The Turk and the Saracen

[33]I am here assuming that the Magyars are not of the Turkish stock; vid. Gibbon and Pritchard.

[34]Gibbon.

It is usual for historians to say, that thetriumph of the South threw the Turks back againupon their northern solitudes; and this mighteasily 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 thehistorical fact, viewed as a whole. Not often indeeddo the Oriental nations present us with anexample of versatility of character; the Turks, forinstance, of this day are substantially what they{25}were four centuries ago. We cannot conceive,were Turkey overrun by the Russians at thepresent moment, that the fanatical tribes, whichare 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 andfrom 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 difficultto assign it to either cause), so it was, that aprocess of this nature followed close upon theMahometan conquest of Sogdiana. It is to betraced in detail to a variety of accidents. Many{10}of the Turks probably were made slaves, and theservice to which they were subjected was nomatter of choice. Numbers had got attached tothe soil; and inheriting the blood of Persians,White Huns, or aboriginal inhabitants for three{15}generations, had simply unlearned the wildnessof the Tartar shepherd. Others fell victims tothe religion of their conquerors, which ultimately,as we know, exercised a most remarkableinfluence upon them. Not all at once, but as{20}tribe descended after tribe, and generationfollowed generation, they succumbed to the creedof Mahomet; and they embraced it with theardor and enthusiasm which Franks and Saxonsso gloriously and meritoriously manifested in their{25}conversion to Christianity.

Here again was a very powerful instrumentin modification of their national character. Letme illustrate it in one particular. If there is onepeculiarity above another, proper to the savage{30}and to the Tartar, it is that of excitability andimpetuosity on ordinary occasions; the Turks,on the other hand, are nationally remarkable forgravity and almost apathy of demeanor. Nowthere are evidently elements in the Mahometancreed, which would tend to change them from{5}the one temperament to the other. Itssternness, its coldness, its doctrine of fatalism; eventhe truths which it borrowed from Revelation,when separated from the truths it rejected, itsmonotheism untempered by mediation, its severe{10}view of the Divine attributes, of the law, and of asure retribution to come, wrought both a gloomand also an improvement in the barbarian, notvery unlike the effect which some forms ofProtestantism produce among ourselves. But{15}whatever was the mode of operation, certainlyit is to their religion that this peculiarity of theTurks is ascribed by competent judges.Lieutenant Wood in his journal gives us a livelyaccount of a peculiarity of theirs, which he{20}unhesitatingly attributes to Islamism. "Nowhere,"he says, "is the difference between European andMahometan society more strongly marked thanin the lower walks of life.... A Kasid, ormessenger, for example, will come into a public{25}department, deliver his letters in full durbar, anddemean himself throughout the interview withso much composure and self-possession, that anEuropean can hardly believe that his grade insociety is so low. After he has delivered his{30}letters, he takes his seat among the crowd, andanswers, calmly and without hesitation, all thequestions which may be addressed to him, orcommunicates the verbal instructions with whichhe has been intrusted by his employer, andwhich are often of more importance than the{5}letters themselves. Indeed, all the inferior classespossess an innate self-respect, and a naturalgravity of deportment, which differs as far fromthe suppleness of a Hindustani as from theawkward rusticity of an English clown." ... "Even{10}children," he continues, "in Mahometan countrieshave an unusual degree of gravity in theirdeportment. The boy, who can but lisp his 'Peace bewith you,' has imbibed this portion of the nationalcharacter. In passing through a village, these{15}little men will place their hands upon theirbreasts, and give the usual greeting. Frequentlyhave I seen the children of chiefs approach theirfather's durbar, and stopping short at thethreshold of the door, utter the shout of 'Salam{20}Ali-Kum,' so as to draw all eyes upon them; butnothing daunted, they marched boldly into theroom, and sliding down upon their knees, foldedtheir arms and took their seat upon the musnadwith all the gravity of grown-up persons."{25}

