the popular poetry; but he threw
himself into their arms. They engaged in his
service, betrayed him, murdered him, and
measured themselves with the Saracens in his stead. 15
Thus the military strength of the north and south
of Asia, the Saracenic and the Turkish, came into
memorable conflict in the regions of which I have
said so much. The struggle was a fierce one, and
lasted many years; the Turks striving to force 20
their way down to the ocean, the Saracens to
drive them back into their Scythian deserts.
They first fought this issue in Bactriana or
Khorasan; the Turks got the worst of the fight,
and then it was thrown back upon Sogdiana 25
itself, and there it ended again in favor of the
Saracens. At the end of 90 years from the time
of the first Turkish descent on this fair region,
they relinquished it to their Mahometan
opponents. The conquerors found it rich, populous, 30
and powerful; its cities, Carisme, Bokhara, and
Samarcand, were surrounded beyond their
fortifications by a suburb of fields and gardens, which
was in turn protected by exterior works; its plains
were well cultivated, and its commerce extended
from China to Europe. Its riches were 5
proportionally great; the Saracens were able to extort
a tribute of two million gold pieces from the
inhabitants; we read, moreover, of the crown
jewels of one of the Turkish princesses; and of
the buskin of another, which she dropt in her 10
flight from Bokhara, as being worth two
thousand pieces of gold.[34] Such had been the prosperity
of the barbarian invaders, such was its end; but
not _their_ end, for adversity did them service, as
well as prosperity, as we shall see. 15

[33] I am here assuming that the Magyars are not of the Turkish
stock; vid. Gibbon and Pritchard.

[34] Gibbon.

It is usual for historians to say, that the
triumph of the South threw the Turks back again
upon their northern solitudes; and this might
easily be the case with some of the many hordes,
which were ever passing the boundary and 20
flocking down; but it is no just account of the
historical fact, viewed as a whole. Not often indeed
do the Oriental nations present us with an
example of versatility of character; the Turks, for
instance, of this day are substantially what they 25
were four centuries ago. We cannot conceive,
were Turkey overrun by the Russians at the
present moment, that the fanatical tribes, which
are pouring into Constantinople from Asia Minor,
would submit to the foreign yoke, take service 30
under their conquerors, become soldiers,
custom-officers, police, men of business, attaches,
statesmen, working their way up from the ranks and
from the masses into influence and power; but,
whether from skill in the Saracens, or from 5
far-reaching sagacity in the Turks (and it is difficult
to assign it to either cause), so it was, that a
process of this nature followed close upon the
Mahometan conquest of Sogdiana. It is to be
traced in detail to a variety of accidents. Many 10
of the Turks probably were made slaves, and the
service to which they were subjected was no
matter of choice. Numbers had got attached to
the soil; and inheriting the blood of Persians,
White Huns, or aboriginal inhabitants for three 15
generations, had simply unlearned the wildness
of the Tartar shepherd. Others fell victims to
the religion of their conquerors, which ultimately,
as we know, exercised a most remarkable
influence upon them. Not all at once, but as 20
tribe descended after tribe, and generation
followed generation, they succumbed to the creed
of Mahomet; and they embraced it with the
ardor and enthusiasm which Franks and Saxons
so gloriously and meritoriously manifested in their 25
conversion to Christianity.

Here again was a very powerful instrument
in modification of their national character. Let
me illustrate it in one particular. If there is one
peculiarity above another, proper to the savage 30
and to the Tartar, it is that of excitability and
impetuosity on ordinary occasions; the Turks,
on the other hand, are nationally remarkable for
gravity and almost apathy of demeanor. Now
there are evidently elements in the Mahometan
creed, which would tend to change them from 5
the one temperament to the other. Its
sternness, its coldness, its doctrine of fatalism; even
the truths which it borrowed from Revelation,
when separated from the truths it rejected, its
monotheism untempered by mediation, its severe 10
view of the Divine attributes, of the law, and of a
sure retribution to come, wrought both a gloom
and also an improvement in the barbarian, not
very unlike the effect which some forms of
Protestantism produce among ourselves. But 15
whatever was the mode of operation, certainly
it is to their religion that this peculiarity of the
Turks is ascribed by competent judges.
Lieutenant Wood in his journal gives us a lively
account of a peculiarity of theirs, which he 20
unhesitatingly attributes to Islamism. "Nowhere,"
he says, "is the difference between European and
Mahometan society more strongly marked than
in the lower walks of life.... A Kasid, or
messenger, for example, will come into a public 25
department, deliver his letters in full durbar, and
demean himself throughout the interview with
so much composure and self-possession, that an
European can hardly believe that his grade in
society is so low. After he has delivered his 30
letters, he takes his seat among the crowd, and
answers, calmly and without hesitation, all the
questions which may be addressed to him, or
communicates the verbal instructions with which
he has been intrusted by his employer, and
which are often of more importance than the 5
letters themselves. Indeed, all the inferior classes
possess an innate self-respect, and a natural
gravity of deportment, which differs as far from
the suppleness of a Hindustani as from the
awkward rusticity of an English clown." ... "Even 10
children," he continues, "in Mahometan countries
have an unusual degree of gravity in their
deportment. The boy, who can but lisp his 'Peace be
with you,' has imbibed this portion of the national
character. In passing through a village, these 15
little men will place their hands upon their
breasts, and give the usual greeting. Frequently
have I seen the children of chiefs approach their
father's durbar, and stopping short at the
threshold of the door, utter the shout of 'Salam 20
Ali-Kum,' so as to draw all eyes upon them; but
nothing daunted, they marched boldly into the
room, and sliding down upon their knees, folded
their arms and took their seat upon the musnad
with all the gravity of grown-up persons." 25

