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THE 
 
 POLITICAL PEOGEESS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
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THE 
 
 POLITICAL PEOGEESS OF 
 CHEISTIANITY 
 
 EY THE ' j- „-<^^ O 
 
 >"X 
 
 HON. ALBERT sV^Gf CANNING 
 
 AUTHOn OF 
 * INTOLEUAiJCE AMONG CHRISTIANS' * AN ESSAY ON CHRISTIAN TOLERATION' 
 
 ' A Virgin is his mother, but his sire 
 The power of the Most High. He shall ascend 
 The throne hereditary, and bound hfe reign 
 With earth's wide bounds, his'glory with the heayens' 
 
 Milton's Paradixf Lost. Book xii 
 
 LONDON 
 SMITPt, ELDEE, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE 
 
 1877 
 
 iAll rights reserved"] 
 
"WORKS REFERRED TO. , 
 
 Alison (3ir Archibald), History of Europe. 
 
 Arnold (Mr. John Mulheisen), Koran and Bible. 
 
 Baker (Col. Valentine), Clouds in the East. 
 
 Disraeli (Eight Hon. B.), Speech in the House of Commons, May 5. 
 
 1876. 
 Draper (Dr.), Intellectual Development of Europe. 
 Froude (Mr.), Short Studies on Great Subjects. 
 Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Boman Empire. 
 Gladstone (Right Hon. W. E.), Contribution to ' Contemporary 
 
 Eeview,' June, 1876. 
 Guizot, History of Civilization in Europe. 
 Hallam, History of the Middle Ages. 
 Hellwald (Von), England and Eussia in Central Asia. 
 Le-wis (Sir G. Cornewall), Influence of Authority in Matters of 
 
 Opinion. 
 Macaulay (Lord), Essays. 
 M'Gahan (Major), Campaigning on the Oxus. 
 Maurice (Professor), Eeligions of the World. 
 Milman (Dean), History of Christianity. 
 Newman (Dr.), Development of Christianity and Grammar of 
 
 Assent. ■ 
 Paley's Works. 
 Prescott, Conquest of Peru. 
 
 Eawlinson (Sir Henry), England and Eussia in the East. 
 Eenan (Ernest), Lives of the Apostles. 
 Eussell (Earl), Western Christianity. 
 Schlegel, Philosophy of History. 
 Scott (Sir Walter), Essay on Chivalry. 
 Simpson, Church History. 
 Smith (Bosworth), Lectures on Mahometanism. 
 Stanley (Dean), Eastern Church. 
 Stratforrl (Lord), I/etrer to the ' Times,' May, 1876. 
 Veitit (Abbe),- History of the Knights of Malta. - 
 Wallace (Mackenzie), Eussia. 
 Whately (Archbishop), Annotations to Paley's Works. 
 
:^f r 
 
 THE POLITICAL PEOGEESS 
 
 OP 
 
 CHKISTIANITT. 
 
 In the 'history of 'the ancient world, the three 
 most remarkable nations— at least the best 
 known to modern Europeans — are the Jews, 
 the Greeks, and the Eomans. Dr. Newman,^ 
 comparing these three great nations of anti- 
 quity, observes, — 
 
 The Jews are one of the few Qriental nations 
 who are known in history as a people of progress, 
 and their line is progress in religion. In that, their 
 own line, they stand by themselves among all the 
 populations— not only of the East, but of the West. 
 Their country may be called the classical home of 
 
 1 ' Grammar of Assent,' p. 426. 
 B 
 
 , r 
 
2 THE POLITICAL PEOGEESS 
 
 the religious principle, aS Greece is the home of 
 intellectual power, and Eome that of political and 
 practical wisdom. 
 
 Of these; the' poetry and philosophy of the last- 
 named nations are to this day the constant 
 study of educated men, and certainly not aU 
 the advantages or accomplishments of modern 
 times have , diminished the interest of classic 
 thoughts and writings, but, on the contrary, 
 have enabled modern Europeans to appreciate 
 them more than at any former period. It is 
 remarkable, however, that while the great 
 minds of Greece and Eome for centuries pro- 
 fessed to believe in a strange, fanciful religion, 
 many of their philosophers vaguely acknow- 
 ledged an Unknown God — thus virtually 
 renouncing their national paganism. Yet they 
 do not seem to have ever studied the Jewish 
 reUgion, to which their own ignorant and 
 untaught Deism was apparently tending; for 
 Lord Macaulay writes of the Eomans : ^ 
 
 The sacred books of the Hebrews, books which, 
 1 ' Essay on History.' 
 
OF CHRISTIANITY. . 3 
 
 considered merely as human compositions, are invalu- 
 able to the critic, the antiquarian, and the philo- 
 sopher, seem to have been utterly unnoticed by them. 
 The peculiarities of Judaism, and the rapid growth 
 of Christianity, attracted their notice. They made 
 war against the Jews. They made laws against the 
 Christians; but they never opened the Books, of 
 Moses. When we consider that two sects on which 
 the attention of the [Eoman] Grovernment was con- 
 stantly fixed, appealed to these Scriptures as the rule 
 of their faith and practice, this indifference is aston- 
 ishing. The fact seems to be that the Qreeks ad- 
 mired only themselves, and that the Eomans admired 
 only themselves and the Greeks. ' 
 
 The ancient Jews, moreover, unlike their 
 Christian descendants or the Mahometans, and 
 somewhat resembling the Chinese in haughty 
 contempt for all foreigners, had no idea of 
 proselytising, no desire to extend their religion, 
 which they seemed to regard as an exclusive 
 and national possession. Thus, while many 
 Greek and Eoman philosophers were practically 
 Deists, they remained entirely ignorant of 
 Jewish Scriptural history ; apd their country- 
 
 s 2 
 
4 THE POLITICAL PKOGEESS 
 
 men continued for centuries- in ignorant paga- 
 nism, which yet their refined, intelligent minds 
 rendered alluring and fanciful rather than 
 depraved or debasing ; but the Jews, despite 
 their superior knowledge derived from Divine 
 revelation, remained, as Dean Milman says,^ 
 ' a race of religious fanatics, a rigid and 
 unsocial people,' pohtically apart from the 
 rest of mankind, whom the martial ambition 
 of both Greeks and Eomans alike aspired to 
 subdue. 
 
 The political conquests, however, of these 
 two great nations produced very difierent 
 results. The brilliant triumphs of "the Greeks 
 were comparatively barren and shortlived, 
 while the subsequent conquests of the Eomans 
 resulted in a civilised, permanent empire, and 
 both Greeks and Jews alike fell under its yoke. 
 Yet though Eoman conquest in Europe ex- 
 tended over countries unknown to the Greeks, 
 their Asiatic conquests were more limited than 
 those previously achieved by Alexander the 
 
 ' ' History of Christianity.' 
 
OF CHIUSTIANITT. 5 
 
 Great. For the PartHan mountaineers, whose 
 descendants, the Afghans (the Swiss of Asia, 
 as they have been called), have always repelled 
 invasion, were never entirely subdued by the 
 Eomans. But enormous as their empire was, 
 the ancients, according to Gibbon,^ were usually 
 inclined to over-estimate its extent — ' They 
 gradually usurped the license of confounding 
 the Eoman monarchy with the globe of the 
 earth.' And certainly if even the limited map 
 of the ancient world, excluding America and 
 Australasia, be examined, we shall find that the 
 Eoman Empire never included some of the most 
 populous countries in the world. The empires 
 of India, China, Tartary, Arabia, and a large 
 part of Persia and Affghanistan, containing 
 miUions of inhabitants, were never subject to 
 the Eomans. AU North Europe, together with 
 the greater part of Africa, were also never 
 invaded by them. 
 
 In China, the most populous country in the 
 worldj which was unknown to the Greeks and. 
 
 1 ' Decline and Fall of the Boman Empire/ vol. i. 
 
6 THE POLITICAL PEOGRESS 
 
 Eomans, a great, and in many respects virtuous, 
 lawgiver, Confucius, had preached and taught 
 with success nearly 500 years before the birth 
 of Jesus in Judea. Mr. Legge^ describes the 
 exclusive spirit of his moral and religious sys- 
 teni, which certainly influences the Chinese 
 character and policy to the present day, — 
 
 He thrpw no new light on any of the questions 
 which have a world-wide interest. He gave no im- 
 pulse to religion. He' had no sympathy with pro- 
 gress. His influence has been wonderful, but it will 
 henceforth wane. 
 
 Mr. Legge a;dds that ' Confucius's simple views 
 of society and government were in a manner 
 sufficient for the [Chinese] people, while they 
 dwelt away from the rest of mankind. I do 
 not,' he says, ' charge the contemptuous arro- 
 gance of the Chinese Government on Confucius ; 
 what I deplore, is that he left no principles on 
 record to check the development of such a 
 spirit.' Frederick Schlegel observes,^ — 
 
 ^ 'Life of Confucius,' p. 115. • 
 
 » 'Philosophy of History,' p. 119. 
 
OF CHEISTIANITY. t 
 
 Even in ancient as well 'as in modern times, 
 China never figured in the history of Western 
 Europe or Asia, and had no connexion whatever with 
 their inhabitants ; Ijut this great country has ever 
 stood apart like a world within itself in the remote 
 unknown Eastern Asia. 
 
 The ancient religions of India and Burmahi 
 which have likewise remained almost unchanged, 
 during the lapse of ages, are also examined 
 at some length by this writer, who draws 
 some comparison between the Hindbo and 
 ancient Greek mythologies. He then describes 
 the three chief Hindoo deities — Brahma, 
 Vishnu, and Siva — Creator, Preserver, and De- 
 stroyer — ^but says little or nothing about the 
 human sacrifices to the idol Juggernaut, the 
 widow-burning rites of the Suttee, or the mur- 
 derous superstition of the Thugs,, which in 
 these modern times the English Government 
 has succeeded in suppriessing. 
 
 Eespecting the religion of Egypt, Schlegel, 
 after stating the resemblance between its an- 
 cient idolatry and that of India, remarks, — 
 
8 THE POLITICAL PROGKESS 
 
 The Egyptian mind, so far as it has been de- 
 lineated by the Greeks, appears to have been more 
 deeply conversant and initiated in natural science, 
 and on the other hand, the Egyptian idolatry was of 
 a more decided cast, and was even more material in 
 its fundamental errors than the Indian. The wor- 
 ship of animals especially was far more general. 
 
 He further states, m his review of the ancient 
 Asiatic nations, that the Persians ' in their views 
 of God and rehgion resembled the Jews more 
 than any other nation.' The ancient Persians 
 who worshipped the sun were disciples of 
 Zoroaster, of whom little is personally known, 
 though Gibbon^ and Guizot make quotations 
 from his extraordinary book, the ' Zend Avesta,' 
 which describes two spirits, Ormuzd and 
 Ahriman, the Good and Evil Deities, as 
 contending for the human soul. Gibbon' 
 writes, — 
 
 The moral duties, however, of justice, mercy, 
 and liberality, were in their turn required of the 
 
 ' ' Decline and Fall,' vol. i. 
 
OF CHEISTIANimr. 9 
 
 disciples of Zoroaster, who wish to escape the per- 
 secutions of Ahriman, and to live with Ormuzd in, a 
 blissful eternity. 
 
 But though, the ancient Persians, unlike the 
 Egyptians and Hindoos, extended their conquests 
 ' far into the provinces of Central Asia, coming 
 in contact with China, and finally subduing 
 Egypt,' according to Schlegel, they do not seem 
 to have spread the national faith of Zoroaster 
 far beyond their own country. As I)r. Newman 
 remarks,^ — 
 
 Hitherto [before Christianity] it had been the 
 received notion in the world, that each nation had its 
 own gods. The Eomans legislated upon that basis, 
 and the Jews had held it from the first, holding, of 
 course also, that all gods but their own gods were 
 idols and demons. 
 
 The ancient religions of Judea, Egypt, India, 
 Persia, and China, hke that of Eome and 
 Greece, were comparatively confined to their 
 respective countries; nor did pagan politiqal 
 
 ' ' Grammar of Assent,' p. 449. 
 
10 THE POLITICAL PEOGKESS 
 
 conquest attempt the conversion of the soul. 
 iDeah Milman says,' 
 
 The Eomans conquered like savages, but ruled 
 like philosophic statesmen. Within the pale, na- 
 tional distinctions were dying away — all tribes and 
 races met amicably in the general relation of Eoman 
 subjects or citizens, and mankind seemed settling 
 down into one great federal society. About this 
 point of time Christianity appeared. As Rome had 
 united the whole Western world into one, as it might 
 almost seem, lasting social system, so Christianity 
 was the, first religion which aimed at an universal 
 and permanent' moral conquest. The religions of 
 the older world were content with their dominions 
 over the particular people which were their several 
 votaries. Family, tribal, national deities were uni- 
 versally recognised, and as their gods accompanied 
 the migrations or conquests of different nations, the 
 worship of those gods were extended over a wider 
 surface, but rarely propagated among the subject 
 races. 
 
 It was reserved for the two comparatively 
 modern religions of the world — ^Christianity 
 and Mahometanism — issuing from the adjoining 
 
 ' ' History of Ohiistiaaity.' 
 
OF CHRISTIANITY. • 11 
 
 countries of Syria and Arabia, to spread their 
 respective doctrines by the aid not only of 
 eloquence and persuasion, but of sword and 
 scimitar. Yet nothing could be more peaceful 
 than the short earthly career of Jesus himself, 
 publicly executed at an early age, without re- 
 sistance, or any attempt at rescue On the part 
 of his few Jewish and Greek behevers. As 
 Dr. Newman observes,^ ' He left the world 
 without apparently doing much for the object 
 of his coming, but after He was gone, his 
 disciples were found wonderfully to have suc- 
 ceeded.' Christianity, however, spread chiefly 
 to the north-west of Judea, and the preaching 
 of St. Peter and St. Paul, addressed to Greeks 
 and Eomans, made tar more impression upon 
 those intellectual and comparatively unpreju- 
 diced nations than the words Of Jesus, him- 
 self addressed previously to the rigid, bigoted 
 Jews'. It is evident that the marvellous 
 account of the Eesurrection contributed power- 
 fully, if not mainly, to the spread of Christi- 
 
 1 ' Grammar of Assent.' 
 
12 THE POLITICAL PROGEESS 
 
 anity. Upon this subject, Archbishop Whately 
 observes,^ — 
 
 The first Christians were very unlike enthusiasts, 
 and still less were the men with whom they had to 
 
 ..^al such as could be won by mere enthusiasm. And 
 if wewn?l^^^-~alJow the Christians to speak for 
 themselves, the Gospel al'Jid Acts of Luke will alone 
 show us that they had very s^sund notions of the sort 
 of proof which can establish faciS and of the neces- 
 sity of such proof. . Twelve men -^ere the prime wit- 
 nesses of the Resurrection, their hualifications that 
 they had known Jesus during hiiB whole public life, 
 and had eaten and drunk, and-lM<i fami liarly con- 
 versed with Him'T^'~13tty days 
 again. Christianity, from jhe first at least, pretendSss 
 
 ' and believedrnselFlEo stand upon the ievidence of 
 testimony, not on pre-conceived fancies. With these 
 pretensions, then, it arose in an enlightened and . 
 sceptical age, but amongst a despised and narrow- 
 minded people. It earned hatred and persecution at 
 home by its liberal genius and opposition to the 
 national prejudices. It earned contempt abroad by 
 its connexion with the country where it was born, but 
 which sought to strangle it in its birth. Emerging 
 from Judea, it made its way outward through the 
 ' ' Annotations to Pale/j Evidences,' p. 391. 
 
OF CHRISTIANITY. 13 
 
 most polished regions of the world — Asia Minor, 
 Egypt, Greece, Eome, and in all it attracted notice 
 and' provoked hostility. . . . 
 
 When the' pagan Athenians, at first sur- 
 prised and incredulous, heard a man Hke St. 
 Paul, who was, as Paley observes ('Horse 
 Paulinse '), 
 
 A man of liberal attainments, andj in other 
 points, of sound judgment, ■who had addic-ed his life 
 to the service of the Gospel — who, when driven from 
 one city, preached in the next, persisting in this 
 course to old age, unaltered by the experience of in- 
 gratitude, prejudice, desertion, unsubdued by anxiety, 
 want, labour, persecutions, unmoved by long confine- 
 ment, and undismayed by the prospect of death, 
 
 they, probably, asked themselves the' question 
 with which Paley concludes his work, — 
 
 Was there ever an example yet of a man, neither 
 mad nor idiotic, vpluntarily undertaking a life of 
 want and pain, of incessant fatigue, of continued 
 peril, submitting to the loss of his home and country, 
 to stripes and stoning, to tedious imprisonment, and 
 the constant expectation of a violent death, for the 
 
14 THE POLITICAL PEOGEESS 
 
 sake of carrying about a story of what was false, and 
 of what, if false, he must have known to be so ? 
 
 But Christianity was mucli more success- 
 ful in converting Europeans than Asiatics, 
 although the Gospel history was surrounded 
 with so many Oriental associations. The an- 
 cient Greek mythology was gradually losing 
 its hold on the minds of many of the wisest 
 and most learned Greeks and Eomans, who 
 remembered and studied the words of their 
 greatest men, throwing doubts upon the 
 strange rehgion of Jupiter, and hinting at 
 the existence of One Supreme Deity. Such 
 minds were, therefore, more prepared and 
 wilhng to receive the doctrine of Jesus than 
 the Jews, who remained proudly attached to 
 their old rehgion, and denied- that their obscure, 
 peaceful countryman, Jesus of Nazareth, could 
 be their long-promised and heroic Messiah. 
 Consequently, the successful spread of Christi- 
 anity was chiefly throughout Europe. The 
 accomphshed French writer, M. Eenan, says,^ 
 
 ^ ' Lives of tjie Apostles,' p. 222. 
 