As Islamism has changed the demeanor of theTurks, so doubtless it has in other ways materiallyinnovated on their Tartar nature. It has givenan aim to their military efforts, a politicalprinciple, and a social bond. It has laid them under{30}a sense of responsibility, has molded them intoconsistency, and taught them a course of policyand perseverance in it. But to treat this partof the subject adequately to its importance wouldrequire, Gentlemen, a research and a fullness ofdiscussion unsuitable to the historical sketch{5}which I have undertaken. I have said enoughfor my purpose upon this topic; and indeedon the general question of the modification ofnational character to which the Turks were atthis period subjected.{10}

Mere occupation of a rich country is notenough for civilization, as I have granted already.The Turks came into the pleasant plains andvalleys of Sogdiana; the Turcomans into thewell-wooded mountains and sunny slopes of Asia{15}Minor. The Turcomans were brought out oftheir dreary deserts, yet they retained their oldhabits, and they remain barbarians to this day.But why? it must be borne in mind, they neithersubjugated the inhabitants of their new country{20}on the one hand, nor were subjugated by themon the other. They never had direct or intimaterelations with it; they were brought into it bythe Roman Government at Constantinople as itsauxiliaries, but they never naturalized themselves{25}there. They were like gypsies in England, exceptthat they were mounted freebooters instead ofpilferers and fortune tellers. It was far otherwisewith their brethren in Sogdiana; they werethere first as conquerors, then as conquered.First they held it in possession as their prize for90 or 100 years; they came into the usufruct andenjoyment 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 theraces they found there. We know the custom{10}of the Tartars and Turks; under suchcircumstances they would avail themselves of theirnational practice of polygamy to its full extentof license. In the course of twenty years a newgeneration would arise of a mixed race; and{15}these in turn would marry into the nativepopulation, and at the end of ninety or a hundredyears we should find the great-grandsons or thegreat-great-grandsons of the wild marauders whofirst crossed the Jaxartes, so different from their{20}ancestors in features both of mind and body,that they hardly would be recognized as deservingthe Tartar name. At the end of that period theirpower came to an end, the Saracens becamemasters of them and of their country, but the{25}process of emigration southward from theScythian desert, which had never intermitted duringthe 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 tribesfrom the Volga to the Eastern Sea, to which Ihave given the name of Empire: it was not somuch 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 generallytogether, acknowledging one leader or not,according to circumstances, combining andcoöperating from the identity of object which actedon them, and often jealous of each other and{10}quarreling with each other on account of thatvery identity. Each tribe made its way down tothe south as it could; one blocked up the way ofthe other for a time; there were stoppages andcollisions, but there was a continual movement{15}and progress. Down they came one after another,like wolves after their prey; and as the tribeswhich came first became partially civilized, andas a mixed generation arose, these would naturallybe desirous of keeping back their less polished{20}uncles or cousins, if they could; and would do sosuccessfully for a while: but cupidity is strongerthan conservatism; and so, in spite of delay anddifficulty, down they would keep coming, anddown they did come, even after and in spite of{25}the overthrow of their Empire; crowding downas to a new world, to get what they could, asadventurers, ready to turn to the right or theleft, prepared to struggle on anyhow, willing tobe forced forward into countries farther still,{30}careless what might turn up, so that they did butget down. And this was the process which wenton (whatever were their fortunes when theyactually got down, prosperous or adverse) for400, nay, I will say for 700 years. Thestorehouse 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 theTurks, which I have mentioned before, andwhich had as important a bearing as any otherof their changes upon their subsequent fortunes.{10}It was a change in their physiognomy and shape,so striking as to recommend them to theirmasters for the purposes of war or of display.Instead of bearing any longer the hideous exteriorwhich in the Huns frightened the Romans and{15}Goths, they were remarkable, even as early as theninth century, when they had been among thenatives of Sogdiana only two hundred years,for the beauty of their persons. An importantpolitical event was the result: hence the{20}introduction of the Turks into the heart of theSaracenic empire. By this time the Caliphs hadremoved from Damascus to Bagdad; Persia wasthe imperial province, and into Persia they wereintroduced for the reason I have mentioned,{25}sometimes as slaves, sometimes as captives takenin war, sometimes as mercenaries for theSaracenic armies: at length they were enrolled asguards to the Caliph, and even appointed tooffices in the palace, to the command of the forces,{30}and to governorships in the provinces. The sonof the celebrated Harun al Raschid had as manyas 50,000 of these troops in Bagdad itself. Andthus slowly and silently they made their way tothe south, not with the pomp and pretense ofconquest, but by means of that ordinary{5}inter-communion which connected one portion of theempire of the Caliphs with another. In thismanner they were introduced even into Egypt.