As Islamism has changed the demeanor of the
Turks, so doubtless it has in other ways materially
innovated on their Tartar nature. It has given
an aim to their military efforts, a political
principle, and a social bond. It has laid them under 30
a sense of responsibility, has molded them into
consistency, and taught them a course of policy
and perseverance in it. But to treat this part
of the subject adequately to its importance would
require, Gentlemen, a research and a fullness of
discussion unsuitable to the historical sketch 5
which I have undertaken. I have said enough
for my purpose upon this topic; and indeed
on the general question of the modification of
national character to which the Turks were at
this period subjected. 10

THE TURK AND THE SARACEN

Mere occupation of a rich country is not
enough for civilization, as I have granted already.
The Turks came into the pleasant plains and
valleys of Sogdiana; the Turcomans into the
well-wooded mountains and sunny slopes of Asia 15
Minor. The Turcomans were brought out of
their dreary deserts, yet they retained their old
habits, and they remain barbarians to this day.
But why? it must be borne in mind, they neither
subjugated the inhabitants of their new country 20
on the one hand, nor were subjugated by them
on the other. They never had direct or intimate
relations with it; they were brought into it by
the Roman Government at Constantinople as its
auxiliaries, but they never naturalized themselves 25
there. They were like gypsies in England, except
that they were mounted freebooters instead of
pilferers and fortune tellers. It was far otherwise
with their brethren in Sogdiana; they were
there first as conquerors, then as conquered.
First they held it in possession as their prize for
90 or 100 years; they came into the usufruct and
enjoyment of it. Next, their political ascendency 5
over it involved, as in the case of the White Huns,
some sort of moral surrender of themselves to it.
What was the first consequence of this? that,
like the White Huns, they intermarried with the
races they found there. We know the custom 10
of the Tartars and Turks; under such
circumstances they would avail themselves of their
national practice of polygamy to its full extent
of license. In the course of twenty years a new
generation would arise of a mixed race; and 15
these in turn would marry into the native
population, and at the end of ninety or a hundred
years we should find the great-grandsons or the
great-great-grandsons of the wild marauders who
first crossed the Jaxartes, so different from their 20
ancestors in features both of mind and body,
that they hardly would be recognized as deserving
the Tartar name. At the end of that period their
power came to an end, the Saracens became
masters of them and of their country, but the 25
process of emigration southward from the
Scythian desert, which had never intermitted during
the years of their domination, continued still,
though that domination was no more.

Here it is necessary to have a clear idea of the 30
nature of that association of the Turkish tribes
from the Volga to the Eastern Sea, to which I
have given the name of Empire: it was not so
much of a political as of a national character;
it was the power, not of a system, but of a race.
They were not one well-organized state, but a 5
number of independent tribes, acting generally
together, acknowledging one leader or not,
according to circumstances, combining and
coöperating from the identity of object which acted
on them, and often jealous of each other and 10
quarreling with each other on account of that
very identity. Each tribe made its way down to
the south as it could; one blocked up the way of
the other for a time; there were stoppages and
collisions, but there was a continual movement 15
and progress. Down they came one after another,
like wolves after their prey; and as the tribes
which came first became partially civilized, and
as a mixed generation arose, these would naturally
be desirous of keeping back their less polished 20
uncles or cousins, if they could; and would do so
successfully for a while: but cupidity is stronger
than conservatism; and so, in spite of delay and
difficulty, down they would keep coming, and
down they did come, even after and in spite of 25
the overthrow of their Empire; crowding down
as to a new world, to get what they could, as
adventurers, ready to turn to the right or the
left, prepared to struggle on anyhow, willing to
be forced forward into countries farther still, 30
careless what might turn up, so that they did but
get down. And this was the process which went
on (whatever were their fortunes when they
actually got down, prosperous or adverse) for
400, nay, I will say for 700 years. The
storehouse of the north was never exhausted; it 5
sustained the never ending run upon its resources.

I was just now referring to a change in the
Turks, which I have mentioned before, and
which had as important a bearing as any other
of their changes upon their subsequent fortunes. 10
It was a change in their physiognomy and shape,
so striking as to recommend them to their
masters for the purposes of war or of display.
Instead of bearing any longer the hideous exterior
which in the Huns frightened the Romans and 15
Goths, they were remarkable, even as early as the
ninth century, when they had been among the
natives of Sogdiana only two hundred years,
for the beauty of their persons. An important
political event was the result: hence the 20
introduction of the Turks into the heart of the
Saracenic empire. By this time the Caliphs had
removed from Damascus to Bagdad; Persia was
the imperial province, and into Persia they were
introduced for the reason I have mentioned, 25
sometimes as slaves, sometimes as captives taken
in war, sometimes as mercenaries for the
Saracenic armies: at length they were enrolled as
guards to the Caliph, and even appointed to
offices in the palace, to the command of the forces, 30
and to governorships in the provinces. The son
of the celebrated Harun al Raschid had as many
as 50,000 of these troops in Bagdad itself. And
thus slowly and silently they made their way to
the south, not with the pomp and pretense of
conquest, but by means of that ordinary 5
inter-communion which connected one portion of the
empire of the Caliphs with another. In this
manner they were introduced even into Egypt.