OF CHKISTIANITT. 15 
 
 The early [Christian] missions were all directed 
 Westward, or in other words, adopted the Roman 
 
 Empire for their, scene of operations For 
 
 a thousand years the Mediterranean has been the 
 great pathway of ideas and civilisation. The Romans, 
 in extirpating its pirates, had rendered it an unequal 
 
 method of intercpurse The comparative safety 
 
 of the imperial highways, the protection afforded by 
 the civil authority, the diflfusion of the Jews around 
 the Mediterranean coasts, the spreading of the Greek 
 language over their Eastern portion, and the unity 
 of civilisation, which first the Greeks and then the 
 Romans had extended over those countries, all joined' 
 to make the map of the [Roman] empire, a map of 
 the regions set apart for Christian missions, and des- 
 tined to be Christianised. The Roman world became 
 the Christian world, and in this sense the founders of 
 the empire may be called the founders of the Chris- 
 tian monarchy, or at least they may be said to have 
 drawn its outlines. Every province conquered by the 
 . empire has been a conquest for Christianity. .... 
 A flash of light from Syria illumining almost at once 
 the three great peninsulas of Asia Minor, Greece, 
 and Italy, and soon followed by a second which ex- 
 tended over the whole Mediterranean sea-board — 
 such was the' first apparition of Christianity. The 
 Christian preaching seems to have followed a road 
 
16 THE POLITICAL PROGEESS 
 
 already laid out, and which is no other than that of 
 the Jewish emigration. Like a contagion which, 
 having its point of departure at the far end of the 
 Mediterranean, appeared at once at a number of sepa- 
 rate points on the shore by a secret communication, 
 Christianity had its places of settlement marked in 
 advance. These sea ports were nearly all places 
 where there existed colonies of Jews. The Synagogue 
 generally preceded the [Christian] Church. It was 
 like a train of powder, or, more correctly, an elec- 
 trical cord along which the new idea ran with almost 
 , instantaneous rapidity. 
 
 The Christian doctrine, however, was for 
 some time viewed with contempt and hostility 
 by many Eoman writers, more apparently from 
 disHke to the Jews or anything connected with 
 Judea, than from sincere attachment to, or 
 even belief in, their own fanciful paganism. 
 Schlegel says,^ — 
 
 In the last years of Augustus, the first deified 
 Emperor, occurs the birth of Jesus ; in the time of 
 Tiberius, the foundation of the Christian religion ; 
 and in the reign of Nero, the first perfectly authentic 
 record of that great event in the Eoman history. 
 
 1 ' Phaosophy of History,' p. 269. 
 
Of CHRISTIANITY. 17 
 
 Tacitus, -whom Macaulay pronoimces the 
 greatest of all Eoman historians, is among the 
 first as well as the ablest of the heathen writers 
 who mention Christianity. He apparently 
 alludes to the Eesurrection of Jesus, which, 
 attested and declared by living witnesses, 
 doubtless had an immense effect in spreading 
 beUef in' Christianity. Tacitus, after recording- 
 the execution of Christ, says ^ : ' This perni- 
 cious superstition, thus repressed for a time, 
 broke out afresh not only through Judea, where 
 the mischief originated, but through the city, of 
 Eome, &c.' This temporary ' repression ' pro- 
 bably means the discouragement caused by 
 the execution of Jesus, and the ' breaking out 
 afresh ' of his alleged Eesurrection, which, to 
 the minds of sincere believers, would produce 
 a greater* effect than any amount of worldl/ 
 triumph. To those who honestly doubt the ' 
 Eesurrection of Jesus, the worldly progress 
 of Christianity must seem, not only the most 
 wonderful event in history, but one com- 
 ' ' Annals,' took xt. 
 C 
 
18 THE POLITICAL PROGEESS 
 
 pletely opposed to all precedent, and to all 
 experience of human nature. For the mere 
 earthly career, of Jesus was, apparently, a con- 
 tinual failure. Opposed by the chief priests 
 and learned men of his own nation, and un- 
 known to all others, He gathered around Him 
 some poor fishermen and peasants, preached^ 
 for a few years, only in Syria, made few- 
 converts of any particular repute, and then, 
 uttered deep reproaches against the priest- 
 hood of his own nation, who at length per- 
 suaded their Eoman governor to execute Hirh, 
 and thus prevent his. further ' corrupting the 
 people,' as they called it, by endangering their 
 spiritual influence over them. The whole con- 
 duct of the Eomans at the execution of Jesus, 
 their indifference to the charges of the accusers, 
 'and to the preaching of the accused, is one of 
 the many proofs of their disregard for the reli; 
 gious opinions and feehngs of all their various 
 political subjects. As Schlegel observes,^ — 
 
 It was only ■when Christianity had become a 
 • ' Philoadphy of History. 
 
OF CHRISTIANITY. 19 
 
 power in the world — the principle of a new life, and 
 • of a new form of life totally differing from all pre- 
 ceding forms of existence — that it began to attract 
 the attention of the Eomans as a remarkable his- 
 torical occurrence. 
 
 In their vast empire, the Eomans cared as 
 little for the Deism of the Jews as for the wor- 
 ship of Odin and Irminsul among the ancient 
 British and Germans, the Sun worship of the 
 Persians, or the worship of Isis and Serapis 
 among the Egyptians. The spirit of prosely- 
 tising, so conspicuous in mediaeval and modern 
 history — even the love of religious argument 
 and discussion — ^was httle known among them. 
 All the various nations under their sway might 
 worship their respective deities without fear of 
 persecution, provided the requisite political 
 submission was made and adhered to. But no 
 pagan priest wandered even through the sub- 
 dued empire, preaching about the power of 
 Jupiter, the happiness of Elysium, or the tor- 
 ments of Hades, in the impassioned language of 
 Christian missionaries announcing the felicity of 
 
 c-i 
 
20 THE POLITICAL PEOGRESS 
 
 heaven and misery of hell, recounting the har- 
 . rowing story of the Crucifixion, and death of 
 Jesus ; nor did the Eoman generals ever attempt 
 to spread their religion at the sword's point 
 like some Christian,^ and nearly all Mahometan 
 warriors. For though the Eomans nominally 
 believed in the old Greek religion, many of 
 them had always viewed it with distrust, and 
 this distrust had greatly increased at the time 
 of the birth of Jesus. Among them, a people 
 eminently intellectual, comparatively free from 
 bigoted prejudice, shrewd politicians and invin- 
 cible warriors, the Christian doctrine preached 
 only by a few Jews, who were fiercely con- 
 demned even by their own fellow-coimtrymen, 
 had for some time apparently little chance of 
 success. But the wonderful courage and elo- 
 quence of Christian apostles and missionaries 
 prevailed over every worldly obstacle. Belief 
 in the actual Eesurrection of Jesus, which, of 
 course, explained and justified all his myste- 
 
 * Prescott (' Oonquest of Pdru '), alluding to the conversion 
 of the natives to Ohristifmity by the Spanish invaders, says 
 ' The sword was a good argument when the tongue faUed.' 
 
OP CHRISTIANITY. 2l 
 
 rious "words, and more than made amends for 
 apparent failure on earth, inspired the first 
 Christian preachers with an energy -which no 
 mere enthusiasm could rival. As Dean Milman 
 observes,^ after declaring that the Eesurrection 
 was the basis of Christianity, the groundwork 
 of Christian doctrine and of the soul's immor- 
 tality, — 
 
 It placed the Being -whom but fifty days be- 
 fore they had seen helplessly expiring upon the 
 cross, far above the pride, almost the idol of the 
 [Jewish] nation, King David. The ashes of the king 
 had long reposed in the tomb which was before their 
 eyes, but the tomb qould not confiile Jesus — death 
 had no power over his remains. . . . Three thousand 
 declared converts were the result of this first appeal 
 to the Jewish multitude. The [Christian] religion 
 thus re-appeared in a form new, complete, and more 
 decidedly hostile to. the prevailing creed and domi- 
 iiant sentiments of the nation ; from this time the 
 Christian community assumed its separate and organ- 
 ised existence, united. by the federal rite of baptism. 
 
 But the Jews eagerly denied the asserted 
 
 1 'History of Christianity,' p. 356. 
 
22 THE POLITICAL PEOGEESS 
 
 Kesurrection, maintaining that the body of 
 Jesus had been stolen from the sepulchre and 
 secretly buried by some of his disciples, who 
 then spread a false report of the Eesurrection 
 of their dead prophet. To many this statement 
 of the Jews may have seemed sufficiently pro- 
 bable, but the Eomans appear for some years 
 to have paid little attention to either assertion. 
 Probably, however, their contemptuous dislike 
 to the Jews indirectly favoured the Christians ; 
 for to them alone, the Jews, even after 
 their political ruin and dispersion, showed a 
 hatred and malevolence quite unlike their 
 stolid indifference to all other religious commu- 
 nities. Viewing the Christians as base apos- 
 tates from their own rehgion, and Jesus himself 
 as an audacious reyiler of their priesthood 'and 
 national character, they evidently did their 
 utmost for many years to set their Eoman 
 masters against their unfortunate fellow-coUn- 
 trymen throughout the empire, in the same 
 way as their ancestors had done against Jesus 
 himself On the other hand, the Jews com- 
 
OF CHRISTIANITY. 23 
 
 plained that they were represented by a small 
 section of their fellow-countrymen as mipardon- 
 able enemies of the, human race, for executing a 
 man, which they believed they had a legal right 
 to do, who had tried to subvert their religion, 
 by proclaiming himself the Son of God. No- 
 thing in his short earthly career, they declared, 
 had authorised the conduct or words of Jesus, 
 and then the false story of his Eesurrection 
 was invented to retrospectively justify his 
 superhuman pretensions. The Jews, therefore, 
 beheld with disgust and indignation their 
 Christian fellow-countrymen, deifying an exe- 
 cuted impostor (as they thought), condemning 
 with bitter reproaches the clergy of their per- 
 secuted nation, and declaring that of all races 
 on the earth, the Jews — the chosen people of 
 God, exalted, favoured, and preferred before 
 any other human race — had committed in the 
 sight of Heaven the greatest crime ever per- 
 petrated by man. For this was the bold 
 assertion which their own fellow-country- 
 men were spreading through the world, thus 
 
24 THE POLITICAL PROGEESS 
 
 increasing the haughty dislike already felt 
 towards the Jews — a subdued race- — by the 
 nations of the earth, and especially by the 
 Eomans, whose rule they had long endured, 
 and by whom their national ruin and dispersion 
 ■yvere finally effected. Dr. Newman eloquently 
 writes,^ — 
 
 Itis an historical fact that at the Very time the 
 Jews committed their unpardonable sin, whatever it 
 was, and were driven out of their hom? to wander " 
 over the earth, their Christian brethren horn of the 
 same stock, and equally citizens of Jerusalem, did 
 also issue forth from the same home, but in order to 
 subdue that same earth and to make it their own — 
 that is, they undertook the very work, which, accord- 
 ing to the promise, this nation actually was ordained 
 to execute, and with a method of their own, and with 
 a new end, and only slowly and painfully, but still 
 really and thoroughly, they did it. And since that 
 time the two children of the promise have ever been 
 found together — of the promise forfeited," and the 
 ' promise fulfilled — and whereas the Christian has been 
 in high place, so the Jew has been degraded and 
 despised — the one has been ' the head ' and the other 
 
 ' ' Grammar of Assent,' p. 432. 
 
OF CIIKISTIANITT. 25 
 
 ' the tail,' so that, to go no further, the fact that 
 Christianity has actually done what Judaism was to 
 have done, decides the controversy by the logic of 
 facts in favour of Christianity. 
 
 It was natural, therefore, that no other nation 
 hated Christians and Christianity like the un- 
 converted Jews. Dean Milman says,* — 
 
 As Christianity advanced into all other quarters 
 of the world, . its proselytes were in far larger pro- 
 portion of Gentile than of Jewish descent. The 
 Synagogue and the Chilrch became more and more 
 distant tiU they stood opposed in irreconcilable hos- 
 tility. The Jews shrank back into their stern seclu- 
 sion, T-JTue tii>^»Qhristians were Literally spreading in 
 every quarter throV^gh the population of the [Eoman] 
 Empire. . . . Mutual'iWtred was increased by mutual 
 alienation ;' the Jew, who bad^lost the power of per- 
 secuting, lent himself as a willifo'. instrument to the 
 heathen persecutor against those whom li<? still con- 
 sidered as kpost'ates from his religion. The^less 
 enlightened Christian added to the contempt of all" 
 the Eoman world for the Jew a principle of deeper 
 hostility. 
 
 A more unfortunate position than thstt of 
 
 ' ' History of Christianity,' vol. i. p. 420. 
 
26 THE POIilTICAL PROGRESS 
 
 the Jews -during the progress and triumph of 
 Christianity thi'ough the Eoman Empire could 
 hardly be imagined. Without home or country, 
 pohtically helpless and socially despised, they 
 gradually found themselves exposed to general 
 execration for their treatment ,of Jesus, and 
 found that daily, more among the Komans, 
 Greeks, and other Europeans were converted 
 to a hew doctrine, which was to them a national 
 condemnation. Yet, even at this period of 
 humiliation and danger, they rigidly preserved 
 that stern, exclusive, and self-reliant spiritj' 
 which, from the earliest ages, had , alT'.'avs 
 distinguished them. As Dean Milman re- 
 marks,^ — 
 
 The obstinate Je\^ ocernly wrapped himself up in 
 his sullen isolation; his aversion from the rest of 
 manjaad, under the sense of gaUing' oppression and 
 "disappointed pride, settled into hard hostility. He 
 surrendered himself a willing captive to the new 
 priestly dominion, that of the Kabbis, Which enslaved , 
 his yhole life to a system of minute ordinances ; he 
 rejoiced in the riveting and multiplying those bonds 
 
 \ ' ' History of Christianity,' vol. i. 
 
OP CHEISTIANITY. 27 
 
 ■which had been burst by Christianity, but which he 
 wore as the badge of hopes stiLl to be fulfilled, of 
 glories which were at length to compensate for his 
 present humiliation. 
 
 Instead of attempting to combat the new 
 Christian doctrine by argument,, which for many 
 years they might have done with safety, the 
 Jews rather avoided discussion upon religious 
 matters, and devoted themselves almost entirely 
 to trade, in whatever countries they happened 
 to be. As Gibbon sarcastically observes ^ of, 
 the Jews under Epman dominion, — 
 
 Awakened, from their dream of prophecy and 
 conquest, they assumed the behaviour of peaceable 
 and industrious subjects. Their irreconcilable hatred 
 of mankind, instead of flaming out in acts of blood 
 and violence, evaporated in less dangerous gratifi- 
 cations. They embraced every opportunity of over- 
 reaching the idolaters in trade. 
 
 All they attempted was to defend their own 
 scattered nation from the efforts of Christian 
 proselytisers, in which they were remarkably 
 
 ' ' Decline and Fall/ vol. ii. 
 
28 THE POLITICAL PROGEESS 
 
 successful, considering their political degrada- 
 tion, and the increasing influence of the Chris- 
 tians. Yet in the heathen world for many 
 years the Christians had to contend with 
 enemies who, if less bitter than the Jews, were 
 inclined to oppose the new doctrines by per- 
 secution as well as argument. Dean Milman 
 writes,^ comparing the early struggles of Chris- ' 
 tianity with Jews and pagans — 
 
 The conflict of Christianity with Judaism was a 
 civil war, that with Paganism the invasion and con- 
 quest of a foreign territory At Athens, the 
 
 centre at once and capital of the Greek philosophy 
 and heathen superstition, takes place the first public 
 and direct conflict between Christianity and Pagan- 
 ism In Athens, the appearance of a new 
 
 public teacher, instead of offending the popular 
 feelings, was too familiar to excite astonishment, and 
 was rather welcomed as promising some fresh intel- 
 lectual excitement, and in Athens, hospitable to all 
 religions and all opinions, the foreign and Asiatic 
 appeara,nce, and possibly the less polished tone and 
 dialect of Paul, would only waken the stronger curi- 
 osity. . . . We may contemplate Paul as the repre- 
 ' ' History of OMstianity,' vol. i. 
 
OF CHRISTIANITY. 29 
 
 sentative of Christianity in the presence, as it were, 
 of the concentrated " religions of Grfeece and of the 
 spirits, if. we may so speak, of Socrates, Plato, and 
 Zeno. 
 
 Milman says of St. Paul's celebrated sermon to 
 the Athenian pagans,— 
 
 It is calm, temperate, conciliatory ; it is no fierce 
 denunciation of idolatry, no contemptuous disdain of 
 the prevalent philosophic opinions ; it has nothing of 
 the sternness of the ancient Jewish prophet, nor the 
 taunting defiance of the later Christian polemic. 
 .... The great Christian doctrine of the Eesur- 
 rection closed the speech of Paul. 
 
 Professor Maurice says,^ of St. Paul's ser- 
 mon to the Athenians, which Dean Milman 
 calls the most permanently-effective oration 
 ever uttered by man, — 
 
 When we are made acquainted with his words, 
 we find they are of this kind, 'Whom ye igno- 
 rantly worship — Him declare I unto you.' . . . the 
 teaching was adapted to all that waS sound and true 
 in the Grreek mind. . . . Therefore, the Greek my- 
 thology was met at all points by this gospel. . . . 
 
 1 ' Religions of the World/ p. 215. 
 
30 THE POLITICAL PEOGEESS 
 
 So it fared likewise with the Eomans. A faith with- 
 out an harmonious organised society was to the Latin 
 a dream. ... A king in whom was seen the perfect 
 fulfilment of law — the surrender of the individual will 
 to the Higher will — the entire self-sacrifice ; a king 
 who was the centre of a society, — the head of many 
 members, — was proclaimed by the fishermen of Gali- 
 lee, by the tent-maker of Tarsus. That announcement 
 met Eoman life on all its sides and aspects, adopted 
 its highest missions, over-reached its noblest ideas of 
 fellowship ; showed that the true society had for its 
 chief — one altogether unlike the Emperor — one whom 
 he must crush, or to whom he must bow ; and so by 
 slow degrees the Roman state-idolatry, like the Greek 
 idolatry of individual forms and persons, perished out 
 of the world. 
 
 Yet though the eloquence, energy, and invinci- 
 ble perseverance of the Apostles were certain 
 to secure many "disciples, the first reception of 
 Christianity by the best educated Eomans was 
 cold and discouraging. Upon this subject, Dr. 
 Newman ^ says that ' Tacitus, Suetonius, and 
 Pliny were the only heathen writers who dis- 
 tinctly mention Christianity for the first 150 
 
 ' ' Development of Christianity.' 
 
