ther, and which as a matter of fact has had a real effect in
binding together, men whose kindred to one another is not so obvious at
first sight as the kindred of Germans, Italians, or Serbs who are kept
asunder by nothing but a purely artificial political boundary. It is a
feeling at whose bidding the call to union goes forth to men whose
dwellings are geographically far apart, to men who may have had no
direct dealings with one another for years or for ages, to men whose
languages, though the scholar may at once see that they are closely
akin, may not be so closely akin as to be mutually intelligible for
common purposes. A hundred years back the Servian might have cried for
help to the Russian on the ground of common Orthodox faith; he would
hardly have called for help on the ground of common Slavonic speech and
origin. If he had done so, it would have been rather by way of
grasping at any chance, however desperate or far-fetched, than as
putting forward a serious and well understood claim which he might
expect to find accepted and acted on by large masses of men. He might
have received help, either out of genuine sympathy springing from
community of faith or from the baser thought that he could be made use
of as a convenient political tool. He would have got but little help
purely on the ground of a community of blood and speech which had had
no practical result for ages. When Russia in earlier days interfered
between the Turk and his Christian subjects, there is no sign of any
sympathy felt or possessed for Slaves as Slaves. Russia dealt with
Montenegro, not, as far as one can see, out of any Slavonic
brotherhood, but because an independent Orthodox State at enmity with
the Turk could not fail to be a useful ally. The earlier dealings of
Russia with the subject nations were far more busy among the Greeks
than among the Slaves. In fact, till quite lately all the Orthodox
subjects of the Turk were in most European eyes looked on as alike
Greeks. The Orthodox Church has been commonly known as the Greek
Church; and it has often been very hard to make people understand that
the vast mass of the members of that so-called Greek Church are not
Greek in any other sense. In truth we may doubt whether, till
comparatively lately, the subject nations themselves were fully alive
to the differences of race and speech among them. A man must in all
times and places know whether he speaks the same language as another
man;