n army chafed at the thought
of stopping so near their longed-for goal, and burned with the desire to
make a final end of the empire of the Turks and add Constantinople to
the dominions of the czar. Yet though thus, as it were, on the edge of a
volcano, their ordinary policy of delay and hesitation was shown by the
Turkish diplomats, and the treaty of peace was not concluded and signed
until the 3d of March. The Russians had used their controlling position
with effect, and the treaty largely put an end to Turkish dominion in
Europe.

The news of the signing was received with cheers of enthusiasm by the
Russian army, drawn up on the shores of the inland sea, the
Preobrajensky, the famous regiment of Peter the Great, holding the post
of honor. Scarce a rifle-shot distant, crowding in groups the crests of
the neighboring hills, and deeply interested spectators of the scene,
appeared numbers of their late opponents. The news received, the
cheering battalions wheeled into column, and past the grand duke went
the army in rapid review, the march still continuing after darkness had
descended on the scene.

And thus ended the war, with the Russians within sight of the walls of
that city which for so many centuries they had longed and struggled to
possess. Only for the threatening aspect of the powers of Europe the
Ottoman empire would have ended then and there, and the Turk, "encamped
in Europe," would have ended forever his rule over Christian realms.

_THE NIHILISTS AND THEIR WORK._

In 1861 Alexander II., Emperor of Russia, signed a proclamation for the
emancipation of the Russian serfs, giving freedom by a stroke of the pen
to over fifty millions of human beings. In 1881, twenty years
afterwards, when, as there is some reason to believe, he was about to
grant a constitution and summon a parliament for the political
emancipation of the Russian people, he fell victim to a band of
revolutionists, and the thought of granting liberty to his people
perished with him.

This assassination was the work of the secret society known as the
Nihilists. To say that their association was secret is equivalent to
saying that we know nothing of their purposes other than their name and
their deeds indicate. Nihilism signifies _nothingness_. It comes from
the same root as _annihilate_, and annihilation of despots appears to
have been the Nihilist theory of obtaining political rights. This
society reached its culmination in the reig