a race of superior destiny, which is
instinctive in some millions of savage simple hearts.

* * * * *

What of the second element? The religious prestige of the Ottoman power as
the repository of caliphial authority and trustee for Islam in the Holy
Land of Arabia, is an asset almost impossible to estimate. Would a death
struggle of the Osmanlis in Europe rouse the Sunni world? Would the
Moslems of India, Afghanistan, Turkestan, China, and Malaya take up arms
for the Ottoman sultan as caliph? Nothing but the event will prove that
they would. Jehad, or Holy War, is an obsolescent weapon difficult and
dangerous for Young Turks to wield: difficult because their own Islamic
sincerity is suspect and they are taking the field now as clients of
_giaur_ peoples; dangerous because the Ottoman nation itself includes
numerous Christian elements, indispensable to its economy.

Undoubtedly, however, the Ottoman sultanate can count on its religious
prestige appealing widely, overriding counteracting sentiments, and, if it
rouses to action, rousing the most dangerous temper of all. It is futile
to ignore the caliph because he is not of the Koreish, and owes his
dignity to a sixteenth-century transfer. These facts are either unknown or
not borne in mind by half the Sunnites on whom he might call, and weigh
far less with the other half than his hereditary dominion over the Holy
Cities, sanctioned by the prescription of nearly four centuries.

One thing can be foretold with certainty. The religious prestige of an
Ottoman sultan, who had definitely lost control of the Holy Places, would
cease as quickly and utterly as the secular prestige of one who had
evacuated Constantinople: and since the loss of the latter would probably
precipitate an Arab revolt, and cut off the Hejaz, the religious element
in Ottoman prestige may be said to depend on Constantinople as much as the
secular. All the more reason why the Committee of Union and Progress
should not have accepted that well-meant advice of European publicists! A
successful revolt of the Arab-speaking provinces would indeed sound the
death-knell of the Ottoman Empire. No other event would be so immediately
and surely catastrophic.

* * * * *

The third element in Osmanli prestige, inherent qualities of the Osmanli
'Turk' himself, will be admitted by every one who knows him and his
history. To say that he has the 'will to po