Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 29, 1858
FLAVEL'S TOUCHSTONE.
CHAPTER X.
Showing that only is true holiness which will bear the trials that God appoints.
Section I. Before I confirm this truth, I will endeavor to prevent some mistakes which a misapprehension of it might occasion.
1. We ought not to think, because we are to be in a state of trial through life, and know not how we shall appear after future trials, that therefore assurance of our gracious state is unattainable. Rather let him that has been sustained hitherto, trust in God for victory in the trials which are to come. So did the apostle: "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors, through him that hath loved us." Here is an assured triumph before the combat. "When he hath tried me," says Job, "I shall come forth as gold." This confidence of the gracious soul is founded, not merely on experience gained in former trials, but upon faith in the promises of God. He "is faithful, and will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but with every temptation will make a way to escape." Add to all this, the constant, prevalent intercession of Christ in heaven for his people, and it will appear that the Christian need not deny himself the joy of assurance in view of anticipated trials.
2. Nor should it be imagined that any saint has so much holiness as to be able, if left to himself, to sustain these trials; though none will, by any means, be overcome by them. The most perfect creature, left to itself, will fall into ruin. This was exemplified in the angels that fell, and in Adam, though in a perfect state. Divine preservation is the prop which keeps the most holy from ruin. The best of men are but men at best. "Be strong in the Lord," says the apostle, "and in the power of his might."
Section II. I proceed to show, that such seeming graces as have never been tried, or will not bear trial, ought not to pass for genuine. They will neither comfort men now, nor fit them for heaven at last.
1. All is not gold that glitters. Great numbers of persons in the professing world are deceived and destroyed by trusting to mere apparent grace; they cannot determine that they have true holiness unless some trial be made of it, and if a trial be made which they cannot endure, the conclusion must be against them; hence they grope in uncertainty, and finally stumble where neither deliverance nor mitigation can reach them. Such was the miserable condition of the Laodiceans mentioned in the text; they imagined themselves rich, but were, in truth, poor and wretched; their fancied gold had never been tried in the fire. Reader, pass not over this topic without some serious reflection in regard to your own spiritual state.
2. The promises of salvation are made to such holiness, such religion, as will endure trial: "Blessed is the man that endureth temptation; for when he is tried he shall receive the crown of life which God hath promised to them that love him."
Not to him who acts out in the morning with resolution and gallantry, but to him who holds out till the evening of life, does the promise apply, "He that endureth to the end shall be saved." Hence, if any who have sustained slight troubles shall afterward faint and fall under severe trials, all their labors and their hopes will prove vain.
3. Every man's character must be scrutinized at the final judgment; and if those who pretend to religion cannot endure the trials to which they are now exposed, how can they bear the investigation to which they will then be subjected? Surely, if we have not such holiness as will bear the severest tests to which it can be brought in this life, we can hardly hope it will sustain the ordeal of the last day. If we cannot bear these lighter trials; if a little prosperity, or a light stroke of adversity discover so much falseness, pride, and selfishness in the heart; if we cannot resist temptation, but yield ourselves servants to sin; if we can neither keep our hearts with God in duties, nor mourn for our wanderings from him; if a few scoffs from wicked tongues, or trials of persecution from the hands of men cause us to faint in the way, and turn back from following the Lord—what shall we do when He comes, "whose fan is in his hand, and who will thoroughly purge his floor," and who will "try every man's work, as by fire, of what sort it is?"
4. True holiness is willing to be tried. True saints greatly desire to know their condition and choose to be searched and proved; but false religion strives to avoid the touchstone, and shrinks from scrutiny. Saints wish to know the truth respecting themselves, whatever it may be, while those who prefer that their supposed grace should not be tried, are secretly conscious of its falseness and of their insincerity.
