It is usual for historians to say, that the
triumph of the South threw the Turks back again
upon their northern solitudes; and this might
easily be the case with some of the many hordes,
which were ever passing the boundary and{20}
flocking down; but it is no just account of the
historical fact, viewed as a whole. Not often indeed
do the Oriental nations present us with an
example of versatility of character; the Turks, for
instance, of this day are substantially what they{25}
were four centuries ago. We cannot conceive,
were Turkey overrun by the Russians at the
present moment, that the fanatical tribes, which
are pouring into Constantinople from Asia Minor,
would submit to the foreign yoke, take service{30}
under their conquerors, become soldiers,
custom-officers, police, men of business, attaches,
statesmen, working their way up from the ranks and
from the masses into influence and power; but,
whether from skill in the Saracens, or from {5}
far-reaching sagacity in the Turks (and it is difficult
to assign it to either cause), so it was, that a
process of this nature followed close upon the
Mahometan conquest of Sogdiana. It is to be
traced in detail to a variety of accidents. Many{10}
of the Turks probably were made slaves, and the
service to which they were subjected was no
matter of choice. Numbers had got attached to
the soil; and inheriting the blood of Persians,
White Huns, or aboriginal inhabitants for three{15}
generations, had simply unlearned the wildness
of the Tartar shepherd. Others fell victims to
the religion of their conquerors, which ultimately,
as we know, exercised a most remarkable
influence upon them. Not all at once, but as{20}
tribe descended after tribe, and generation
followed generation, they succumbed to the creed
of Mahomet; and they embraced it with the
ardor and enthusiasm which Franks and Saxons
so gloriously and meritoriously manifested in their{25}
conversion to Christianity.

Here again was a very powerful instrument
in modification of their national character. Let
me illustrate it in one particular. If there is one
peculiarity above another, proper to the savage{30}
and to the Tartar, it is that of excitability and
impetuosity on ordinary occasions; the Turks,
on the other hand, are nationally remarkable for
gravity and almost apathy of demeanor. Now
there are evidently elements in the Mahometan
creed, which would tend to change them from{5}
the one temperament to the other. Its
sternness, its coldness, its doctrine of fatalism; even
the truths which it borrowed from Revelation,
when separated from the truths it rejected, its
monotheism untempered by mediation, its severe{10}
view of the Divine attributes, of the law, and of a
sure retribution to come, wrought both a gloom
and also an improvement in the barbarian, not
very unlike the effect which some forms of
Protestantism produce among ourselves. But{15}
whatever was the mode of operation, certainly
it is to their religion that this peculiarity of the
Turks is ascribed by competent judges.
Lieutenant Wood in his journal gives us a lively
account of a peculiarity of theirs, which he{20}
unhesitatingly attributes to Islamism. "Nowhere,"
he says, "is the difference between European and
Mahometan society more strongly marked than
in the lower walks of life.... A Kasid, or
messenger, for example, will come into a public{25}
department, deliver his letters in full durbar, and
demean himself throughout the interview with
so much composure and self-possession, that an
European can hardly believe that his grade in
society is so low. After he has delivered his{30}
letters, he takes his seat among the crowd, and
answers, calmly and without hesitation, all the
questions which may be addressed to him, or
communicates the verbal instructions with which
he has been intrusted by his employer, and
which are often of more importance than the{5}
letters themselves. Indeed, all the inferior classes
possess an innate self-respect, and a natural
gravity of deportment, which differs as far from
the suppleness of a Hindustani as from the
awkward rusticity of an English clown." ... "Even{10}
children," he continues, "in Mahometan countries
have an unusual degree of gravity in their
deportment. The boy, who can but lisp his 'Peace be
with you,' has imbibed this portion of the national
character. In passing through a village, these{15}
little men will place their hands upon their
breasts, and give the usual greeting. Frequently
have I seen the children of chiefs approach their
father's durbar, and stopping short at the
threshold of the door, utter the shout of 'Salam{20}
Ali-Kum,' so as to draw all eyes upon them; but
nothing daunted, they marched boldly into the
room, and sliding down upon their knees, folded
their arms and took their seat upon the musnad
with all the gravity of grown-up persons." {25}