This was their history for a hundred and fiftyyears, and what do we suppose would be the{10}result of this importation of barbarians into theheart of a nourishing empire? Would they beabsorbed as slaves or settlers in the mass of thepopulation, or would they, like mercenarieselsewhere, be fatal to the power that introduced{15}them? The answer is not difficult, consideringthat their very introduction argued a want ofenergy and resource in the rulers whom theyserved. To employ them was a confession ofweakness; the Saracenic power indeed was not{20}very aged, but the Turkish was much younger,and more vigorous; then too must beconsidered the difference of national characterbetween the Turks and the Saracens. A writer ofthe beginning of the present century[35]compares{25}the Turks to the Romans; such parallels aregenerally fanciful and fallacious; but, if we mustaccept it in the present instance, we maycomplete the picture by likening the Saracens andPersians to the Greeks, and we know what was{30}the result of the collision between Greece andRome. The Persians were poets, the Saracenswere philosophers. The mathematics, astronomy,and botany were especial subjects of the studies ofthe latter. Their observatories were celebrated,{5}and they may be considered to have originatedthe science of chemistry. The Turks, on theother hand, though they are said to have aliterature, and though certain of their princes havebeen patrons of letters, have never distinguished{10}themselves in exercises of pure intellect; butthey have had an energy of character, apertinacity, a perseverance, and a political talent, ina word, they then had the qualities of mindnecessary for ruling, in far greater measure, than{15}the people they were serving. The Saracens,like the Greeks, carried their arms over thesurface of the earth with an unrivaled brilliancyand an uncheckered success; but their dominion,like that of Greece, did not last for more than{20}200 or 300 years. Rome grew slowly throughmany centuries, and its influence lasts to thisday; the Turkish race battled with difficultiesand reverses, and made its way on amid tumultand complication, for a good 1000 years from{25}first to last, till at length it found itself inpossession of Constantinople, and a terror to thewhole of Europe. It has ended its career uponthe throne of Constantine; it began it as theslave and hireling of the rulers of a great empire,{30}of Persia and Sogdiana.

[35]Thornton.

As to Sogdiana, we have already reviewed oneseason of power and then in turn of reverse whichthere befell the Turks; and next a moreremarkable outbreak and its reaction mark their presencein Persia. I have spoken of the formidable force,{5}consisting of Turks, which formed the guard ofthe Caliphs immediately after the time of Harunal Raschid: suddenly they rebelled againsttheir master, burst into his apartment at thehour of supper, murdered him, and cut his body{10}into seven pieces. They got possession of thesymbols of imperial power, the garment and thestaff of Mahomet, and proceeded to make andunmake Caliphs at their pleasure. In the courseof four years they had elevated, deposed, and{15}murdered as many as three. At their wantoncaprice, they made these successors of the falseprophet 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 withoutfood. At length, however, the people of Bagdadwere roused in defense of the Caliphate, and theTurks for a time were brought under; but theyremained in the country, or rather, by the{25}short-sighted policy of the moment, were dispersedthroughout it, and thus became in the sequelready-made elements of revolution for thepurposes of other traitors of their own race, who, ata 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 thewhole of the tenth century, which followed, theyseem to disappear from history; but a silentrevolution was all along in progress, leading them{5}forward to their great destiny. The empire ofthe Caliphate was already dying in itsextremities, and Sogdiana was one of the first countriesto be detached from his power. The Turks werestill there, and, as in Persia, filled the ranks of the{10}army and the offices of the government; but thepolitical changes which took place were not atfirst to their visible advantage. What firstoccurred 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 theJaxartes, which was the northern boundary ofSogdiana, almost to the Indian Ocean, andfrom the confines of Georgia to the mountainsof Afghanistan. The dynasty thus established{20}lasted for four generations and for the space ofninety years. Then the successor happened tobe a boy; and one of his servants, the governorof Khorasan, an able and experienced man, wasforced by circumstances to rebellion against him.{25}He was successful, and the whole power of thisgreat kingdom fell into his hands; now he was aTartar or Turk; and thus at length the Turkssuddenly appear in history, the acknowledgedmasters of a southern dominion.{30}