This was their history for a hundred and fifty
years, and what do we suppose would be the 10
result of this importation of barbarians into the
heart of a nourishing empire? Would they be
absorbed as slaves or settlers in the mass of the
population, or would they, like mercenaries
elsewhere, be fatal to the power that introduced 15
them? The answer is not difficult, considering
that their very introduction argued a want of
energy and resource in the rulers whom they
served. To employ them was a confession of
weakness; the Saracenic power indeed was not 20
very aged, but the Turkish was much younger,
and more vigorous; then too must be
considered the difference of national character
between the Turks and the Saracens. A writer of
the beginning of the present century[35] compares 25
the Turks to the Romans; such parallels are
generally fanciful and fallacious; but, if we must
accept it in the present instance, we may
complete the picture by likening the Saracens and
Persians to the Greeks, and we know what was 30
the result of the collision between Greece and
Rome. The Persians were poets, the Saracens
were philosophers. The mathematics, astronomy,
and botany were especial subjects of the studies of
the latter. Their observatories were celebrated, 5
and they may be considered to have originated
the science of chemistry. The Turks, on the
other hand, though they are said to have a
literature, and though certain of their princes have
been patrons of letters, have never distinguished 10
themselves in exercises of pure intellect; but
they have had an energy of character, a
pertinacity, a perseverance, and a political talent, in
a word, they then had the qualities of mind
necessary for ruling, in far greater measure, than 15
the people they were serving. The Saracens,
like the Greeks, carried their arms over the
surface of the earth with an unrivaled brilliancy
and an uncheckered success; but their dominion,
like that of Greece, did not last for more than 20
200 or 300 years. Rome grew slowly through
many centuries, and its influence lasts to this
day; the Turkish race battled with difficulties
and reverses, and made its way on amid tumult
and complication, for a good 1000 years from 25
first to last, till at length it found itself in
possession of Constantinople, and a terror to the
whole of Europe. It has ended its career upon
the throne of Constantine; it began it as the
slave and hireling of the rulers of a great empire, 30
of Persia and Sogdiana.

[35] Thornton.

As to Sogdiana, we have already reviewed one
season of power and then in turn of reverse which
there befell the Turks; and next a more
remarkable outbreak and its reaction mark their presence
in Persia. I have spoken of the formidable force, 5
consisting of Turks, which formed the guard of
the Caliphs immediately after the time of Harun
al Raschid: suddenly they rebelled against
their master, burst into his apartment at the
hour of supper, murdered him, and cut his body 10
into seven pieces. They got possession of the
symbols of imperial power, the garment and the
staff of Mahomet, and proceeded to make and
unmake Caliphs at their pleasure. In the course
of four years they had elevated, deposed, and 15
murdered as many as three. At their wanton
caprice, they made these successors of the false
prophet the sport of their insults and their blows.
They dragged them by the feet, stripped them,
and exposed them to the burning sun, beat them 20
with iron clubs, and left them for days without
food. At length, however, the people of Bagdad
were roused in defense of the Caliphate, and the
Turks for a time were brought under; but they
remained in the country, or rather, by the 25
short-sighted policy of the moment, were dispersed
throughout it, and thus became in the sequel
ready-made elements of revolution for the
purposes of other traitors of their own race, who, at
a later period, as we shall presently see, descended 30
on Persia from Turkistan.

Indeed, events were opening the way slowly,
but surely, to their ascendency. Throughout the
whole of the tenth century, which followed, they
seem to disappear from history; but a silent
revolution was all along in progress, leading them 5
forward to their great destiny. The empire of
the Caliphate was already dying in its
extremities, and Sogdiana was one of the first countries
to be detached from his power. The Turks were
still there, and, as in Persia, filled the ranks of the 10
army and the offices of the government; but the
political changes which took place were not at
first to their visible advantage. What first
occurred was the revolt of the Caliph's viceroy,
who made himself a great kingdom or empire out 15
of the provinces around, extending it from the
Jaxartes, which was the northern boundary of
Sogdiana, almost to the Indian Ocean, and
from the confines of Georgia to the mountains
of Afghanistan. The dynasty thus established 20
lasted for four generations and for the space of
ninety years. Then the successor happened to
be a boy; and one of his servants, the governor
of Khorasan, an able and experienced man, was
forced by circumstances to rebellion against him. 25
He was successful, and the whole power of this
great kingdom fell into his hands; now he was a
Tartar or Turk; and thus at length the Turks
suddenly appear in history, the acknowledged
masters of a southern dominion. 30

This is the origin of the celebrated Turkish
dynasty of the Gaznevides, so called after Gazneh,
or Ghizni, or Ghuznee, the principal city, and it
lasted for two hundred years. We are not
particularly concerned in it, because it has no direct
relations with Europe; but it falls into our 5
subject, as having been instrumental to the advance
of the Turks towards the West. Its most
distinguished monarch was Mahmood, and he
conquered Hindostan, which became eventually
the seat of the empire. In Mahmood the 10
Gaznevide we have a prince of true Oriental splendor.
For him the title of Sultan or Soldan was invented,
which henceforth became the special badge of the
Turkish monarchs; as Khan is the title of the
sovereign of the Tartars, and Caliph of the 15
sovereign of the Saracens. I have already described
generally the extent of his dominions: he
inherited Sogdiana, Carisme, Khorasan, and Cabul;
but, being a zealous Mussulman, he obtained the
title of Gazi, or champion, by his reduction of 20
Hindostan, and his destruction of its idol
temples. There was no need, however, of religious
enthusiasm to stimulate him to the war: the
riches, which he amassed in the course of it, were
a recompense amply sufficient. His Indian 25
expeditions in all amounted to twelve, and they abound
in battles and sieges of a truly Oriental cast....

