mother might so easily have taught him to love his God. And yet Lady Olivia was what the world called a 'religious woman'-a person of excellent principles'-cold, pitiless, and unwavering. To be punctual in your payments, to 'give tithes of all you possess,' to exact implicit obedience from your inferiors, to offer outward homage to your betters, and to return with scrupulous accuracy the courtesies of your equals, this is to be thoroughly respectable, and for this be sure you will obtain your reward. You have never been tempted; therefore you shall spurn the fallen: you have never been in need; therefore you shall in no wise stretch a helping hand to the unfortunate. The outside at least of your own cup and platter you have kept clean and unseamed; so when your neighbour's pitcher is broken, you shall stand exulting at the well-mouth, and mock his agony of thirst. All this is to be worldly-wise and worldly virtuous. All this is to be eminent in a service of which the rewards are immediate and tangible, of which the medals and decorations hang glittering outside your breast; but I doubt hugely if it be the service of the cross. I doubt it may be but disobedience and rank mutiny in the eyes of Him who came to call, not the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.' Lady Olivia called herself a miserable sinner once a week; also once a week she heard poor Gilbert his catechism, as lucidly set forth in the Book of Common Prayer for the instruction of young Christians. The boy repeated it scrupulously by rote, standing the while on one particular square of the carpet, in a perfect perspiration of fear lest he should omit or mistake a single word. The slightest error was corrected with merciless severity: the task was fulfilled with undeviating exactitude. Whether this method of teaching the sublime and simple truths of our beautiful faith be the most advisable, it is not for me to question. I would only ask you, sir, a man of forty, if you can at this moment say the Church 561 Catechism by heart? if you can explain it to your own satisfaction? if you can make that explanation clear to the intelligence of a child? As the boy grew up, it was not likely that he would submit to the control of a mother who ruled by fear rather than love. Petticoat influence, indeed, is seldom either much regarded or dreaded by a man under thirty. By degrees he slipped his neck out of the yoke, I am bound to say with perfect temper and good conduct. He never spoke harshly or disrespectfully to Lady Olivia, but he simply absented himself as much as possible from her society, and ignored her authority altogether. Such a state of things was unnatural, and could not possibly lead to good. Then came all the excitement and temptations of the great world to be encountered in their most seductive form, without the one controlling principle which steadies even when it fails to guide, as the helm of a ship keeps her head well up to windward in a gale. A young man of fortune loose upon London, without domestic ties, and without a strong sense of religion, is not unlikely to make shipwreck. That Gilbert escaped so long, I can only attribute to his excellent natural disposition, to a certain degree of innate refinement that shrank intuitively from vice, even when the dame draped herself, as she well knows how to do, in her daintiest attire, and to a grave brotherly regard he entertained for his cousin Gertrude, whose alternate sarcasms and good counsels did not fail on more than one occasion to rouse in him that sense of self-respect and that strength of self-control which the extremes of prosperity and adversity are so prone to annihilate. Why he never fell in love with Gertrude it is not easy to say. Perhaps the very facility of winning prevented him from entering the arena: perhaps the most tempting fruit is always that which hangs out of reach, and it is poor sport to strike the quarry without the excitement of the chase. At the time when my story opens, the girl had almost made up her mind to marry him, and when such young ladies are in earnest they are not easily foiled. It is folly to speculate on what might have been. Would such a marriage have ensured his happiness here and hereafter? or would it but have made confusion worse confounded? There is no such thing as a suppositional past; and yet how prone we are to lament and bewail. If I had only known. If I had but been a day sooner.' If so, you would have been a different person, under different circumstances, in a different world; and the whole hypothesis explodes in its own absurdity. Long before he was thirty Gilbert had become a good-humoured, easy, unprincipled man of the world. I use the latter adjective in its narrowest sense. I do not mean to say that he was capable of any infamous act, and for what the world calls honour, he had the most scrupulous regard; but I do mean to say that of such latitude as that world allows, totally irrespective of religion and morality, he was quite ready to avail himself. Like the bulk of his associates, he was also somewhat bored and blasé, as those must always be who expend immortal energies in hunting butterflies; but like them, he accepted this weariness as an indispensable condition, and only strove to dispel it by a fresh pursuit after a fresh insect. If the butterflies had been all alike, flitting the same unvarying round within the garden walls, this would have been of less importance, but in a fatal moment he was attracted by one of fairy colours and far extended flight. Hot, breathless, and exhausted, he followed it beyond the bounds of lawn and pleasure-grounds, far out and away into the wilderness. When Gilbert Orme first met Ada Latimer, he thought he had exhausted all the sensations and experiences of life. He fancied in his ignorance (was it pitiful or enviable?) that he had felt everything, done everything, that he was getting old in mind if not in body, and that there was very little left worth living for, but the common_needs of every-day existence. To awake from such a state of torpidity was in itself delicious. There was a zest in everything now that