Mohammedan gentlemen in their neigh- | can any one regard the Emperors of borhood. This is certainly a remarkable France or Austria as absolute sovereigns, instance of the triumph of European in the present tendencies toward constituinfluence in respect of that civilization which is distinctively Christian civilization. Of course, if we were able to fix the proportion between the Mohammedan gentlemen in Europe, or on the Asiatic sea-board, who have adopted monogamy and those who have adhered to polygamy -a proportion which, we need not say, there are no means of assigning-we should find the movement at present very superficial. But the fact is already one to which none of those who seek to cast the horoscope of the social future of Turkey can be inattentive. Cotemporaneously with this movement in the harems, it is undeniable that a mildness of external manners, and a mitiga tion, if not an extinction, of traditional ferocity of disposition, has come over those Turkish officials who have been thrown most into contact with us. This change offers some promise for their future treatment of those Christians who still remain unsecured by distinct privileges, and for their own progress. But, again, this change is at present but a superficial change, and can hardly be said to extend into the interior of the Empire. In the midst of this gradual moderation of manners, and of that deplorable retrocession of the central Government into the worst profligacy and corruption, we have seen the throne ascended by a fresh Sultan, who certainly bids fair to become the apostle of a new generation. He is daily reforming the Government, and is attempting to reform the society and manners of Turkey. Nor can there be any doubt that he has addressed himself to this task with extraordinary advantages for a reforming prince. It is not saying too much to assert that the Sultan is at this day the only really absolute Sovereign of Europe. The apparently unqualified Christian monarchies of the Continent have their limits to their authority. In Russia we can not term the Czar absolute. "L'Empereur regne, la bureaucratie gouverne," says Prince Dolgoroukow, with much truth; and, although the Emperor can carry out a vast system of serf-emancipation in opposition to a majority of the nobles, he would be utterly powerless to check the bureaucratic corruption in his own country which the present Sultan is believed to have arrested in Turkey. Nor tional government in both States, and with the present hostile elements of power by which both in their respective territories are assailed. But in the person of the Sultan the whole Asiatic notion of politi cal authority is concentrated. And the Sunnite Mussulmans regard him as the successor of Mohammed and representative of the Deity. Beyond those charac teristics of every Turkish Sultan who has the common energy to exert his own will, the centralizing policy of the preceding reigns of Mahmoud and Medjid has given him a more complete grasp over the whole Turkish administration throughout the empire than any previous Sultan had possessed. To complete the advantages of the present sovereign, he is a man of a firm will, without being headstrong, of great mental and physical activity, of considerable information, and of a resolution to investigate for himself almost every detail of his Government. If he persevere in the course he has begun, he is at any rate likely to develop Turkey into whatever she is susceptible of becoming within the period of his reign. The external policy of the Sultan Abdul Aziz is clearly to assert for himself the position of a great and independent sovereign, to put an arbitrary stop to all foreign interference in the affairs of his own Government, and to assert for himself an equality with either Russia or France. He has just offered a remarkable instance of this resolution in his invasion of the Principality of Montenegro, which France and Russia had taken under their combined protection. The Christian Prince of Montenegro, under cover of his privilege to regard the Sultan merely as a suzerain, fostered the civil war which the neighboring Herzegovinians were waging with the Porte. These Herzegovinians were absolute and unconditional subjects of the Sultan, and whenever they were beaten in their own territory, the Prince of Montenegro gave them shelter, while he pretended to be neutral in the conflict between them and the Turks. But the Sultan is understood to have personally given the recent order for the invasion of Montenegro, and for reducing the faithless Prince to submission. He knew that he was giving France and Russia a pretext for recalling their ambassadors; but he resolved to be sovereign in his own territory at all risks. The result is, that he has apparently suppressed the war, and that neither France nor Russia has ventured to resent the affront offered to their own self-assumed protectorate of Montenegro. A Turkish sovereign who will do this, and yet observe his obligations toward his Christian subjects in general, as Abdul Aziz appears to have done, certainly commands involuntary respect, even in Christian countries. Indeed, it is, we believe, the opinion of the most reliable and straightforward of the diplomatic representatives of Turkey that, now that she is in a fair way of having an honest Government, all that she wants is to be left alone. Turkey has hitherto run riot in every sort of excess, to be immediately afterward twisted into supposititious recovery by every kind of galvanical contortion that the electric influence of foreign governments can supply. The Sultan's domestic policy is not less clearly marked. He wishes to make his Government solvent, prosperous, and honest. He desires to see his army and navy efficient, and his people wealthy enough to bear the