As Islamism has changed the demeanor of the
Turks, so doubtless it has in other ways materially
innovated on their Tartar nature. It has given
an aim to their military efforts, a political
principle, and a social bond. It has laid them under{30}
a sense of responsibility, has molded them into
consistency, and taught them a course of policy
and perseverance in it. But to treat this part
of the subject adequately to its importance would
require, Gentlemen, a research and a fullness of
discussion unsuitable to the historical sketch{5}
which I have undertaken. I have said enough
for my purpose upon this topic; and indeed
on the general question of the modification of
national character to which the Turks were at
this period subjected.{10}

The Turk and the Saracen

Mere occupation of a rich country is not
enough for civilization, as I have granted already.
The Turks came into the pleasant plains and
valleys of Sogdiana; the Turcomans into the
well-wooded mountains and sunny slopes of Asia{15}
Minor. The Turcomans were brought out of
their dreary deserts, yet they retained their old
habits, and they remain barbarians to this day.
But why? it must be borne in mind, they neither
subjugated the inhabitants of their new country{20}
on the one hand, nor were subjugated by them
on the other. They never had direct or intimate
relations with it; they were brought into it by
the Roman Government at Constantinople as its
auxiliaries, but they never naturalized themselves{25}
there. They were like gypsies in England, except
that they were mounted freebooters instead of
pilferers and fortune tellers. It was far otherwise
with their brethren in Sogdiana; they were
there first as conquerors, then as conquered.
First they held it in possession as their prize for
90 or 100 years; they came into the usufruct and
enjoyment of it. Next, their political ascendancy{5}
over it involved, as in the case of the White Huns,
some sort of moral surrender of themselves to it.
What was the first consequence of this? that,
like the White Huns, they intermarried with the
races they found there. We know the custom{10}
of the Tartars and Turks; under such
circumstances they would avail themselves of their
national practice of polygamy to its full extent
of license. In the course of twenty years a new
generation would arise of a mixed race; and{15}
these in turn would marry into the native
population, and at the end of ninety or a hundred
years we should find the great-grandsons or the
great-great-grandsons of the wild marauders who
first crossed the Jaxartes, so different from their{20}
ancestors in features both of mind and body,
that they hardly would be recognized as deserving
the Tartar name. At the end of that period their
power came to an end, the Saracens became
masters of them and of their country, but the{25}
process of emigration southward from the
Scythian desert, which had never intermitted during
the years of their domination, continued still,
though that domination was no more.

Here it is necessary to have a clear idea of the{30}
nature of that association of the Turkish tribes
from the Volga to the Eastern Sea, to which I
have given the name of Empire: it was not so
much of a political as of a national character;
it was the power, not of a system, but of a race.
They were not one well-organized state, but a{5}
number of independent tribes, acting generally
together, acknowledging one leader or not,
according to circumstances, combining and
coöperating from the identity of object which acted
on them, and often jealous of each other and{10}
quarreling with each other on account of that
very identity. Each tribe made its way down to
the south as it could; one blocked up the way of
the other for a time; there were stoppages and
collisions, but there was a continual movement{15}
and progress. Down they came one after another,
like wolves after their prey; and as the tribes
which came first became partially civilized, and
as a mixed generation arose, these would naturally
be desirous of keeping back their less polished{20}
uncles or cousins, if they could; and would do so
successfully for a while: but cupidity is stronger
than conservatism; and so, in spite of delay and
difficulty, down they would keep coming, and
down they did come, even after and in spite of{25}
the overthrow of their Empire; crowding down
as to a new world, to get what they could, as
adventurers, ready to turn to the right or the
left, prepared to struggle on anyhow, willing to
be forced forward into countries farther still,{30}
careless what might turn up, so that they did but
get down. And this was the process which went
on (whatever were their fortunes when they
actually got down, prosperous or adverse) for
400, nay, I will say for 700 years. The
storehouse of the north was never exhausted; it{5}
sustained the never ending run upon its resources.