OP CHRISTIANITY. 31 
 
 years.' All three were decidedly hostile to it, 
 and had only vague ideas of its principles. 
 Dr. Newman writes, respecting the strange 
 position of Christians and Jews under the 
 Eoman rule, — 
 
 The Christian, being at first accounted a kind 
 of Jew, was on this score included in whatever 
 odium and whatever bad association attended on the 
 Jewish name. But in a little time his independence 
 of the rejected people was clearly understood, as 
 even the persecutions shew, and he stood upon his 
 own ground. 
 
 And he makes the following remarkable 
 statement about the various religions under 
 Eoman dominion, and the position of Chris- 
 tianity when it first appeared, — 
 
 Upon the established religions of Europe, the 
 East had renewed her encroachments and was pour- 
 ing forth a family of rites which, in various ways, 
 attracted the attention of the luxurious, the poli- 
 tical, the ignorant, the restless, and the remorseful. 
 Armenian, Chaldee, Egyptian, Jew, Syrian, Phrygian, 
 as the case might be, was the designation of the 
 
32 THE POLITICAL PKOGEESS 
 
 new hierophant, and magic, superstition, barbarism, 
 jugglery, were the names given to his rite by the 
 world. In this company appeared Christianity. 
 When three well-informed writers [Tacitus, Sue- 
 tonius, and Pliny] call Christianity a superstition, 
 they were not using words at random, or the lan- 
 guage of abuse, but they were describing it in dis- 
 tinct and recognised terms as cognate to those 
 gloomy, secret, odious, and disreputable religions, 
 which were making so much disturbance up and 
 down the Eoman Empire. 
 
 Until Christianity, however, began to 
 threaten political disturbance, it does not seem 
 to have been much persecuted by the Eoman 
 Government. Simpson, in his 'Church His- 
 tory,' writes that, though Jesus himself was 
 executed in the reign of Tiberius Csesar, 
 
 No public laws were enacted against Christianity 
 till the reign of Nero The Christians con- 
 demned the religion of the State which was closely 
 connected with the Eoman Grovernment, and the 
 Komans, though they tolerated religions from which . 
 the commonwealth had nothing to fear, would not 
 suffer the ancient religion of their nation to be 
 derided, and the people to be withdrawn from it. 
 
OF CHRISTIANITY. 33 
 
 Yet these things the Christians dared to do. They also 
 assailed the religions of other nations. Thence they 
 were concluded to be unfriendly to the public peace. 
 
 Mr. Simpson remarks, — 
 
 The pagan persecutions were probably not, upon, 
 the whole, unfavourable to the progress of Chris- 
 tianity. For their extreme barbarity was not only 
 revolting to the spectators, but gave fortitude to the 
 sufferers whose constancy in torture was the admira- 
 tion of the best part of the heathen, and convinced 
 them of the sincerity of the Christians ; and in addi- 
 tion to this, Christians were dispersed into distantlands 
 by, the cruelties practised against them, and carried 
 with them the doctrines of the Grospel to places which 
 would otherwise have long remained without them. 
 
 About the year 72, the Jews, after their 
 hapless revolt against the Eomans,^ were 
 banished wholesale from their country, and 
 dispersed among the nations of the earth, and 
 chiefly in the dominions of the Eomans— their 
 victorious enemies. But while they, with 
 their Christian fellow-countrymen, were alike 
 strangers to Eome, and politically at the mercy 
 
 ' Schlegel says thirty-three years after the death of Jesus. 
 D 
 
34 THE POLITICAL PROGRESS 
 
 of the Eoman Government — ^their conduct and 
 hopes were very different. The Jews applied 
 themselves to trade and commerce — never 
 attempted to make converts — or interfere in 
 any pohtical movement. All they desired was 
 to preserve their ancient faith undisturbed, 
 and await with calm patience their expected 
 Eestoration to Jud6a under the leadership . of 
 a future Messiah, whom to this day they 
 believe has never appeared. But as the Chris- 
 tians increased throughout the Eoman Empire, 
 their hatred to the Jews increased likewise. 
 The cruel execution of Jesus, and the vindic- 
 tive curse which the Jewish bigots had laid 
 on their posterity by desiring ' Christ's blood 
 to remain on themselves and on their children,' 
 was often repeated and remembered, while 
 the mere sight of the crucifix was enough to 
 enrage the ignorant and excitable Christians 
 against people who were personally as innocent 
 as themselves of any share in the death of 
 Jesus. Although at first the Jews fiercely 
 opposed the spread of Christianity, and exerted 
 
OF CHRISTIANITY. 35 
 
 all their influence to set the Eoman Govern- 
 ment against it, they gradually abandoned 
 this course ; for as Christianity became more 
 general, making converts more among pagans 
 than from their own scattered remnant of a 
 nation, the Jews began to regard it with com- 
 parative indifference, though they earnestly 
 and vigorously tried to check conversions to 
 it among themselves. Gibbon says ^ of the 
 enmity between the Jews and early Christians 
 under Eoman rule, — 
 
 The barren synagogue abhorred and envied the 
 fecundity of the rebellious Church ; the power of 
 the Jews was not equal to their malice, but their 
 gravest Eabbis had approved the private murder of 
 an apostate, and their seditious clamours had often 
 awakened the indolence of the pagan magistrate. 
 Under the reign of Constantine, the Jews became 
 the subjects of their revolted children, nor was it 
 long before they experienced the bitterness of do- 
 mestic tyranny. The civil immunities which had 
 been granted or confirmed by Severus were gradually 
 repealed by the Christian princes. 
 
 1 ' Decline and Fall,' toI. ii. 
 d2 
 
36 THE POLITICAL PROGEESS 
 
 By degrees, however, Christianity separated 
 itself from the Jewish race, making exten- 
 sive conversions all through the Eoman 
 Empire, but especially in Europe. Mean- 
 while, the pagan government of Kome be- 
 came irritated against its Christian subjects, 
 more perhaps from political apprehensions than 
 any religious prejudice. For as Earl Russell 
 observes,^ — 
 
 The religion of Eome had always been more 
 political than religious, and in the time of the 
 empire it became altogether an engine of the state. 
 The offence of the Christians in the eyes of the 
 Eoman G-overnment was not heresy or blasphemy, 
 but sedition. 
 
 Gibbon writes,^ — 
 
 The religious policy of the ancient world seems to 
 have assumed a more stern and intolerant character 
 to oppose the progress of Christianity. About four- 
 score years after the death of Christ, his innocent 
 disciples were punished with death by the sentence 
 of a pro-consul [PHny] of the most amiable and 
 
 * ' History of Western Christianity,' p. 49. 
 '^ 'Decline and Fall/ ch. 16. 
 
OF CHRISTIANITY. 37 
 
 philosophic character, and according to the laws of 
 an Emperor [Trajan] distinguished by the wisdom 
 and justice of his general administration. 
 
 Yet Gibbon denies that there was any 
 persecution of Christians by the Eomans from 
 the death of Christ till the destruction of 
 Jerusalem. The cruelties of Nero (thirty-five 
 years after the death of Christ) against the 
 Christians, Gibbon says, were entirely confined 
 to those who happened to be within the walls 
 of Eome, and their religious tenets were never 
 made a subject of punishment, or even enquiry ; 
 but this assertion is denied by Guizot in a 
 note to Gibbon's History, who maintains that 
 edicts against Christianity were issued by Nero 
 throughout the empire. From Pliny's cele- 
 brated letter to Trajan, many years after Nero's 
 death, it is evident that mere belief ia Chris- 
 tianity without any blamable act was con- 
 sidered punishable even by the most humane 
 and enlightened Eomans. But the implacable 
 enmity of the Jews towards Christianity was 
 utterly unable to arrest its progress through 
 
88 THE POLITICAL PROGRESS 
 
 the Eoman Empire, though its increasing in- 
 fluence began to alarm the Eomans themselves, 
 chiefly for political reasons. Upon this sub- 
 ject Milm&n writes,^ — 
 
 As Christianity became more powerful, a vague 
 apprehension began to spread . abroad among the 
 Eoman people that the fall of their old religion 
 might to a certain degTee involve that of their civil 
 dominion, and this apprehension it cannot be denied 
 was justified by the tone of some of the Christian 
 writings, and no doubt by the language of some 
 Christian teachers. Idolatry was not merely an 
 individual, but a national sin, which, would be 
 visited by temporal as well as spiritual retribution. 
 
 Yet, notwithstanding these political reasons 
 for pagan hatred to Christianity, according to 
 Gibbon and Milman the Christians from the 
 reigns of the Eoman Emperors, Nero and 
 Domitian, to that of Diocletian, were compara- 
 tively free from persecution. During- that 
 period Christian doctrine made enormous pro- 
 gress, entirely by peaceful means, and not by 
 a single earthly victory ; but the time at length 
 
 ' ' History of Christianity,' 
 
OF CHRISTIANITY. 39 
 
 came for its conflict with political power. 
 Milman says, — 
 
 The final contest between Paganism and Chris- 
 tianity drew near. Almost 300 years had elapsed 
 since the Divine author of the new religion had 
 entered upon his mortal life, and now having gained 
 so powerful an ascendency over the civilised world, 
 the Gospel was to undergo its last and most trying 
 ordeal before it should assume the reins of empire, 
 and become the established religion of the Eoman 
 world. It was to sustain the deliberate and syste- 
 matic attack of the temporal authority, arming in 
 almost every part of the empire in defence of the 
 
 ancient Polytheism The Christians no 
 
 longer declined or refused to aspire to the honours 
 of the state. They filled offices of distinction and 
 even of supreme authority in the provinces and in 
 the army, they were exempted either by tacit conni- 
 vance or direct indulgence from the accustomed 
 sacrifices. 
 
 The historians Gibbon and Milman, though 
 difiering so much in their views of Christianity, 
 are nearly agreed about the leading facts of its 
 pohtical histoiy. Schlegel writes,^ — 
 
 1 'Philosophy of History,' p. 296. 
 
40 THE POLITICAL PROGEESS 
 
 The first persecution under Nero was only a 
 momentary freak of blood-thirsty tyranny — a pass- 
 ing trait of that monster's cruelty. The first regu- 
 lar edict against the Christians in the Roman 
 Empire was passed by Domitian in the 87th year 
 of our [Christian] era. The better Nerva softened 
 the rigour of this law. ..... Trajan also decided 
 
 in the 120th year of our era that the Christians, who 
 were then uncommonly numerous, should not be 
 sought after, but that .when denouriced, they should 
 be punished according to the law existing against 
 such religious associations and communities. But 
 notwithstanding all these apparent mitigations of 
 severity introduced by the better Emperors, the 
 criminal jurisprudence of the Eomans, like their 
 foreign warfare, ever remained most atrocious, . . . 
 With many vicissitudes, Christianity remained in 
 this state until the reign of Diocletian, who, pur- 
 suing a far more systematic plan than most of his 
 predecessors, attempted entirely to root it out ; but 
 this was no longer possible, and the growing Church 
 received its first formal edict of pacification at 
 the hands of the Emperor Constantine. The pagan 
 enthusiast, Julian, attempted a second time to 
 subvert it, but it was now too late. 
 
 According to all three authorities — Gibbon, 
 
OF CHRISTIANITY. 41 
 
 Schlegel, and Milman — the cruel persecutions 
 of Diocletian and Galerius utterly failed either 
 to crush the rising power of Christianity, or in 
 any way to revive the failing strength of 
 paganism ; and these two contending religions 
 in a few years after involved the Eoman 
 Empire in a terrible civil war — the Christians, 
 under Constantine ; the pagans, under Maxen- 
 tius. The character of Constantine, the first 
 Christian sovereign in the world — the first 
 Christian prince who ever wielded political 
 power — and from whose reign the political 
 authority of Christianity commences — has been 
 very differently estimated. According to 
 Gibbon, whose dislike to the early Christians, 
 perhaps, prejudiced him against their first Im- 
 perial champion, his old age was disgraced 
 by cruelty and rapacity, while MUman and 
 Dr. Newman, both zealous Christians, take a 
 higher view of his character. Newman writes,^ — 
 ' Constantine is our [Christian] benefactor, inas- 
 much as we who now live may be considered 
 
 ' ' Historical Studies.' 
 
42 THE POLITICAL PROGRESS 
 
 to have received the gift of Christianity by 
 means of tlie increased influence which he 
 gave to the Church.' He was its first 
 avowed protector who relieved it ' from the 
 abject and sufiering conditioi;i in which it 
 had lain for three centuries.' The American 
 writer, Dr. Draper/ who seems, in some re- 
 spects, to regret the downfall of pagan Eome, 
 says,— 
 
 Ecclesiastical authors have made everything 
 hinge on the conversion of Constantine, and the 
 national establishment of Christianity. The medium 
 through which they look distorts the position of 
 objects, and magnifies the subordinate and the 
 collateral into the chief. Events had been gradu- 
 ally shaping themselves in such a way that the 
 political fall of the city of Eome was inevitable. 
 The Romans as a people had disappeared, being 
 absorbed among other nations — the centre of power 
 was in the army. 
 
 Milman writes exultingly, after the triumph 
 of Constantine over his pagan rivals, and the 
 
 ' ' Intellectual Development of Europe,' vol. i. 
 
OP CHKISTIAKITY. 43 
 
 complete establishment of his power, — ' Chris- 
 tianity may now be said to have ascended the 
 Imperial throne ; with the single exception of 
 Julian, from this period the monarchy of the 
 Koman Empire professed the religion of the 
 Gospel.' The apostacy of the Emperor Julian, 
 and his attempt to restore the ancient paganism 
 of his country, though it may have slightly 
 delayed the progress of Christianity, interposed 
 no effectual obstacle to its advance. Julian 
 himself, from all accounts, was a man of many 
 noble and estimable qualities, though probably 
 over-praised by Gibbon, who describes him as 
 almost a model of perfection. But this Em- 
 peror's dislike to Christianity seems to have 
 been more caused by the aggressive and 
 violent conduct of many of the Christians than 
 from any philosophical distrust of Christian 
 doctrine; for the advocates of the new faith, 
 when in political power, often acted in a 
 manner contrary to the spirit of the faith 
 itself, as even Milman admits,^ — 
 
 • ' History of Christianity ,' vol. i. 
 
44 THE POLITICAL PROGRESS 
 
 In the intoxication of power, the Christian, like 
 ordinary men, forgot his original character, and the 
 religion of Jesus, instead of diffusing peace and 
 happiness through society, might, to the superficial 
 observer of human affairs, seem introduced only as 
 a new element of discord and misery into the 
 society of men. 
 
 Indeed, the disregard of many early Chris- 
 tians for all merit or virtue in unbelievers is 
 one of the most disgraceful and surprising 
 facts in Christian political history. According 
 to some Christian enthusiasts, those who re- 
 jected the Gospel might as well commit every 
 imaginable crime as lead a virtuous life, for in 
 either case, their souls were alike lost. The 
 expression, ' Without Christ, no salvation,' was 
 interpreted as a direct and hopeless condem- 
 nation, not only of those who violated his 
 principles, but also of those who were ignorant 
 or incredulous about himself, although it must 
 be acknowledged that some who either repu- 
 diated or were ignorant of the Gospel history, 
 were more obedient to the precepts which it 
 enjoined than some who knew it almost by 
 
OF CHRISTI.WITY. 45 
 
 heart. This sentiment, at least in the perver- 
 sions of which it seenas capable, has in Chris- 
 tian political history, sanctioned the most 
 atrocious cruelties and persecutions. Some 
 mild and charitable Christians have in all ages 
 maintained that it simply means no salvation 
 for those who are without the virtuous moral 
 qualities approved and enjoined by Jesus, but 
 which are not exclusively confined to Chris- 
 tianity. But a different construction was 
 sometimes placed upon this expression by 
 professed Christians, maintaining that all 
 who never heard of Jesus or disbelieved 
 Him were alike eternally condemned, no 
 matter whether their hves and characters 
 were good or bad. The practical result of 
 this dangerous interpretation was relent- 
 less persecution, instituted by sincere Chris- 
 tians first against Jews and pagans, as 
 being the first foes to the only religion 
 through which they supposed salvation 
 possible. And centuries later, in Christian 
 history, the same narrow-minded bigotry ex- 
 
46 THE rOLITICAL PROGEESS 
 
 cited fellow-Christians against one another 
 with fearful intensity, each contending faction 
 in the distracted Christian Church beheving 
 the other hopelessly condemned in the sight 
 of Heaven, owing to their false constructions 
 of the precepts of Jesus, and without tlie least 
 reference to personal conduct and character. 
 The declaration of Jesus himself, that He was 
 not sent to call the righteous but simiers to 
 xepentance, was thus practically ignored, by 
 many of his earnest but disobedient followers, 
 who visited and threatened both ' righteous ' 
 and ' sinners ' among unbelievers with tem- 
 poral penalties and eternal punishment. There 
 can be no doubt that the stern bigotry of 
 some Christian teachers disgusted and repelled 
 many who could not understand that Chris- 
 tianity was a rehgion of justice and mercy 
 when taught and professed by those who 
 treated all unbehevers with injustice and 
 cruelty. But though Julian himself was evi- 
 dently a superior man, and quite sincere in 
 his efforts to repress Christianity, it was utterly 
 
OF CHRISTIANITY. 47 
 
 beyond his power either to do so, or to revive 
 the waning strength of Paganism. All the 
 energy and enthusiasm of the empire were 
 on the side of Christianity, and Julian stood 
 almost alone, for no pagan orators or preachers 
 of any ability appeared. The ancient Deities 
 remained mute and invisible, while the alleged 
 miracles and Eesurrection of Jesus were being 
 proclaimed to the wavering minds of the 
 pagans by preachers whose sincerity at least 
 could not be doubted. After the death of 
 Julian, the progress of Christianity increased 
 almost without any opposition, and a few years 
 later (under the Emperor Theodosius) the re- 
 ligion of Jupiter was publicly abolished, and 
 Christianity recognised as the established and 
 sole religion of the Eoman Empire. But 
 that empire itself, soon after the death of 
 Theodosius (a.d. 395), was attacked by the 
 JSTortliern barbarians of Asia and Europe. The 
 eminent French statesman, and political writer, 
 M. Guizot, thus describes the first acquaintance 
 of these Northern tribes with the early Chris- 
 
48 THE POLITICAL PROGRESS 
 
 tians and Eoman civilisation, at the fall of the 
 Eoman Empire/ — 
 
 Among the barbarians themselves, or their bar- 
 .barian ancestors, many had been witnesses of the 
 grandeur of the [Eoman] empire; they had served 
 in its armies, they had conquered it. The image 
 and name of Eoman civilisation had an imposing in- 
 fluence upon them, and they experienced the desire 
 of imitating, of reproducing, of preserving something 
 of it. . . . The Christian Church was a society regu- 
 larly constituted, having its principles, its rules, and 
 its discipline, and experiencing an ardent desire to 
 extend its influence, and conquer its conquerors. 
 Among the Christians of this period — among the 
 Christian clergy — there were men who had thought 
 upon all moral and political questions, who had de- 
 cided opinions and energetic sentiments upon all 
 subjects, and a vivid desire to propagate and give 
 them empire. ... It [Christian Church] attacked 
 barbarism, as it were, upon every point, in order to 
 civilise by ruling over it. 
 
