Earlier text: My AssuranceTwin Superstitions
By W. A. S.
THERE was present at one of our general meetings in Ireland, several years ago, a member whose work as a nurse had brought her much in contact with the Catholic peasantry in that intensely Catholic country. It was a common practise, she said, when one died, for the friends to at once punch a hole through the roof, in order to let the soul take its flight; while at the same time chairs were turned over on the floor to persuade the shade of the deceased not to linger about the room. Writing in the Baptist Missionary Magazine, Mr. Wm. Pettigrew, of Manipur, Assam, speaks thus of a custom among the people of that northeastern part of India:— When a Tangkhul naga dies, his spirit is believed to turn into an insect called kaha, a kind of honey-bee, which flies to the roof of the house. In case this metamorphosed spirit wishes to spread its wings outside, a hole is made in the roof directly over the bed of the deceased. These and many similar ideas concerning the soul after death, have common origin in primitive heathenism. The Third Angel’s Message
“AND the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation.” Hidden Beauty
By Hettie L. Olsen
’Tis only a piece of marble,
Awkward and rough and tall,
All covered with dust, and unnoticed;
It seems of no use at all.
Some tired, way-worn traveler
May rest in its kindly shade,
And at its base, on the greensward,
May his weary head be laid. ’Tis passed by the high and noble,
By the rich, the poor, the lone,
To them a blot on the landscape
Is that block of ugly stone.
One day a far-famed sculptor
By chance passed by that way;
He pauses, examining closely
That giant so dusty and gray. He sees not the grimy surface,
He sees not unyielding rock;
’Nay, he sees a beautiful image
In its rough exterior locked.
To his workshop he has it taken,
Where the hammer and chisel he plies,
Till a white-robed, winged angel
Stands before admiring eyes. So many of us, like that marble,
Seem worthless and in the way;
But there is a wise, true Sculptor
Who can chisel the worthless away;
The blows may fall fast and heavy,
But the quicker the work will be done,
And then God will see perfected
The image of his dear Son. What the Cause of God Demands of His Servants
By Ellen G. White
The work of God is a straightforward, sensible, loving work, and belief of the truth for this time should lead to a straightforward, sensible, loving experience in God’s people. Truth must be received and practised in every opportunity given us for doing good. We are to treat the great subjects of eternal interest as all-important. We are to urge the truth for this time on those who know it not, saying, “Choose you this day whom ye will serve,” while we pray that the Lord will bring conviction and conversion to their hearts. In this work the Holy Spirit is to be our sanctifier and our efficiency. The assurance of success is ours, because of the provision made by Christ. We shall meet with obstacles and difficulties; bitter and relentless will be our enemies; but as we follow on to know the Lord, we shall know that his going forth is prepared as the morning. Christ’s presence is promised to us in our labors. “Lo, I am with you alway,” he says, “even unto the end of the world.” In his presence there is fulness of joy; at his right hand there are pleasures forevermore. The Lord is true to all the terms of salvation. He longs to work for his people. “The Lord shall comfort Zion: he will comfort all her waste places; and he will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord; joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving, and the voice of melody.” This work will be done through the agency of those who are truly the Lord’s, and who are standing on vantage-ground. The Lord has pledged himself to make his name a praise in the earth. What power he has promised to all who will work in co-operation with heaven! The three highest powers in the universe are pledged to labor with those who will seek to save the lost. God wants his people to claim his promised help for the accomplishment of his work in the world. “Harken unto me, my people,” he declares; “and give ear unto me, O my nation: for a law shall proceed from me, and I will make my judgment to rest for a light of the people. My righteousness is near; my salvation is gone forth, and mine arms shall judge the people; the isles shall wait upon me, and on mine arm shall they trust.” In a special manner truth is adapted to the necessities of every human heart. As the children of God comprehend the ability of the Lord to supply their needs, they will reach out to meet the needs of the souls who are perishing in sin. God will accept all who will exercise faith in him and become doers of his word. Christ labored untiringly to accomplish the great work that he came to the world to do. His desire to save the lost race was manifest on all occasions. He went about doing good. It was his mission to help those in need, to seek the lost, to lift up the bowed down, to heal the sick, to speak words of sympathy and consolation to the sorrowing and the distressed. His heart was ever touched with human woe. How earnestly he worked for sinners! And how constant were his efforts to prepare his disciples to carry the gospel message to the ends of the earth! Christ placed himself on the altar of service a living sacrifice. Should we, his disciples, spare ourselves? In these days when there is so great a work to be done, unceasing activity is called for. Darkness has covered the earth, and gross darkness the people. Many are far from Christ, wandering in the wilderness of sin. They are strangers from the covenant of promise; and the Lord is coming soon. Already the judgments of God are in the land. Shall we let the unwarned multitudes go down into darkness and death without a preparation for the future life? The testimony comes to every believer at this time, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be ye not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. For I say through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.” “Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good. Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honor preferring one another; not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord; rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer; distributing to the necessity of saints; given to hospitality.” It is not learned men, not eloquent men, who are so much needed now, but humble men, who in the school of Christ have learned to be meek and lowly, who will go forth into the highways and hedges to give the invitation, “Come; for all things are now ready.” Those who beg at midnight for loaves for hungry souls will be successful. It is a law of heaven that as we receive we are to impart. The Christian is to be a benefit to others; thus he himself is benefited. “He that watereth shall be watered also himself.” This is not merely a promise. It is a law of God’s divine administration, a law by which he designs that the streams of beneficence shall be kept, like the waters of the great deep, in constant circulation, perpetually flowing back to their source. In the fulfilling of this law is the power of Christian missions. God calls for whole-hearted, sympathizing, liberal, unselfish men, for nobility of dealing. He will not tolerate selfishness. Christ’s servants are to have his spirit; they are to be lifted far above all littleness and cheapness of thought or action. They are to lay hold of the merits of a crucified and risen Saviour. Human hands may never have been laid on them in ordination; but there is One who will give them a fitness for the work, if they will ask in faith. I entreat of you to ask and to receive the Holy Spirit. This Spirit can be received only by those who are consecrated, who deny self, lifting the cross and following after the Lord. We have only a little longer time in which to prepare for eternity. May the Lord open the closed eyes of his people and quicken their dulled senses, that they may comprehend the great truths of the gospel—the power of God unto salvation to those who believe. The whole body of believers needs to8be vitalized by the Holy Spirit of God. We should study, plan, economize, and set in operation every means possible whereby we may reach and bless suffering and ignorant humanity. The light which God has given to us as a people is not given that we may treasure it among ourselves. We are to act in harmony with the great commission given to every disciple of Christ, to carry to all the world the light of truth. The human family is God’s heritage. “Ye are not your own; for ye are bought with a price,” the apostle declares. When this great truth is realized by believers, the affections of the heart and the powers of the being will co-operate to render to God the highest service. A Thousand Dollars a Day
By G. B. THOMPSON
A THOUSAND dollars a day is quite a large sum, yet this is practically the amount that is needed to carry forward the work already begun in planting the standard of the third angel's message in the regions beyond. Think of it! Every time the sun rises in the morning, Sabbaths and all, from some source there must come a thousand dollars to feed and clothe our faithful laborers toiling at the front. And we must either furnish this amount or recall some of our laborers, and dismantle some of our mission posts established in the midst of teeming millions who know nothing of this message. But, you say, our missionary operations in foreign lands are becoming quite expensive. They are, thank the Lord! And it will take more each year, until the work is done. Next year's budget must be larger than this year's. If it is not, it will indicate stagnation in some place. As the lines of the message extend, more laborers must be sent to strengthen the work; and the more mission stations opened and the more laborers sent to fill the Macedonian calls, the more funds it will require. A thousand dollars a day will not long suffice. An individual offering of a dime a day will do just now, perhaps, as a financial shibboleth, but the growth of the work already warns us that we must soon pass on to something larger. Back in 1874, when Elder J. N. Andrews, our first missionary across the sea, went to Europe, it did not require so much as it does now to finance the work. We did not have to plan for a thousand dollars every time the orb of day came up. A few thousand dollars would suffice while the earth was describing its yearly orbit around the sun. Would you be glad if it took no more than that now? Hardly, for we desire to see growth. We all are glad the message is taking on new and greater strength, and taxing our resources to the utmost to furnish the recruits needed to advance into new fields, and to strengthen the work already begun. But in order to keep pace with the work we must continually lay broader plans. To depend on the plans laid in the past to carry forward the work of the future is folly. This would be something like putting a full-grown man into the clothes he wore when a boy. But who is responsible for securing this thousand dollars a day? Dear reader, as you see the sun come up each morning, remember that another thousand dollars must be found to use in forwarding God's last message, and ask yourself the question, “How much am I responsible for raising this amount?” Is the treasurer of the General Conference responsible alone?—No, indeed. Are the union and local conference treasurers responsible?—In part they are, but not wholly. The responsibility must be laid where it belongs, and that is upon the local churches. Every church elder, deacon, and treasurer, the officers and teachers in every Sabbath-school, should all wrestle with this financial problem, and help solve it. It is an individual responsibility, and nothing is needed more in this cause than a recognition of individual responsibility in all lines of work. Why should a few men carry all the burden in this matter, and the great majority in the churches scarcely ever think of it? My brethren, these things ought not so to be. Ministers and laymen should keep this stupendous work constantly before them, and be ceaseless in their activities until they know that what is actually needed to carry forward the work in an economic manner, is placed in the treasury. When all do this, there will be no scarcity of funds for carrying forward the message either at home or abroad. Here Is the Patience of the Saints
