me. Their oriental legends relate how the
belief arose in the very hour of conquest that the standard of the Cross
should at some future day be carried to the Bosphorus, and that the
European portion of the empire would he regained by Christians. From
this superstitious belief they selected the Asiatic shore for the burial
of true Mussulmans; nor was it altogether a fanciful belief, for in the
sudden rise of Russia, Turkey foresaw the harbinger of her fall, and
recognized in Muscovite warriors the antagonists of fate.

A nation to be long-lived must rise higher and higher in the scale of
civilization; must approach nearer and nearer its meridian, but never
culminate. The Athenians reached the zenith of their glory in the age of
Pericles, and lost in fifty years what they had acquired in centuries.
The Turks attained their meridian greatness in the reign of Solyman the
Magnificent--from which time dates their decline.

If we make a comparison between Turkey and her formidable neighbor,
Russia, we shall find that the latter adopted, while the former resisted
reforms. Turkey was in the fulness of her power when Russia had not yet
a name. The spirit of the Ottomans was remarkably exclusive. They
regarded themselves as a separate and distinct people; they were
conquerors, and as such thought themselves a superior race--men who were
to teach and not to learn. In their intercourse with other nations, they
borrowed nothing, and out of themselves looked for nothing. Their
feeling of national glory was not extinguished by national degradation,
but cherished through ages of slavery and shame. But the world is a
world of progress. A nation cannot remain stationary; she must advance
or retrograde. Turkey is not what she was, while Russia, with the rest
of Christendom, has advanced; her faults grew with her strength, but did
not die with her decay. It will not be sufficient for her merely to
regain her former power; she must overtake Christendom in the progress
made during her decadence. Her spirit of vitality is not yet extinct; it
wants guidance and development to strengthen and elevate it. There is
still hope of reforming the Turkish empire without that baptism of blood
which many have urged and are still urging. Indeed, Lord Palmerston
declared in Parliament that Turkey has made a more rapid advance and
been improved more during the last ten years (he made this statement in
1854, and Turkey has been rapidly progressing since) tha