 Among the Goths especially — one of the 
 most powerful of the Northern nations who 
 accomplished the destruction of the Eoman 
 
 ' ' History of Oivilisation,' p. 56. 
 
OF CHRISTIANITY. 49 
 
 Empire — Christianity was soon embraced. Pro- 
 fessor Maurice says,^ ' With much joy, though 
 amid much confusion, these barbarians wel- 
 comed the tidings of a Eedeemer in whom 
 men could own at once their Lord and their 
 brother.' In fact, Christianity seems to have 
 met with httle serious opposition among Euro- 
 pean nations, and thus it effected a steady 
 and singularly complete conquest Milman 
 observes,^ — 
 
 In Gaul, Spain and Britain, there was no old or 
 established or national religion. The ancient Druid- 
 ism had been proscribed as a dark and inhuman 
 superstition, or had gradually worn away before the 
 progress of Eoman civilisation. After it had once 
 passed the Alps, Christianity made rapid progress. 
 
 Eespecting the triumph of Christianity over 
 Northern Europe, Dean Stanley^ writes, — 
 
 Another and a wider sphere was in store for the 
 progress of the [Christian] Church than its own 
 
 • ' Eeligions of the World.' 
 
 ' ' History of Ohriatianity/ vol. ii. 
 
 ^ ' History of the Eastern Church.' 
 
 E 
 
50 THE POLITICAL PEOGRESS 
 
 native regions ; another and a notler conquest than 
 that of its old, worn-out enemy on the tottering 
 throne of the Csesars. The Gothic tribes descended 
 on the ancient world, the fabric of civilised society 
 was dissolved in the mighty crisis ; the fathers of 
 modern Europe were to be moulded, subdued, edu- 
 cated. By whom was this great work effected ? Not 
 by the [Roman] empire — it had fled to the Bos- 
 phorus — not by the Eastern [Christian] Church ; its 
 permanent conquests were in another direction. In 
 the Western, Latin,. Eoman clergy, in the mission- 
 aries who went forth to Great Britain and to Germany, 
 the barbarians found their first masters ; in the 
 work of controlling and resisting the first soldiers 
 of the Teutonic tribes, lay the main work, the 
 real foundation, the chief temptation of the Papacy. 
 From the day when Leo the Third placed the crown 
 of the new Holy Roman German Empire on the 
 head of Charlemagne, the stream of human pro- 
 gress and the stream of Christian life, with what- 
 ever interruptions, eddies, counter currents, flowed 
 during the next seven centuries in the same channel. 
 
 In the East, hovs^ever, the Persian followers 
 of Zoroaster, worshippers of the Sun, resisted 
 Christian doctrines with far more determina- 
 
OF OHEISTIANITT. 51 
 
 tion than either Greeks or Eomans. Gibbon 
 says,^— 
 
 The principles of Christianity were easily intro- 
 duced into the Grreek and Syrian cities, but they do 
 not appear to have made any deep impression on the 
 minds of the Persians, whose religious system [that 
 of Zoroaster], by the labours of a well-disciplined 
 order of priestSj had been constructed with much 
 more art and solidity than the uncertain mythology 
 of Greece and Rome. 
 
 Modem history confirms Gibbon's state- 
 ment — for to this day the ancient Sun worship 
 of the Persians remains among their descen- 
 dants, the Parsees, many of whom are people 
 of education and intelligence, chiefly mer- 
 chants, who thus have constant intercourse 
 with persons of other religions. Yet their 
 singular faith has resisted all teachings of 
 Christianity and attacks of Mahometanism, 
 while the Paganism, of Greece and Eome has 
 altogether vanished from the world. Still the 
 Christians, increasing steadily in numbers, in- 
 
 ' ' Decline and Fall,' vol. ii. 
 
 e2 
 
52 THE POLITICAL PBOGKESS 
 
 telligence, and political power throughout 
 Europe might, perhaps, in time have con- 
 verted the Persians, had not Mahometanism 
 — a new enemy — suddenly appeared fiercely 
 denouncing the rehgion of Zoroaster, and every 
 kind of idolatry, and though viewing Chris- 
 tianity with comparative respect, still firmly 
 claiming to supersede it in importance and 
 veracity, as God's last revelation to mankind. 
 Professor Maurice observes,^ — 
 
 The aspect of Christianity in the first ages, is 
 that of a youthful, growing, victorious doctrine, its 
 roots laid in the depths, its branches spreading over 
 the earth, and reaching to heaven. But then came 
 Mahometanism, utterly exterminating that Persian 
 doctrine with which the Christian teachers had so 
 unsuccessfully fought. 
 
 The ancient Persian, or Parsee doctrine, 
 however, was never exterminated by Mahome- 
 tanism. Though its political power was de- 
 stroyed, and its votaries banished from their 
 own country, they are now among the wealthiest 
 
 ' ' Religions of the World,' p. 213. 
 
OF CHRISTIANITY. 53 
 
 inhabitants of Bombay and Calcutta, living 
 entirely under Christian rule, and probably 
 more loyal to it than either Hindoos or Maho- 
 metans. Yet only for the opposition of their 
 ancestors to Christianity, it is possible that 
 India, Burmah, and China, professing then, as 
 now, the ancient religions of Brahminism and 
 Buddhism, might have been either converted 
 to Christianity, or at least made acquainted 
 with it. But these vast countries were in 
 those times too remote for Christian mission- 
 aries, who, usually coming from Europe, in 
 vain tried to convert the Persians, interposed 
 between them and those idolatrous nations 
 which were almost unknown to either the 
 Greeks, Eomans, or Jews of antiquity. But 
 Christianity effected a complete conquest of 
 Europe after the fall of the Eoman Empire, 
 through its vast dominions from Turkey to 
 Britain and Portugal, and encountering little , 
 opposition from either the Scandinavian wor- 
 shippers of Odin, or from the Druid priests 
 of Britain, spread itself over all the north of 
 
54 THE POLITICAL PROGRESS 
 
 Europe, and gradually extinguished every other 
 religion in it. Yet, in reviewing the progress 
 of Christianity and Maliometanism over the 
 world, it must be owned that the success of 
 both was often achieved by force as well 
 as by argument — by political conquest as 
 well as by mental conviction. The triumph 
 of Mahometanism over Asiatic and African 
 heathenism was decisive, rapid, and per- ' 
 manent. The Parsees, it is true, rejected 
 Mahometanism with the same JSrmness with 
 which their ancestors had rejected Chris- 
 tianity, and they were therefore expelled 
 from Persia, their native country, which was 
 then occupied and peopled by Mahometans. 
 But no heathen teacher or orator appeared 
 in either Asia or Africa to protest against the 
 new faith of Mahomet, or to revive the ex- 
 piring idolatry around him. The progress of 
 Christianity; however, was for a long time 
 checked and delayed by the violence of Chris- 
 tian preachers and rulers, which naturally 
 alienated and shocked many intelligent minds 
 
OF CHRISTIANITY. 55 
 
 among both Jews and heathens. For while 
 the persecuting Mahometan appealed to the 
 Koran as his authority for banishing or op- 
 pressing ' unbelievers,' the Christian persecutor 
 could plead no such justification, when his 
 professed religion condemned his conduct more 
 completely than all the complaints or sarcasms 
 of its foes. Gibbon states,^ — 
 
 The process of Christianity has been marked by 
 two glorious and decisive victories over the learned 
 and luxurious citizens of the Eoman Empire and over 
 the warlike barbarians of -Scythia and Germany, who 
 subverted the empire and embraced the religion of 
 the Eomans. The Groths were the foremost of these 
 savage proselytes. . . . Their fiercer brethren, the 
 formidable Visigoths, universally adopted the religion 
 of the Eomans. In their long and victorious march 
 from the Danube to the Atlantic Ocean, they con- 
 verted their allies, they educated the rising gene- 
 ration. During the same period Christianity was 
 embraced by almost all the barbarians who es- 
 tablished their kingdom on the ruins of the Western 
 Empire. 
 
 * ' Decline and Fall,' vol. iv. 
 
56 THE POLITICAL PROGRESS 
 
 Upon this subject the authors of the ' Un- 
 seen Universe ' remark/ — 
 
 In the course of a few hundred years we find the 
 whole Koman Empire converted to Christianity, 
 while, however, in Arabia and the East it appears 
 either to have made very little progress, or to have 
 become corrupted into something very different from 
 that which we read of in the New Testament. It had 
 not become the national religion of the Arabs, and 
 we can well imagine that this nation, with their pre- 
 tensions to be regarded as the most ancient repre- 
 sentative of the Semitic race, would not look kindly 
 upon a religion that took its origin in a rival branch 
 of the same family. "We can further imagine that 
 with such a feeling they would be very ready to wel- 
 come a religious system that should spring up among 
 themselves. Such an opportunity was offered them 
 by Mahomet. Acknowledging, in some measure, the 
 claims of Moses and Christ, Mahomet yet claimed for 
 himself and his religion superiority over his rivals, 
 flattering by this means the vanity of his own country- 
 men, who considered themselves the elder branches of 
 the Semitic race. 
 
 Thus nearly all Asia and Africa resisted the 
 1 P. 31. 
 
OF CHRISTIANITY. 57 
 
 efforts of Christian missionaries ; for, except in 
 part of Egypt, Abyssinia, and Armenia, Chris- 
 tianity took no permanent root, save about 
 Mount Lebanon in Syria, where the native 
 Maronites have always been Christians, and 
 have chiefly become Eoman Cathohcs. But 
 Persia, Arabia, Tartary, Mongoha, and China, 
 with the vast Empires of India and Burmah, 
 continued to maintain their ancient religious 
 systems, till the fierce outbreak of Mahome- 
 tanism, so unlike the peaceful rise of Chris- 
 tianity, assailed them with argument and force 
 combined. Gibbon observes,^ alluding to the 
 great change wrought by Mahomet upon the 
 Asiatic nations, — 
 
 The Arabs or Saracens who spread their conquests 
 from India to Spain, had languished in poverty and 
 contempt till Mahomet breathed into those savage 
 bodies the soul of enthusiasm. 
 
 But Mahomet himself always professed vene- 
 ration for the name and doctrines of Jesus, 
 blamed the conduct of the Jews towards 
 » Vol. iv. 
 
DO THK i-OLinUAL JfKUUHKSS 
 
 Him, and denied his ' crucifixion altogether, 
 alleging that, though the Jews wished to 
 execute Him, and were about to do so, the 
 Almighty invisibly interfered and rescued Him 
 from the world to which He never returned.-^ 
 By thus preferring Christianity, however, not 
 only to all ancient paganisms, but also to 
 Judaism, Mahomet may justly be said to have 
 believed Christianity the true, or at least the 
 truest religion in the world from the death of 
 Jesus till his own appearance on earth some 
 570 years later.^ But though the victory of 
 
 ^ Mr. Mulheisen Arnold quotes from the Koran the follow- 
 ing strange version of the disappearance of Jesus according to 
 Mahometan helief (' Koran arid Bible') : — ' The Jews have said 
 " We have slain Christ Jesus, the Son of Mary, the apostle of 
 God," yet they slew BSm not, neither crucified Him, but He 
 was represented by one in His likeness.' 
 
 * Sir "Walter Scott, well knowing the peculiar scorn and 
 dislike of Mahometans towards the Jews, makes the Knight 
 Templar (in ' Ivanhoe ') exclaim when his Saracen slaves 
 threaten the Jew Isaac, .' My slaves are true Moslems, and 
 would scorn as much as any Christian to hold intercourse with 
 a Jew,' and Mr. Morier, in his amusing Persian book, ' Hajji 
 Baba,' gives the following classification as usual among Persian 
 Mahometans : — ' Christians are bad, and dogs are bad, but Jews 
 are worse than all.' At present, however, Jews under Ma^ 
 hometan rule are quite free from persecution, except when any 
 
OF CHRISTIANITY. 59 
 
 Christianity over all the European paganisms 
 was complete and decisive, it was rivalled by 
 the vast and rapid triumph of Mahoraetanism 
 over the greater part of Asia, and a large part 
 of Africa. And history shows that Christianity, 
 though so successful among irresolute pagans, 
 made few converts among the enthusiastic 
 Mahometans. Por the religion of Jupiter in- 
 spired no enthusiasm ; it was a vague — doubt- 
 less, to some, an attractive illusion ; but it 
 appealed to fancy and imagination only, not 
 to the heart or conscience. It yielded com- 
 pletely to Christianity, and, perhaps, would 
 have previously yielded to Judaism if the 
 Jews had ever attempted to spread their 
 religion, which apparently they never desired. 
 But Mahometanism, a new and vigorous system, 
 was the most formidable rival to Christianity 
 that has ever appeared. It also appealed 
 powerfully both to heart and mind, while the 
 heroic character of its founder, his personal 
 
 sudden outbreak of fanaticism occurs among the most ignorant 
 Mahometans, when the Jews are usually the first victims. 
 
60 THE POLITICAL PEOGEESS 
 
 bravery and wonderful success in warfare — 
 which, if not superhuman, nearly approached 
 it — all served to inspire most ardent enthu- 
 siasm. The old religion of Arabia — a cruel, 
 debasing superstition, which, besides being 
 idolatrous, insisted on human sacrifices — yielded 
 to Mahometanism as completely as the Grecian 
 and Eoman paganisms had yielded to Chris- 
 tianity. The two ancient superstitions alike 
 resisted, and finally disappeared before the ener- 
 getic attacks of the two new religions ; but their 
 respective triumphs were first achieved in very 
 different ways. The progress of Mahometanism 
 was one rapid course of political conquest, 
 though accompanied with great in oral im- 
 provement. Mahomet himself, after a glorious 
 career, died, believed, honoured, and revered 
 by thousands, having seen his religion estab- 
 hshed in Arabia and other adjoining countries. 
 All his successors, either in political or reli- 
 gious influence, rivalled each other in respect 
 and veneration for both his memory and pre- 
 cepts. But Jesus was executed as a criminal 
 
OF CHRISTIANITY. 61 
 
 by the earnest desire and instigation of the 
 chief men of his own nation, who rejected his 
 doctrine and persecuted his disciples for many 
 years after his death. Fortunately for Chris- 
 tianity, however, its chief enemies, the Jews, 
 were peculiarly disliked by the Eomans, at 
 that time the most powerful people in the 
 known world, and were generally unpopular 
 among other nations, owing to their .proud, 
 stern, unsocial character. And while Chris- 
 tianity was a persecuted faith, its followers 
 displayed wonderful heroism in enduring every 
 kind of penalty with firmness, and sometimes 
 with actual dehght. Eor the conduct of Jesus 
 then inspired them, his calna endurance of 
 insult, torture, and death, affording an example 
 as well as a subject for fidmiration. Thus, 
 Christians in adversity were often more worthy 
 of the name than when armed with political 
 authority, when having no actual example to 
 follow they appealed for guidance to the pre- 
 cepts of Jesus alone, and unfortunately often 
 placed strange and erroneous constructions 
 
62 THE POLITICAL PROGKESS 
 
 upon them. It was then that the merciful 
 spirit of Christianity was often utterly aban- 
 doned, and professed Christians became per- 
 secutors, while suffering Jews or Pagans, as 
 the case might be, in their turn sometimes dis- 
 played a conscientious heroism, resembling that 
 of Jesus himself, even when rejecting Christi- 
 anity.- Impartial history thus proves that Chris- 
 tianity in political power was often, in a 
 philosophical sense, in a state of moral weak- 
 ness and degradation, while it never appeared 
 to more advantage, nor carried the same power 
 of conviction with it, as when enduring the 
 most savage persecution. For then Christians 
 were enabled to recal the example, as well as 
 the words of Jesus, by their own conduct in 
 adversity. The more, therefore, the Jews per- 
 secuted and reviled Christianity, the more it 
 attracted the attentive interest of the Pagans, 
 to whom it was first preached with success. 
 Yet no earthly victory aided its first progress, 
 but the fervent eloquence, and above all the 
 virtuous conduct of the first Christian preachers. 
 
OF CHRISTIANITY. 63 
 
 as shown by Pliny's celebrated letters, astonished 
 even unconverted Pagans, and gradually ap- 
 pealed even to their sceptical minds with irre- 
 sistible force. The Eesurrection of Jesus, so 
 firmly maintained by his disciples, surpassed all 
 earthly triumph. For pagan or Mahometan 
 victories, however glorious, were in this world 
 and for this world alone. The Eesurrection 
 was above earthly glory ; it was the interposi- 
 tion of God himself — the interruption and 
 violation of all natural laws, by the great 
 Author of Nature itself, to confirm and estab- 
 lish the faith of One who died for its assertion. 
 It inspired Christians with a courage virhich no 
 earthly event could increase or diminish, and 
 thus exempted them from all the changes or 
 influences of a brief uncertain world. Schlegel, 
 who seems to dislike Mahometanism even more 
 than the ancient paganisms, writes,* — 
 
 It was with the rapidity of a destructive fire, 
 that this mighty mischief spread over the countries 
 of Asia and a large portion of Africa. When 
 
 1 ' Philosophy of History,' p. 319. 
 