I was just now referring to a change in the
Turks, which I have mentioned before, and
which had as important a bearing as any other
of their changes upon their subsequent fortunes.{10}
It was a change in their physiognomy and shape,
so striking as to recommend them to their
masters for the purposes of war or of display.
Instead of bearing any longer the hideous exterior
which in the Huns frightened the Romans and{15}
Goths, they were remarkable, even as early as the
ninth century, when they had been among the
natives of Sogdiana only two hundred years,
for the beauty of their persons. An important
political event was the result: hence the{20}
introduction of the Turks into the heart of the
Saracenic empire. By this time the Caliphs had
removed from Damascus to Bagdad; Persia was
the imperial province, and into Persia they were
introduced for the reason I have mentioned,{25}
sometimes as slaves, sometimes as captives taken
in war, sometimes as mercenaries for the
Saracenic armies: at length they were enrolled as
guards to the Caliph, and even appointed to
offices in the palace, to the command of the forces,{30}
and to governorships in the provinces. The son
of the celebrated Harun al Raschid had as many
as 50,000 of these troops in Bagdad itself. And
thus slowly and silently they made their way to
the south, not with the pomp and pretense of
conquest, but by means of that ordinary{5}
inter-communion which connected one portion of the
empire of the Caliphs with another. In this
manner they were introduced even into Egypt.

This was their history for a hundred and fifty
years, and what do we suppose would be the{10}
result of this importation of barbarians into the
heart of a nourishing empire? Would they be
absorbed as slaves or settlers in the mass of the
population, or would they, like mercenaries
elsewhere, be fatal to the power that introduced{15}
them? The answer is not difficult, considering
that their very introduction argued a want of
energy and resource in the rulers whom they
served. To employ them was a confession of
weakness; the Saracenic power indeed was not{20}
very aged, but the Turkish was much younger,
and more vigorous; then too must be
considered the difference of national character
between the Turks and the Saracens. A writer of
the beginning of the present century[35] compares{25}
the Turks to the Romans; such parallels are
generally fanciful and fallacious; but, if we must
accept it in the present instance, we may
complete the picture by likening the Saracens and
Persians to the Greeks, and we know what was{30}
the result of the collision between Greece and
Rome. The Persians were poets, the Saracens
were philosophers. The mathematics, astronomy,
and botany were especial subjects of the studies of
the latter. Their observatories were celebrated,{5}
and they may be considered to have originated
the science of chemistry. The Turks, on the
other hand, though they are said to have a
literature, and though certain of their princes have
been patrons of letters, have never distinguished{10}
themselves in exercises of pure intellect; but
they have had an energy of character, a
pertinacity, a perseverance, and a political talent, in
a word, they then had the qualities of mind
necessary for ruling, in far greater measure, than{15}
the people they were serving. The Saracens,
like the Greeks, carried their arms over the
surface of the earth with an unrivaled brilliancy
and an uncheckered success; but their dominion,
like that of Greece, did not last for more than{20}
200 or 300 years. Rome grew slowly through
many centuries, and its influence lasts to this
day; the Turkish race battled with difficulties
and reverses, and made its way on amid tumult
and complication, for a good 1000 years from{25}
first to last, till at length it found itself in
possession of Constantinople, and a terror to the
whole of Europe. It has ended its career upon
the throne of Constantine; it began it as the
slave and hireling of the rulers of a great empire,{30}
of Persia and Sogdiana.

As to Sogdiana, we have already reviewed one
season of power and then in turn of reverse which
there befell the Turks; and next a more
remarkable outbreak and its reaction mark their presence
in Persia. I have spoken of the formidable force,{5}
consisting of Turks, which formed the guard of
the Caliphs immediately after the time of Harun
al Raschid: suddenly they rebelled against
their master, burst into his apartment at the
hour of supper, murdered him, and cut his body{10}
into seven pieces. They got possession of the
symbols of imperial power, the garment and the
staff of Mahomet, and proceeded to make and
unmake Caliphs at their pleasure. In the course
of four years they had elevated, deposed, and{15}
murdered as many as three. At their wanton
caprice, they made these successors of the false
prophet the sport of their insults and their blows.
They dragged them by the feet, stripped them,
and exposed them to the burning sun, beat them{20}
with iron clubs, and left them for days without
food. At length, however, the people of Bagdad
were roused in defense of the Caliphate, and the
Turks for a time were brought under; but they
remained in the country, or rather, by the {25}
short-sighted policy of the moment, were dispersed
throughout it, and thus became in the sequel
ready-made elements of revolution for the
purposes of other traitors of their own race, who, at
a later period, as we shall presently see, descended{30}
on Persia from Turkistan.