This is the origin of the celebrated Turkishdynasty of the Gaznevides, so called after Gazneh,or Ghizni, or Ghuznee, the principal city, and itlasted for two hundred years. We are notparticularly concerned in it, because it has no directrelations with Europe; but it falls into our{5}subject, as having been instrumental to the advanceof the Turks towards the West. Its mostdistinguished monarch was Mahmood, and heconquered Hindostan, which became eventuallythe 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 theTurkish monarchs; as Khan is the title of thesovereign of the Tartars, and Caliph of the{15}sovereign of the Saracens. I have already describedgenerally the extent of his dominions: heinherited Sogdiana, Carisme, Khorasan, and Cabul;but, being a zealous Mussulman, he obtained thetitle of Gazi, or champion, by his reduction of{20}Hindostan, and his destruction of its idoltemples. There was no need, however, of religiousenthusiasm to stimulate him to the war: theriches, which he amassed in the course of it, werea recompense amply sufficient. His Indian{25}expeditions in all amounted to twelve, and they aboundin battles and sieges of a truly Oriental cast....

We have now arrived at what may literally becalled the turning point of Turkish history. Wehave seen them gradually descend from the north,{30}and in a certain degree become acclimated in thecountries where they settled. They first appearacross the Jaxartes in the beginning of the seventhcentury; they have now come to the beginningof the eleventh. Four centuries or thereabouthave they been out of their deserts, gaining{5}experience and educating themselves in suchmeasure as was necessary for playing their part inthe civilized world. First they came down intoSogdiana and Khorasan, and the country belowit, as conquerors; they continued in it as{10}subjects and slaves. They offered their services tothe race which had subdued them; they madetheir way by means of their new masters down tothe west and the south; they laid the foundationsfor their future supremacy in Persia, and{15}gradually rose upwards through the social fabric towhich they had been admitted, till they foundthemselves at length at the head of it. Thesovereign power which they had acquired in theline of the Gaznevides, drifted off to Hindostan;{20}but still fresh tribes of their race poured downfrom the north, and filled up the gap; and whileone dynasty of Turks was established in thepeninsula, a second dynasty arose in the formerseat of their power.{25}