64 THE POLITICAL PEOGEESS 
 
 Mahomet died he was master of Arabia. . . • Only 
 a few score years from his decease, and under his 
 immediate successors, the whole of Western Asia, 
 between the Tigris and the Euphrates, as far as the 
 Mediterranean, Syria, and Palestine, down to Mount 
 Taurus and the frontiers of Asia Minor, and soon 
 again the whole northern coast of Africa, down to 
 the opposite shores of Spain, were subdued by the 
 disciples of the Koran, while, at the same moment, 
 the Roman West and the Empire of Persia were 
 menaced by the arms of these formidable invaders. 
 
 The Persian disciples of Zoroaster perhaps 
 suffered more than any other Eastern nation 
 in hopeless resistance to invading Mahometans, 
 who, issuing from Arabia, did not, like the 
 Christians, spread their religion at first in 
 distant countries, but beginning with Arabia, 
 their own prophet's land, where he had 
 lived and died, extended themselves over every 
 adjoining country. Mr. John M. Arnold 
 says,i — 
 
 The rapidity of the spread of Mahomet's creed 
 is without parallel in the history of propagandism. 
 
 ' ' Koran and BiUe,' ch. 4. 
 
OF CHRISTIANITY. 65 
 
 In the twenty-first year of Hegira,' the Crescent 
 [Mahomet's standard] floated over an extent of 
 territory as wide as that of the Eoman Eagle, and 
 the Saracen empire may be said to have extended 
 its dominion over more kingdoms and countries 
 in 80 years than the Komans in 800. In Syria, 
 Palestine^ Egypt, Asia Minor, North Africa, and 
 other countries, the Koran was introduced at the 
 point of the sword. Thence its contents were pro- 
 mulgated to the frontiers of India and China. 
 
 TKus, victorious MaliometE^nism spread over 
 North Africa, from Egypt to Morocco, Asia 
 Minor, Syria, Persia, Tartary, the Caucasus, 
 Georgia, Affghanistan, and great part of India ; 
 the few Christians that fell under its political 
 yoke, the Armenians and Nestorians in 
 Asia Minor and Persia, the Maronites in 
 Syria, and the Copts in Egypt, were treated 
 with comparative toleration ; but the unfortu- 
 nate Parsees, the aboriginal Persians, adhering 
 to the religion of Zoroaster, were banished 
 
 ' The escape and flight of Mahomet from his idolatrou* 
 fellow-Arahians before their conversion to his religious system. 
 This is the Mahometan date, instead of either the birth or 
 death of Mahomet, which both were in Arabia. 
 
66 THE POLITICAL PEOGEESS 
 
 altogether, and, like the Jews over again, fled 
 to other countries, strictly preserving their reli- 
 gious opinions. Their wanderings, however, 
 unlike the Israelites, were entirely confined to 
 Asia, and India became their chief place of 
 refuge, where their descendants remain mostly 
 as traders or merchants, making large fortunes, 
 but taking httle or no political part in the 
 government of any country, and never attempt- 
 ing the conquest of their former land, which 
 remains chiefly inhabited by Mahometans, 
 and completely under their rule. Mr. J. M- 
 Arnold ^ says, ' Mahometanism made common 
 cause with the [Christian] Church in pro- 
 testing against paganism, and precluded the 
 possibility of pagan powers uniting against 
 Christianity.' Thus these two rival reli- 
 gions, Christianity and Mahometanism, spread 
 over Europe, Asia, and part of Africa, 
 European paganism vanishing, entirely before 
 the preaching of Christianity, while Asiatic 
 idolatries disappeared before Mahometan 
 
 J 'Koran and Bible,' p. 241. 
 
OP CHRISTIANITY. 67 
 
 warriors whenever they came in contact.^ 
 In Europe, Christianity penetrated, chiefly 
 by peacefiil means, into every part — from 
 Iceland, Lapland, and the North of Russia 
 to the Southern limits of , Spain and Por- 
 tugal, while Mahometanism in Asia hardly 
 extended beyond India,^ and never entirely 
 prevailed in that country. The ancient 
 idolatries of India, Burmah, and China, have 
 therefore remained undisturbed, and in all 
 
 ' Mr. Arnold writes of the implacable hostility of Maho- 
 metanism towards all paganism and idolatry, — ' With few ex- 
 ceptions the maxim of the Koran "Fight against them until 
 there be no opposition in favour of idolatry, and the religion 
 be wholly God's," has ever been strictly carried out. No alter- 
 native was oflered to the pagan ; he had to choose between an 
 immediate recantation of his opinions or a cruel death. The 
 Christian was permitted the privilege of a compromise for the 
 preservation of his life and property by the payment of a heavy 
 tribute.' Mr. Arnold adds (p. 478), ' The non-Ohristian popu- 
 lation of the globe naturally divides itself into Jews, pagans, 
 and Mahometans, but a single glance will convince us that 
 these three distinct masses are of very unequal magnitude. 
 . . . The Jews number about five millions, the pagans 300 
 to 400 millions, the Moslems cannot be reckoned at a lower 
 figure than 200 millions.' 
 
 " Except the Tartar invasion of China under Genghis 
 Khan, which, however, resulted in the conquerors embracing 
 the idolatrous faith of the conquered Chinese, and was there- 
 fore a loss rather than gain to the political power of Mah> 
 metanism : but this case was isolated. 
 
68 THE POLITICAL PEOGEESS, 
 
 respects the saine as ever, except when the 
 "English government in India has politically 
 interfered, to check certain barbarous rites 
 (such as the Suttee widow-burning and human 
 sacrifices to th/b^Jdol Juggernaut, and the 
 mm-derous chAqIx des^^ Thugs). But Maho- 
 inetanism, thcLrchauts,orious and permanently 
 successful botlie or nc^ ^''^^ Africa, wherever 
 it appeared, /any count^^^l^y suited to those 
 parts of the Lt of t]^i o^lj ^ short triumph 
 followed byly jy'-^lmost complete defeat 
 and failure }/ Europe. The Moors, after 
 conquering l^ain, where for many years 
 they^ESa estjabhshed a Mahometan king- 
 ^^^(mh, invaded [ the South of Erance, but 
 were defeated^ driven back into Spain, 
 and eventually'^ expelled from there to 
 the opposite shores of Africa, whence they 
 came, by the Spanish Christians. , Mr. Arnold 
 observes, — ■ 
 
 : With tb.e exception of Spain, Mahometanism 
 has never yfet been suppressed in any country where 
 it had t^en root ; on the contrary, as it is almost 
 
OF CHRISTIANITY. 69 
 
 the only creed beside Christianity which proselytises 
 — it makes, perhaps, more converts than all the 
 others put together. Thiere are at this day [Mr. 
 Arnold writes in 1866] at least three Mahometan 
 empires — Turkey, Persia, and Morocco.' 
 
 In the South-East of Europe Mahometamsm 
 certainly achieved its mo^t important political 
 victory over Christianity by the capture of' 
 Constantinople, and conquest of the Eastern 
 part of the old Eomah Empire. These triumphs 
 were achieved by the Turks, a Tartar tribe, 
 under Mahomet the Second, a man in many 
 respects not unworthy of his great namesake, 
 "and who, according to Gibbon, treated his 
 .Greek Christian subjects with more mildness 
 and toleration than any of his Mahometan 
 successors.^ But some four centuries before 
 
 ' Persia, however, can hardly now be called an empire. It 
 is a weak kingdom, without a navy, bounded by the Russian 
 dominions on the North- West, by Herat and Affghanistan in 
 the East, and by Turkey in the West, while the Caspian Sea 
 to its North is now a Russian lake, for aU practical purposes. 
 
 * Sir Archibald Alison says (' History of Europe,' vol. iv.), 
 ' The Pope in vain endeavoured to form an effective league of 
 Christendom against the Mahometans ; the strength of Europe 
 held back, that of Asia was brought to the very front by the 
 
70 THE POLITICAL PROGRESS 
 
 this great triumph of the Turkish Mahometans, 
 the Crusades in Syria had brought Christianity 
 and Mahometanism into fierce colHsion. 
 
 Upon this subject Sir Walter Scott, whose 
 famous novels ^ have so admirably described 
 these religious wars, says,^ — 
 
 The hare-brained and, adventurous character of 
 these enterprises' — the idea of re-establishing the 
 Christian religion in the Holy Land, and wresting 
 the tomb of Christ from the infidels, made kings^ 
 princes, and nobles blind to its hazards, and they 
 
 rushed, army after army, to Palestine The 
 
 obvious danger of teaching a military body to con- 
 sider themselves as missionaries of religion, and 
 bound to spread its doctrines, is that they are sure 
 to employ in its service their swords and lances. 
 The end is held to sanctify the means, and the 
 slaughter of thousands of infidels is regarded as an 
 indifferent, or rather as a meritorious action, pro- 
 vided it may occasion the conversion of the remnant, 
 
 genius of Mahomet the Second, Constantinople was taken, the 
 Greek empire overthrown, and a chasm made in the defences 
 of Europe- against Asia, which all the eiForts of later times 
 have been scarcely able to repair.' 
 
 ' 'Ivanhoe' and 'Talisman.' 
 
 ^ ' Essay on Chivalry,' p. 16. 
 
OF CHRISTIANITY.; 71 
 
 or the peopling their land with professors of a purer 
 faith. 
 
 England, France, Germany, Spain, and Italy- 
 sent their Christian troops to rescue,. as they 
 termed it, the Holy Places, where the life of 
 Jesus was spent, from the power of the' Maho- 
 metan Saracens, and for a short time they suc- 
 ceeded in this ; but they never, made many 
 converts to Christianity from among their 
 Moslem foes, and perhaps hardly tried. In- 
 deed, their violence of conduct and language 
 towards all Mahometans, especially against 
 Mahomet himself, who had certainly rescued 
 Arabia from a cruel and degrading idolatry, 
 and whom they usually called a wicked im- 
 postor, a child of Satan, &c., was not hkely 
 to convince Mahometans of the mild and 
 charitable spirit of Christianity. For it 
 seems that Mahometans usually both re- 
 garded Jesus and treated Christians with 
 far more respect and toleration, till they 
 came in contact with the armed and fana- 
 tical Christians of Europe, whose religious 
 
72 ' THE POLITICAL PEOGRESS 
 
 bigotry rivalled their own, besides being totally 
 opposed to Christian precepts. The eminent 
 French statesman, M. Guizot, thus describes the 
 Crusades,^ — 
 
 The whole of Europe joined in them — they were 
 the first European event. Previously to the Cru- 
 sades, Europe had never been excited by one senti- 
 ment, or acted in one cause — there was no Europe. 
 The Crusaders revealed Christian Europe. The 
 French formed the van of the first Army of Cru- 
 saders, but there were also Germans, Italians, 
 
 Spaniards, and English The Crusaders were 
 
 the continuation, the zenith of the grand struggle, 
 which had been going on for four centuries between 
 Christianity and Mahometanism. 
 
 At the time of the Crusades, several orders 
 of knighthood were instituted among the Euro- 
 pean Christians — of. whom the Templars and 
 the Knights of St. John, or the Hospitallers, 
 were the most formidable. These ' military 
 monks,' as Sir Walter Scott calls them, were, 
 according to Mr. Hallam,^ — 
 
 Instituted in the twelfth century for the sole pur- 
 
 ' ' History of Civilisation,' vol. i. 
 ' ' Middle Ages,' vol. i. 
 
OF CHKISTIANITY. 73 
 
 pose of defending -the Holy Land. Large estates, 
 as well in Palestine as throughout Europe, enriched 
 the two institutions, but the pride, rapaciousness, 
 and misconduct of both, especially of the Templars, 
 seem to have balanced the advantages derived from 
 their valour. 
 
 Gibbon ^ writes about these two orders rather 
 sarcastically, — 
 
 The flower of the nobility of Europe aspired to 
 wear the cross, and to profess the vows of these 
 respectable orders. The austerity of the convent 
 soon evaporated in the exercise of arms, the world 
 was scandalised by the pride, avarice, and corruption 
 of these .Christian soldiers. But in their most 
 dissolute period, the Knights of the Hospital and 
 Temple maintained their fearless and fanatical 
 character ; they neglected to live, but they were 
 prepared to die, in the service of Christ ; and the 
 spirit of chivalry, the parent and offspring of the 
 Crusades, had been transplanted by their institution 
 from the Holy Sepulchre to 'the isle of Malta, 
 
 where, in Gibbon's time, a small remnant of 
 the Knights of St. John still resided long after 
 the extirpation of their unfortunate brethren of 
 the Temple. Por the two orders had a very 
 
 ' ' Decline and Fall,' vol. vi. 
 
74 THE POLITICAL PROGRESS 
 
 different history, after the failure of the Cru- 
 sades, and withdrawal of the Christian troops 
 from Syria. The Templars returned to Europe, 
 where they settled for some time in Spain, 
 waging fierce warfare against the Moorish 
 Mahometan invaders, while the Hospitallers, 
 obtaining possession of the island of Ehodes in 
 the Archipelago, carried on constant war with 
 the Turks, who had estabhshed themselves 
 over the Saracen -empire. Hallam observes,^ — 
 ' Though the Crusades began in abhorrence of 
 infidels, this sentiment wore off in some degree 
 before their cessation ; ' but this change appa- 
 rently never affected these religious warriors. 
 The only ' ' infidels,' indeed, with whom they 
 ever fought were Mahometans, and against 
 them, whether Saracens, Turks, or Moors, the 
 Templars and Hospitallers waged unceasing 
 warfare. To Mahometan minds, these Chris- 
 tian knights may have somewhat resembled 
 their own Ghazees, or religious fanatics, whose 
 implacable hatred to all rehgions except the 
 
 ' ' Middle Ages,' vol. iii. 
 
OF CHRISTIANITY. 75 
 
 Mahometan was equalled by the merciless 
 bigotry of these Christian warriors. The Tem- 
 plars, however, by amassing immense wealth, 
 gradually incurred the jealousy of the French 
 and Spanish governments, and the Order was 
 eventually suppressed by King Philip IV. of 
 France, with the sanction of the Pope, in the 
 fourteenth century ; but the . Hospitallers, who 
 seem to have adhered rather more to their 
 original principles of devoted self-denying hos- 
 tility to ' infidels,' held the island of Ehodes gal- 
 lantly against the Turks for many years, but at 
 length, forced to retire before superior numbers, 
 they settled themselves in the island of Malta, 
 where they waged a continual warfare against 
 Mahometans whenever they had the opportunity. 
 The Abbe' Vertot, in his remarkable history of 
 these knights, describes their astonishing valour 
 when almost abandoned by Christian nations, 
 and opposed to the united forces of Turks, 
 Saracens, aud Algerines. . But as the Christian 
 nations of Europe increased in wealth, know- 
 ledge, and numbers, their national rivalries and 
 
76 THE POLITICAL PROGRESS 
 
 jealousies increased also. The same feeling of 
 Christian union which had sent champions from 
 all these nations alike to the Crusades, banded 
 together for one common cause/ ceased to 
 exist, and the Knights of Malta became as the 
 remnants of a past age, the last representatives 
 of an almost extinct state of feeling. Ceaseless 
 warfare against ' unbelievers ' ti;a.S| ljiftir sole 
 object, and the political dissens^^g ^f pjtristen- 
 
 dom yearly increasing'ifiS^ortanc X'^ ^^' 
 tensity, utterly confoundedAem, ag ^t %', con- 
 sequently, became less ai(^ (^r reinf /*^°^ ^7 
 the Christian nations, ^e Ith^ m f fplars, 
 though in a less degre-uesd /,„■ , ^ fan also 
 became gradually more "^ouL ^^^ ^n iwar- 
 like througt|Hiine, wWcli,'^Veriyg 7,.>:t ,.astened 
 the death (of one of their OrOTa Masters, 
 through chagrin and vexation at being unable to 
 restore the former strictdiscipline. Vertot states 
 that Henry VIII. of England, after his secession 
 
 ' As Hallam observes ('Middle Ages,' vol. i.), 'The 
 Crusades invaded all the "Western nations of Europe, -without 
 belonging particularly to any one, yet France was more dis- 
 tinguished than the rest in most of those enterprises.' 
 
OF CHKISTIANITY. 77 
 
 from the Churcli of Eome, forbade his subjects 
 enlisting among the Knights of Malta. These 
 checks from Christian princes and governments 
 were more fatal to these religious Orders than 
 all the power of Mahometans. The Knights of 
 Malta, ~ after bravely repulsing the combined 
 forces of Turks, Saracens, Egyptians, and 
 Algerines, during the celebrated siege, became 
 gradually weaker and less aggressive, and the 
 Protestant movement in Europe hastened their 
 decline ; for Christians, then, began to perse- 
 cute and destroy each other with a rancour and 
 bitterness hitherto reserved for 'unbelievers' 
 alone, and for this change in European senti- 
 ment these knights were qmte unprepared. 
 Yet, though few in number, and comparatively 
 unwarlike, they retained possession of Malta 
 till they were expelled by Napoleon, after 
 whose capture Malta was annexed by the Eng- 
 Hsh, and the rest of the knights, the last rem- 
 nant of the Crusaders, retired to Eome. 
 
 Although in their best days these two 
 Orders showed great bravery and heroism, 
 
78 THE POLITICAL PROGRESS 
 
 their fanatical hatred to all unbelievers pro- 
 bably retarded rather than promoted the pro- 
 gress of Christianity. For though Mahometans 
 had certainly spread their religion chiefly by 
 violence, they could always appeal to the con- 
 duct of their warrior prophet, Mahomet, and 
 the doctrines of the Koran in justification. But 
 these Christian knights, if they had ever con- 
 descended to argument, would have found their 
 religion utterly opposed to their conduct from 
 first to last. The result of their efforts proved 
 how little service their fanatical bravery did 
 to the Christian cause. The peaceful, calm 
 eloquence of St. Peter and St. Paul, and sub- 
 sequently of St. Ambrose and St. Augustine, 
 converted numbers of intellectual heathens to 
 Christianity, while the fierce bigotry of Chris- 
 tian warriors made all unbelievers, whether 
 Jews or Mahometans, naturally distrust a. reli- 
 gion whose champions so completely violated 
 its most solemn precepts. 
 
