The Eastern Question in Turkey and China
*It will be remembered that in the studies on the Eastern question in these columns a few weeks ago—The Sixth and Seventh Trumpets—it was made plain that the greater Eastern question as it is now in China is but the extension of the original Eastern question as it began and continues in Turkey; and that the Eastern question as it centers in Turkey is the real pivot of the greater Eastern question as it centers in China. The following extract from an address by President Washburn, of Robert College, Constantinople, published in the Hartford Seminary Record, November, well expresses the same truth:—* The world center has not been shifted to China, but is still in the nearer East—in Asia Minor, Syria, and the Balkan Peninsula—in those lands which were the birthplace of Judaism, Christianity, and Mohammedanism—which have always been the battle ground of East and West. Here will be finally decided the question of Christian or Mohammedan supremacy. Here it will be settled whether the Slavic or Teutonic races are to rule the world. In its relation to the future, Constantinople is the most important city in the world. London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Rome, are the work of man. Nature had little to do with the choice of these cities for great capitals, but nature herself has destined Constantinople to be the capital of the Old World, and some day this will be realized; and whatever Power may rule in that capital, the same races who now inhabit the Turkish Empire will still be there. War has never united them.