necessary burdens without oppression. No doubt he is as fine a specimen of Mohammedanism as Mohammedanism can supply. He has dismissed nearly all his brother's corrupt ministers, abolished the expenses of the harem, largely reduced those of the palace, and established such a supervision over the Government as, at any rate, very greatly to check corruption in future. Thus much he has done at Constantinople. In the provinces he has abolished the farming of the interior revenues, and has thereby saved the State an immense sum, which went into the pockets of financial middle-men. He has also concluded a commercial treaty with France and England, which has given a stimulus to trade. He has published a budget like a European government; and from this it really appears that Turkey is about to be the most solvent State in the world. As an earnest that credit is attached to these movements, it may be mentioned that the Turkish stocks have risen twenty per cent since his accession to the throne, less than a year ago. The Sultan's abandonment of polygamy will probably impart great influence to the movement which we have already spoken of as having preceded his accession. In place of a pampered monster, the Turks now see an energetic and intellectual Prince, personally the equal of any Christian sovereign. It may be worth mentioning, that we believe that when Lord Hobart and Mr. Foster-the gentlemen sent out by the Board of Trade to revise the Turkish finances—had their audience of the Sultan, a few months ago, to explain to him the state of the country, and had themselves "crammed" the details which they designed to inform him of, they were astonished to find the Sultan carrying them far out of their depth, entering upon details with which they were wholly unacquainted, prepounding views of reform which amazed them, and, in a word, taking the very bread out of their mouths. It is hard to say where this great change may stop; but in the enlightened and expansive age in which we live, there can be no vigorous empire that is not formed of a great people, as well as of a good government. Even if the Turkish people have not declined-or even if they can be brought back to the position which they held in former times-that singly is not enough. The rest of Europe has immeasurably advanced with every decade of our history; and if Turkey is to be a really great nation, as a result of all these interventions and reforms, the people themselves must first be great. We are not much apprehensive for the Christians of European Turkey. The liberties of at least half of them are effectually secured. In regard to the other half, complaints are rarely made; and we may be sure that if they could be sustained, they would soon be proclaimed by Greek priests and French secret envoys in the West of Europe. Did the necessity arise, it would be very possible to obtain some such constitutional safeguards for the Christians of Bulgaria as already exist in Servia. Russian influence and the Greek priests, are now the worst enemies of the Porte. The former adverse influence may possibly be overrated; for, although Russia is generally described as intriguing in Christian Turkey through the Greek priesthood, there is no doubt that these priests require no incentive from Russia in order to intrigue against Turkey. We should not, indeed, be surprised some day to see the present Sultan laying his hand on the revenues of the Greek Church, and so ad ministering them as to keep the priesthood in the pay of the State. That expedient would be a master-stroke of Ottoman policy, and not dissimilar from Pitt's famous project in regard to Ireland. around them. But indolence and apathy are as much a national characteristic of the Turk as activity and intrigue are a characteristic of the commonly dishonest Greek. What is a still more effectual bar to their standing on an equal footing with their rivals than their phlegmatic turn of mind is, their religious repugnance to embark in mercantile pursuits, or in any avocations of a usurious nature. Here the Koran is again their curse. Thus the Greeks and the Armenians, who flock into the great cities of the East, will probably continue to take the wind out of their sails. French, English, and Italian merchants have also settled at the great seaports in increasing numbers, under the stringent provisions which have been made, during the last forty years, for the security of European life. The greatest capitalists of the East are now to be found among the Greek and Armenian bankers. The result of all this impolicy in the dictates of a false religion is to make the Turks a poor people. But why is it that the Turks are not generally a well-educated class of men? Why is it that they are generally incapable of discharging the duties of government? Why are nearly all their public men Greeks? This surely bespeaks gross national incompetence. It may be said that it has long been the same in Russia; and that though you speak of Russia as a rising State, and of Turkey as a falling State, nevertheless Russia is a much older State than Turkey; that Russia besieged the Byzantines before the Turks had been heard of on the borders of Europe; and that which is confessedly no argument as applied to an older State than Turkey can à fortiori be no argument as applied to Turkey herself. Russian statesmen have long been foreigners by birth, and for the last century they have been chiefly either Germans, Frenchmen, Poles, or even It is very probable, indeed, that the Greeks and Corsicans-witness Capodis- precepts of the Koran are the foundation tria and Pozzo di Borgo. But Russia is of the whole evil in the character of the now rising out of this lethargy. A marked Turk. His national indolence may be no preference is being now shown for Russian- more than