We have now arrived at what may literally be
called the turning point of Turkish history. We
have seen them gradually descend from the north, 30
and in a certain degree become acclimated in the
countries where they settled. They first appear
across the Jaxartes in the beginning of the seventh
century; they have now come to the beginning
of the eleventh. Four centuries or thereabout
have they been out of their deserts, gaining 5
experience and educating themselves in such
measure as was necessary for playing their part in
the civilized world. First they came down into
Sogdiana and Khorasan, and the country below
it, as conquerors; they continued in it as 10
subjects and slaves. They offered their services to
the race which had subdued them; they made
their way by means of their new masters down to
the west and the south; they laid the foundations
for their future supremacy in Persia, and 15
gradually rose upwards through the social fabric to
which they had been admitted, till they found
themselves at length at the head of it. The
sovereign power which they had acquired in the
line of the Gaznevides, drifted off to Hindostan; 20
but still fresh tribes of their race poured down
from the north, and filled up the gap; and while
one dynasty of Turks was established in the
peninsula, a second dynasty arose in the former
seat of their power. 25

Now I call the era at which I have arrived the
turning point of their fortunes, because, when
they had descended down to Khorasan and the
countries below it, they might have turned to the
East or to the West, as they chose. They were 30
at liberty to turn their forces eastward against
their kindred in Hindostan, whom they had driven
out of Ghizni and Afghanistan, or to face towards
the west, and make their way thither through the
Saracens of Persia and its neighboring countries.
It was an era which determined the history of the 5
world....

But this era was a turning point in their
history in another and more serious respect. In
Sogdiana and Khorasan, they had become
converts to the Mahometan faith. You will not 10
suppose I am going to praise a religious imposture,
but no Catholic need deny that it is, considered
in itself, a great improvement upon Paganism.
Paganism has no rule of right and wrong, no
supreme and immutable judge, no intelligible 15
revelation, no fixed dogma whatever; on the
other hand, the being of one God, the fact of His
revelation, His faithfulness to His promises, the
eternity of the moral law, the certainty of future
retribution, were borrowed by Mahomet from the 20
Church, and are steadfastly held by his followers.
The false prophet taught much which is materially
true and objectively important, whatever be its
subjective and formal value and influence in the
individuals who profess it. He stands in his 25
creed between the religion of God and the religion
of devils, between Christianity and idolatry,
between the West and the extreme East. And
so stood the Turks, on adopting his faith, at
the date I am speaking of; they stood between 30
Christ in the West, and Satan in the East, and
they had to make their choice; and, alas! they
were led by the circumstances of the time to
oppose themselves, not to Paganism, but to
Christianity. A happier lot indeed had befallen
poor Sultan Mahmood than befell his kindred 5
who followed in his wake. Mahmood, a
Mahometan, went eastward and found a superstition
worse than his own, and fought against it, and
smote it; and the sandal doors which he tore
away from the idol temple and hung up at his 10
tomb at Gazneh, almost seemed to plead for him
through centuries as the soldier and the
instrument of Heaven. The tribes which followed him,
Moslem also, faced westward, and found, not
error but truth, and fought against it as zealously, 15
and in doing so, were simply tools of the Evil One,
and preachers of a lie, and enemies, not witnesses
of God. The one destroyed idol temples, the
other Christian shrines. The one has been saved
the woe of persecuting the Bride of the Lamb; 20
the other is of all races the veriest brood of the
serpent which the Church has encountered since
she was set up. For 800 years did the sandal
gates remain at Mahmood's tomb, as a trophy
over idolatry; and for 800 years have Seljuk 25
and Othman been our foe.

The year 1048 of our era is fixed by
chronologists as the date of the rise of the Turkish power,
as far as Christendom is interested in its history.[36]
Sixty-three years before this date, a Turk of high 30
rank, of the name of Seljuk, had quarreled with
his native prince in Turkistan, crossed the
Jaxartes with his followers, and planted himself in
the territory of Sogdiana. His father had been
a chief officer in the prince's court, and was the 5
first of his family to embrace Islamism; but
Seljuk, in spite of his creed, did not obtain permission
to advance into Sogdiana from the Saracenic
government, which at that time was in possession of
the country. After several successful encounters, 10
however, he gained admission into the city of
Bokhara, and there he settled. As time went on, he
fully recompensed the tardy hospitality which
the Saracens had shown him; for his feud with
his own countrymen, whom he had left, took the 15
shape of a religious enmity, and he fought against
them as pagans and infidels, with a zeal, which
was both an earnest of the devotion of his people
to the faith of Mahomet, and a training for the
exercise of it.... 20

[36] Baronius, Pagi.

For four centuries the Turks are little or hardly
heard of; then suddenly in the course of as many
tens of years, and under three Sultans, they make
the whole world resound with their deeds; and,
while they have pushed to the East through 25
Hindostan, in the West they have hurried down
to the coasts of the Mediterranean and the
Archipelago, have taken Jerusalem, and threatened
Constantinople. In their long period of silence
they had been sowing the seeds of future 30
conquests; in their short period of action they were
gathering the fruit of past labors and sufferings.
The Saracenic empire stood apparently as before;
but, as soon as a Turk showed himself at the head
of a military force within its territory, he found
himself surrounded by the armies of his kindred 5
which had been so long in its pay; he was joined
by the tribes of Turcomans, to whom the Romans
in a former age had shown the passes of the
Caucasus; and he could rely on the reserve of
innumerable swarms, ever issuing out of his 10
native desert, and following in his track. Such
was the state of Western Asia in the middle of
the eleventh century.

Alp Arslan, the second Sultan of the line of
Seljuk, is said to signify in Turkish "the 15
courageous lion:" and the Caliph gave its possessor the
Arabic appellation of Azzaddin, or "Protector of
Religion." It was the distinctive work of his
short reign to pass from humbling the Caliph to
attacking the Greek Emperor. Togrul had 20
already invaded the Greek provinces of Asia Minor,
from Cilicia to Armenia, along a line of 600 miles,
and here it was that he had achieved his
tremendous massacres of Christians. Alp Arslan
renewed the war; he penetrated to Cæesarea in 25
Cappadocia, attracted by the gold and pearls
which incrusted the shrine of the great St. Basil.
He then turned his arms against Armenia and
Georgia, and conquered the hardy mountaineers
of the Caucasus, who at present give such trouble 30
to the Russians. After this he encountered,
defeated, and captured the Greek Emperor. He
began the battle with all the solemnity and
pageantry of a hero of romance. Casting away
his bow and arrows, he called for an iron mace and
scimeter; he perfumed his body with musk, as 5
if for his burial, and dressed himself in white,
that he might be slain in his winding sheet.
After his victory, the captive Emperor of New
Rome was brought before him in a peasant's
dress; he made him kiss the ground beneath his 10
feet, and put his foot upon his neck. Then,
raising him up, he struck or patted him three times
with his hand, and gave him his life and, on a
large ransom, his liberty.