Now I call the era at which I have arrived theturning point of their fortunes, because, whenthey had descended down to Khorasan and thecountries below it, they might have turned to theEast or to the West, as they chose. They were{30}at liberty to turn their forces eastward againsttheir kindred in Hindostan, whom they had drivenout of Ghizni and Afghanistan, or to face towardsthe west, and make their way thither through theSaracens 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 theirhistory in another and more serious respect. InSogdiana and Khorasan, they had becomeconverts 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, consideredin itself, a great improvement upon Paganism.Paganism has no rule of right and wrong, nosupreme and immutable judge, no intelligible{15}revelation, no fixed dogma whatever; on theother hand, the being of one God, the fact of Hisrevelation, His faithfulness to His promises, theeternity of the moral law, the certainty of futureretribution, were borrowed by Mahomet from the{20}Church, and are steadfastly held by his followers.The false prophet taught much which is materiallytrue and objectively important, whatever be itssubjective and formal value and influence in theindividuals who profess it. He stands in his{25}creed between the religion of God and the religionof devils, between Christianity and idolatry,between the West and the extreme East. Andso stood the Turks, on adopting his faith, atthe date I am speaking of; they stood between{30}Christ in the West, and Satan in the East, andthey had to make their choice; and, alas! theywere led by the circumstances of the time tooppose themselves, not to Paganism, but toChristianity. A happier lot indeed had befallenpoor Sultan Mahmood than befell his kindred{5}who followed in his wake. Mahmood, aMahometan, went eastward and found a superstitionworse than his own, and fought against it, andsmote it; and the sandal doors which he toreaway from the idol temple and hung up at his{10}tomb at Gazneh, almost seemed to plead for himthrough centuries as the soldier and theinstrument of Heaven. The tribes which followed him,Moslem also, faced westward, and found, noterror 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 witnessesof God. The one destroyed idol temples, theother Christian shrines. The one has been savedthe woe of persecuting the Bride of the Lamb;{20}the other is of all races the veriest brood of theserpent which the Church has encountered sinceshe was set up. For 800 years did the sandalgates remain at Mahmood's tomb, as a trophyover idolatry; and for 800 years have Seljuk{25}and Othman been our foe.

The year 1048 of our era is fixed bychronologists 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 withhis native prince in Turkistan, crossed theJaxartes with his followers, and planted himself inthe territory of Sogdiana. His father had beena chief officer in the prince's court, and was the{5}first of his family to embrace Islamism; butSeljuk, in spite of his creed, did not obtain permissionto advance into Sogdiana from the Saracenicgovernment, which at that time was in possession ofthe country. After several successful encounters,{10}however, he gained admission into the city ofBokhara, and there he settled. As time went on, hefully recompensed the tardy hospitality whichthe Saracens had shown him; for his feud withhis own countrymen, whom he had left, took the{15}shape of a religious enmity, and he fought againstthem as pagans and infidels, with a zeal, whichwas both an earnest of the devotion of his peopleto the faith of Mahomet, and a training for theexercise of it....{20}

[36]Baronius, Pagi.

For four centuries the Turks are little or hardlyheard of; then suddenly in the course of as manytens of years, and under three Sultans, they makethe whole world resound with their deeds; and,while they have pushed to the East through{25}Hindostan, in the West they have hurried downto the coasts of the Mediterranean and theArchipelago, have taken Jerusalem, and threatenedConstantinople. In their long period of silencethey had been sowing the seeds of future{30}conquests; in their short period of action they weregathering the fruit of past labors and sufferings.The Saracenic empire stood apparently as before;but, as soon as a Turk showed himself at the headof a military force within its territory, he foundhimself surrounded by the armies of his kindred{5}which had been so long in its pay; he was joinedby the tribes of Turcomans, to whom the Romansin a former age had shown the passes of theCaucasus; and he could rely on the reserve ofinnumerable swarms, ever issuing out of his{10}native desert, and following in his track. Suchwas the state of Western Asia in the middle ofthe eleventh century.

Alp Arslan, the second Sultan of the line ofSeljuk, is said to signify in Turkish "the{15}courageous lion": and the Caliph gave its possessor theArabic appellation of Azzaddin, or "Protector ofReligion." It was the distinctive work of hisshort reign to pass from humbling the Caliph toattacking 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 histremendous massacres of Christians. Alp Arslanrenewed the war; he penetrated to Cæesarea in{25}Cappadocia, attracted by the gold and pearlswhich incrusted the shrine of the great St. Basil.He then turned his arms against Armenia andGeorgia, and conquered the hardy mountaineersof the Caucasus, who at present give such trouble{30}to the Russians. After this he encountered,defeated, and captured the Greek Emperor. Hebegan the battle with all the solemnity andpageantry of a hero of romance. Casting awayhis bow and arrows, he called for an iron mace andscimeter; 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 NewRome was brought before him in a peasant'sdress; 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 timeswith his hand, and gave him his life and, on alarge ransom, his liberty.