the acquired and hereditary reborn statesmen; and there are not want-sult of his exclusion from professions and ing those among them who justify the choice of the Czar. It is, perhaps, too early to ascertain whether the new Sultan will adopt the same course. But at present there is no appearance of a school of Turkish-born statesmen; and if the Greeks were to be discarded at this moment from the administration of the Porte, it is hard to perceive how the Turkish Government could be carried on. But, supposing this difficulty to be either surmounted or waived, are the Turks themselves likely to be renovated as much as their Government is being reformed? The age in which we live is one in which, from many circumstances, the importance or dominance of a nation is determined by its wealth. It must, at any rate, possess extraordinary qualifications of other kinds to continue at this day both poor and dominant. The characteristics of the Turks, whether moral or religious, do not serve to facilitate their competing with other nations in the race of productive or mercantile prosperity. We believe that they are, as a people, honest, and that they thus far put to shame most of the Christian nations enterprises which form a perpetual stimulus to the energy of the Greek, the Armenian, and the Frank. In our own country the Jew has pursued sordid and mercenary avocations, probably because our laws and our prejudices have long closed more honorable paths in life against him. So it no doubt is with the Turk; subject to this exception, indeed, that the Turk has been restricted from the opportunities of his Christian rivals by laws and prejudices of his own creating, or, at least, of his deliberate acceptance. The greatest evil, in our judgment, with which Turkish reformers have to contend is, that the Turks, like the ancient Jews, are living in what may be termed a theocratical commonwealth. As a false religion may be clung to as implicitly as true religion, so the laws of the Koran are generally as indefeasible in the mind of the Turk as the Mosaic dispensation was to the Jew. The Mosaic dispensation, however, was directed to whatever precepts were good for the Jews individually, and advantageous for them as a people. But the mock inspiration of Mohammed was less far-seeing. Laws which are at once bad and immutable form the most terrible bondage under which it is conceivable for any people to lie. To be the dominant nation, in point of political authority, and yet to be tied down by a superstition from which it is impossible to rise, and from which the subject nations are exempt, is but a mockery of superiority. The practical question for politicians at this point is, can such a superstition in behalf of doctrines laid down in the Koran be overcome? Can latitudinarianism be stretched further than it is already? Can the fanaticism of the muftis, and of the other religious fraternities of a Mohammedan people, be so far overcome and subdued as to enable at once the Government and individuals to set aside the injunctions of the Koran, wherever they are plainly irreconcilable with the interests of the Turkish nation? Or can some sacerdotal neologist among them be induced to publish a "New and Improved Version" of the Koran-somewhat after the fashion of a similar attempt nearer home-carefully eradicating all those laws which do not chime in with the views of the European reformers, and plausibly showing them to be the corrupt interpolations of the later califs? meanwhile as the best practical cover for these slowly-rising Christian nationalities of the East. We are inclined to think that the Government of the Porte would, partially at any rate, set aside the Koran if it dared. To suppose the Government to be infidels toward their own religion, would not be to commence with a postulate hard of concession. In plain truth, after what the Sultan has done-even after abolishing the harem, the most inherent of all the practical attributes of Mussulman life-it is hard to see what next he is to do but to declare himself a Christian. His ministers, like the ministers of his predecessors for a long period of time, are chiefly Christians by original profession; they are for the most part either Europeans who have embraced Mohammedanism for the sake of office, or Europeans still professing Christianity. The reforms, therefore, which they have introduced at the instance of foreign powers, may, at all events, be presumed not to have cost them any great religious scruples. This view may, perhaps, be extended toward all the Turks inhabiting the neighborhood of Stamboul and the seaports of the Ægean. We believe them to be what may be termed latitudinarians in Mussulmanism. To a certain extent the muftis and the regular orders (so to dignify them) keep the Turk observance of Mohammedan usages; and perhaps even the Porte finds itself between two fires when desired by a Christian ambassador to make one concession, and at the same time denounced by the Chief Mufti for proposing to concede it. What we have already said, as to the gradual conversion of the Turks who dwell coastwise to certain European cus-ish laity in those quarters within a decent toms, serves to indicate that any progress that can be made in this liberation of the public mind from the bondage of traditionary superstitions must be extremely slow. Even the Christian usage of monogamy has not penetrated in Turkey beyond, as geologists would say, the crust of the earth's surface. The muftis and the lay population are nearly equally fanatical, except, as we have said, where European intercourse has worked its influence. On the other hand, the tendency of the Christian races is distinctly and unmistakably to rise in civilization, intelligence, and wealth. The work may be, and almost certainly will