even boyhood had failed to find; he triumphed like a miser in his newly-discovered treasure, pondered on it in secret, and hid it away in his inmost heart. In such a disposition as his there was a considerable leavening of the womanly element, which makes an amiable companion, but a weak man. The besoin d'aimer' was strong within him. He had never got through that disease which, like the measles, it is best to encounter in early life, consequently it took a firm hold of his constitution. He had often been grazed before, but never hit, consequently the wound assumed an undue importance, and he pulled it about, and probed it till it festered and spread over his whole being. His was a temperament capable of going any length where the affections as well as the passions were concerned. I have seen him when a boy, plunge into a study which interested, or take up an amusement which fascinated him, with an energy and a persistency that of themselves predicated success. Contrary to one of the fundamental rules of mechanics, his violentum was also perpetuum, and he was a rare instance of impetuosity and perseverance combined. Beneath that careless, indolent exterior lay, dormant indeed, but only waiting to be aroused, strong passions, unbending resolution, an iron will that could strike fiercely on the instant, or wait doggedly for years, the whole tempered by a rare generosity and kindliness of heart. Such a character indeed is powerful for good or for evil, such a character above all others requires some guidance superior to the sordid motives that commonly sway mankind. I have heard a theory broached which at first sight may appear untenable, but on which the more I reflect, the more I am convinced it contains a considerable leavening of truth. It is this, that there is a 1861.] We all must Worship Something. strong similarity in the characters of the very good and the very bad, nay, that their prevailing qualities are actually identical, and that the difference, as in the mountain stream, depends upon the channel into which they may happen to be turned. It is a startling consideration truly, and more especially for those who have to do with the young. Doubtless it is difficult to define the exact point at which a virtue carried too far passes into its corresponding vice. It requires, indeed, a skilful moralist to decide where faith ends and fanaticism begins-where courage becomes rashness, decision degenerates into self-conceit, or perseverance petrifies into obstinacy. The more I reflect on such ethical inconsistencies, the more hopelessly I lose myself in a maze of conjecture from which I feel there is no egress but by the light of revelation. No system of man's philosophy has ever yet been sufficient to satisfy the cravings of man's reasoning powers. It is better to accept humbly what we feel we cannot do without; it is better to believe than to understand, and while we take morality as a staff, to hold fast by religion as a guide. Yes, we come back at last to the Druid's stones, to the Norseman's runes, to the Pythian oracle, and the Papist's mother of God. We must worship something. Have we not the simplest and noblest faith 563 that was ever believed by man? Can we not worship as that faith enjoins? There was no want of veneration in Gilbert. He was capable of a fanatic's devotion, body, and heart, and soul. God help him! it was no cold, self-sufficing temperament that made such havoc with my boy. Little children, keep yourselves from idols! Even in these Christian times idolatry is one of the crying sins of the human race. Be it the money-worship that reduces every thought and feeling to a golden standard-be it the ambition that leaves not a moment for reflection or repose-be it the more amiable yet no less fatal folly that exalts a fellow-creature into a divinity-too surely does it mete out for itself its own retribution. It is a fine thing to be rich. It is grand to have power, and station, and influence. Above all, it is a golden dream to love. How sweet is it to treasure up something so dearly! how ennobling to adore it so devotedly! what unspeakable happiness in the utter self-abandonment and self-sacrifice! any pleasure of gain or success compare with that which we feel in pouring out all our wealth of life and hopes at our idol's feet? -and yet I wonder what the poor negro thinks of his Fetish when, as must sometimes happen, he finds it break to pieces in his hand? can MR. THE TURKISH R. CARLYLE has justly stigmatized that as a bastard conservatism which forgets that there are things too rotten to be susceptible of conservation.' It is with a strong sense of this on our minds that we touch on that eternal puzzle, the Turkish Empire. No sensible man can fail to see a sad omen in the sincere efforts made by the Sultan for the last twelve years to do justice to the Christians, and in the small results for good; especially since it has even given an impetus to the fanaticism of the Turks, while the central government, which exists only by their energy, is evidently unable to control them. We cannot overlook the broad and terrible fact, that the Ottomans have for four full centuries been masters of Constantinople and its empire, without winning one step in the direction of conciliating loyalty from the subject Christians. To this day the Turkish empire (beyond the region where the population is purely Mussulman) is not a State, but a military occupation. The conquered Christians are not even expected to be in loyal allegiance: obedience alone is claimed of them: their allegiance is undisguisedly given to their patriarch or to the Pope, or to some great Christian power, Russia or France, sometimes to England. Meanwhile, in four centuries the resources of the empire have everywhere visibly decayed. Not only is Turkey proportionably weaker than the Christian powers at her side, which in this period have so immensely advanced in population, in wealth, in skill, in intelligence, but the Ottoman race itself diminishes visibly in numbers. The land is full of ruined villages and cities, and of interminable graveyards, while it is hard to point