At this time the Sultan was only forty-four 15
years of age, and seemed to have a career of glory
still before him. Twelve hundred nobles stood
before his throne; two hundred thousand soldiers
marched under his banner. As if dissatisfied
with the South, he turned his arms against his 20
own paternal wildernesses, with which his
family, as I have related, had a feud. New tribes
of Turks seem to have poured down, and were
wresting Sogdiana from the race of Seljuk, as
the Seljukians had wrested it from the 25
Gaznevides. Alp had not advanced far into the
country, when he met his death from the hand of a
captive. A Carismian chief had withstood his
progress, and, being taken, was condemned to a
lingering execution. On hearing the sentence, he 30
rushed forward upon Alp Arslan; and the Sultan,
disdaining to let his generals interfere, bent his
bow, but, missing his aim, received the dagger of
his prisoner in his breast. His death, which
followed, brings before us that grave dignity of the
Turkish character, of which we have already had 5
an example in Mahmood. Finding his end
approaching, he has left on record a sort of dying
confession: "In my youth," he said, "I was
advised by a sage to humble myself before God,
to distrust my own strength, and never to despise 10
the most contemptible foe. I have neglected
these lessons, and my neglect has been deservedly
punished. Yesterday, as from an eminence, I
beheld the numbers, the discipline, and the spirit
of my armies; the earth seemed to tremble under 15
my feet, and I said in my heart, Surely thou art
the king of the world, the greatest and most
invincible of warriors. These armies are no
longer mine; and, in the confidence of my
personal strength, I now fall by the hand of an 20
assassin." On his tomb was engraven an
inscription, conceived in a similar spirit. "O ye, who
have seen the glory of Alp Arslan exalted to the
heavens, repair to Maru, and you will behold it
buried in the dust."[37] Alp Arslan was adorned 25
with great natural qualities both of intellect and
of soul. He was brave and liberal: just, patient,
and sincere: constant in his prayers, diligent in
his alms, and, it is added, witty in his
conversation; but his gifts availed him not. 30

[37] Gibbon.

It often happens in the history of states and
races, in which there is found first a rise and then
a decline, that the greatest glories take place just
then when the reverse is beginning or begun.
Thus, for instance, in the history of the 5
Ottoman Turks, to which I have not yet come,
Soliman the Magnificent is at once the last and
greatest of a series of great Sultans. So was it
as regards this house of Seljuk. Malek Shah, the
son of Alp Arslan, the third sovereign, in whom 10
its glories ended, is represented to us in history
in colors so bright and perfect, that it is difficult
to believe we are not reading the account of some
mythical personage. He came to the throne at
the early age of seventeen; he was well-shaped, 15
handsome, polished both in manners and in
mind; wise and courageous, pious and sincere.
He engaged himself even more in the
consolidation of his empire than in its extension. He
reformed abuses; he reduced the taxes; he 20
repaired the highroads, bridges, and canals; he
built an imperial mosque at Bagdad; he founded
and nobly endowed a college. He patronized
learning and poetry, and he reformed the
calendar. He provided marts for commerce; he 25
upheld the pure administration of justice, and
protected the helpless and the innocent. He
established wells and cisterns in great numbers
along the road of pilgrimage to Mecca; he fed
the pilgrims, and distributed immense sums 30
among the poor.

He was in every respect a great prince; he
extended his conquests across Sogdiana to the
very borders of China. He subdued by his
lieutenants Syria and the Holy Land, and took
Jerusalem. He is said to have traveled round 5
his vast dominions twelve times. So potent was
he, that he actually gave away kingdoms, and
had for feudatories great princes. He gave to
his cousin his territories in Asia Minor, and
planted him over against Constantinople, as an 10
earnest of future conquests; and he may be said
to have finally allotted to the Turcomans the
fair regions of Western Asia, over which they
roam to this day.

All human greatness has its term; the more 15
brilliant was this great Sultan's rise, the more
sudden was his extinction; and the earlier he
came to his power, the earlier did he lose it. He
had reigned twenty years, and was but
thirty-seven years old, when he was lifted up with pride 20
and came to his end. He disgraced and
abandoned to an assassin his faithful vizir, at the age
of ninety-three, who for thirty years had been the
servant and benefactor of the house of Seljuk.
After obtaining from the Caliph the peculiar 25
and almost incommunicable title of "the
commander of the faithful," unsatisfied still, he
wished to fix his own throne in Bagdad, and to
deprive his impotent superior of his few
remaining honors. He demanded the hand of the 30
daughter of the Greek Emperor, a Christian, in
marriage. A few days, and he was no more;
he had gone out hunting, and returned
indisposed; a vein was opened, and the blood would
not flow. A burning fever took him off, only
eighteen days after the murder of his vizir, and 5
less than ten before the day when the Caliph was
to have been removed from Bagdad.

