an, has deep roots in a country. A dynasty that can rely on
the support of an organised religion, and stands forth as the champion
of a dominant faith, has a powerful political power at its command.
The Turkish empire, weak, ill-governed, repeatedly threatened with
dismemberment, embarrassed internally by the conflict of races, has
been preserved for the last hundred years by its incorporation with
the faith of Islam, by the Sultan's claim to the Caliphate. To attack
it is to assault a religious citadel; it is the bulwark on the west of
Mohammedan Asia, as Afghanistan is the frontier fortress of Islam on
the east. A leading Turkish politician has very recently said: 'It is
in Islam pure and simple that lies the strength of Turkey as an
independent State; and if the Sultan's position as religious chief
were encroached upon by constitutional reforms, the whole Ottoman
empire would be in danger.' We have to remember that for ages
religious enthusiasm has been, and still is in some parts of Asia, one
of the strongest incentives to military ardour and fidelity to a
standard on the battlefield. Identity of creed has often proved more
effective, in war, than territorial patriotism; it has surmounted
racial and tribal antipathies; while religious antagonism is still in
many countries a standing impediment to political consolidation.

When, therefore, we survey the history of religions, though this
sketch is necessarily very imperfect and inadequate, we find
Mohammedanism still identified with the fortunes of Mohammedan rulers;
and we know that for many centuries the relations of Christianity to
European States have been very close. In Europe the ardent
perseverance and intellectual superiority of great theologians, of
ecclesiastical statesmen supported by autocratic rulers, have hardened
and beat out into form doctrines and liturgies that it was at one time
criminal to disregard or deny, dogmatic articles of faith that were
enforced by law. By these processes orthodoxy emerged compact, sharply
defined, irresistible, out of the strife and confusion of heresies;
the early record of the churches has pages spotted with tears and
stained with blood. But at the present time European States seem
inclined to dissolve their alliance with the churches, and to arrange
a kind of judicial separation between the altar and the throne, though
in very few cases has a divorce been made absolute. No State, in
civilised countries, now assists in t