By George I. Butler
“And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb: and the smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name. Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.” Rev. 14:9-12. We have quoted this scripture more than once, because of its great importance, and because we wish all who read these articles to become very familiar with it. Never was there a message to mankind of greater importance than this. It is the most solemn to be found in all the canon of inspiration. Let all notice that in this message there are two important divisions: (1) That most fearful threatenings are uttered against beast and image worshipers,—those who receive the papal beast’s mark; and (2) that in the latter part of this message God’s true people are plainly recognized. The language is peculiar and emphatic: “Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.” Under this last message to humanity that will ever be heard in this world, those who will accept that light and be faithful in the promulgation of it, are recognized as God’s peculiar people; those who will not accept and obey it, will help to compose that great mass against which his fearful threatenings are uttered. The Lord calls attention to a peculiar characteristic of the period of time during which his great work will be done. It is a special time of patience, spoken of in various scriptures,—the time of the saints’ special exercise of patience: “Here is the patience of the saints.” When is it?—It is at the time of the proclamation of the third angel of the message series. This particular feature is not mentioned in either the first or the second message. The special period of patience is not reached until the time when the third angel proclaims his message,—not until the time of the great disappointment in 1844 has passed, and Babylon’s spiritual fall has taken place. Then the time of special patience is entered upon. What is patience?—“The act or power of calmly or contentedly waiting for something due or hoped for.” This is Webster’s second definition of patience. And how wonderfully well it applies to those who have so long been waiting for their Lord’s coming! None but the old believers can appreciate the full force of the application. In the great advent movement of 1840-44, they fully believed his coming was to take place immediately, because of the fulfilment of the prophecy, “Unto two thousand three hundred days [years]; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed [“justified,” margin].” That prophecy did reach to that great judgment period allotted to an examination of the books of God’s remembrance and the final decision of all cases just before Christ’s coming to execute the sentence of that grand assize. But the believers then had no conception of the great work to be done in warning the world fully of the coming of Christ. That warning must and will be given. God’s Word declares it; it says, “The earth was lightened with his glory.” That is the warning message of which the revelator speaks. The warning of the world of Christ’s soon coming is the last special work of God’s people, even as Noah, the preacher of righteousness, warned the antediluvian world during the one hundred twenty years while the Spirit of God was still striving with that generation. The advent believers fondly hoped to see their Lord in a comparatively brief time. They knew the Lord must come soon, for over and over the Saviour had declared most positively that he would come soon after the signs which he gave9were fulfilled. He said that his disciples might know it with all the certainty that we can know that summer is near when the trees put forth their leaves. I am writing this in the month of April. The trees are now in all this northern hemisphere pushing out their leaves. What would be our opinion of any one’s judgment who could not tell what season was coming? Our Saviour declared we may be just as certain that his coming is near when these great signs are fulfilled as that summer is coming when the leaves are putting out. Matt. 24: 32, 33. Those three great signs—the darkening of the sun, and of the moon, and the falling of the stars have all been fulfilled, so the nearness of his coming is positively certain. The time has seemed long. But notice! “As the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.” Verse 37. Noah preached one hundred twenty years. This warning message of a coming flood must have seemed to that generation an old story, a thousand-times-told tale. Only eight persons were saved in the ark. (However, many might have believed, and died before the flood came.) It is not far from one hundred twenty years since the first of the signs the Saviour gave was fulfilled. The great masses of professed Christians even ridicule the idea of Christ’s soon coming. It has become an unpopular doctrine. Many believers of the message have given it up, and doubtless many more will. But let us all believe it is the time of the saints’ patience. The long, weary years are slowly passing. Our faith is being tested. Some will give it up, but others have stronger faith. Christ says, speaking of this very time, “He that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.” Verse 13. Let us notice several references to this time of the saints’ patience: “Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward. For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise. For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry. Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul.” Heb. 10: 35-39. 1. This text speaks of a confidence which pays exceedingly well,—one which it is important to retain. 2. The apostle speaks of the great need of patience, that those whom he addressed might at last receive the fulfilment of the promise. Those who had led out in the work had done the will of God. Then they had a God-given work to do. 3. To what does this confidence and doing the will of God relate?