complain that one champion throws down the gauntlet of denial, provided he does not at the same time assert a Græco-Sclavonic supremacy, equally unjust, and, from its novelty, more pregnant with danger. While gentlemen on ’Change or in Downing Street have their minds filled with the merely material aspects of the affair, the man who yields the first place to the interests of Christ’s kingdom cannot fail to mark that we are apparently on the eve of that great war of principles which Canning foresaw,—of a religious and European war, the issues of which derive, from their very doubtfulness, only the greater solemnity. While the subsistence of Turkey apparently bars the fulfilment of many Christian hopes, its destruction may, by the means which bring that to pass, greatly endanger the true interests of Christendom, and frustrate the grace of God. And we may yet see the day when the still blinded and impenitent Jew may make greater profit of this new crusade than he did of the former, may step in between the combatants—now on both sides, alas! Christian; and may settle the dispute by establishing his own claim to the land of promise in a way which, although disowned of God till he confess our Messiah, may force, or, as a pis-aller, steal recognition from man.

Leaving to others to decide with the pen those technical questions, which the sword, if drawn, will decide without regard to their paper verdict, let us contemplate the attitude of the chief actors in this opening drama. And first of Turkey.

We pray on Good Friday that God would “have mercy upon all—Jews, Turks, Infidels, and heretics ... and fetch them home to His fold.” As Turks are herein classed with those who have been unfaithful under a divine covenant—the old or the new—it has become customary to regard them as apostates from the faith, who deserve to be abhorred and treated as such. This is however a total misconception. Some apostates have indeed become Mahomedans; and it is very questionable whether the talent or experience of such men justifies Christian men and Christian governments in using their services. It may be that the once frequent perversion of Christians to Mahomedanism, under the pressure of persecution, in the days when our prayers were composed, may have dictated this petition. But whatever ravages the false religion of Mahomet may have wrought among Oriental churches and blinded Jews at the first, that religion took its rise among heathen; and the present Turks, although converts to that faith which desolated Eastern Christendom, are well known to have issued from a country where the Christian faith was all but unknown. The conquest of a part of Christendom by the Turks, was not an act of apostacy in Mahomedans, but the judgment of God, religious and political, on the unfaithfulness of the Christian Church and State. So that, instead of directing our abhorrence against the rod by which God then smote His people, we should rather humble ourselves because we provoked Him to use it. Although the superstitious and credulous reverence for the theatre of Christ’s life on earth has too often, like the blessing of the womb that bare Him, been substituted for the hearing and keeping of His word, yet no devout mind can fail to regard the scenes of His earthly sojourn with awful interest. But the fact that our holy faith went forth from Jerusalem, gave us no right to possess that city. The Christian Church has, as a Church, no possession on earth. Rights of property belong to Christian men, not as Christians, but as men. The Jew, not the Christian, forfeited Judea. No people but the Jews have an original divine right to Judea. And while they remain impenitent their right passes over, not to us, but to their conquerors. It is, therefore, more than questionable whether the Crusaders had any right to attempt the ejection of Mahomedans from the Holy Land.