Such is human greatness at the best, even were
it ever so innocent; but as to this poor Sultan,
there is another aspect even of his glorious deeds. 10
If I have seemed here or elsewhere in these
Lectures to speak of him or his with interest or
admiration, only take me, Gentlemen, as giving
the external view of the Turkish history, and that
as introductory to the determination of its true 15
significance. Historians and poets may celebrate
the exploits of Malek; but what were they in the
sight of Him who has said that whoso shall strike
against His cornerstone shall be broken; but
on whomsoever it shall fall, shall be ground to 20
powder? Looking at this Sultan's deeds as
mere exhibitions of human power, they were
brilliant and marvelous; but there was another
judgment of them formed in the West, and other
feelings than admiration roused by them in the 25
faith and the chivalry of Christendom.
Especially was there one, the divinely appointed
shepherd of the poor of Christ, the anxious
steward of His Church, who from his high and
ancient watch tower, in the fullness of apostolic 30
charity, surveyed narrowly what was going on at
thousands of miles from him, and with prophetic
eye looked into the future age; and scarcely had
that enemy, who was in the event so heavily to
smite the Christian world, shown himself, when
he gave warning of the danger, and prepared 5
himself with measures for averting it. Scarcely
had the Turk touched the shores of the
Mediterranean and the Archipelago, when the Pope
detected and denounced him before all Europe.
The heroic Pontiff, St. Gregory the Seventh, was 10
then upon the throne of the Apostle; and though
he was engaged in one of the severest conflicts
which Pope has ever sustained, not only against
the secular power, but against bad bishops and
priests, yet at a time when his very life was not 15
his own, and present responsibilities so urged
him, that one would fancy he had time for no
other thought, Gregory was able to turn his mind
to the consideration of a contingent danger in the
almost fabulous East. In a letter written during 20
the reign of Malek Shah, he suggested the idea
of a crusade against the misbeliever, which later
popes carried out. He assures the Emperor of
Germany, whom he was addressing, that he had
50,000 troops ready for the holy war, whom he 25
would fain have led in person. This was in the
year 1074.

In truth, the most melancholy accounts were
brought to Europe of the state of things in the
Holy Land. A rude Turcoman ruled in 30
Jerusalem; his people insulted there the clergy of
every profession; they dragged the patriarch by
the hair along the pavement, and cast him into
a dungeon, in hopes of a ransom; and disturbed
from time to time the Latin Mass and office in the
Church of the Resurrection. As to the pilgrims, 5
Asia Minor, the country through which they had
to travel in an age when the sea was not yet safe
to the voyager, was a scene of foreign incursion
and internal distraction. They arrived at
Jerusalem exhausted by their sufferings, and 10
sometimes terminated them by death, before they
were permitted to kiss the Holy Sepulchre.

* * * * *

It is commonly said that the Crusades failed
in their object; that they were nothing else but
a lavish expenditure of men and treasure; and 15
that the possession of the Holy Places by the
Turks to this day is a proof of it. Now I will not
enter here into a very intricate controversy; this
only will I say, that, if the tribes of the desert,
under the leadership of the house of Seljuk, turned 20
their faces to the West in the middle of the
eleventh century; if in forty years they had
advanced from Khorasan to Jerusalem and the
neighborhood of Constantinople; and if in
consequence they were threatening Europe and 25
Christianity; and if, for that reason, it was a
great object to drive them back or break them
to pieces; if it were a worthy object of the
Crusades to rescue Europe from this peril and to
reassure the anxious minds of Christian
multitudes; then were the Crusades no failure in
their issue, for this object was fully accomplished.
The Seljukian Turks were hurled back upon the
East, and then broken up, by the hosts of the 5
Crusaders. The lieutenant of Malek Shah, who
had been established as Sultan of Roum (as Asia
Minor was called by the Turks), was driven to an
obscure town, where his dynasty lasted, indeed,
but gradually dwindled away. A similar fate 10
attended the house of Seljuk in other parts of
the Empire, and internal quarrels increased and
perpetuated its weakness. Sudden as was its
rise, as sudden was its fall; till the terrible
Zingis, descending on the Turkish dynasties, like 15
an avalanche, coöperated effectually with the
Crusaders and finished their work; and if
Jerusalem was not protected from other enemies,
at least Constantinople was saved, and Europe
was placed in security, for three hundred years. 20

THE PAST AND PRESENT OF THE OTTOMANS

I think it is clear, that, if my account be only
in the main correct, the Turkish power certainly
is not a civilized, and is a barbarous power.
The barbarian lives without principle and
without aim; he does but reflect the successive 25
outward circumstances in which he finds himself,
and he varies with them. He changes
suddenly, when their change is sudden, and is as
unlike what he was just before, as one fortune
or external condition is unlike another. He
moves when he is urged by appetite; else, he
remains in sloth and inactivity. He lives, and
he dies, and he has done nothing, but leaves the 5
world as he found it. And what the individual
is, such is his whole generation; and as that
generation, such is the generation before and
after. No generation can say what it has been
doing; it has not made the state of things better 10
or worse; for retrogression there is hardly room;
for progress, no sort of material. Now I shall
show that these characteristics of the barbarian
are rudimental points, as I may call them, in the
picture of the Turks, as drawn by those who 15
have studied them. I shall principally avail
myself of the information supplied by Mr.
Thornton and M. Volney, men of name and ability,
and for various reasons preferable as authorities
to writers of the present day. 20

"The Turks," says Mr. Thornton, who, though
not blind to their shortcomings, is certainly
favorable to them, "the Turks are of a grave
and saturnine cast ... patient of hunger and
privations, capable of enduring the hardships of 25
war, but not much inclined to habits of
industry.... They prefer apathy and indolence to
active enjoyments; but when moved by a
powerful stimulus they sometimes indulge in pleasures
in excess." "The Turk," he says elsewhere, 30
"stretched at his ease on the banks of the Bosphorus,
glides down the stream of existence
without reflection on the past, and without
anxiety for the future. His life is one continued
and unvaried reverie. To his imagination the
whole universe appears occupied in procuring him 5
pleasures.... Every custom invites to repose,
and every object inspires an indolent
voluptuousness. Their delight is to recline on soft verdure
under the shade of trees, and to muse without
fixing the attention, lulled by the trickling of a 10
fountain or the murmuring of a rivulet, and
inhaling through their pipe a gently inebriating
vapor. Such pleasures, the highest which the
rich can enjoy, are equally within the reach of
the artisan or the peasant." 15