At this time the Sultan was only forty-four{15}years of age, and seemed to have a career of glorystill before him. Twelve hundred nobles stoodbefore his throne; two hundred thousand soldiersmarched under his banner. As if dissatisfiedwith the South, he turned his arms against his{20}own paternal wildernesses, with which hisfamily, as I have related, had a feud. New tribesof Turks seem to have poured down, and werewresting Sogdiana from the race of Seljuk, asthe Seljukians had wrested it from the{25}Gaznevides. Alp had not advanced far into thecountry, when he met his death from the hand of acaptive. A Carismian chief had withstood hisprogress, and, being taken, was condemned to alingering execution. On hearing the sentence, he{30}rushed forward upon Alp Arslan; and the Sultan,disdaining to let his generals interfere, bent hisbow, but, missing his aim, received the dagger ofhis prisoner in his breast. His death, whichfollowed, brings before us that grave dignity of theTurkish character, of which we have already had{5}an example in Mahmood. Finding his endapproaching, he has left on record a sort of dyingconfession: "In my youth," he said, "I wasadvised by a sage to humble myself before God,to distrust my own strength, and never to despise{10}the most contemptible foe. I have neglectedthese lessons, and my neglect has been deservedlypunished. Yesterday, as from an eminence, Ibeheld the numbers, the discipline, and the spiritof my armies; the earth seemed to tremble under{15}my feet, and I said in my heart, Surely thou artthe king of the world, the greatest and mostinvincible of warriors. These armies are nolonger mine; and, in the confidence of mypersonal strength, I now fall by the hand of an{20}assassin." On his tomb was engraven aninscription, conceived in a similar spirit. "O ye, whohave seen the glory of Alp Arslan exalted to theheavens, repair to Maru, and you will behold itburied in the dust."[37]Alp Arslan was adorned{25}with great natural qualities both of intellect andof soul. He was brave and liberal: just, patient,and sincere: constant in his prayers, diligent inhis alms, and, it is added, witty in hisconversation; but his gifts availed him not.{30}

[37]Gibbon.

It often happens in the history of states andraces, in which there is found first a rise and thena decline, that the greatest glories take place justthen 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 andgreatest of a series of great Sultans. So was itas regards this house of Seljuk. Malek Shah, theson of Alp Arslan, the third sovereign, in whom{10}its glories ended, is represented to us in historyin colors so bright and perfect, that it is difficultto believe we are not reading the account of somemythical personage. He came to the throne atthe early age of seventeen; he was well-shaped,{15}handsome, polished both in manners and inmind; wise and courageous, pious and sincere.He engaged himself even more in theconsolidation of his empire than in its extension. Hereformed abuses; he reduced the taxes; he{20}repaired the highroads, bridges, and canals; hebuilt an imperial mosque at Bagdad; he foundedand nobly endowed a college. He patronizedlearning and poetry, and he reformed thecalendar. He provided marts for commerce; he{25}upheld the pure administration of justice, andprotected the helpless and the innocent. Heestablished wells and cisterns in great numbersalong the road of pilgrimage to Mecca; he fedthe pilgrims, and distributed immense sums{30}among the poor.

He was in every respect a great prince; heextended his conquests across Sogdiana to thevery borders of China. He subdued by hislieutenants Syria and the Holy Land, and tookJerusalem. He is said to have traveled round{5}his vast dominions twelve times. So potent washe, that he actually gave away kingdoms, andhad for feudatories great princes. He gave tohis cousin his territories in Asia Minor, andplanted him over against Constantinople, as an{10}earnest of future conquests; and he may be saidto have finally allotted to the Turcomans thefair regions of Western Asia, over which theyroam to this day.