—To the coming of Christ. That event has seemed to tarry, that is, it did not come as soon as expected. How wonderfully this describes the advent experience, when applied to the first message and those that received it! But the final assurance is that it will certainly come. Praise God for that assurance! 4. “The just shall live by faith.” Faith in what?—Faith in that event of which he is speaking, and which he warns us never to give up. 5. The Lord says of those who draw back and give up that faith, “I have no pleasure in them.” They draw back, he says, to perdition,—utter ruin at last. How sadly this has been verified in the advent experience. Reader, did you ever know a single person who had once believed this truth, to become more spiritual, more devoted, after giving it up? I do not know of a single instance. Remember we are in the time of the saints’ patience, when to give up is to go to perdition. Read James 5:1-8. The first verses give a fearful warning to the rich men. Untold miseries are coming upon them. They are heaping up riches in the last days, as the Revised Version puts it; this shall result in their flesh being eaten “as it were by fire.” They have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton, and a fearful day is before them. “Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain. Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.” Never was there such a time for seeking to be rich as in this period of the saints’ patience. Millionaires are plentiful. Private citizens in the United States have become richer than kings. Their doom is foretold. In this time of rushing to obtain filthy lucre, just before the end, true believers are to seek for patience. Never was there greater need of this precious grace. 1. “Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord.” What positive evidence this is that the Lord’s coming is near, and that there will be the greatest need of faith on our part to endure it. 2. Then is illustrated the advent experience by that of the husbandman sowing his seed. Does he sow the seed and expect a crop from it immediately?—Oh, no; it will take long, weary months, with many and great labors, before his reward comes back to him. He labors on, killing out the weeds, constantly tending it with great care, much toil, and weariness, keeping down its enemies of all sorts. Thus faithfully and with great patience must we labor on till the Master appears. The early rain came when the early apostles scattered the gospel seed all over the known world. The drops of the latter rain are already falling, and God is about to give a bountiful shower. Are we all prepared for it? If not, may God help us to get ready for it. 3. “Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.” To establish our hearts is to “make stable or firm; to fix immovably.” It is to have unwavering, continually abiding, unshaken faith in God’s truth for the last days. Never was this kind of faith more needed. “He that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.” There are plenty of that kind of people. Let such understand they will not receive any great blessings from God. The double-minded man is unstable in all his ways, claiming to love the Lord and his truth to-day, but sure to love the world a great deal more to-morrow. Living, abiding, enduring faith is the only thing that will stand the test in these last days,—in this the time of the saints’ patience. “Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth. Behold, I come quickly: hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown.” Rev. 3:10, 11. Here the same period of patience is brought to view at the very juncture when Christ says, “Behold I come quickly.” His counsel is, “Hold that fast which thou hast.” If we do that, we shall certainly never give up the truth which the Lord has given us. All of these counsels come just before the end, and in the time of the saints’ patience. The last scripture I will cite is Rev. 13:10: “He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity: he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints.” This covers a period of time reaching from the leading of the pope into captivity in 1798 down to our own time and onward, perfectly synchronizing with the third angel’s message just before the final destruction of the papacy. We are living in a period of great religious peril. Multitudes of voices are calling, This is the way. Poor weak souls are losing their bearings. Some are giving up, going they know not whither, leaving the plain prophetic landmarks, choosing “wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever.” May God in his infinite mercy pity them. Let all remember we are living in the time of the saints’ patience, and let us quit ourselves like men of God with our hearts “established” in the present truth. Our Privilege
By GEO. W. STILSON
“BEHOLD, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God.” Sons of God! Think what this means. Are you a son of God? Do you appreciate the privilege? What are the privileges of a son? Does this text really mean much to you? How often, when everything goes smoothly, we almost forget our Father! How often, when in trouble, we feel and act as if we were left to ourselves! Notice the little boy, the son of a kind father. When he is well and happy,10and everything seems bright and pleasant, does he forget his father?— O, no! He loves to tell him all his joys and pleasures. He lives over with him all the little experiences which mean so much to him. And when trouble comes, does he remain away from his father, bearing his burdens alone, perhaps crushed and helpless beneath troubles too great for him?