 But the unequal contest between Europeans 
 brought from a distance, when the means of 
 
OF CHEISTIANITY. - 79 
 
 transport were hazardous and difficult, very 
 different from these later times, and native 
 Mahometan Saracens of Arabia and Syria, at 
 last ended in the abandonment and failure of 
 Christian invasion, and Mahometans remained 
 in triumphant possession of that interesting 
 country from whence the Christian faith was 
 originally brought. But during this extra- 
 ordinary war between these two great rival 
 religions, the Jews, on whose Scripture his- 
 tory Christian Bible and Mahometan Koran 
 were each founded, werie themselves ahke 
 detested by both Christians and Mahometans, 
 much more than by the pagans of the Eoman 
 Empire. Yet in many points these two reli- 
 gions agreed ; the doctrines of Jesus and the 
 subsequent doctrines of Mahomet, ahke diverted 
 their respective followers from the pure Deism 
 to which the Jews steadily adhered, regarding 
 both Jesus and Mahomet as impostors, either 
 self-deluded or deceiving. Mr. Arnold thus 
 describes Mahometan views of Judaism , and 
 Christianity, — 
 
80 THE POLITICAL PKOGEESS 
 
 They [the Mahometan Arabs] thought the Jews 
 in rejecting their last Prophet [Jesus] had forfeited 
 their ancient dignity, and they considered the Chris- 
 tians had run into the opposite extreme by ascribing 
 to Him a divine character, and surrendering the 
 doctrine of the divine imity. They deemed the 
 time now come for them to have a Prophet of their 
 own, who would restore the religion of Abraham 
 and put an end to the state of ferment into which 
 the peninsula [Arabia] had been thrown by the 
 concussion of Judaism, Christianity, and the idola- 
 try which they inherited from their forefathers.' 
 
 It appears very extraordinary that the 
 votaries of three religions, having one common 
 root — belief in God and a future state, who 
 were also agreed in abolishing the idolatry 
 
 ^ Mr. Arnold also quotes the following fine passage from 
 the Koran, on the chief attributes of the Deity, — 
 
 ' There is no God but He, the living, the self-subsisting ; 
 neither slumber nor sleep seizeth Him ; to Him belongeth 
 whatsoever is in Heaven and on earth. "Who is he that can 
 intercede with Him, but through his good pleasure ? He 
 knoweth that which is past and that which is to come unto 
 men, and they shall not comprehend anything of his know- 
 ledge, but as far as he pleaseth. His throne is extended over 
 Heaven and earth, and the preservation of both is no burden 
 unto Him. 
 
OF CHRISTIANITY. 81 
 
 and human sacrifices of the vanishing pagan 
 world — who had thus done so much in 
 separate ways for the good of mankind, should 
 yet' have detested and persecuted each other 
 with a ferocity not surpassed even by pagans 
 themselves. Yet such is the fact recorded 
 by undisputed history. Mr. Bosworth Smith, 
 who has evidently studied both the Koran 
 and life of Mahomet with close attention, 
 says,i— 
 
 The immemorial quarrel between Christianity 
 and Mahometanism is after all a quarrel between 
 near relations I would almost call it [Ma- 
 hometanism], remembering Mahomet's intense reve- 
 rence for Christ, the only form of Christianity which 
 has proved itself suited to the nations of the East. 
 
 This is certainly going very far in Maho- 
 metan advocacy, and he proceeds, — 
 
 Mahometanism is the one religion in the world, 
 beside Christianity and the Jewish, which is strictly 
 
 and avowedly monotheistic The three 
 
 creeds are branches from the same parent stock, not 
 
 1 ' Mahomet and Mahometanism,' p. 182. 
 G 
 
82 THE POLITICAL PKOGEESS 
 
 different stocks, and they all alike look back to the 
 majestic character of Abraham as the teacher of the 
 unity of Grod. 
 
 Mr. Smith, who vindicates the character 
 and doctrine of Mahomet from many accusa- 
 tions, and whose knowledge of Mahometan 
 countries and people makes his opinions very 
 valuable, continues,^ — 
 
 If Christians generally were as ready to confess 
 
 Christ, and to be proud of being his servants as 
 
 Mahometans are of being followers of Mahomet, one 
 
 chief obstacle to the spread of Christianity might 
 
 be removed ; and the two great religions which 
 
 started from kindred soil — the one from Mecca, the 
 
 other from Jerusalem — might work on in their 
 
 respective spheres ; the one the religion of progress, 
 
 the other of stability ; the one of a complex life, 
 
 the other of a simple life ; the one dwelling more 
 
 upon the inherent weakness of human nature, the 
 
 other on its inherent dignity ; the one the religion 
 
 of the best parts of Asia and Africa, the other of 
 
 Europe and America — each rejoicing in the success 
 
 of the other — each supplying the other's wants in a 
 
 generous rivalry for the common good of humanity.^ 
 
 » P. 232. 
 
 ' Apparently, however, these views will not, for many 
 
OF CHRISTIANITY. 83 
 
 During the conflicts between Christianity 
 and Mahometanism in the South of Europe, 
 and between Mahometanism and the various 
 idolatries of Asia, the natives of those coun- 
 tries where neither of these rehgions pene- 
 trated — China, Burmah, part of India, and the 
 greater part of Africa — adhered to their primi- 
 tive paganism, but were quite unaggressive. 
 Eetaining poUtical independence, they, for the 
 most part, remained within their own frontiers, 
 and mingled little with the rest of the world, 
 while the homeless Jews and Parsees, socially 
 despised and pohtically powerless, were thank- 
 ful' to obtain mere toleration, and never 
 attempted either to regain political power, or 
 to make converts to their religious systems. 
 But the political strife between Christianity 
 
 yeais at least, be realised. For certainly, at present [1877], 
 the political enmity in Turkey, and along the vast Asiatic 
 frontier of the Russian Empire — between Christians and 
 Persian, Turkish, 'Xaxtar, and Circassian Mahometans; in 
 India, between English and Mahometans ; and in Algiers, 
 between French and Mahometans ; gives little prospect of 
 alliance between the two most powerful religions of the 
 modern world. ' 
 
 s2 
 
84 THE POLITICAL PEOGEESS 
 
 and Mahometanism, whicli in Syria and the 
 South-East of Europe resulted in the victory 
 of the latter, was at length terminated by 
 the expulsion of the Mahometans from all 
 Europe except Greece, and the provinces 
 south of the Danube, or immediately around 
 it, comprised in the Turkish Empire. Even 
 in these countries, however, Mahometanism 
 took no lasting root — most of the Christian 
 inhabitants, except the Albanians, who chiefly 
 became Mahometans, retaining their faith, and 
 viewing both Mahometan religion and rule 
 with the utmost detestation. 
 
 The wars among Mahometans themselves — 
 Turks, Persians, and Saracens — also greatly 
 contributed to the decline of their pohtical 
 power, and with them, unUke the Christians, 
 loss of political influence was usually accom- 
 panied by the decline of their religion. Thus, 
 after the expulsion of the Moorish Maho- 
 metans from Spain, European Turkey, then 
 including Greece, the Ionian Islands, with Mol- 
 davia and WaUachia, alone remained under 
 
OF CHRISTIAIflTY. 85 
 
 Mahometan rulfe in Europe ; but the natives 
 of these countries, with few exceptions, 
 firmly adhered to Christianity, and, chiefly 
 to the Greek form of that rehgion, which 
 was also professed by the Eussians and by 
 no other nation. As a rule, therefore, Ma- 
 hometanism made little progress among its 
 European subjects, but was peculiarly de- 
 tested by them as associated with political 
 invasion, conquest, and misgovernment. The 
 wars which broke out between the Turkish, 
 Persian, and Saracen Mahometans themselves 
 in Asia, who, after the death of Mahomet, had 
 followed his rival successors, Omar and Ali, 
 have always prevented any firm alliance be- 
 tween these contending Mahometans against 
 the Christians. As the European Christian 
 nations advanced in numbers, knowledge, and 
 civilisation, during the middle ages, so the 
 Mahometans both in Asia and Afi-ica gradually 
 became less formidable, or at least less aggres- 
 sive. The Turks, who had established them- 
 selves over the old Saracen empire, were con- 
 
86 THE POLITICAL PEOGEESS 
 
 stantly fighting, both with the Arabs, whom 
 they tried to subdue in Arabia, Syria, and 
 Africa, and also with the Persians, whose rival 
 kingdom, though inferior in size even to the 
 Turkish Empire in Asia, yet maintained its 
 independence. While Mahometanism, there- 
 fore, united and almost invincible under its 
 great founder, was, after his death, gradually 
 divided among hostile and jealous tribes and 
 kingdoms, yet rivalhng each other in veneration 
 for their common Prophet — the Christian nations 
 also were so involved in wars among them- 
 selves that an allied crusade against Mahometan 
 rule in Syria was never attempted at the very 
 period in history, when, instead of being a 
 complete failure as before, such an enterprise 
 had every chance of success. But the energy 
 and ambition of Christian Europe, which was 
 advancing as rapidly in civihsation, as Asia and 
 Africa were fast receding, were suddenly 
 roused and impelled in a new direction by 
 the wonderful discovery of America in the 
 fifteenth century. 
 
OF CHEISTIANITY. 87 
 
 This vast continent was somewhat thinly 
 inhabited by heathen tribes, of whom the 
 Peiruvians, according to Prescott's histories, 
 were the most inoffensive race, while the 
 Northern tribes, all strangely termed Indians 
 by the European invaders, were fierce and 
 warlike, though, of course,' unable to resist 
 well-armed and disciplined Europeans. As 
 Alison remarks,^ at the conclusion of his 
 work, — 
 
 That the Europeail race, gifted by nature mth 
 an energy, a roving disposition, and a passion for 
 gain beyond any other, was the portion of mankind 
 to whom the mission of spreading into the remote 
 parts of the earth was entrusted, is manifest from 
 what they have already achieved in accomplishing 
 it, and the stationary condition of the inhabitants of 
 the greatest and most ancient Asiatic empires in 
 comparison. 
 
 Thus it was reserved for Eurojpe alone to 
 achieve the entire conquest from end to end 
 of this quarter of the globe, and three nations 
 
 ' ' History of Europe.? 
 
88 THE POLITICAL PKOGKESS 
 
 chiefly accomplished this vast undertaking, the 
 British in the North and in a few of the West 
 Indian islands, and the Spaniards and Portu- 
 guese in Mexico, Honduras, Panama, most of 
 the West Indian Islands and all South America. 
 Neither France, Eussia, Sweden, Italy, nor Ger- 
 many eifected any conquest or settlement of 
 consequence in this vast continent (except a 
 French colony which settled in Canada), while 
 to the nations of Asia and Africa this new 
 world remained unknown. 
 
 But in this vast and thinly-peopled conti- 
 nent, the political progress of Christianity was 
 feebly opposed from the first, and yet the 
 Christian moralist who reads the history of this 
 great conquest, as described by Prescott and 
 others, will regret to find how unworthy 
 was the conduct of the invading Christians 
 of the faith they professed to beheve and 
 introduce. In the Southern province of Para- 
 guay, the native Indians were converted to 
 Christianity chiefly by the Jesuits. This cele- 
 brated rehgious order was estabhshed, accord- 
 
OF CHRISTIAKITT. 89 
 
 ing to Hallam/ in the sixteenth century, by 
 Pope Paul ni. Hallam says that their institu- 
 tion has, more ' effectually than any other, 
 exhibited the moral power of a united associa- 
 tion in moving the great unorganised mass of 
 mankind.' The efforts of this energetic society 
 in Christian countries, where they always la- 
 boured to restore the Eoman CathoUc faith 
 among the Protestants, generally failed ; and 
 they also incurred the censure and enmity of 
 many Eoman Catholic governments by advocat- 
 ing the murder of tyrants.^ But in their mis- 
 sionary labours among heathen nations, the 
 Jesuits appeared to fai: more advantage than 
 when persecuting or slandering other Christian 
 denominations. Their exertions in China and 
 Paraguay, the two chief countries whose con- 
 version they attempted, ended, however, very 
 differently. The heathen pohtical government 
 
 ' ' History of Literature,' vol. i. 
 
 ' Hallam ('History of Literature,' vol. ii.) quotes some 
 expressions of the celebrated Jesuit historian, Mariana, justi- 
 fying the slaying of tyrannical princes, as firmly as Milton, in 
 his ' Iconoclast,' justifies the execution of King Charles L 
 
90 THE POLITICAL PEOGEESS 
 
 of China always checked their progress, while 
 in Paraguay their success was almost complete. 
 The early conquests in the North by the 
 British, and in the middle and South by 
 Spaniards and Portuguese, show how often the 
 Christian spirit was abandoned by all three 
 nations when tempted by avarice and love 
 of conquest. The Christian philanthropist, of 
 whatever persuasion, who calmly studies the 
 conduct and history of the Christian conquerors 
 of America, will perceive a grievous resem- 
 blance in their behaviour towards vanquished 
 foes. Mr. Prescott, in his celebrated ' Conquest 
 of Peru,' p. 336, says, — 
 
 The right of conquest they [the Spaniards] 
 conceived extinguished every existing right in the 
 unfortunate natives. The lands, the persons of the 
 conquered races, were parcelled out and appropriated , 
 by the victors as the legitimate spoils of victory, 
 and outrages were perpetrated every day, at the 
 contemplation of which humanity shudders. 
 
 At p. 423 > Prescott writes, comparing the 
 savage conduct of Spanish colonists and soldiers 
 
OF CHRISTIANITY. 91 
 
 with that of some excellent priests and mis- 
 sionaries like Olmedo and Las Casas, — 
 
 At the close of this' long array of iron warriors 
 we behold the poor and humble missionary coming 
 into the land on an errand of mercy, and everywhere 
 proclaiming the glad tidings of peace. It is the 
 reason he would conquer, not the body. He wins 
 his way by conviction, not by violence. It is a 
 moral victory to which he aspires, more potent and, 
 happily, more permanent than that of the blood- 
 stained conquerors. As he thus calmly and imper- 
 ceptibly, as it were, comes to his great results, he 
 may remind us of the slow, insensible manner in 
 which Nature works out her great changes in the 
 material world that are to endure when the ravages 
 of the hurricane are passed away and forgotten. 
 
 It is, certain, however, that what between mili- 
 tary conquest and earnest preaching, the original 
 heathenisms were gradually suppressed, and 
 Mexico and all South America, except a few 
 Indian tribes, embraced the Eoman Catholic 
 faith of the Spanish and Portuguese invg,ders. 
 According to the statements of Prescott and 
 others, some of the natives of America, espe- 
 
92 THE POLITICAL PKOGEESS 
 
 daily the Peruvians, were a peaceful, civilized 
 race, and inclined to be friendly to the Euro- 
 peans. But neither pagan nor Mahometan 
 conquerors were more aggressive, merciless, or 
 implacable than the first Christian invaders 
 of America — ^whether Britidi, Spanish, Portu- 
 guese, or Dutch — who invaded and colonised 
 Surinam in South America. While always . 
 professing, and sometimes preaching, Christian 
 doctrines, the European invaders, Protestant or 
 Eoman Catholic, alike violated them in their 
 conduct towards the natives of America, both 
 in the North and South. 
 
 In the United States and Canada, colo- 
 nized by English, Scotch, Irish, Germans, and 
 French, the Protestant religion chiefly pre- 
 vailed, not, indeed, to the exclusion of any 
 other form of Christianity, but to the exclu- 
 sion of the Indian superstitions, which, how- 
 ever, still exist among the Sioux and other 
 savage tribes, who have no towns or fixed 
 residences, but, like the Araucanians of ChiH, 
 and Camanches of Mexico, still retain their 
 
OF CH^MllANlTT. 93 
 
 Ancient mdepenclence'i"lt]iongli not their former 
 power, and wage desultory warfare against the 
 Christian colonists. Yet these few and scat- 
 tered descendants of the ancient native races, 
 no longer have the least political influence, and 
 by all accounts are steadily diminishing in 
 numbers. But while only three or four Euro- 
 pean nations accomplished the enormous task 
 of conquering and colonising this vast conti- 
 nent, the Mahometans of Asia and Africa knew 
 nothing of America, and would have been 
 utterly unable to effect its invasion. 
 
 Though in Mexico and parts of South 
 America, the native Indians intermarried with 
 the colonists, they were usually treated with 
 great barbarity, and in some parts were utterly 
 exterminated. Sir Walter Scott observes,' — 
 
 The warriors whom Spain sent to the New World 
 achieved deeds of valour against such odds of num- 
 bers as are only recorded in the annals of Knight 
 errantry, and, alas I they followed their prototypes in 
 that indifference for human life which is the usual 
 companion of intolerant zeal. Avarice, indeed, 
 1 ' Essay on Ohivabj.' 
 
94 THE POLIT^AL^ PEOGRESS 
 
 brought her more sordidgshades to complete the 
 gloomy picture, and avarice was unknown to the 
 institution of chivalry. The same intolerance, 
 however, which overthrew the altars of the Indians 
 by violence, instead of assailing -their errors by 
 reason, and which imputed to them as crimes their 
 ignorance of a religion which had never been 
 preached to them, and their rejection of speculative 
 doctrines of faith, propounded by persons whose 
 practice was so ill calculated to recommend them-^ 
 all these naay be traced to the spirit of chivalry and 
 the military devotion of its professors. 
 
 The Indian superstitions have in a great mea- 
 sure disappeared, and among them the Sun 
 worship of the Peruvians, which, perhaps, 
 somewhat resembled that of the ancient Per- 
 sians and their Parsee descendants. But, as 
 if to show how avarice and the lust of con- 
 quest destroyed Christian feelings among both 
 British and Spanish colonists, the trade in 
 African slaves was actively carried on by 
 both. Thus, Eiu-opean Christians, after dis- 
 covering America, and slaying thousands of its 
 native inhabitants, may be said to have plun- 
 
OF CHRISTIANITY. 95 
 
 dered another quarter of the globe to fill the 
 void occasioned by their own previous mas- 
 sacres. This extraordinary spectacle of the 
 political triumph and moral violation of 
 Christianity was too odious, however, for 
 the civilised European world to long endure 
 without remonstrance, and attempts at sup- 
 pression, by which, at length, this vile traffic 
 was abolished. Christianity (Koman Catholic 
 or Protestant) thus became, and has ever 
 since continued, the sole religion of the 
 entire continent of America, from Labrador 
 to Patagonia ; nor has there ever been any 
 attempt to overthrow it, by the few scattered 
 Indian heathens, whose superstitions will pro- 
 bably vanish as completely as the ancient 
 religion of Greece and Eome. 
 