Indeed, events were opening the way slowly,
but surely, to their ascendancy. Throughout the
whole of the tenth century, which followed, they
seem to disappear from history; but a silent
revolution was all along in progress, leading them{5}
forward to their great destiny. The empire of
the Caliphate was already dying in its
extremities, and Sogdiana was one of the first countries
to be detached from his power. The Turks were
still there, and, as in Persia, filled the ranks of the{10}
army and the offices of the government; but the
political changes which took place were not at
first to their visible advantage. What first
occurred was the revolt of the Caliph's viceroy,
who made himself a great kingdom or empire out{15}
of the provinces around, extending it from the
Jaxartes, which was the northern boundary of
Sogdiana, almost to the Indian Ocean, and
from the confines of Georgia to the mountains
of Afghanistan. The dynasty thus established{20}
lasted for four generations and for the space of
ninety years. Then the successor happened to
be a boy; and one of his servants, the governor
of Khorasan, an able and experienced man, was
forced by circumstances to rebellion against him.{25}
He was successful, and the whole power of this
great kingdom fell into his hands; now he was a
Tartar or Turk; and thus at length the Turks
suddenly appear in history, the acknowledged
masters of a southern dominion.{30}

This is the origin of the celebrated Turkish
dynasty of the Gaznevides, so called after Gazneh,
or Ghizni, or Ghuznee, the principal city, and it
lasted for two hundred years. We are not
particularly concerned in it, because it has no direct
relations with Europe; but it falls into our{5}
subject, as having been instrumental to the advance
of the Turks towards the West. Its most
distinguished monarch was Mahmood, and he
conquered Hindostan, which became eventually
the seat of the empire. In Mahmood the{10}
Gaznevide we have a prince of true Oriental splendor.
For him the title of Sultan or Soldan was invented,
which henceforth became the special badge of the
Turkish monarchs; as Khan is the title of the
sovereign of the Tartars, and Caliph of the{15}
sovereign of the Saracens. I have already described
generally the extent of his dominions: he
inherited Sogdiana, Carisme, Khorasan, and Cabul;
but, being a zealous Mussulman, he obtained the
title of Gazi, or champion, by his reduction of{20}
Hindostan, and his destruction of its idol
temples. There was no need, however, of religious
enthusiasm to stimulate him to the war: the
riches, which he amassed in the course of it, were
a recompense amply sufficient. His Indian{25}
expeditions in all amounted to twelve, and they abound
in battles and sieges of a truly Oriental cast....

We have now arrived at what may literally be
called the turning point of Turkish history. We
have seen them gradually descend from the north,{30}
and in a certain degree become acclimated in the
countries where they settled. They first appear
across the Jaxartes in the beginning of the seventh
century; they have now come to the beginning
of the eleventh. Four centuries or thereabout
have they been out of their deserts, gaining{5}
experience and educating themselves in such
measure as was necessary for playing their part in
the civilized world. First they came down into
Sogdiana and Khorasan, and the country below
it, as conquerors; they continued in it as{10}
subjects and slaves. They offered their services to
the race which had subdued them; they made
their way by means of their new masters down to
the west and the south; they laid the foundations
for their future supremacy in Persia, and{15}
gradually rose upwards through the social fabric to
which they had been admitted, till they found
themselves at length at the head of it. The
sovereign power which they had acquired in the
line of the Gaznevides, drifted off to Hindostan;{20}
but still fresh tribes of their race poured down
from the north, and filled up the gap; and while
one dynasty of Turks was established in the
peninsula, a second dynasty arose in the former
seat of their power.{25}

Now I call the era at which I have arrived the
turning point of their fortunes, because, when
they had descended down to Khorasan and the
countries below it, they might have turned to the
East or to the West, as they chose. They were{30}
at liberty to turn their forces eastward against
their kindred in Hindostan, whom they had driven
out of Ghizni and Afghanistan, or to face towards
the west, and make their way thither through the
Saracens of Persia and its neighboring countries.
It was an era which determined the history of the{5}
world....

