select for the convenience of the journey, is to be provided
for them. There is something in this treatment so utterly unlike any
thing that has been ever witnessed before, that people know not what
to make of it; the Turks cannot be brought to believe but that there
must be some treachery under it; for my own part, I do believe that so
far as Ali Pasha is concerned, this is not true.

The Turks here are also much startled at seeing their long robes and
turbans thrown away for an European military uniform, with epaulets
and other decorations; and they say that Ali Pasha himself has quite
adopted the European dress, so what changes we may expect I know not,
but certainly great ones are contemplated; any change approximating to
this has not been introduced from the days of the Patriarchs till now.
Drinking is no longer a covert offence that they practice in secret;
but wine and spirits are brought in their trays as regular articles of
consumption. The fact is, that Mohammedanism and Popery have received,
and are receiving, such hard knocks that their power will certainly
sink, even though the name may remain, and I do expect that this state
of powerlessness in these two bodies will open ways for God's elect
among them to come out.

I had yesterday a long and most interesting conversation with a very
respectable Armenian Roman Catholic merchant of this place, most
timidly fearful of having his faith touched; yet the Lord opened the
way to the introduction of the conversation on some very interesting
topics--on the duty of reading God's word for ourselves, and on the
worship of the Virgin, on all of which, little by little, he conversed
freely.--He seemed well acquainted with the Scriptures I quoted, but
had never thought about the questions, and this is the great
preparatory work in this country, to get men to think on the things of
the soul's everlasting interests, and to feel that these things have
to do with the various relations of life. In all countries custom has
much power; but in the East it is despotic.

I have been much struck in reading some letters in the Record, on the
Church and Dissent, which has made me feel the necessity and value of
that word of our blessed Lord.--"If thine eye be single, thy whole
body shall be full of light." Surely if the Scripture be sufficient to
decide any question, it is sufficient to decide the question of what a
child of God ought to do when a man, calling himself a minister o