f burning temples shall ascend,
With none to intercept the savoury fume,
Straight upward to my honoured Friend."

Or does your heart admit, in hours like these,
God is not mocked with words; His judgment stands;
Nor all the waters of His cleansing seas
Can wash the blood-guilt from your hands?

Make your account with Him as best you can.
What other hope has this New Year to give?
For outraged earth has laid on you a ban
Not to be lifted while you live.

O. S.

* * * * *

UNWRITTEN LETTERS TO THE KAISER.

NO. XII.

(_From the EX-SULTAN OF TURKEY._)

MY BROTHER,--There are many who in these days gnash their teeth
against you and pursue with malice and reproach the words you utter
and the deeds you perform, so that verily the tempests of the world
beat about your head. It may please you, therefore, to know that there
is one man at least whose affectionate admiration for you has suffered
no decrease, nay, has rather been augmented a hundredfold by the
events of the past half-year. Need I say that I am that man?

It is true that I have been shorn of my honours and privileges, that I
live in exile as a prisoner and that the vile insulters of fallen
majesty compass me about. I who once dwelt in splendour and issued my
commands to the legions of the faithful am treated with contumely by a
filthy pack of time-servers, and have nothing that I can call my own
except, for the moment, the air that I breathe. Oh, for an hour of the
old liberty and power! It would amuse me to see the faces of ENVER and
of my wretched brother MOHAMMED as I ordered them to execution--them
and their gang of villainous parasites. By the bowstring of my
fathers, but that would be a great and worthy killing! Pardon the fond
day-dreams of a poor and lonely old man whose only crime has been that
he loved his country too well and treated his enemies with a kindness
not to be understood by those black and revengeful hearts.

I remember that in the old days there were not wanting those who
warned me against you. "Beware," they said, "of the GERMAN EMPEROR. He
will use you for his own purposes, and will then cast you aside like
an orange that has been squeezed." But I paid no heed to their jealous
imaginings, and I had my reward. Not, indeed, that you were able to
save me when the wicked burst upon me and cast me down. The stroke was
too sudden, and you, alas, were too far. But the memory