But this era was a turning point in their
history in another and more serious respect. In
Sogdiana and Khorasan, they had become
converts to the Mahometan faith. You will not{10}
suppose I am going to praise a religious imposture,
but no Catholic need deny that it is, considered
in itself, a great improvement upon Paganism.
Paganism has no rule of right and wrong, no
supreme and immutable judge, no intelligible{15}
revelation, no fixed dogma whatever; on the
other hand, the being of one God, the fact of His
revelation, His faithfulness to His promises, the
eternity of the moral law, the certainty of future
retribution, were borrowed by Mahomet from the{20}
Church, and are steadfastly held by his followers.
The false prophet taught much which is materially
true and objectively important, whatever be its
subjective and formal value and influence in the
individuals who profess it. He stands in his{25}
creed between the religion of God and the religion
of devils, between Christianity and idolatry,
between the West and the extreme East. And
so stood the Turks, on adopting his faith, at
the date I am speaking of; they stood between{30}
Christ in the West, and Satan in the East, and
they had to make their choice; and, alas! they
were led by the circumstances of the time to
oppose themselves, not to Paganism, but to
Christianity. A happier lot indeed had befallen
poor Sultan Mahmood than befell his kindred{5}
who followed in his wake. Mahmood, a
Mahometan, went eastward and found a superstition
worse than his own, and fought against it, and
smote it; and the sandal doors which he tore
away from the idol temple and hung up at his{10}
tomb at Gazneh, almost seemed to plead for him
through centuries as the soldier and the
instrument of Heaven. The tribes which followed him,
Moslem also, faced westward, and found, not
error but truth, and fought against it as zealously,{15}
and in doing so, were simply tools of the Evil One,
and preachers of a lie, and enemies, not witnesses
of God. The one destroyed idol temples, the
other Christian shrines. The one has been saved
the woe of persecuting the Bride of the Lamb;{20}
the other is of all races the veriest brood of the
serpent which the Church has encountered since
she was set up. For 800 years did the sandal
gates remain at Mahmood's tomb, as a trophy
over idolatry; and for 800 years have Seljuk{25}
and Othman been our foe.

The year 1048 of our era is fixed by
chronologists as the date of the rise of the Turkish power,
as far as Christendom is interested in its history.[36]
Sixty-three years before this date, a Turk of high{30}
rank, of the name of Seljuk, had quarreled with
his native prince in Turkistan, crossed the
Jaxartes with his followers, and planted himself in
the territory of Sogdiana. His father had been
a chief officer in the prince's court, and was the{5}
first of his family to embrace Islamism; but
Seljuk, in spite of his creed, did not obtain permission
to advance into Sogdiana from the Saracenic
government, which at that time was in possession of
the country. After several successful encounters,{10}
however, he gained admission into the city of
Bokhara, and there he settled. As time went on, he
fully recompensed the tardy hospitality which
the Saracens had shown him; for his feud with
his own countrymen, whom he had left, took the{15}
shape of a religious enmity, and he fought against
them as pagans and infidels, with a zeal, which
was both an earnest of the devotion of his people
to the faith of Mahomet, and a training for the
exercise of it....{20}

For four centuries the Turks are little or hardly
heard of; then suddenly in the course of as many
tens of years, and under three Sultans, they make
the whole world resound with their deeds; and,
while they have pushed to the East through{25}
Hindostan, in the West they have hurried down
to the coasts of the Mediterranean and the
Archipelago, have taken Jerusalem, and threatened
Constantinople. In their long period of silence
they had been sowing the seeds of future{30}
conquests; in their short period of action they were
gathering the fruit of past labors and sufferings.
The Saracenic empire stood apparently as before;
but, as soon as a Turk showed himself at the head
of a military force within its territory, he found
himself surrounded by the armies of his kindred{5}
which had been so long in its pay; he was joined
by the tribes of Turcomans, to whom the Romans
in a former age had shown the passes of the
Caucasus; and he could rely on the reserve of
innumerable swarms, ever issuing out of his{10}
native desert, and following in his track. Such
was the state of Western Asia in the middle of
the eleventh century.

Alp Arslan, the second Sultan of the line of
Seljuk, is said to signify in Turkish "the{15}
courageous lion": and the Caliph gave its possessor the
Arabic appellation of Azzaddin, or "Protector of
Religion." It was the distinctive work of his
short reign to pass from humbling the Caliph to
attacking the Greek Emperor. Togrul had{20}
already invaded the Greek provinces of Asia Minor,
from Cilicia to Armenia, along a line of 600 miles,
and here it was that he had achieved his
tremendous massacres of Christians. Alp Arslan
renewed the war; he penetrated to Cæesarea in{25}
Cappadocia, attracted by the gold and pearls
which incrusted the shrine of the great St. Basil.
He then turned his arms against Armenia and
Georgia, and conquered the hardy mountaineers
of the Caucasus, who at present give such trouble{30}
to the Russians. After this he encountered,
defeated, and captured the Greek Emperor. He
began the battle with all the solemnity and
pageantry of a hero of romance. Casting away
his bow and arrows, he called for an iron mace and
scimeter; he perfumed his body with musk, as{5}
if for his burial, and dressed himself in white,
that he might be slain in his winding sheet.
After his victory, the captive Emperor of New
Rome was brought before him in a peasant's
dress; he made him kiss the ground beneath his{10}
feet, and put his foot upon his neck. Then,
raising him up, he struck or patted him three times
with his hand, and gave him his life and, on a
large ransom, his liberty.