O professor, if thy heart be right, thou wilt wish to know the worst of thyself; and when thou hast made the deepest search, thou wilt still fear thou hast not been severe enough; nothing will give thee more content than when thou feelest the word dividing thy soul and spirit, thy joints and marrow; nothing so much comforts thee under affliction as the discovery it makes of thy heart. Thou wilt seem to feel with what affection those words fell from the prophet's lips: "Thou, O Lord, knowest me, thou hast seen me, and tried my heart toward thee." O what refreshing sweetness will stream through thy soul, when thou canst make the like appeal to God, and with like sincerity! And surely, with no such willingness to have your graces tried, you can have little evidence that they are genuine.
CHAPTER XI.
Containing various inferences from the subject, and persuasions to self-examination.
Section I. 1. God has appointed so many trials of our sincerity, let no man indulge the hope that his hypocrisy can long be concealed. Ah, there is no darkness nor shadow of death that can conceal the hypocrite. Oftentimes God discovers him by the trials he appoints in this world; but there will be a day when God will strip him naked before the great assembly of angels and men, and all shall gaze on him and say, "Lo! this is the man that made not God his hope. This is he that wore a garment of profession to deceive; but God has now stripped him out of it, and all men see what he is." Away then with hypocrisy! Be honest and hearty in religion; otherwise confusion of face shall be your recompense from the Lord.
2. In view of what has been said, be guarded against too much confidence of your good estate. Your period of trial has not expired; "you have not resisted unto blood striving against sin; be not high-minded, but fear."
3. If true holiness must be tried, even in this world, as gold is tried in the fire, then it greatly concerns all, at their setting out, to build upon the sure foundation, and to anticipate severe trials. If any have not done this, it behooves them to do it now. I warn you reader, to count the cost before you attempt to build; to the test you must come, and by truth you must be judged; if you hope to endure to the end, you must have the spirit of a martyr.
4. It may be observed in view of this subject that scandals and offences, in connection with religion, are unavoidable. "It must needs be that offences come; for all who are exposed to trials will not be able to bear them, some therefore will be offended; but the holy God will accomplish his ends, both in them that are saved and in them that perish.
On the whole, true saints have abundant reason to be encouraged; but hypocrites and self-deceivers may well be dismayed, for if they are not exposed in this life, they are sure to be hereafter.
Section II. If men must be tried as gold is tried in the fire, then it is of great importance that they should examine and prove themselves; and it cannot be unsuitable to urge this duty by some pressing considerations.
1. The difficulty of this work ought to excite you to undertake it in earnest. Who finds it not hard to persuade his heart to such a work as this? Nature declines it. Flesh and blood relish it not. It is no easy thing to bring a man and his own heart together. I fear there are many professors of religion who can spend day after day in hearing and talking of fruitless controversies, that never spend one day in determining whether they are the servants of God or of the world; whether they are on the way to heaven or hell. Yea, I doubt not many sinful hours are spent in prying into, reporting and censuring the failings of others, while not one hour is faithfully employed in judging their own hearts before the Lord. O, men had rather be about any work than this; there is no pleasure in it to the flesh!
And difficult as it is to bring our hearts to this work, it is still more difficult to bring the great question of our sincerity to a clear result and issue. O how many upright hearts have lifted up cries to heaven, and shed secret and undissimulated tears, and still are in the dark, perplexed and filled with fears as to the real state of their souls! Defer not the work, therefore, if you would attain well-founded peace, and avoid final shame and perdition.
2. The discovery of sincerity and holiness, after a faithful examination, will abundantly reward you for your pains. You will never regret that you have prayed and mourned, that you have trembled and feared, that you have searched and tried your own heart; nay, you will never repent of it, that God has tried you by sharp afflictions and deep sufferings, if your sincerity be but thereby made fully to appear. You may then go to the promises boldly, take Christ into the arms of your faith, and say, "My Beloved is mine, and I am his." O what blessedness as to the soul, when a man sees what he is, and what he has in Christ and the promises, and what he has to do!
