224: THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. quered races or acquire the habits of commerce, manufacture, or civilization. One empire fell, after an honorable existence of eleven centuries, the most civilized power in Europe ; the other, inheriting such civilization, has been powerful only to destroy, and will leave its territories far in the rear of the least progressive country in Europe, and Constantinople the most backward of European capitals. So long as the armies of the present rulers were fed from the boundless supplies of men in Central Asia, so long as the harems were filled with European captives, and the supply of rulers kept up from Christian sources on the female side, so long was their mili- tary triumph secure, and their government at least better than organized brigandage. When these supplies were cut off and the Turkish race and religion were left to their own resources, decline immediately commenced, and is rapidly bringing the rule of the Ottoman Turk to its end. The essential difference between the condition of the Em- signs of bet- P^^'^ ^^^^ uudcr tlic Coumeni and that of the Turk- tertiiiugs. -gj^ Empire is to be found in the results produced respectively by the religion of Christ and of Mahomet. The Christianity of the empire would have provided a means of regeneration, or would not have prevented the natural spirit of the population from developing itself. The religion of the Ottoman Turks is a hinderance to advancement. I am fully alive to the low condition into which the Orthodox Church has now fallen, though it was by no means so low seven hun- dred years ago. But I repeat, that if that Church had fallen as low as that of Abyssinia, it would still, as a philosophical system accepted and entirely believed in by the people, be superior as a civilizing force to Mahometanism, because at least it would not have been a hinderance to progress. As a fact, however, the Greek Church was still the preacher of morality, the torch-bearer of civilization, and the faithful guardian of the treasures of ancient Greece. The monks of Mount Athos were already multiplying the manuscripts which were to bring about a revival of learning in the West. Amidst the general indifference to public morality, priests and monks could be found whose lives and teaching were long protests