be, very slow. But it seems clear that unless the Turk can surmount the inherent disadvantages of his religion, the superiority of the Christian over him must at some day be so decided as to overthrow the Ottoman Empire in Europe. We believe that day to be distant; and as we have already expressed our view that Turkish institutions, modified as they have been under Western influence, serve But the greatest difficulty of the Porte, no doubt, rests in the stubborn fanaticism of the Sclavonic Mohammedans of Europe, and the Ottoman Mohammedans of Asia Minor. It is among the Bosnians, the Sclavonian descendants of conquered Christians, as we have said, that Mussulmanism flourishes in all its original bigotry and blindness. Broussa itself, which is to the Turkish Mussulmans a second Mecca, could hardly be more fanatical. In this manner, whenever the Porte makes a new concession in the direction of what may be termed Christian government, it has always to consider how such and such changes will be received by the orthodox of Bosnia and Asia Minor, even when it is fully assured that the Turks of Roumelia will acquiesce in them. But. to mold all the Mohammedans of Turkey into a race of homogeneous reformers seems utterly impossible. The practical difficulty serves for a tangible illustration of the truth that Mussulmanism is a faith and practice in its nature stubborn and unyielding; and that nearly every reform that is effected in compliance with, or in imitation of, Western Europe, is, so far as it extends, an infraction upon Mussulmanism itself. But what, if the Turks around the capital, the center of the empire, were gradually to turn Christians? We have certainly witnessed more startling conversions even than this would be. European usage and European education are doing much already towards such an end. The Turks most exposed to these two influences have already lost half their bigotry, and perhaps all their fanaticism. We have seen how the life of an Englishman or a Frenchman has already become a subject of imitation with them. It certainly does not appear at all more improbable that the Mohammedans under the daily contact of Christian customs and manners-and under daily opportunity of examining into the causes that have made Europe the great and highly civilized community of nations that it is-should at length become converts to Christianity, than that the descendants of Sclavonians, overrun by the Turks, should have become a nation of permanently fanatical Mussulmans. It was, let it be remembered, under no general system of forcible conversion that the Turkish Empire in Europe was originally consolidated. The bulk of the European subjects of the Porte have always continued Christians; the Turks, content with demolishing their political independence, have commonly respected their religious independence. The presence of the Christian patriarch at Constantinople for four centuries may be taken, in fact, for an apt symbol of Turkish religious tolerance, even amidst the worst political intolerance. Those very Mussulmans who have been the most fanatical where any encroachment on their own religion was concerned, have commonly tolerated Christian worship, through a hearty satisfaction at the event which they anticipated, "that in another world those dogs of Christians would be dammed." To pass from true religion to false religion, under the influence of a conquering nation, would surely be not less surpris ing than the passage would be from false to true religion, under the influence of the great Christian nations trading with and settling in the East. Indeed, there is already some evidence that education and European ideas and manners are working a similar influence on the Turk with that which they are working in India. Hindoos frequenting our colleges are found more often to close their curriculum with Hinduism entirely eliminated from their minds. The perhaps fastidious apprehension with which our Indian Government restrains proselytism in those colleges has been apt to leave these Hindoos total atheists, without a religion either inherited or acquired. The evil influence of this state of things has happily led us to place Christian instruction in their path, without, however, leading them so directly to it as to awaken the jealousies and susceptibilities of the Hindoo nation. But we believe that where this Christian instruction has been accepted by those who have thus been weaned from their original religion, it has commonly yielded the fruit of conversion. The circumstances in which the Turks in and around Stamboul, and along the coasts of the Levant, are now placed, are not essentially dissimilar from those of our Hindoo students in India. One reservation, indeed, ought to be made. The Mohammedan is certainly not so palpably irrational a religion as the Hindu, which is connected with the wildest geographical blunders, that a course of collegial education is very apt to bring into ridicule. Mohammedanism is not to be tried by quite such tangible and conclusive tests as this. The process of conversion would be certainly less demonstrative. It must be remembered, however, that the influence of which we are speaking is one which is at present applying-and even that but slowly-to a numerically insignificant proportion of the Turkish people. It is true that it is at work in the most influential quarter of the empire, and amongst the most influential classes in that quarter; because it is among Turkish gentlemen of property and education that it is chiefly observable. Yet so gradual is the change that we may wait to the end of this century for any considerable result. We notice a radical distinction between the prospects of the Turkish Empire in Europe and those of the Turkish Empire in Asia. The latter dominion is essential |