3. The vast interest of your soul in this matter ought to awaken you to the utmost diligence in examining yourself. Your eternal happiness stands or falls with your sincerity. Bring your heart then to the trial; your thoughts cannot be occupied on a more momentous subject; a portion of your time cannot be employed to a better purpose; a business more worthy of your closest attention cannot be named.
4. Consider that it is to your highest advantage to be thoroughly tried, whatever the result must be. If you be found sincere, you are richly rewarded for all your labor. If you find the contrary, the discovery may be of unspeakable benefit to your soul. Your vain confidence being destroyed, you are open to the deep and effectual conviction of your sin and misery; and till you come to open your heart to this conviction, and give up your false refuges, there is no hope of you. Christ assured the hypocritical Pharisees, that publicans and harlots were in a fairer way for heaven than they, because conviction had easier access to their consciences. I may say of your groundless hope, as Christ to the officers who came to seize him: "If ye seek me, let these go their way." It is your happiness to have every false confidence stripped off, and your nakedness and poverty discovered, that you may thus be led to Christ and made rich in him.
5. Remember, that whether prepared or unprepared whether a saint or a sinner, you must ere long stand before the judgment-seat of Christ, and be approved or condemned. Therefore, examine and prove yourself now, and be willing that God should try you as he pleases in this world, that confusion and woe may not overwhelm you at last.
CHRISTIAN CONSOLATION.
“I was in prison and ye came unto me.”
If He who spake as never man did speak—
If He who was all purity and love—
In pity to frail man, could stoop to seek
And save the guilty, from his throne above;
If He, himself untouched by sin or guile,
For man's infirmity could deeply feel—
And though, with awe, he sin rebuked the while,
The spirit kindly wounded but to heal:
Shall man—frail man—with judgment more severe,
His erring brother doom to dark despair—
Unmov'd by sorrow's penitential tear,
Deaf to the prodigal's relenting prayer?
Perhaps in some lone prison's dark recess,
Are souls immur'd who inly, deeply feel—
Those whom the Saviour came on earth to bless—
Those whom the Great Physician's touch would heal.
As ministers of God, for lasting good,
Extend the hand of sympathy and love—
Not deepest guilt such mercy long withstood,
Awaken'd by the spirit from above.
As ye have done, and do to one of these—
E'en to the least—will it to Christ be done;
"A cup of water" more than thirst appease,
If given, in faith and love, through God's dear Son.
[Sel.]
CONTENT THE BEST RICHES.
As the heart is, so is the estate. Riches are but ciphers; it is the mind that makes the sum. What am I the better for a great estate, if I am not contented with it? Desires of having will quickly eat up all the comforts and delights in possessing. Therefore, that Alexander that wants content, is worse than Diogenes that is contented with his wants, as argued a rich man when walking through a market, and beholding varieties of good commodities, yet could say, How many things do I not want! But a richer mind in the disciples, that with a sweet complacency of spirit, could acknowledge, That as having nothing, and yet possessing all things. I see all would be well, if my heart were well; I will therefore form my heart to my estate, so shall I have an estate according to my heart.
THE TORMENT OF THE GREEKS ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS.
Verse 10: "Their power was to hurt men five months."
1. The question arises, What men were they to hurt five months? Undoubtedly, the same they were afterwards to slay; [see verse 15.] "The third part of men," or third of the Roman empire—the Greek division of it.
2. When were they to begin their work of torment? The 11th verse answers the question:— "They had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek hath his name Apollyon."
1. "They had a king over them." From the death of Mahomet until near the close of the 13th century, the Mahommedans were divided into various factions, under several leaders, with no general civil government extending over them all. Near the close of the 13th century, Othman founded a government, which has since been known as the Ottoman government, or empire, extending over all the principal Mahommedan tribes, consolidating them into one grand monarchy.
2. The character of the king. "Which is the angel of the bottomless pit." An angel signifies a messenger, or minister, either good or bad; not always a spiritual being. "The angel of the bottomless pit," or chief minister of the religion which came from thence when it was opened. That religion is Mahommedism, and the Sultan is its chief minister. "The Sultan, or Grand Signior, as he is indifferently called, is also Supreme Caliph, or high priest, uniting in his person the highest spiritual dignity with the supreme secular authority."