M. Volney corroborates this account of them:
"Their behavior," he says, "is serious, austere,
and melancholy; they rarely laugh, and the
gayety of the French appears to them a fit of
delirium. When they speak, it is with 20
deliberation, without gestures and without passion;
they listen without interrupting you; they are
silent for whole days together, and they by no
means pique themselves on supporting
conversation. If they walk, it is always leisurely, and 25
on business. They have no idea of our
troublesome activity, and our walks backwards and
forwards for amusement. Continually seated,
they pass whole days smoking, with their legs
crossed, their pipes in their mouths, and almost 30
without changing their attitude." Englishmen
present as great a contrast to the Ottoman as the
French; as a late English traveler brings before
us, apropos of seeing some Turks in quarantine:
"Certainly," he says, "Englishmen are the least
able to wait, and the Turks the most so, of any 5
people I have ever seen. To impede an
Englishman's locomotion on a journey, is equivalent to
stopping the circulation of his blood; to disturb
the repose of a Turk on his, is to reawaken him
to a painful sense of the miseries of life. The 10
one nation at rest is as much tormented as
Prometheus, chained to his rock, with the vulture
feeding on him; the other in motion is as
uncomfortable as Ixion tied to his ever-moving wheel."[38]

[38] Formby's Visit, p. 70.

However, the barbarian, when roused to action, 15
is a very different being from the barbarian
at rest. "The Turk," says Mr. Thornton, "is
usually placid, hypochondriac, and
unimpassioned; but, when the customary sedateness of
his temper is ruffled, his passions ... are 20
furious and uncontrollable. The individual seems
possessed with all the ungovernable fury of a
multitude; and all ties, all attachments, all
natural and moral obligations, are forgotten or
despised, till his rage subsides." A similar 25
remark is made by a writer of the day: "The Turk
on horseback has no resemblance to the Turk
reclining on his carpet. He there assumes a
vigor, and displays a dexterity, which few
Europeans would be capable of emulating; no 30
horsemen surpass the Turks; and, with all the
indolence of which they are accused, no people
are more fond of the violent exercise of riding."

So was it with their ancestors, the Tartars;
now dosing on their horses or their wagons, now 5
galloping over the plains from morning to night.
However, these successive phases of Turkish
character, as reported by travelers, have seemed
to readers as inconsistencies in their reports;
Thornton accepts the inconsistency. "The 10
national character of the Turks," he says, "is a
composition of contradictory qualities. We find
them brave and pusillanimous; gentle and
ferocious; resolute and inconstant; active and
indolent; fastidiously abstemious, and 15
indiscriminately indulgent. The great are alternately
haughty and humble, arrogant and cringing,
liberal and sordid."[39] What is this but to say in
one word that we find them barbarians?

[39] Bell's Geography.

According to these distinct moods or phases 20
of character, they will leave very various
impressions of themselves on the minds of successive
beholders. A traveler finds them in their
ordinary state in repose and serenity; he is surprised
and startled to find them so different from what 25
he imagined; he admires and extols them, and
inveighs against the prejudice which has
slandered them to the European world. He finds them
mild and patient, tender to the brute creation, as
becomes the children of a Tartar shepherd, kind 30
and hospitable, self-possessed and dignified, the
lowest classes sociable with each other, and the
children gamesome. It is true; they are as noble
as the lion of the desert, and as gentle and as
playful as the fireside cat. Our traveler observes 5
all this;[40] and seems to forget that from the
humblest to the highest of the feline tribe, from
the cat to the lion, the most wanton and
tyrannical cruelty alternates with qualities more
engaging or more elevated. Other barbarous 10
tribes also have their innocent aspects--from
the Scythians in the classical poets and historians
down to the Lewchoo islanders in the pages of
Basil Hall.

[40] Vid. Sir Charles Fellows' Asia Minor.

But whatever be the natural excellences of 15
the Turks, progressive they are not. This Sir
Charles Fellows seems to allow: "My intimacy
with the character of the Turks," he says, "which
has led me to think so highly of their moral
excellence, has not given me the same favorable 20
impression of the development of their mental
powers. Their refinement is of manners and
affections; there is little cultivation or activity
of mind among them." This admission implies
a great deal, and brings us to a fresh 25
consideration. Observe, they were in the eighth century
of their political existence when Thornton and
Volney lived among them, and these authors
report of them as follows: "Their buildings,"
says Thornton, "are heavy in their proportions, 30
bad in detail, both in taste and execution,
fantastic in decoration, and destitute of genius.
Their cities are not decorated with public
monuments, whose object is to enliven or to embellish."
Their religion forbids them every sort of 5
painting, sculpture, or engraving; thus the fine arts
cannot exist among them. They have no music
but vocal; and know of no accompaniment
except a bass of one note like that of the bagpipe.
Their singing is in a great measure recitative, 10
with little variation of note. They have scarcely
any notion of medicine or surgery; and they do
not allow of anatomy. As to science, the
telescope, the microscope, the electric battery, are
unknown, except as playthings. The compass 15
is not universally employed in their navy, nor
are its common purposes thoroughly understood.
Navigation, astronomy, geography, chemistry,
are either not known, or practiced only on
antiquated and exploded principles. As to their 20
civil and criminal codes of law, these are
unalterably fixed in the Koran....