At this time the Sultan was only forty-four{15}
years of age, and seemed to have a career of glory
still before him. Twelve hundred nobles stood
before his throne; two hundred thousand soldiers
marched under his banner. As if dissatisfied
with the South, he turned his arms against his{20}
own paternal wildernesses, with which his
family, as I have related, had a feud. New tribes
of Turks seem to have poured down, and were
wresting Sogdiana from the race of Seljuk, as
the Seljukians had wrested it from the{25}
Gaznevides. Alp had not advanced far into the
country, when he met his death from the hand of a
captive. A Carismian chief had withstood his
progress, and, being taken, was condemned to a
lingering execution. On hearing the sentence, he{30}
rushed forward upon Alp Arslan; and the Sultan,
disdaining to let his generals interfere, bent his
bow, but, missing his aim, received the dagger of
his prisoner in his breast. His death, which
followed, brings before us that grave dignity of the
Turkish character, of which we have already had{5}
an example in Mahmood. Finding his end
approaching, he has left on record a sort of dying
confession: "In my youth," he said, "I was
advised by a sage to humble myself before God,
to distrust my own strength, and never to despise{10}
the most contemptible foe. I have neglected
these lessons, and my neglect has been deservedly
punished. Yesterday, as from an eminence, I
beheld the numbers, the discipline, and the spirit
of my armies; the earth seemed to tremble under{15}
my feet, and I said in my heart, Surely thou art
the king of the world, the greatest and most
invincible of warriors. These armies are no
longer mine; and, in the confidence of my
personal strength, I now fall by the hand of an{20}
assassin." On his tomb was engraven an
inscription, conceived in a similar spirit. "O ye, who
have seen the glory of Alp Arslan exalted to the
heavens, repair to Maru, and you will behold it
buried in the dust." [37] Alp Arslan was adorned{25}
with great natural qualities both of intellect and
of soul. He was brave and liberal: just, patient,
and sincere: constant in his prayers, diligent in
his alms, and, it is added, witty in his
conversation; but his gifts availed him not.{30}

It often happens in the history of states and
races, in which there is found first a rise and then
a decline, that the greatest glories take place just
then when the reverse is beginning or begun.
Thus, for instance, in the history of the{5}
Ottoman Turks, to which I have not yet come,
Soliman the Magnificent is at once the last and
greatest of a series of great Sultans. So was it
as regards this house of Seljuk. Malek Shah, the
son of Alp Arslan, the third sovereign, in whom{10}
its glories ended, is represented to us in history
in colors so bright and perfect, that it is difficult
to believe we are not reading the account of some
mythical personage. He came to the throne at
the early age of seventeen; he was well-shaped,{15}
handsome, polished both in manners and in
mind; wise and courageous, pious and sincere.
He engaged himself even more in the
consolidation of his empire than in its extension. He
reformed abuses; he reduced the taxes; he{20}
repaired the highroads, bridges, and canals; he
built an imperial mosque at Bagdad; he founded
and nobly endowed a college. He patronized
learning and poetry, and he reformed the
calendar. He provided marts for commerce; he{25}
upheld the pure administration of justice, and
protected the helpless and the innocent. He
established wells and cisterns in great numbers
along the road of pilgrimage to Mecca; he fed
the pilgrims, and distributed immense sums{30}
among the poor.

He was in every respect a great prince; he
extended his conquests across Sogdiana to the
very borders of China. He subdued by his
lieutenants Syria and the Holy Land, and took
Jerusalem. He is said to have traveled round{5}
his vast dominions twelve times. So potent was
he, that he actually gave away kingdoms, and
had for feudatories great princes. He gave to
his cousin his territories in Asia Minor, and
planted him over against Constantinople, as an{10}
earnest of future conquests; and he may be said
to have finally allotted to the Turcomans the
fair regions of Western Asia, over which they
roam to this day.