When the address of "The World's Anti-Slavery Convention" was presented to Mehemet Ali, he expressed his willingness to act in the matter, but said he could do nothing; they "must go to the heads of religion at Constantinople," that is, the Sultan.
3. His name. In Hebrew, "Abaddon," the destroyer; in Greek, "Apollyon," one that exterminates or destroys. Having two different names in the two languages, it is evident that the character, rather than the name of the power, is intended to be represented. If so, in both languages he is a destroyer. Such has always been the character of the Ottoman government.
Says Perkins,—"He," the Sultan, "has unlimited power over the lives and property of his subjects, especially of the high officers of state whom he can remove, plunder or put to death at pleasure. They are required submissively to kiss the bow-string which he sends them, wherewith they are to be strangled."
All the above marks apply to the Ottoman government in a striking manner.
But when did Othman make his first assault on the Greek empire? According to Gibbon, ("Decl. and Fall," &c.) "Othman first entered the territory of Nicomedia on the 27th day of July, 1299."
The calculations of some writers have gone upon the supposition that the period should begin with the foundation of the Ottoman empire; but this is evidently an error: for they not only were to have a king over them, but were to torment men five months. But the period of torment could not begin before the first attack of the tormentors, which was as above, July 27th, 1299.
The calculation which follows, founded on this starting-point, was made and published in "Christ's Second Coming," &c., by the author, in 1838.
"And their power was to torment men five months." Thus far their commission extended, to torment, by constant depredations, but not politically to kill them. "Five months;" that is, one hundred and fifty years. Commencing July 27th 1299, the one hundred and fifty years reach to 1449. During that whole period the Turks were engaged in an almost perpetual war with the Greek empire, but yet without conquering it. They seized upon and held several of the Greek provinces, but still Greek independence was maintained in Constantinople. But in 1449, the termination of the one hundred and fifty years, a change came. Before presenting the history of that change, however, we will look at verses 12–15.
THE OTTOMAN SUPREMACY IN CONSTANTINOPLE THREE HUNDRED AND NINETY-ONE YEARS AND FIFTEEN DAYS.
Verse 12: "One woe is past; and behold, there come two woes more hereafter."
Verse 13: "And the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God."
Verse 14: "Saying to the sixth angel which had the trumpet, Loose the four angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates."
Verse 15: "And the four angels were loosed, which were prepared for an hour, a day, a month, and a year, for to slay the third part of men."
The first woe was to continue from the rise of Mahommedism until the end of the five months. Then the first woe was to end, and the second begin. And when the sixth angel sounded, it was commanded to take off the restraints which had been imposed on the nation, by which they were restricted to the work of tormenting men, and their commission extended to slay the third part of men. This command came from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God. "The four angels," are the four principal sultanies of which the Ottoman empire is composed, located in the country of the Euphrates. They had been restrained; God commanded, and they were loosed.
In the year 1449, John Paleologus, the Greek emperor, died, but left no children to inherit his throne, and Constantine Deacozes succeeded to it. But he would not venture to ascend the throne without the consent of Amurath, the Turkish Sultan. He therefore sent ambassadors to ask his consent, and obtained it, before he presumed to call himself sovereign.
"This shameful proceeding seemed to presage the approaching downfall of the empire. Ducas, the historian, counts John Paleologus for the last Greek emperor, without doubt, because he did not consider as such a prince who had not dared to reign without the permission of his enemy."
Let this historical fact be carefully examined in connection with the prediction above. This was not a violent assault made on the Greeks, by which their empire was overthrown and their independence taken away, but simply a voluntary surrender of that independence into the hands of the Turks, by saying, "I cannot reign unless you permit."
The four angels were loosed for an hour, a day, a month, and a year, to slay the third part of men. This period amounts to three hundred and ninety-one years and fifteen days; during which Ottoman supremacy was to exist in Constantinople.