All human greatness has its term; the more{15}brilliant was this great Sultan's rise, the moresudden was his extinction; and the earlier hecame to his power, the earlier did he lose it. Hehad reigned twenty years, and was butthirty-seven years old, when he was lifted up with pride{20}and came to his end. He disgraced andabandoned to an assassin his faithful vizir, at the ageof ninety-three, who for thirty years had been theservant and benefactor of the house of Seljuk.After obtaining from the Caliph the peculiar{25}and almost incommunicable title of "thecommander of the faithful," unsatisfied still, hewished to fix his own throne in Bagdad, and todeprive his impotent superior of his fewremaining honors. He demanded the hand of the{30}daughter of the Greek Emperor, a Christian, inmarriage. A few days, and he was no more;he had gone out hunting, and returnedindisposed; a vein was opened, and the blood wouldnot flow. A burning fever took him off, onlyeighteen days after the murder of his vizir, and{5}less than ten before the day when the Caliph wasto have been removed from Bagdad.

Such is human greatness at the best, even wereit 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 theseLectures to speak of him or his with interest oradmiration, only take me, Gentlemen, as givingthe external view of the Turkish history, and thatas introductory to the determination of its true{15}significance. Historians and poets may celebratethe exploits of Malek; but what were they in thesight of Him who has said that whoso shall strikeagainst His cornerstone shall be broken; buton whomsoever it shall fall, shall be ground to{20}powder? Looking at this Sultan's deeds asmere exhibitions of human power, they werebrilliant and marvelous; but there was anotherjudgment of them formed in the West, and otherfeelings than admiration roused by them in the{25}faith and the chivalry of Christendom.Especially was there one, the divinely appointedshepherd of the poor of Christ, the anxioussteward of His Church, who from his high andancient watch tower, in the fullness of apostolic{30}charity, surveyed narrowly what was going on atthousands of miles from him, and with propheticeye looked into the future age; and scarcely hadthat enemy, who was in the event so heavily tosmite the Christian world, shown himself, whenhe gave warning of the danger, and prepared{5}himself with measures for averting it. Scarcelyhad the Turk touched the shores of theMediterranean and the Archipelago, when the Popedetected and denounced him before all Europe.The heroic Pontiff, St. Gregory the Seventh, was{10}then upon the throne of the Apostle; and thoughhe was engaged in one of the severest conflictswhich Pope has ever sustained, not only againstthe secular power, but against bad bishops andpriests, yet at a time when his very life was not{15}his own, and present responsibilities so urgedhim, that one would fancy he had time for noother thought, Gregory was able to turn his mindto the consideration of a contingent danger in thealmost fabulous East. In a letter written during{20}the reign of Malek Shah, he suggested the ideaof a crusade against the misbeliever, which laterpopes carried out. He assures the Emperor ofGermany, whom he was addressing, that he had50,000 troops ready for the holy war, whom he{25}would fain have led in person. This was in theyear 1074.

In truth, the most melancholy accounts werebrought to Europe of the state of things in theHoly Land. A rude Turcoman ruled in{30}Jerusalem; his people insulted there the clergy ofevery profession; they dragged the patriarch bythe hair along the pavement, and cast him intoa dungeon, in hopes of a ransom; and disturbedfrom time to time the Latin Mass and office in theChurch of the Resurrection. As to the pilgrims,{5}Asia Minor, the country through which they hadto travel in an age when the sea was not yet safeto the voyager, was a scene of foreign incursionand internal distraction. They arrived atJerusalem exhausted by their sufferings, and{10}sometimes terminated them by death, before theywere permitted to kiss the Holy Sepulchre.

