They were more like usurpers than their opponents were. And their conduct was, alas! often too good an argument against their cause. On the other hand, there never was a nobler heathen than the leader of the Mahomedans against the Crusaders. When the Turks, long after, took Constantinople, they did no more than many a heathen conqueror has done before, and many a Christian conqueror since. A living tree was planted where the tree of an effete government had withered away. A Christian conqueror may use his conquest better, just as he has more grace to reign, than a heathen. But his right does not lie in his grace. The “good sword,” by which most Christian kings have won and kept their lands, is in itself no better than the “good scimitar” of the Turk. And the conduct of the conqueror of Byzantium towards the faith of his new subjects has often been regarded, especially when we consider the stem tenets which he held, as a model of justice and moderation. There has seldom been a conquest by a people whose religion was their political charter, over a people of a different faith, which bore fewer marks of cruelty. We are, indeed, pointed to the subsequent history of Turkish rule as a proof of its unparalleled wickedness. It is even argued that the Turk, having been during four hundred years put to the proof if he was fit to rule, or capable of conveying any blessing to the conquered, and having been found wanting, has thus forfeited his right. And it is hence concluded, that the time is come when he should be dismissed from office, not even by the subjects whom he has oppressed, but by others who have none but a Quixotic right to interfere. Men forget, however, that the form of Turkish oppression has in great part arisen from the circumstance, that religious principle and secular law are, in Turkey, identified. And, as to those cruelties and wrongs which are not the offspring of law, but the fruits of its absence or breach, a comparison between Turkish administration and that of many Christian governors would not fall out much to the credit of the latter. We need look no farther than to the country which now acts the champion of Christian wrongs, for a corruption of justice, a cruelty of punishment, and a smothering of true liberty, which Turkey could hardly outdo. And it is well known that, for many centuries, even down to the most recent times, in Egypt, in Syria, nay in Jerusalem itself, while rival parties of Christians have broken the peace of society, and disgraced the name of Christ, by their bitter animosities, their dishonest intrigues, and even their bloody strifes, the disciple of the false prophet has often so used his power to maintain good order, so counselled to mutual forbearance, and, as an umpire, so laboured to restore harmony by the adjustment of differences, as to make one blush at the relative positions of the Crescent and the Cross. While it cannot be denied that the passions of the Turk too often trample down all law, the Christians on whom he has trampled, either have not yet been tried with power, or, where they have, have abused it almost as much against their own brethren. At this very day, the Turk, bad as he is, is a nobler animal than either the treacherous Greek or the busy Armenian; nay, the Armenians are too often the most efficient instigators of Mahomedan injustice.

It will not, therefore, do for us, like children, to beat the object on which we have wounded ourselves, or bite the rod with which we are chastised. But, it may be asked, Are we to forget the zeal of Sobieski, and treat the Turk, not as an enemy and a persecutor, but as a brother? The answer is plain. Not as a brother Christian, but as a brother man. The fact that God has used the Turk to chastise Christendom, and suffered him to plant his temple of falsehood on the sites of the Jewish and the Christian fanes, ought, indeed, to make us search into