slightest murmur on the part of his Christian subjects.

The Jews, whilst considered as foreigners in Rome, were subject to the
custom of coming yearly to the Capitol to pay tribute. With this custom
the Holy Father generously dispensed. All this liberality and kindness
were highly appreciated. The Jewish people generally beheld in the wise
and Holy Pontiff the looked-for Messiah. The aged Rabbins, more
considerate, affirmed only that the Pope was a great prophet. The chief of
the Synagogue, Moses Kassan, composed in his honor a canticle marked by
poetic inspiration. It extols and blesses the Holy Father for having
gathered together in the same barque all the children whom God had
confided to his care ... for having snatched from the contempt of nations,
and sheltered under his wing, a persecuted people.

There being many Christians of the United Greek rite throughout the
dominions of the Sultan, it was necessary that the Holy Father should
negotiate, occasionally, with the successor of Mahomet. Pius IX. yielded
not to any of his predecessors in zeal for the welfare of all Catholic
people. Those who lived and often suffered under the Moslem yoke were,
especially, objects of his fatherly solicitude. Policy had not yet brought
the Cross into the same field of strife in union with the Crescent, when,
on the 20th of February, 1847, the portals of the Quirinal were thrown
open to the Ambassador of the Sublime Porte. To the Jews the Rome of Pius
IX. was as a new Jerusalem. Islamism, from its tottering throne at
Constantinople, looked towards it with hope and rapture.

The armed protection of Christians in the Turkish dominions, by the great
European Powers, was, no doubt, galling to the Sultan's court. It was,
therefore, ardently desired, we can readily believe, to place the
Christians of the Levant under the peaceful guardianship of the Roman
Pontiff. The Embassy may also have had other objects in view. Be this as
it may, it was new and quite extraordinary to behold the representative of
the prophet at the palace of the Sovereign Pontiff. No wonder if all
Europe was moved to admiration. The presentation was very solemn--in the
high ceremonial of Eastern lands. Chekif Effendi, the Turkish Ambassador,
saluted the Holy Father in Oriental style, and addressed to him a
magnificent oration, which was richly interspersed with metaphors--the
pearls and diamonds of his country's eloquence. The Sublime Porte was
compared to the Quee