out any signs of thriving industry and permanent constructions, except through European capital and Christian merchants. From such a view it is difficult to hope or wish for the conservation of Turkish rule. On the other hand, there are DIFFICULTY. grave reasons to fear that something worse by far may happen to the empire than to be subject to a powerful Turkish hand. The Turks have at least one valuable thing— they have four centuries of experience in rule. The dynasty, if not the ruling race, has learnt something. One who must be a slave may well say, with the captive of old, 'It is great matter of thankfulness to be under lords who are old in wealth.' Recent events in Syria have shown what horrors may arise if Druses or Maronites have free range for their passions. The Maronites appear to have been first to plot the outbreak, as they were the last to claim inordinate revenge by help of French arms. The Druses lie under the discredit of having used their victory with extreme atrocity; and in the future they carry with them both the memory of victory and the disposition to make their enemies sorry that they ever had European protectors. Many schemes have been thrown out from time to time about 'expelling the Turks from Europe,' the reasonableness of which is more or less plausibly maintained. But the reasoners appear always to overlook the main difficulty, which is not in European, but in Asiatic Turkey. To expel the Turks from Europe implies a religious crusade, a religious war; and would kindle Turkish fanaticism beyond all power of resistance on the part of the Sultan and his pashas. must inevitably precipitate a massacre of the Christians in every part of Asiatic Turkey. This DrusoMaronite affair does not stand alone. Within twenty or five-andtwenty years there were massacres equally barbarous, and far more causeless, of Nestorian Christians in Kourdistân. The Ottoman dynasty would, and always will, hinder such dealings whenever they can. The Sultan was paralysed in the Lebanon by the treaty which England imposed on him, with praiseworthy intention. When Lords Melbourne and Palmerston were civil enough to the Sultan It 1861.] Strength and Weakness of Turkey. (during the recess of Parliament) to reconquer the Syrian coast from the Pasha of Egypt, and put it back under the Sultan's rule, they wished to avoid the odious imputation of supporting despotism, and thought they did something for freedom by stipulating that the Druses and Maronites should be armed, and the local Turkish force strictly limited. We do not blame our Ministers for this proviso, whatever we may think of the Syrian war itself; but experience now sadly shows that neither Druses nor Maronites can be trusted with arms, except under the pressure of some greater force which they both will fear. If the great Powers of Europe had less of mutual suspicion, more simplicity of object, and were beyond the danger of mutual war, the actual state of things in parts of the Turkish empire might justify a joint European occupation to last for twenty years -time enough for new habits to grow up and become rooted, and thus to enforce all that the Sultan has decreed concerning the equality of the two religions. But inasmuch as this is impossible, the next best thing for Turkish Asia is, that the Sultan's executive energy shall be concentrated on it, and not be diverted to the Danube and to Bosnia by European dangers. We must all remember that during the Russian war, Turkey had one and only one efficient army-that which was on the Danube, with its reserve at Shumla. The army in Armenia was little but a rabble, unorganized, and with ignorant thievish officers. The resources of Turkey barely suffice to keep up the army needed in the west. This it is that paralyses her in Asia. This exposes the Asiatic Christians to the worst evils of anarchy, and leaves the fanatical part of both religions unbridled. Moreover, it cannot be doubted that the wars of 1829 and 1855 alike have taught the Russians where is their strength, and where the weakness of Turkey. In each campaign they found the Danube far less assailable than Armenia. In 1828-9 we had destroyed the 565 Turkish fleet at Navarino, which enabled the Russians to blockade the Turkish coast; yet Varna was only taken by bribing its pasha, and the resistance on the Danube was intense. In 1854 the Western fleets saved the Turks from the danger of attack in their rear, and caused the principal difference between that war and the preceding. These recent events have shown that France and England will temporarily forget their rivalries when Constantinople is threatened by Russia; but they will not march their armies into the interior of Asia. When next Russia quarrels with Turkey (which may be as soon as she recovers from the process of emancipating the peasants), her place of attack is likely to be Armenia; and there are many reasons why she may desire the opportunity. She still feels painfully the loss of reputation which she has endured, the impression against her power made in Georgia, in Persia, in Tartary, by the prohibition imposed on her to have a fleet of war in the Black Sea; any addition to her empire by advance into Armenia would at once remove this stigma, and would put her into the most formidable position against Asia Minor. The diplomatic world is said to believe that France and Russia have a private agreement on the Eastern question; if it be so, no compact is more probable than that Russia is to win what she can in Armenia, and France to be equally free as to the Levant. Be this true or false, be it desirable or highly undesirable in the interests of humanity, that Russia should gain this advanced position, it is certain that the Sultan cannot think it advisable; hence he is open to counsel which would teach him how to avoid it. If there be an honourable way of meeting that difficulty, if it be possible to place his principal army no longer on the Danube, but in Armenia, and at the same time to be quite safe on his Western frontiers, an English ambassador would have great weight in advising such a course. The weakness of Turkey (as |