But, although the four angels were thus loosed by the voluntary submission of the Greeks, yet another doom awaited the seat of empire. Amurath, the sultan to whom the submission of Deacozes was made, and by whose permission he reigned in Constantinople, soon after died, and was succeeded in the empire, in 1451, by Mahomet II., who set his heart on Constantinople, and determined to make it a prey. He accordingly made preparations for besieging and taking the city. The siege commenced on the 6th of April, 1453, and ended in the taking of the city, and death of the last of the Constantines, on the 16th day of May following. And the eastern city of the Cæsars became the seat of the Ottoman empire.
The arms and mode of warfare by which the siege83of Constantinople was to be overthrown, and held in subjection were distinctly noticed by the revelator.—1. The army.
Verse 16: "And the number of the army of the horsemen were two hundred thousand thousand; and I heard the number of them."
Innumerable hordes of horses and them that sat on them. Gibbon describes the first invasion of the Roman territories by the Turks, thus: "The myriads of Turkish horse overspread a frontier of six hundred miles from Tauris to Azeroum, and the blood of 130,000 Christians was a grateful sacrifice to the Arabian prophet." Whether the number is designed to convey the idea of any definite number, the reader must judge. Some suppose 200,000 twice told is meant, and then following some historians, find that number of Turkish warriors in the siege of Constantinople. Some think 200,000,000 to mean all the Turkish warriors during the 391 years, fifteen days of their triumph over the Greeks. I confess this to me appears the most likely. But as it cannot be ascertained whether that is the fact or not, I will affirm nothing on the point.
Verse 17: "And thus I saw the horses in the vision, and them that sat on them, having breastplates of fire, and of jacinth and brimstone: and the heads of the horses were as the heads of lions; and out of their mouths issued fire, and smoke, and brimstone."
On this text I shall again refer to Mr. Keith for an illustration of it:—
"The color of fire is red, of hyacinth or jacint, blue, and of brimstone yellow, and this, as Mr. Daubuz observes, 'has a literal accomplishment; for the Othmans, from the first time of their appearance, have affected to wear such warlike apparel of scarlet, blue, and yellow. Of the Spahis, particularly, some have red and some have yellow standards, and others red or yellow mixed with other colors. In appearance, too, the heads of the horses were as the heads of lions, to denote their strength, courage and fierceness.' Without rejecting so plausible an interpretation, the suggestion may not be unwarranted, that a still closer and more direct exposition may be given of that which the prophet saw in the vision. In the prophetic description of the fall of Babylon, they who rode on horses are described as holding the bow and the lance; but it was with other arms than the arrow and the spear that the Turkish warriors encompassed Constantinople; and the breastplates of the horsemen, in reference to the more destructive implements of war, might then, for the first time, be said to be fire, and jacinth and brimstone. The musket had recently supplied the place of the bow. Fire emanated from their breasts. Brimstone, the flame of which is jacint, was an ingredient both of one liquid fire and of gunpowder. Congruity seems to require this more strictly literal interpretation, as conformable to the significance of the same terms in the immediately subsequent verse, including the same general description. A new mode of warfare was at that time introduced which has changed the nature of war itself, in regard to the form of its instruments of destruction; and sounds and sights unheard of and unknown before, were the death-knell and doom of the Roman empire. Invention outrivalled force, and a new power was introduced, that of musketry as well as artillery, in the art of war, before which the old Macedonian phalanx would not have remained unbroken, nor the Roman legions stood. That which John saw 'in the vision,' is read in the history of the times."
Verse 18: "By these three was the third part of men killed, by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths."