Compare the Rome of Junius Brutus to the
Rome of Constantine, 800 years afterwards. In
each of these polities there was a continuous 25
progression, and the end was unlike the
beginning; but the Turks, except that they have gained
the faculty of political union, are pretty much
what they were when they crossed the Jaxartes
and Oxus. Again, at the time of Togrul Beg, the 30
Greek schism also took place; now from Michael
Cerularius, in 1054, to Anthimus, in 1853,
Patriarchs of Constantinople, eight centuries have
passed of religious deadness and insensibility: a
longer time has passed in China of a similar
political inertness: yet China has preserved at 5
least the civilization, and Greece the ecclesiastical
science, with which they respectively passed into
their long sleep; but the Turks of this day are
still in the less than infancy of art, literature,
philosophy, and general knowledge; and we may 10
fairly conclude that, if they have not learned
the very alphabet of science in eight hundred
years, they are not likely to set to work on it in
the nine hundredth.

* * * * *

It is true that in the last quarter of a century 15
efforts have been made by the government of
Constantinople to innovate on the existing
condition of its people; and it has addressed itself
in the first instance to certain details of daily
Turkish life. We must take it for granted that it 20
began with such changes as were easiest; if so, its
failure in these small matters suggests how little
ground there is for hope of success in other
advances more important and difficult. Every
one knows that in the details of dress, carriage, 25
and general manners, the Turks are very
different from Europeans: so different, and so
consistently different, that the contrariety would
seem to arise from some difference of essential
principle. "This dissimilitude," says Mr.
Thornton, "which pervades the whole of their habits,
is so general, even in things of apparent
insignificance, as almost to indicate design rather than
accident...." 5

To learn from others, you must entertain a
respect for them; no one listens to those whom
he contemns. Christian nations make progress
in secular matters, because they are aware they
have many things to learn, and do not mind from 10
whom they learn them, so that he be able to teach.
It is true that Christianity, as well as
Mahometanism, which imitated it, has its visible polity,
and its universal rule, and its especial
prerogatives and powers and lessons, for its disciples. 15
But, with a Divine wisdom, and contrary to its
human copyist, it has carefully guarded (if I
may use the expression) against extending its
revelations to any point which would blunt the
keenness of human research or the activity of 20
human toil. It has taken those matters for its
field in which the human mind, left to itself,
could not profitably exercise itself, or progress,
if it would; it has confined its revelations to the
province of theology, only indirectly touching 25
on other departments of knowledge, so far as
theological truth accidentally affects them; and
it has shown an equally remarkable care in
preventing the introduction of the spirit of caste
or race into its constitution or administration. 30
Pure nationalism it abhors; its authoritative
documents pointedly ignore the distinction of
Jew and Gentile, and warn us that the first often
becomes the last; while its subsequent history
has illustrated this great principle, by its awful,
and absolute, and inscrutable, and irreversible 5
passage from country to country, as its territory
and its home. Such, then, it has been in the
Divine counsels, and such, too, as realized in fact;
but man has ways of his own, and, even before
its introduction into the world, the inspired 10
announcements, which preceded it, were distorted
by the people to whom they were given, to
minister to views of a very different kind. The
secularized Jews, relying on the supernatural
favors locally and temporally bestowed on 15
themselves, fell into the error of supposing that a
conquest of the earth was reserved for some mighty
warrior of their own race, and that, in
compensation of the reverses which befell them, they
were to become an imperial nation. 20

What a contrast is presented to us by these
different ideas of a universal empire! The
distinctions of race are indelible; a Jew cannot
become a Greek, or a Greek a Jew; birth is an
event of past time; according to the Judaizers, 25
their nation, as a nation, was ever to be
dominant; and all other nations, as such, were
inferior and subject. What was the necessary
consequence? There is nothing men more pride
themselves on than birth, for this very reason, 30
that it is irrevocable; it can neither be given to
those who have it not, nor taken away from
those who have. The Almighty can do anything
which admits of doing; He can compensate every
evil; but a Greek poet says that there is one
thing impossible to Him--to undo what is 5
done. Without throwing the thought into a
shape which borders on the profane, we may see
in it the reason why the idea of national power
was so dear and so dangerous to the Jew. It was
his consciousness of inalienable superiority that 10
led him to regard Roman and Greek, Syrian and
Egyptian, with ineffable arrogance and scorn.
Christians, too, are accustomed to think of those
who are not Christians as their inferiors; but the
conviction which possesses them, that they have 15
what others have not, is obviously not open to
the temptation which nationalism presents.
According to their own faith, there is no insuperable
gulf between themselves and the rest of mankind;
there is not a being in the whole world but is 20
invited by their religion to occupy the same
position as themselves, and, did he come, would
stand on their very level, as if he had ever been
there. Such accessions to their body they
continually receive, and they are bound under 25
obligation of duty to promote them. They never
can pronounce of any one, now external to them,
that he will not some day be among them; they
never can pronounce of themselves that, though
they are now within, they may not some day 30
be found outside, the Divine polity. Such are
the sentiments inculcated by Christianity, even
in the contemplation of the very superiority
which it imparts; even there it is a principle, not
of repulsion between man and man, but of good
fellowship; but as to subjects of secular 5
knowledge, since here it does not arrogate any
superiority at all, it has in fact no tendency whatever
to center its disciple's contemplation on himself,
or to alienate him from his kind. He readily
acknowledges and defers to the superiority in 10
art or science of those, if so be, who are
unhappily enemies to Christianity. He admits the
principle of progress on all matters of knowledge
and conduct on which the Creator has not decided
the truth already by revealing it; and he is at 15
all times ready to learn, in those merely secular
matters, from those who can teach him best.
Thus it is that Christianity, even negatively, and
without contemplating its positive influences, is
the religion of civilization. 20