It is commonly said that the Crusades failedin their object; that they were nothing else buta lavish expenditure of men and treasure; and{15}that the possession of the Holy Places by theTurks to this day is a proof of it. Now I will notenter here into a very intricate controversy; thisonly 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 theeleventh century; if in forty years they hadadvanced from Khorasan to Jerusalem and theneighborhood of Constantinople; and if inconsequence they were threatening Europe and{25}Christianity; and if, for that reason, it was agreat object to drive them back or break themto pieces; if it were a worthy object of theCrusades to rescue Europe from this peril and toreassure the anxious minds of Christianmultitudes; then were the Crusades no failure intheir issue, for this object was fully accomplished.The Seljukian Turks were hurled back upon theEast, and then broken up, by the hosts of the{5}Crusaders. The lieutenant of Malek Shah, whohad been established as Sultan of Roum (as AsiaMinor was called by the Turks), was driven to anobscure town, where his dynasty lasted, indeed,but gradually dwindled away. A similar fate{10}attended the house of Seljuk in other parts ofthe Empire, and internal quarrels increased andperpetuated its weakness. Sudden as was itsrise, as sudden was its fall; till the terribleZingis, descending on the Turkish dynasties, like{15}an avalanche, coöperated effectually with theCrusaders and finished their work; and ifJerusalem was not protected from other enemies,at least Constantinople was saved, and Europewas placed in security, for three hundred years.{20}

I think it is clear, that, if my account be onlyin the main correct, the Turkish power certainlyis not a civilized, and is a barbarous power.The barbarian lives without principle andwithout aim; he does but reflect the successive{25}outward circumstances in which he finds himself,and he varies with them. He changessuddenly, when their change is sudden, and is asunlike what he was just before, as one fortuneor external condition is unlike another. Hemoves when he is urged by appetite; else, heremains in sloth and inactivity. He lives, andhe dies, and he has done nothing, but leaves the{5}world as he found it. And what the individualis, such is his whole generation; and as thatgeneration, such is the generation before andafter. No generation can say what it has beendoing; 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 shallshow that these characteristics of the barbarianare rudimental points, as I may call them, in thepicture of the Turks, as drawn by those who{15}have studied them. I shall principally availmyself of the information supplied by Mr.Thornton and M. Volney, men of name and ability,and for various reasons preferable as authoritiesto writers of the present day.{20}

"The Turks," says Mr. Thornton, who, thoughnot blind to their shortcomings, is certainlyfavorable to them, "the Turks are of a graveand saturnine cast ... patient of hunger andprivations, capable of enduring the hardships of{25}war, but not much inclined to habits ofindustry.... They prefer apathy and indolence toactive enjoyments; but when moved by apowerful stimulus they sometimes indulge in pleasuresin excess." "The Turk," he says elsewhere,{30}"stretched at his ease on the banks of the Bosphorus,glides down the stream of existencewithout reflection on the past, and withoutanxiety for the future. His life is one continuedand unvaried reverie. To his imagination thewhole universe appears occupied in procuring him{5}pleasures.... Every custom invites to repose,and every object inspires an indolentvoluptuousness. Their delight is to recline on soft verdureunder the shade of trees, and to muse withoutfixing the attention, lulled by the trickling of a{10}fountain or the murmuring of a rivulet, andinhaling through their pipe a gently inebriatingvapor. Such pleasures, the highest which therich can enjoy, are equally within the reach ofthe 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 thegayety of the French appears to them a fit ofdelirium. When they speak, it is with{20}deliberation, without gestures and without passion;they listen without interrupting you; they aresilent for whole days together, and they by nomeans pique themselves on supportingconversation. If they walk, it is always leisurely, and{25}on business. They have no idea of ourtroublesome activity, and our walks backwards andforwards for amusement. Continually seated,they pass whole days smoking, with their legscrossed, their pipes in their mouths, and almost{30}without changing their attitude." Englishmenpresent as great a contrast to the Ottoman as theFrench; as a late English traveler brings beforeus, apropos of seeing some Turks in quarantine:"Certainly," he says, "Englishmen are the leastable to wait, and the Turks the most so, of any{5}people I have ever seen. To impede anEnglishman's locomotion on a journey, is equivalent tostopping the circulation of his blood; to disturbthe repose of a Turk on his, is to reawaken himto a painful sense of the miseries of life. The{10}one nation at rest is as much tormented asPrometheus, chained to his rock, with the vulturefeeding on him; the other in motion is asuncomfortable as Ixion tied to his ever-moving wheel."[38]

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