All human greatness has its term; the more{15}
brilliant was this great Sultan's rise, the more
sudden was his extinction; and the earlier he
came to his power, the earlier did he lose it. He
had reigned twenty years, and was but
thirty-seven years old, when he was lifted up with pride{20}
and came to his end. He disgraced and
abandoned to an assassin his faithful vizir, at the age
of ninety-three, who for thirty years had been the
servant and benefactor of the house of Seljuk.
After obtaining from the Caliph the peculiar{25}
and almost incommunicable title of "the
commander of the faithful," unsatisfied still, he
wished to fix his own throne in Bagdad, and to
deprive his impotent superior of his few
remaining honors. He demanded the hand of the{30}
daughter of the Greek Emperor, a Christian, in
marriage. A few days, and he was no more;
he had gone out hunting, and returned
indisposed; a vein was opened, and the blood would
not flow. A burning fever took him off, only
eighteen days after the murder of his vizir, and{5}
less than ten before the day when the Caliph was
to have been removed from Bagdad.

Such is human greatness at the best, even were
it ever so innocent; but as to this poor Sultan,
there is another aspect even of his glorious deeds.{10}
If I have seemed here or elsewhere in these
Lectures to speak of him or his with interest or
admiration, only take me, Gentlemen, as giving
the external view of the Turkish history, and that
as introductory to the determination of its true{15}
significance. Historians and poets may celebrate
the exploits of Malek; but what were they in the
sight of Him who has said that whoso shall strike
against His cornerstone shall be broken; but
on whomsoever it shall fall, shall be ground to{20}
powder? Looking at this Sultan's deeds as
mere exhibitions of human power, they were
brilliant and marvelous; but there was another
judgment of them formed in the West, and other
feelings than admiration roused by them in the{25}
faith and the chivalry of Christendom.
Especially was there one, the divinely appointed
shepherd of the poor of Christ, the anxious
steward of His Church, who from his high and
ancient watch tower, in the fullness of apostolic{30}
charity, surveyed narrowly what was going on at
thousands of miles from him, and with prophetic
eye looked into the future age; and scarcely had
that enemy, who was in the event so heavily to
smite the Christian world, shown himself, when
he gave warning of the danger, and prepared{5}
himself with measures for averting it. Scarcely
had the Turk touched the shores of the
Mediterranean and the Archipelago, when the Pope
detected and denounced him before all Europe.
The heroic Pontiff, St. Gregory the Seventh, was{10}
then upon the throne of the Apostle; and though
he was engaged in one of the severest conflicts
which Pope has ever sustained, not only against
the secular power, but against bad bishops and
priests, yet at a time when his very life was not{15}
his own, and present responsibilities so urged
him, that one would fancy he had time for no
other thought, Gregory was able to turn his mind
to the consideration of a contingent danger in the
almost fabulous East. In a letter written during{20}
the reign of Malek Shah, he suggested the idea
of a crusade against the misbeliever, which later
popes carried out. He assures the Emperor of
Germany, whom he was addressing, that he had
50,000 troops ready for the holy war, whom he{25}
would fain have led in person. This was in the
year 1074.

In truth, the most melancholy accounts were
brought to Europe of the state of things in the
Holy Land. A rude Turcoman ruled in{30}
Jerusalem; his people insulted there the clergy of
every profession; they dragged the patriarch by
the hair along the pavement, and cast him into
a dungeon, in hopes of a ransom; and disturbed
from time to time the Latin Mass and office in the
Church of the Resurrection. As to the pilgrims,{5}
Asia Minor, the country through which they had
to travel in an age when the sea was not yet safe
to the voyager, was a scene of foreign incursion
and internal distraction. They arrived at
Jerusalem exhausted by their sufferings, and{10}
sometimes terminated them by death, before they
were permitted to kiss the Holy Sepulchre.