"Among the implements of destruction, he studied with peculiar care the recent and tremendous discovery of the Latins, and his artillery surpassed whatever had yet appeared in the world. A founder of cannon, a Dane or Hungarian, who had been almost starved in the Greek service, deserted to the Moslems, and was liberally entertained by the Turkish sultan. Mahomet was satisfied with the answer to his first question, which he eagerly pressed on the artist,—Am I able to cast a cannon capable of throwing a ball or stone of sufficient size to batter the walls of Constantinople?' 'I am not ignorant of their strength, but were they more solid than those of Babylon, I could oppose an engine of superior power; the position and management of that engine must be left to your engineers.' On this assurance a foundery was established at Adrianople; the metal was prepared; and at the end of three months Urban produced a piece of brass ordnance of stupendous and almost incredible magnitude. A measure of twelve palms was assigned to the bore, and the stone bullet weighed about six hundred pounds. A vacant place before the new palace was chosen for the first experiment; but to prevent the sudden and mischievous effects of astonishment and fear, a proclamation was issued that the cannon would be discharged the ensuing day. The explosion was felt or heard in a circuit of a hundred furlongs; the ball, by the force of the gunpowder, was driven about a mile, and on the spot where it fell, it buried itself a fathom deep in the ground. For the conveyance of this destructive engine, a frame or carriage of thirty wagons was linked together, and drawn along by a train of sixty oxen; two hundred men on both sides were stationed to poise or support the rolling weight; two hundred and fifty workmen marched before to smooth the way and repair the bridges, and near two months were employed in a laborious journey of a hundred and fifty miles. I dare not reject the positive and unanimous evidence of contemporary writers. A Turkish cannon, more enormous than that of Mahomet, still guards the entrance of the Dardanelles, and if the use be inconvenient, it has been found, on a late trial, that the effect is far from contemptible. A stone bullet of eleven hundred pounds weight was once discharged with three hundred and thirty pounds of powder; at the distance of six hundred yards it shivered into three rocky fragments, traversed the strait, and leaving the waters in a foam, again rose and bounded against the opposite hill.'
"In the siege, the incessant volleys of lances and arrows were accompanied with the smoke, the sound and the fire of their musketry and cannon. Their small arms discharged at the same time five or even ten balls of lead of the size of a walnut, and according to the closeness of the ranks, and the force of the powder, several breastplates and bodies were transpierced by the same shot. But the Turkish approaches were soon sunk in trenches, or covered with ruins. Each day added to the science of the Christians, but their inadequate stock of gunpowder was wasted in the operations of each day. Their ordnance was not powerful either in size or number, and if they possessed some heavy cannon, they feared to plant them on the walls, lest the aged structure should be shaken and overthrown by the explosion. The same destructive secret had been revealed to the Moslems, by whom it was employed with the superior energy of zeal, riches and despotism. The great cannon of Mahomet has been separately noticed; an important and visible object in the history of the times; but that enormous engine was flanked by two fellows almost of equal magnitude; the long order of the Turkish artillery was pointed against the walls; fourteen batteries thundered at once on the most accessible places, and of one of these it is ambiguously expressed that it was mounted with one hundred and thirty guns, or that it discharged one hundred and thirty bullets. Yet in the power and activity of the sultan we may discern the infancy of the new science; under a master who counted the moments, the great cannon could be loaded and fired no more than seven times in one day. The heated metal unfortunately burst; several workmen were destroyed, and the skill of an artist was admired who bethought himself of preventing the danger and the accident by pouring oil after each explosion into the mouth of the cannon."
This historical sketch from Gibbon, of the use of gunpowder, fire-arms and cannon, as the instrumentality by which the city was finally overcome, is so illustrative of the text, that one can hardly imagine any other scene can be described.
The specified time for the continuance of Turkish or Mahommedan supremacy over the Greeks, was an hour, a day, a month, and a year. A prophetic year, three hundred and sixty days; a month, thirty days; one day; and an hour, or the twenty-fourth part of a day. Three hundred and sixty, the number of days in a prophetic year, divided by twenty-four, the number of hours in a day, gives us fifteen days. Three hundred and ninety-one years and fifteen days.