 Meanwhile, the three great colonising na- 
 tions — Great Britain, Spain, and Portugal — 
 having lost the greater part of their conquests 
 by the successful revolts of their colonists, 
 acquired a very different amount of influence 
 over the rest of the world. Portugal, the 
 
96 THE POLITICAL PEOGEESS 
 
 weakest of the three, remained on friendly- 
 terms with its great colony, the empire 
 of Brazil, which separated, rather than 
 revolted, from it, and fell under the poli- 
 tical rule of the same royal family. The 
 Spaniards never attempted further foreign 
 conquests, being constantly distracted by 
 civil wars at home, and could hardly re- 
 tain Cuba and other West India islands in 
 subjection. 
 
 But the British, without apparently losing 
 ambition or energy by the successful revolt of 
 the United States, continued to push their con- 
 quests, not in Europe, but in both Asia and 
 Africa. In the vast empire of India they en- 
 countered Hindoo and Mahometan foes, who 
 never were able to form a firm alliance to- 
 gether, or resist with any continued success the 
 superior discipline, valour, and weapons of the 
 Europeans. The neighbouring empires of 
 Burmah and China were also attacked by the 
 British, who annexed a small part of their 
 territories, these acquisitions, however, being 
 
OF CHRISTIANITY. 97 
 
 "retained chiefly as permanent and substantial 
 securities for the safety of British trade and 
 commerce with these countries. But in India 
 the Enghsh conquests have steadUy advanced, 
 never meeting with any serious reverse, till 
 British authority has become supreme from 
 Peshawur to Ceylon, and from Kurrachee to 
 Aracan. Here the invading triumph of England 
 has for the present stopped,, the Afighanistan 
 expedition (1840) being a political failure. 
 Alison,^ writing after this disastrous expedition, 
 thus describes the growth of the British do- 
 minion : — 
 
 The progress of the British in India has been 
 nothing but one series of conquests, interrupted, but 
 not stopped, by a terrible defeat beyond its moun- 
 tain barrier [in Affghanistan] which seemed to 
 forebode that the lords of Hindostan were not destined 
 
 to extend their dominion in Central Asia 
 
 The show even of resistance [to England] is at an 
 end, independence is unknown over the vast extent 
 of the Indian peninsula. The empire thus 'formed 
 constitutes, with the tributary States which form 
 
 ' ' History of Europe,' vol. vi. 
 H 
 
y» THE POLITICAL PKOGKESS 
 
 part of it, the greatest compact dominion on the 
 face of the earth. 
 
 The wars that have since occurred have befen 
 chiefly defensive in their origin. Of these ■ the 
 Sikh invasion of Enghsh territory (1846), south 
 of the Sutlej river, was quite unprovoked, nor 
 were the Sikhs hostile when under a regular 
 government. But soon after the death of their 
 sagacious ruler, Eunjeet Singh, a firm ally of 
 the English, and the murder of his immediate 
 successors, the Sikh army, well drilled pre- 
 viously by European oflBcers, whom they either 
 murdered or expelled, without either king or 
 general — their native prince, Dhuleep Singh, 
 being a mei-e child — dashed over the Sutlej 
 into the British dominions, without alleging any 
 provocation, or even making a declaration of 
 war. Although without leaders of any talent, 
 the Sikhs proved formidable foes, owing to 
 their previous European discipline, their great 
 numbers, and splendid artillery. But the war, 
 though fierce and sanguinary, was short, ending 
 in their complete defeat, and the annexation of 
 
OF CHBISTIANITY. 99 
 
 their country to the British dominions. The 
 north-west frontier city of Peshawur, which 
 formerly belonged to the Affghan Mahometans, 
 but had been wrested from them by the hea- 
 then Sikhs, thus fell, with the Punjaub, into the • 
 power of the English, and is now their farthest 
 outpost on the north-west frontieir of India.' 
 
 After this short but important war, Britii^h 
 supremacy in India remained undisturbed till 
 the sudden revolt of the Sepoy native soldiers 
 in the English service (1857). This rebellion, 
 however, also was completely suppressed, and 
 thus the last two wars in India have each 
 ended in either extension or consolidation of 
 British authority. 
 
 In Africa also, British conquests, though 
 not so extensive, have been steadily successful. 
 In the South, the Cape of Good Hope and 
 Natal are both under English rule; and their 
 neighbours to the North-West, the Dutch 
 Boers, though independent, preserve the Chris- 
 tian faith, and form a barrier against the 
 power of the Kaffirs, who, in the adjoining 
 
100 THE POLITICAL PROGRESS 
 
 Zulu country, are remarkably docile and 
 obedient to British authority. In the East 
 and West, the late wars against the Abys- 
 sinians, and subsequently against the Ashap- 
 tees, though both successful, have not extended 
 British dominion. Many people, however, hope 
 and expect that King John of Abyssinia (for- 
 merly Prince Kassa), successor to the savage 
 Theodore, and, like him, professing Christi- 
 anity, may make his country more worthy of 
 that name, and perhaps even extend its in- 
 fluence in the direction of the neighbouring 
 Mahometan countries of Nubia and Egypt. In 
 the North, the French conquest of Algiers, 
 though achieved during this century,^ has not 
 hitherto extended beyond its frontier. Ahson 
 observes,^ — 
 
 Algeria is a valuable conquest to France, and it 
 has proved of immense service to that country, by 
 affording a field for the exertion of its warlike qual- 
 ities, and a school for the training of its oflScers and 
 
 ' 1830 according to Alison. 
 ' ' History of Europe,' vol. vii. 
 
OF CHRISTIANITY. 101 
 
 soldiers in the whole duties of their profession. But 
 it is not a colony in the proper sense of the word ; it 
 is a great colonial conquest. 100,000 men have 
 painfully won, and with difficulty maintain the em- 
 pire over little more than two millions of natives 
 [Arab Mahometans] within a few days' sail of the 
 French shores. 
 
 The Mahometan province of Tunis on the 
 East side, ruled by a Turkish Pasha, a tribu- 
 tary of the Sultan, and the Mahometan empire 
 of Morocco on its West, though both com- 
 pletely overawed by their French neighbours, 
 are stUl independent Mahometan States. Thus, 
 Christianity in Africa, though firmly established, 
 seems more stationary than in Asia, where its 
 progress is decisive and rapid. 
 
 Yet, notwithstanding these widely-spread 
 conquests, Dr. Draper writes^ of the first 
 defeat of Christianity by Mahometanism, as if 
 the effects were permanent, whereas they seem 
 yearly diminishing, — ' I know of no event in the 
 history of our race on which a thoughtful man 
 
 ' Vol. i. 
 
xnji ruijiiiujiu i-KUUltiasiS 
 
 may more profitably medicate than on this loss 
 [to Christianity] of Asia aijid Africa.' Historical 
 facts, however, prove thjat .Christianity, now 
 completely paramount ov^r Europe and Ame- 
 rica, is both steadily and Irapidly effecting the 
 conquest of these two remaining quarters of 
 the globe. The same virjriter says,^ speaking 
 of early Christianity in its rise, its political 
 triumph in Europe and failure in Asia and 
 
 Africa, — j 
 
 I 
 
 Christianity had lost fo^ ever the most inter- 
 esting countries over which her influence had once 
 spread— Africa, Egypt, Syri^ the Holy Land, Asia 
 Minor, Spain.^ In exchange Vfor these ancient and 
 illustrious regions, she fell bac-k on Gaul, Germany, 
 Britain, and Scandinavia. In those savage countries 
 what were there to be offered as substitutes for the 
 great capitals, illustrious in ecclesiastical history, for 
 ever illustrious in the records c,f the human race — 
 
 ' ' Intellectual Development of Europe ' p. 34. 
 
 » This, seema a strange statement, for Spain has always 
 been Christian since the fall of the.' Roman Empire and decline 
 of Paganism. Although partially conquered by Moorish Ma- 
 hometans for a short time, its European inhabitants, the real 
 Spaniards, were previously Christians, and expelled the Maho- 
 metan invaders as soon as they (Jould. 
 
OF CHRISTIANITY. 103 
 
 Carthage, Alexandria, Jerusalem, Antioch, Constan- 
 tinople ? It was an evil exchange. 
 
 However, it may be replied, that two 
 ancient capitals superior in political interest, 
 and nearly equal in ecclesiastical, to any of the 
 above — ^viz., Athens and Eome — are now seats 
 of Christian government, while as to Jeru- 
 salem, Antioch, Alexandria, and Constanti- 
 nople, though all four are under the rule of 
 the Turkish Sultan, or a tributary viceroy, 
 they are in fact at the mercy of the Christian 
 powers of Europe, if they chose to take them. 
 And the pohtical jealousies of these same 
 Christian powers have alone hitherto prevented 
 their doing so. 
 
 For the Eussian Empire, superior in mili- 
 tary, but inferior in naval, strength to Great 
 Britain and France, seems destined in virtual, 
 though npt professed aUiance with these two 
 nations, to ultimately destroy Mahometan rule, 
 not only in these ancient capitals, but through- 
 out Northern and Central Asia. Upon this 
 subject Sir Archibald Alison observes,^ — 
 
 ' ' History of Europe,' vol. ii. ch. 8. 
 
104 THE POLITICAL PEOGEESS 
 
 The simultaneous growth of the Eussian power in 
 Europe and Asia, and of the British empire in India 
 and Australia, stand forth pre-eminent in this age of 
 wonders. Great changes in human affairs — the real- 
 isation of the dreams of the Crusaders — the dwind- 
 ling away of the Mahometan faith — the boundless 
 extension of the Christian — are obviously connected 
 with, or the direct consequences of these events. 
 The secret of the astonishing influence of Eussia in 
 European politics is not merely her physical resources 
 and rapid growth, but the unity of purpose by which 
 the whole nation is animated. The ceaseless di- 
 rection of Eoman energy to foreign conquest gave 
 Eome the empire of the world ; that of the French 
 to the thirst for glory and principle of honour con- 
 ferred on them the lead in continental Europe ; that 
 of the English, to foreign commerce and domestic 
 industi-y, placed in their hands the sceptre of the 
 waves. Not less persevering than any of these 
 nations, and exclusively directed to one object, rival- 
 ling the ancient masters of the world in the thirst 
 for dominion, and the modern English in the vigour 
 with which it is sought, the whole Eussians, from the 
 Emperor on the throne to the serf in the cottage, are 
 inspired with the belief that their mission is to con- 
 quer the world, and their destiny to effect it. 
 
OF CHEISTIANITT. 105 
 
 The Eussian or Greek form of Christianity, 
 by the early separation of the Eastern Church 
 from Latin Christianity, escaped the fearful 
 religious wars and dissensions which distracted 
 the Latin and Western branch of Christianity, 
 through nearly all Europe during its great 
 divisions and subdivisions by the Protestant 
 Eeformation; while the political power of 
 Eussia, which has so immensely increased 
 within the last century, has assailed, and con- 
 tinues to assail, Mahometan power both in 
 Europe and Asia. Ahson ^ thus describes the 
 shrewdness and success of Eussian policy, — 
 
 It would never sanction an expedition like that of 
 Napoleon to Moscow, or England to Cabul. Slowly, 
 but steadily advancing, securing its acquisitions like 
 the Eomans, by the- construction of roads and the 
 erection of fortresses, and then successively rendering 
 each conquest the . base of operation for the next, it 
 has succeeded for a century past, without experien- 
 cing any lasting disaster, in advancing its dominion 
 even over the wildest regions in every direction. The 
 Eussian system is to impel the lesser States in its al- 
 
 ' ' History of Europe,' vol. vi. 
 
106 THE POLITICAL PEOGEESS 
 
 liance into foreign conquest or aggression, before they 
 hazard their own tyoops in it, and to bring the latter 
 up towards the close of the contest, when the first 
 difficulties have been overcome, the opposite parties 
 are weU-nigh exhausted, and she may, without serious 
 opposition, achieve decisive success. 
 
 Extending their vast frontiers from the 
 provinces of European Turkey to the boun- 
 daries of China, the Kussians, within the last 
 fifty years, have been waging war with the 
 Turks in Europe, the Circassians in the Cau- 
 casus Mountains, the Persians on the borders 
 of Georgia, between the Black Sea and the 
 Caspian, and further East, with the Tartar 
 hordes of Khiva and Bokhara. In all this 
 warfare, the Eussians have been victorious, 
 except when the English, French, and Italians 
 assisted the Turks in the Crimean war. By 
 this means alone Turkish rule was preserved, 
 and thus the political progress of Christianity 
 was retarded by the armed interference of 
 three Christian powers, to protect and pre- 
 serve Mahometan authority, threatened by 
 
OF CHBISTIANITY. 107 
 
 invading Eussians, and also by the native 
 Christian population of Turkey, who, detesting 
 the Turkish yoke and longing for Christian 
 deliverance, were utterly unable to free them- 
 selves from Mahometan rule, when supported 
 by European troops even better disciplined 
 than the Eussians. But their hatred to 
 Turkish authority continues unabated to the 
 present time, when they have fiercely revolted 
 against it. 
 
 The Turkish Empire in Europe, even 
 before the Crimean war, has for many years 
 steadily lost territory, as well as influence and 
 military strength. Its Northern provinces, 
 Moldavia and Wallachia, became independent 
 under the rule of native chiefs or Hospodars, 
 who are greatly under the influence of Eussia 
 and Austria. Even the provinces of Servia and 
 Montenegro on the south of the Danube 
 became nearly free from Turkish rule, under 
 • native chiefs, who were for some time tribu- 
 taries to the Sultan. In the south of his 
 European empire, the Turkish Sultan lost the 
 
108 THE POLITICAL PEOGRESS 
 
 provinces of Livadia and Morea, with the 
 Island of Negropont, and others in the Archi- 
 pelago, which were united into the small Chris- 
 tian kingdom of Greece, first under a Bavarian, 
 and latterly under a Danish prince ; and in 
 this kingdom the Greek or Eussian form of 
 Christianity is the established faith. The his- 
 tory of this Greek revolution (1824) shows 
 what slight interest, compared to former times, 
 Christian nations take in the political progress 
 of their religion.^ For years the Greeks, ie^ 
 in number, badly armed, and without leaders 
 of ability, heroically resisted the forces of the 
 Turkish Empire. At length, the Sultan sum- 
 moned his Egyptian viceroy, Mehemet Ali, to 
 assist in crushing the Greek revolution, and 
 accordingly Ibrahim Pasha, son of the viceroy, 
 brought over thousands of Egyptian Mahome^ 
 
 1 As an aHe -wTiter in the 'Britisli Quarterly Review,' 
 OctolDer, 1876, remarks, ' For a wliile every rood of ground 
 won from Asiatic barbarism to European civilisation was 
 hailed as a triumph for Europe and for Christendom. But for 
 some years past, we are taught that whenever Islam falls hack 
 and Christendom advances, it is a blow dealt to the world's 
 happiness.' 
 
OF CHRISTIANITY. 109 
 
 tans to Greece to assist the Turks in suppress- 
 ing the Christian revolt. The barbarities 
 inflicted on the Christians by the Mahometans 
 horrified many English travellers — ^Lord Byron, 
 among others ; but no Christian Government 
 interfered till the allied Turks and Egyptians 
 began a war of utter extermination against the 
 Greeks of the Morea, when, fortunately for 
 humanity, the English and French by sea, and 
 the Eussians by land, forcibly compelled the 
 Mahometans to evacuate Southern Greece. But 
 the battle of Navarino, in which the Turkish 
 and Egyptian fleets were totally defeated by 
 the combined English and French ships, and 
 which was the sole means of saving thousands 
 of Greeks from destruction, was openly re- 
 gretted by some of the EngHsh Ministers,^ who 
 preferred a firm alliance with Turkish Maho- 
 metans to Greek emancipation, which, never- 
 theless, has added another Christian kingdom 
 to the European nations. And ever since this 
 event, Turkish power in Europe has steadily 
 
 * Alison's ' History of Europe.' 
 
110 THE POLITICAL PEOGEESS 
 
 diminished. For the existence of Turkish rule 
 many years before the Crimean war was under- 
 taken for its preservation, entirely depended 
 on the will and pleasure of Christian Europe. 
 Either France, England, or Kussia, if unop- 
 posed by the others, could certainly have 
 overthrown it, and of course rescued Syria, 
 the Christian Holy Land, at the same time 
 from Mahometan power. 
 
 Yet in the strange history of political Chris- 
 tianity, and the changed feelings, interests, and 
 wishes of men, the countries which were so 
 dearly coveted during the Crusades, when* 
 united Europeans fought heroically against 
 brave and warlike Saracens — now, when these 
 same countries lie comparatively at the mercy 
 of Christendom, their recovery has not even 
 been attempted. On the contrary, it is evi- 
 dently thought by many of the Christian 
 Powers, that it is essential to the peace and 
 welfare of Christian Europe, that Mahometan 
 authority should be preserved, if necessary, at 
 the cost of Christian blood and treasure, rather 
 
OF CHKISTIANITT. Ill 
 
 than that a Christian power should possess the 
 Turkish Empire. Thus it can hardly be said 
 that Syria, or any other province of the 
 Turkish Empire, is fairly in the power of 
 Mahometans. They are rrierely sufiered to 
 remain under' their nominal rule \>j the fears 
 and jealousies of the' various Christian powers 
 themselves. But while these jealousies have 
 prevented, and may still delay for some time 
 the pohtical supremacy of Christianity in the 
 Turkish Empire, which a peculiar geographical 
 situation enables Erench and English fleets to 
 defend, the political triumph of Christianity in 
 Asia is being steadily promoted by England 
 and Eussia, and hitherto at a safe distance from 
 each other, so that neither has been able to 
 arrest the other's progress. 
 