It is commonly said that the Crusades failed
in their object; that they were nothing else but
a lavish expenditure of men and treasure; and{15}
that the possession of the Holy Places by the
Turks to this day is a proof of it. Now I will not
enter here into a very intricate controversy; this
only will I say, that, if the tribes of the desert,
under the leadership of the house of Seljuk, turned{20}
their faces to the West in the middle of the
eleventh century; if in forty years they had
advanced from Khorasan to Jerusalem and the
neighborhood of Constantinople; and if in
consequence they were threatening Europe and{25}
Christianity; and if, for that reason, it was a
great object to drive them back or break them
to pieces; if it were a worthy object of the
Crusades to rescue Europe from this peril and to
reassure the anxious minds of Christian
multitudes; then were the Crusades no failure in
their issue, for this object was fully accomplished.
The Seljukian Turks were hurled back upon the
East, and then broken up, by the hosts of the{5}
Crusaders. The lieutenant of Malek Shah, who
had been established as Sultan of Roum (as Asia
Minor was called by the Turks), was driven to an
obscure town, where his dynasty lasted, indeed,
but gradually dwindled away. A similar fate {10}
attended the house of Seljuk in other parts of
the Empire, and internal quarrels increased and
perpetuated its weakness. Sudden as was its
rise, as sudden was its fall; till the terrible
Zingis, descending on the Turkish dynasties, like{15}
an avalanche, coöperated effectually with the
Crusaders and finished their work; and if
Jerusalem was not protected from other enemies,
at least Constantinople was saved, and Europe
was placed in security, for three hundred years.{20}

The Past and Present of the Ottomans

I think it is clear, that, if my account be only
in the main correct, the Turkish power certainly
is not a civilized, and is a barbarous power.
The barbarian lives without principle and
without aim; he does but reflect the successive{25}
outward circumstances in which he finds himself,
and he varies with them. He changes
suddenly, when their change is sudden, and is as
unlike what he was just before, as one fortune
or external condition is unlike another. He
moves when he is urged by appetite; else, he
remains in sloth and inactivity. He lives, and
he dies, and he has done nothing, but leaves the{5}
world as he found it. And what the individual
is, such is his whole generation; and as that
generation, such is the generation before and
after. No generation can say what it has been
doing; it has not made the state of things better{10}
or worse; for retrogression there is hardly room;
for progress, no sort of material. Now I shall
show that these characteristics of the barbarian
are rudimental points, as I may call them, in the
picture of the Turks, as drawn by those who{15}
have studied them. I shall principally avail
myself of the information supplied by Mr.
Thornton and M. Volney, men of name and ability,
and for various reasons preferable as authorities
to writers of the present day.{20}

"The Turks," says Mr. Thornton, who, though
not blind to their shortcomings, is certainly
favorable to them, "the Turks are of a grave
and saturnine cast ... patient of hunger and
privations, capable of enduring the hardships of{25}
war, but not much inclined to habits of
industry.... They prefer apathy and indolence to
active enjoyments; but when moved by a
powerful stimulus they sometimes indulge in pleasures
in excess." "The Turk," he says elsewhere,{30}
"stretched at his ease on the banks of the Bosphorus,
glides down the stream of existence
without reflection on the past, and without
anxiety for the future. His life is one continued
and unvaried reverie. To his imagination the
whole universe appears occupied in procuring him{5}
pleasures.... Every custom invites to repose,
and every object inspires an indolent
voluptuousness. Their delight is to recline on soft verdure
under the shade of trees, and to muse without
fixing the attention, lulled by the trickling of a{10}
fountain or the murmuring of a rivulet, and
inhaling through their pipe a gently inebriating
vapor. Such pleasures, the highest which the
rich can enjoy, are equally within the reach of
the artisan or the peasant."{15}

M. Volney corroborates this account of them:
"Their behavior," he says, "is serious, austere,
and melancholy; they rarely laugh, and the
gayety of the French appears to them a fit of
delirium. When they speak, it is with{20}
deliberation, without gestures and without passion;
they listen without interrupting you; they are
silent for whole days together, and they by no
means pique themselves on supporting
conversation. If they walk, it is always leisurely, and{25}
on business. They have no idea of our
troublesome activity, and our walks backwards and
forwards for amusement. Continually seated,
they pass whole days smoking, with their legs
crossed, their pipes in their mouths, and almost{30}
without changing their attitude." Englishmen
present as great a contrast to the Ottoman as the
French; as a late English traveler brings before
us, apropos of seeing some Turks in quarantine:
"Certainly," he says, "Englishmen are the least
able to wait, and the Turks the most so, of any{5}
people I have ever seen. To impede an
Englishman's locomotion on a journey, is equivalent to
stopping the circulation of his blood; to disturb
the repose of a Turk on his, is to reawaken him
to a painful sense of the miseries of life. The{10}
one nation at rest is as much tormented as
Prometheus, chained to his rock, with the vulture
feeding on him; the other in motion is as
uncomfortable as Ixion tied to his ever-moving wheel."[38]