Commencing when the one hundred and fifty years ended, in 1449, the period would end August 11th, 1840. Judging from the manner of the commencement of the Ottoman supremacy, that it was by a voluntary acknowledgement on the part of the Greek emperor that he only reigned by permission of the Turkish sultan, we should naturally conclude that the fall or departure of the Ottoman independence would be brought about in the same way; that at the end of the specified period, the Sultan would voluntarily surrender his independence into the hands of the Christian powers, from whom he received it.
When the foregoing calculation was made, it was purely a matter of calculation on the prophetic periods of Scripture. Now, however, the time has passed by, and it is proper to inquire what the result has been—whether it has corresponded with the previous calculation.
I shall now pass to the question, has that supremacy departed from the Mahometans into Christian hands, so that the Turks now exist and reign by the sufferance and permission of the Christian powers, as the Christians did for some two or three years by the permission of the Turks?
First Testimony.—The following is from Rev. Mr. Goodell, missionary of the American Board at Constantinople, addressed to the Board, and by them published in the Missionary Herald, for April, 1841, p. 160:—
"The power of Islamism is broken forever; and there is no concealing the fact even from themselves. They exist now by mere sufferance. And though there is a mighty effort made by the Christian governments to sustain them, yet at every step they sink lower and lower with fearful velocity. And though there is a great endeavor made to graft the institutions of civilized and Christian countries upon the decayed trunk, yet the very root itself is fast wasting away by the venom of its own poison. How wonderful it is, that, when all Christendom combined together to check the progress of Mahommedan power, it waxed exceedingly great in spite of every opposition; and now, when all the mighty potentates of Christian Europe, who feel fully competent to settle all the quarrels, and arrange all the affairs of the whole world, are leagued together for its protection and defence, down it comes, in spite of all their fostering care."
Mr. Goodell has been for years a missionary in the Turkish dominions, and is competent to judge of the state of the government. His deliberate and unequivocal testimony is that, "the power of Islamism is broken forever." But it is said the Turks yet reign! So also says our witness—"but it is by mere sufferance." They are at the mercy of the Christians. Their independence is broken.
Another Witness.—Rev. Mr. Balch, of Providence, R. I., in an attack on Mr. Miller for saying that the Ottoman empire fell in 1840, says:—"How can an honest man have the hardihood to stand up before an intelligent audience, and make such an assertion, when the most authentic version of the change of the Ottoman empire is that it has not been on a better foundation in fifty years, for it is now re-organized by the European kingdoms, and is honorably treated as such."
But how does it happen that Christian Europe re-organized the government? What need of it, if it was not disorganized? If Christian Europe has done this, then it is now, to all intents and purposes, a Christian government, and is only ruled nominally by the sultan, as their vassal.
This testimony is the most valuable for having come from an opponent. We could not have selected and put together words more fully expressive of the idea of the present state of the Ottoman empire. It is true the Christian governments of Europe have re-organized the Turkish empire, and it is their creature. From 1840 to the present time, the Ottoman government has been under the dictation of the great powers of Europe; and scarcely a measure of that government has been adopted and carried out without the interference and dictation of84the allies; and that dictation has been submitted to by them.
It is in this light politicians have looked upon the government since 1840, as the following item will show:—
The London Morning Herald, after the capture of St. Jean d'Acre, speaking of the state of things in the Ottoman empire, says:—"We (the allies) have conquered St. Jean d'Acre. We have dissipated into thin air the prestige that lately invested as with a halo the name of Mehemet Ali. We have in all probability destroyed forever the power of that hitherto successful ruler. But have we done aught to restore strength to the Ottoman empire? We fear not. We fear that the Sultan has been reduced to the rank of a puppet; and that the sources of the Turkish Empire's strength are entirely destroyed.
"If the supremacy of the Sultan is hereafter to be maintained in Egypt, it must be maintained, we fear, by the unceasing intervention of England and Russia."
What the London Morning Herald last November feared, has since been realized. The Sultan has been entirely, in all the great questions which have come up, under the dictation of the Christian kingdoms of Europe.