— Ah, no! His very first impulse is to run to his father, and tell him all his difficulties, his disappointments, his sorrows. And happy is the child whose father is truly such in the fullest sense,—the child who always finds in his father the comfort, help, or instruction that he, in his childish inexperience, needs to help him over the rough places of life. “Beloved, now are we the sons of God.” We are children of a loving Father. But how often we forget our privilege as children! How often, when life runs smoothly, and there is nothing to seriously disturb our tranquillity, we forget our dependence upon our Father, and become self-sufficient! And then, when troubles, disappointments, and sorrows come, not being accustomed to talking with our Father about our daily experiences, how prone we are to carry our load alone, hardly knowing how to get rid of it, even though it be heavier than we are able to bear. Fathers, mothers, how would you feel if your boy should thus forget his sonship? Would it not grieve your hearts, and move you to pity to see him perplexed and unhappy with the burdens you would gladly carry for him? “Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him.” How must our Father feel when we insist on carrying the burdens which he wishes to carry for us? “Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee.” Brother, sister, does this seem too much for you to grasp? If so, think for a moment how you would feel if your child could not appreciate your love for him, and would refuse to accept what you do for him; then remember that your Father’s love is much greater than your own. Let us not continue to grieve the wonderful love that has made us sons of God. Let us appreciate and accept the wonderful gift, and in it find relief from the burdens which come to us in this world of sin. Thus may we become acquainted with our Father, and so be able to meet him with joy at his coming. PERCY T. MAGAN
By PERCY T. MAGAN
The Turkish Revolution.—No. 6
Constantinople: Europe’s Dinner — Russia’s Life
The Turkish question is the international question of the hour. The platform rings with it, and the press teems with it. One thing has been effected by the recent revolutions in the Ottoman empire,—men have ceased to “prophesy” as to what will happen next in Turkey. The situation, say the authorities , “is inscrutable.” Noel Buxton, the chairman of the Balkan Commission, tells us that “no one is entitled, since the revolution of the twenty-third of July, 1908, to speak of more than facts.” He declares that “no one has more to report than the things that have happened and the talk of the town,” and that “the world is watching a new phenomenon.” See Noel Buxton, Art. “Young Turks,” in Nineteenth Century and After, January, 1909. From these and many other similar statements by the most learned and brilliant students of the “near-Eastern question,” it is evident that they have no certain philosophy to advance relative to the future of the Ottoman empire. They admit that the situation “is inscrutable.” They agree that they can not fathom it. But on the Eastern question, as on a thousand other problems, the Word of God furnishes a sure philosophy. Biblical prophetics explain worldly politics. The Bible says of the Turk that “he shall come to his end, and none shall help him.” Abdul-Hamid or Mehmed V, Young Turk or no Young Turk, Salonikans or no Salonikans, palace camarilla or no palace camarilla,—the Turkish ship of state steams steadily into the whirlpool, in the vortex of which she will go down in defeat amid “a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time.” This is the all-overwhelming thought, the crowning inspiration in the preaching of the Eastern question. Forever let it be settled that we are dealing with prophetics and not with politics, and that the Turkish question now upon the hearts and lips of hundreds of thousands—yea, of millions—of men and women, is God’s great sign that the seven last plagues and the end of the world are at hand. The Eastern question is a mighty weapon in our hands by means of which to convict men and women and lead them to the salvation that there is in Jesus Christ. In last week’s REVIEW I endeavored to make plain the undying ambition of Russia to obtain free access to the sea; and that by international law, through a long train of treaties, this was impossible so long as the Turk sat upon the Bosporus. While free access to the oceans of earth for her navies via the Bosporus is all-important to Russia, there are other formidable and gigantic reasons of state why she can never rest until the long-coveted waters of the Bosporus are her very own. Divested of humanitarian considerations, the question of the future of the Ottoman empire is the question of the possession of, or the control of, Constantinople with the Dardanelles and the Bosporus. From the standpoint of military and naval power, Constantinople occupies a position of prime importance. Constantinople is the great gateway of two continents. Here was the spot which the great Darius had chosen to connect Asia and Europe with his bridge of boats. Napoleon Bonaparte once remarked that “the nation which holds Constantinople possesses the mastery of the world.” Be this as it may, it is beyond question “that the power which holds Constantinople dominates Russia.” Flanking the shores of the Black Sea, lie the garden lands of Russia. It is here that her richest and most fertile, and her most densely populated, provinces are situated. It is into the Black Sea that her mightiest rivers flow. The products of the soil and of the shop and the factory always follow the most natural and the cheapest means of transport, the course of the navigable streams. Thus the south of Russia is likely, more and more, to become the citadel and source of her wealth and power. Commerce as well as war seeks a free way to the high seas, and from the viewpoint of commerce and war alike, Constantinople is the natural heritage of the czars. A great authority has correctly stated the Muscovite situation relative to the possession of the imperial city of Constantinople:— “He who is at war with Russia can, if he controls Constantinople, attack her in her most vulnerable part. He may bring Russia to her knees without great military exertion by closing the Bosporus to Russia’s foreign trade, which is now a far more important factor in Russia’s economic life than it was at the time of Napoleon I, or of the Crimean War, when Russia’s foreign trade was quite insignificant.”—J. Ellis Barker, Art. “Future of Turkey,” in Fortnightly Review, October, 1908.
In the days of old, Constantinople was the centre of the world’s commerce, when by overland caravan the riches of Asia were hauled to the ports of South Europe, and when European goods were transported to the heart of the Orient via Egypt and the countries skirting the shores of the Black Sea. The sea is the route now taken, but with the phenomenal growth of railroads in the region south and east of the Black Sea, Constantinople, humanly speaking, is destined to become, once more, one of the greatest marts and most important distributing points on earth. Constantinople would be a very desirable possession for any Central European power. But it is a vital necessity to Russia. Central European powers on one side, and Russia on the other, with Constantinople as a prize between them, is a situation very much akin to that almost overshadowing challenge which Germany has hurled across the narrow seas to the empire of Great Britain,—“Supremacy on the ocean may be Germany’s dinner, but it is Britain’s life.” In the case between the Central European powers and the Russian empire, Constantinople may be their dinner, but it is Russia’s life. “Nearly all her great wars were waged for the possession of Constantinople, and she is not likely to abandon her aim now, when the possession of Constantinople is to her far more important and necessary than it has been at any previous period of her history. It is an extremely humiliating and an intolerable position for the greatest state11in the world to be denied free access to the sea.”—Id.
In the past the Austro-Hungarian empire and Great Britain have resisted Russia’s endeavors to obtain control or possession of Constantinople. Field Marshal Radetzky, by far the most statesmanlike Austrian general of modern times, has stated the case as between his country and Russia in the following masterly terms:— “Owing to her geographical position, Russia is the national and eternal enemy of Turkey. The huge territory of that empire can send its produce only through the narrow gates of the Baltic or the Bosporus. Russia must therefore do all she can to take possession of Constantinople, for its possession gives to her the security she requires, as well as territorial completeness.
“Russia’s geographical position makes it indispensable for her to keep open the Bosporus and the Sound. She can secure the former object only by dividing its shores between two independent powers, or by taking possession of it. Austria might permit the former, and might also permit Russia to possess an isolated fortress on the straits similar to Gibraltar. But Austria can never tolerate that Russia should incorporate Turkey in part or whole, for in that case Austria would be hemmed in and controlled by Russia. The Danube in Austria’s main artery. Its lower reaches in the Black Sea are as necessary to Austria as the Sound and the Dardanelles are to Russia; and in order to utilize the Danube freely, Austria requires also the free use of the Dardanelles. Hence it follows that the conflicting interests of Austria and Russia must lead to war unless both nations arrive at an agreement with regard to Turkey.”
There is still another and most potent reason from the Muscovite angle of view why Russia must drive the Turk off the straits, and generally disrupt his empire and terminate his rule. Russia is brought into eternal conflict with the Ottoman government from a racial and religious standpoint. There are vast numbers of men and women of the Slavonic race who owe their civil allegiance to the Turkish star and crescent. The religion of these people is the same as that of the Russians — the Greek Orthodox Church. On these two counts they are affined to the Russian people by a most powerful dual bond of race and faith. Consequently the manner in which Turkey rules her Christian subjects is a prolific cause of irritation between herself and her northern neighbor. Now the Russians are a profoundly religious people. Consequently there is something intolerable to them in the thought of a population of their own blood and creed being misruled and persecuted by the Moslems. Popular sentiment in Russia frequently runs so high over this matter that the hand of the government is forced to action. Thus Russia feels indeed that “Constantinople is the key to her house.” Without this strategic spot her war fleet is as good as useless, her trade and commerce is hindered and handicapped, and her foreign trade is in direct danger in time of war. Add to this her deep and almost organic interest in the ever-present alien and religious problem which the Turkish empire involves, and it will readily be seen that sooner or later Russia must float the cross of Saint Andrew over the citadel of the sultans.