 The Eussians, whom Alison terms ' the 
 hereditary enemies of Mahometanism,' have, 
 during the present century, made constant 
 war upon it, from the Danube, in the East 
 of Europe, to the border of China, in the 
 East of Asia. They have, therefore, encoun- 
 
112 THE POLITICAL PEOQEESS 
 
 tered Turks, Circassians, Persians, and various 
 Tartar tribes along their vast boundary, and 
 in all these different wars have been victorious, 
 except when their Tiu-kish foes had Christian 
 allies.^ 
 
 Although the Persians as well as the 
 Turks have Christian subjects, they have never 
 aspired to political independence, and indeed 
 some apparently prefer Mahometan to Christian 
 rule. For since the conquest of Georgia by 
 the Eussians, many of the Christian inhabitants 
 fled into the adjoining Turkish and Persian 
 
 ' Respecting the political growth of Russia, which was 
 little noticed by Europeans till about the close of the last 
 century, Gibbon ('Decline and Fall,' vol. vi.), though usually 
 far from credulous, seems inclined to believe an old prophecy 
 inscribed^ on an equestrian statue, how the Russians in the 
 
 last days should become masters of Constantinople In 
 
 our own time [Gibbon writes 1782] a Russian armament has 
 circumnavigated the Continent of Europe, and the Turkish 
 capital has been threatened by a squadron of strong lofty ships 
 of war, each of which could have sunk or scattered a hundred 
 canoes, such as those of their ancestors. Perhaps the present 
 generation may yet behold the accomplishment of the predic- 
 tion, a rare prediction, of which the style is unambiguous, and 
 the date unquestionable.' Gibbon states that in the 9th, 10th, 
 and 11th centuries of the Christian era, the reign of the Gospel 
 and of the Church was extended over Norway, Sweden, 
 Poland, and Russia. 
 
OF CHRISTIANITY. 113 
 
 territories to escape the severity of the Eussian 
 conscription laws. But in Europe, especially 
 since the successful revolt of the Southern 
 Greeks, the remaining Christian subjects of 
 Turkey have been more than ever impatient 
 of Turkish rule, and earnestly desired the 
 assistance of Russia, who is now the dread 
 and terror of aU Mahometans, from the Turks 
 in the East of Europe to the remote Tartars 
 in the East of Asia. 
 
 In each of the last Eussian invasions of 
 Turkey (1826 and 1854) the Eussians were 
 'compelled to retreat, in the first instance by 
 the remonstrances, and in the second by the 
 armed forces of France and England. But in 
 Asia, the Eussians have had to contend with 
 Mahometans alone. Yet in this wide field of 
 action, the feelings of other European nations 
 have been sufficiently revealed by their avowed 
 dread of the increase of Eussian power, while 
 Circassians, Persians, and Tartars have all 
 yielded gradually to the steady, and apparently 
 resistless advance of the Northern Christians, 
 
 I 
 
114 THE POLITICAL PROGRESS 
 
 who have not only brought the Persians com- 
 pletely under their control, but have conquered 
 Khiva, Khokand, and Bokhara, all of which 
 countries they have either forinally annexed, 
 or have quite under their influence. So com- 
 pletely have Asiatic Mahometans yielded to 
 England in the South, and to Eussia in the 
 North, of Asia, that these two great European 
 nations, overcoming every intermediate ob- 
 stacle, are now only separated from each other 
 by the mountains and tribes of Affghanistan. 
 Thus, the English in Peshawur, and the 
 Eussians in Khiva and Bokhara, where at least 
 their influence is paramount, now fear and 
 mistrust each other, instead of having any 
 reason to fear or mistrust heathen or Maho- 
 metan Asiatics. If the same spirit animated 
 Christians now that actuated them in the time 
 of the Crusades, and these two great powers 
 were to make a firm alliance for the conquest 
 of Asia, the enterprise, enormous as it may 
 appear, judging from the history of the 
 present century, would, apparently, not be 
 
OF CHRISTIANITY. 115 
 
 impossible. But, instead of any such union 
 of Christian poHtical strength, there exists a 
 constant mistrust of each other in both Eng- 
 land and Eussia. Yet there seems, hitherto, 
 no union of Asiatic Mahometans or heathens 
 avaihng themselves of this political jealousy 
 among Christians, to regain former indepen- 
 dence. Upon this important subject of Enghsh 
 and Eussian rivalry in Asia, Sir Henry Eawlin- 
 son observes,* — 
 
 Our position in India is strong and flourishing 
 since the mutiny, insurrection has been rendered im- 
 possible, and the embers of discontent, save in some 
 
 of the native States, can hardly be seen The 
 
 power which scares away our confidence, and obliges 
 us to embark in the troubled waters of political 
 strife, is Russia. Observation shows that, whether 
 from accident or design, the continuous advance of 
 Russia towards India is certain, and that we must 
 prepare therefore for the contact. 
 
 Another British authority. Major MacGahan, 
 who accompanied the Eussian General Kauff- 
 
 ' ' England and Russia in the East,' p. 371. 
 I 2 
 
116 THE POLITICAL PEOGEESS 
 
 man in the war (1873) against the Tartars of 
 
 Khiva, says/ — 
 
 The fall of Khiva must exercise a strong moral 
 influence upon all Mahometan populations of Cen- 
 tral Asia. Khiva was considered impregnable and 
 inaccessible ; it was the last great stronghold of 
 Islamism in Central Asia, after Bokhara had fallen, 
 and its conquest will tend to confirm the belief 
 already widespread in these countries, that the 
 
 Eussians are invincible Bokhara is at present 
 
 completely imder Russian tutelage. 
 
 MacGahan, though accompanying the Eus- 
 sian Grand Duke Nicholas (brother to the pre- 
 sent Emperor) and General KauJBTman in the, 
 invasion of Khiva, says little about the Eussian 
 political position in Asia, referring his readers 
 to the authority of Sir H. Eavplinson upon the 
 subject. Another recent writer, M. Von Hell- 
 wald, member of the chief Geographical Society 
 of Europe, writes,^ — 
 
 If we cast a /glance at the map, we perceive at 
 
 ' ' Campaigning on the Oxus,' p. 424. 
 ' ' Russians in Central Asia,' p. 304. 
 
OF CHRISTIANITY. 117 
 
 once the difficult position of the English in Asia. 
 The Eussian progress in Turkestan steadily saps a 
 way to the Himalaya, and under circumstances 
 which are, indeed, becoming more favourable to the 
 realisation of the well-known plans for the invasion 
 of India, from the Caspian Sea, which were con- 
 ceived, by Peter the Great and by Napoleon I. ' 
 On the western frontier of India is Persia, hard 
 pressed by her dangerous ally [Russia] from the 
 North, who bears down more alarmingly than ever 
 upon Iran [Persia] between the Caspian and Aral 
 Seas. On the East is the hostile Burmah, from 
 which England, with her usual rapacity, tore away 
 the maritime provinces of Aracan and Pegu. Be- 
 hind the King 9f Burmah stood colossal China, 
 holding the same attitude towards Burmah as 
 Bussia does towards Persia — this colossal empire, 
 which Eussian diplomacy knew how to circumvent 
 so adroitly as to obtain possession of its northern 
 border lands. 
 
 Von Hellwald makes the following remark- 
 
 ^ The wonderful conquests and triumphs of Napoleon in 
 Europe were not likely to promote the extension of Okris- 
 tianity. On the contrary, heing achieved over Christian 
 powers, they prohably retarded its progress, by rousing poli- 
 tical animosities between Christian nations to a height pre- 
 viously unknown. 
 
118 THE POLITICAL PROGKESS 
 
 able observation ia his chapter on the rivalry 
 between England and Eussia,^ — 
 
 It can be no subject of dispute which of the 
 two, England and Eussia, is the more civilised 
 nation. But it is just as certain that the highly- 
 cultivated English only indifferently comprehend 
 how to raise their Asiatic subjects to their own 
 standard of civilisation, whilst the Eussians attain 
 with their much lower standard of civilisation much 
 greater results among the Asiatic tribes, whom they 
 understand to assimilate in a remarkable manner, 
 
 Under the auspices of Eussia, the advance 
 
 in civilisation atnong the Asiatics is indeed slow 
 and inconsiderable, but steady and suitable to their 
 natural capacities, and the disposition of the race ; 
 but they remain indifferent to British civilisation, 
 which is absolutely incomprehensible to them. 
 
 Colonel Valentine Baker, in his remarkable 
 book,^ takes a similar view with Von Hellwald 
 and Sir H. Eawlinson upon the increasing 
 
 '■ Von Hellwald does not mention that Affghanistan, a 
 Mahometan kingdom — independent and hostile to Persia — a 
 mountainous country, inhahited by a brave and warlike race, 
 separates Persia and Bokhara, which are both under Kuasian 
 influence, from the British possessions in India. 
 
 » ' Clouds in the East,' p. 343. 
 
OF CHRISTIANITY. 119 
 
 power of Russia in Asia, and its dangerous 
 effect upon British rule in India, — 
 
 Both Bokhara and Khokand are vittuaUy Eussia ; 
 I was laughed at when I asserted the contrary to 
 the Koords and Turcomans. They said, the Eus- 
 sians may not actually occupy both countries, but 
 the Khans are obliged to do whatever Russia tells 
 them. Since this was written Khokand has been 
 annexed [by Eussia]. 
 
 Colonel Baker thus estimates the Eussian army 
 in 1874,1— 
 
 The active force that could be put into the field 
 is 1,130,000 men, and to these must be added 
 between 300,000 and 400,000 Cossacks. The new 
 Eussian army organisation is the most fearful em- 
 bodiment of military power ever attempted by 
 
 any nation Eussia is already spending 
 
 30,000,000i. aiinually on her army Every 
 
 year will see this fearful force growing both in 
 
 strength and in efficiency with giant strides 
 
 The rapid advance of Eussia, and the evident dislike 
 to annexation shown by England, have in reality 
 made all Southern Asia more friendly to the latter 
 than to the former. If Eussian influence is more 
 1 P. 153. 
 
IZU , THE POLITICAL PROGRESS 
 
 potent than ours, it is because they fear her more, 
 and have ceased to helieve in us as her equal. 
 
 Colonel Baker also observes,^ — 
 
 India, that grand and valuable dependency of 
 this country, contains a native and conquered 
 population of nearly 200 millions. This great 
 empire is now held by less than 60,000 British 
 
 troops It is only on the North- West that 
 
 several practicable passes exist by which the security 
 of India might be imperilled. Thus, Hindostan 
 might be likened to a gigantic fortress, but it 
 has this disadvantage, that the glacis in not in 
 possession of the garrison, and that the passes 
 themselves are held in many instances by doubtful 
 allies. 
 
 2 
 
 Upon this subject Sir H. Eawlinson says 
 writing in 1875, — 
 
 Instead of the two empires [England and Eussia] 
 being divided by half the continent of Asia, as of 
 old, there is now an intervening - slip of territory a 
 few hundred miles across, occupied either by tribes 
 torn by internecine war, or nationalities in the last 
 
 ' P. 339. 
 
 " ' England and Eussia in the East,' cb. 3. 
 
OF CHKISTIANITT. 121 
 
 stage of decrepitude, and traversed by military 
 routes ia all directions. 
 
 While distinguished diplomatist and gallant 
 officer thus alike dread the advancing power 
 of Eussia in Asia, the present Premier, Lord 
 Beaconsfield, expresses rather different views,^ — 
 
 Far from looking forward with alarm to the 
 development of the power of Eussia, in Central 
 Asia, I see no reason why she should not conquer 
 Tartary any more than why England should not have 
 conquered India. I only wish that the people of 
 Tartary may gain as much advantage from being con- 
 quered by Eussia as the people of India from being 
 conquered by this country. 
 
 The Times, May 6, 1876, declares, — 
 
 We would have it known that we have no jea- 
 lousy of Eussian advances in Central Asia, for the 
 simple reason that we are not jealous of them — 
 we recognise in' them the necessary, movements of a 
 civilised Power harassed by the neighbourhood of 
 disorganised tribes. 
 
 At present the kingdoms or countries of Aff- 
 
 ' Speech in the House of Oommons May 5, 1876. 
 
122 THE POLITICAL PROGRESS 
 
 ghanistan and Kashgar' alone separate the 
 British, dominions in the Punjaub from the 
 recent Eussian conquests of Khiva and Bok- 
 hara. Kashgar is now under the rule of a 
 Mahometan prince, Yakoob Elan, called the 
 Atalikh Ghazee, and said to be a man of consi- 
 derable energy and talent, but of course utterly 
 unable to resist, without assistance, the disci- 
 phne and valour of Eussian troops, should they 
 ever be at war with him. 
 
 The Affghan mountaineers, since the disas- 
 trous expedition of the EngUsh to restore an 
 unpopular and banished prince, have enjoyed 
 complete independence of all foreign influence, 
 under the rule, first of Dost Mahomed, and 
 since of his sons or grandsons. It is remark^ 
 able that, during the present century, several 
 Oriental rulers of great ability have appeared 
 and disappeared without being able to extend 
 or confirm their power. Mehemet Ah, Pasha 
 of Egypt, though he freed himself from the 
 Turkish yoke, and nearly dethroned his imperial 
 master, the Sultan, was forced by the European 
 
OF CHRISTIANITY. 123 
 
 Christian powers to retreat, and content himself 
 with Egypt alone as an hereditary kingdom ; 
 but as none of his successors inherited his abih- 
 ties, Egypt is now again almost a province of 
 Turkey. Dost Mahomed, Ameer of Affghan- 
 istan, when Kberated by the EngHsh, who had 
 taken him captive to India, immediately re- 
 gained supreme authority in his own country, 
 which he transmitted to his sons ; but they, 
 hke the heirs of Mehemet Ali, were men of no 
 abihty, and by their constant quarrels were 
 utterly unable to extend or, strengthen the 
 Affghan dominions. Eunjeet Singh, called the 
 Lion of the Punjaub, also a most sagacious 
 ruler, was succeeded likewise by sons and rela- 
 tions inheriting none of his genius, who quar- 
 relled among themselves, and were utterly 
 unable to control their own Sikh army, whose 
 wanton invasion of British territory led to their 
 complete defeat, and the annexation of their 
 country to the British dominions. Finally, in 
 Algiers and the Caucasus,' the French and 
 Eussian invaders were, for many years, bravely 
 
124 THE POLITICAL PROGRESS 
 
 resisted by the Arab and Circassian chiefs, 
 Abdel-Kader and Schamyl Bey. These gallant 
 warriors defended their respective countries 
 for many years against well-armed and disci- 
 plined European foes. But the contest in both 
 cases was too unequal to give either chief the 
 least chance of permanent success. , Within the 
 last twenty or thirty years, both chieftains have 
 been captured, and their countries, annexed by 
 France and Eussia, have ever since remained 
 under their rule, without further resista,nce of 
 any consequence. Yet, perhaps, some of these 
 chieftains possessed abilities little inferior to 
 the Mahometan conquerors of the Middle Ages 
 — Tamerlane, Nadir Shah, Genghis Khan, 
 Saladin, or Mahomet 11. But, unlike those 
 Moslem conquerors of old, these modem chiefs 
 were checked and confronted on all sides by 
 European Christians, and though able to rule 
 theif followers with ability and success, were 
 utterly unable either to extend their political 
 dominions, or resist European invasion. All 
 their countries, since their deaths or capture, 
 
OF CHRISTIANITY. 125 
 
 have fallen more or less under European influ- 
 ence — except, the Affghan nation, though the 
 undisturbed retention of their ancient city, 
 Peshawur, by the English, proves that even this 
 brave race consider warfare against England 
 hopeless, except when strictly defensive among 
 their own mountains. But the imequal strife 
 between the increasing power of Christianity 
 and the failing strength of Mahometanism is 
 more striMngly shown in the state of the 
 Turkish provinces in Europe than any part of 
 Asia. The vast Turkish Empire, once said to 
 comprise ' the finest shces of Europe, Asia, and 
 Africa,' has been, during this century, gradually 
 losing province after province. The successful 
 revolt of Greece on the South, and . the loss of 
 Moldavia and Wallachia on the North, beside 
 the partial independence of Servia and Monte- 
 negro on the North-West, materially reduce the 
 Turkish European provinces, while even those 
 they still retain are chiefly inhabited by Chris- 
 tians of the Greek Church, who heartily detest 
 the Mahometan yoke. Since the complete con- 
 
126 THE POLITICAL PEOGRESS 
 
 quest of Circassia and Georgia by the Russians, 
 during the last few years, the Turks have been 
 somewhat strengthened, however, by a number 
 of Circassian colonists who prefer the rule of 
 their fellow-Mahometans, and cordially unite 
 with them both in dread of Eussia and hatred 
 to their Christian feUow-subjects of the Turkish 
 Sultan. In Asia, the Turkish rule was always 
 much iirmer — the subject Armenian Christians 
 have never aspired to political independenpe, 
 while the Christian Maronites and pagan 
 Druses of Syria, through often fighting with 
 each other, are unable to disturb Turkish 
 political authority. In Arabia, the cradle of 
 Mahometanism, Turkish ride of late years, after 
 a decline, has rather recovered strength, while 
 the Eastern provinces of Chaldea and Assyria 
 are now chiefly inhabited by the Koordish 
 tribes, who, though wild and lawless, never 
 ally themselves with Christians, and steadily 
 adhere to the Mahometan faith. It is on the 
 European side that this vast empire has been 
 long threatened, and year by year its fall under 
 
OF CHRISTIANITY. 127 
 
 Christian power seems inevitably approaching. 
 Sir A. AHson^ describes the distracted state 
 of Turkey, and writing in 1854, during the 
 Eussian invasion, thus prophesies a series of 
 events which the history of the present year 
 (1877) seems likely to confirm to some 
 extent, — 
 
 Whatever the result of the conquest may be, the 
 triumph of Christiajoity is secure, and the days of 
 Turkish dominion ih Europe are numbered. If the 
 Russians prevail, the ancient prophecy recorded by 
 Gibbon ^ will be realised, and the Cross will be re- 
 placed on the dome of Saint Spphia 
 
 If the Western Powers are successful, and wrest the 
 protectorate of the Christians in Turkey from the 
 Crescent, the triumph of the religion they profess is 
 equally secure, and the government at Constanti- 
 nople must pass into the hands of the great majority 
 of the inhabitants of European Turkey. Power, in 
 the end, must centre in the portion of mankind 
 which is advancing, and pass from that which is 
 receding, and the fact, attested by all travellers, 
 that the Christians are rapidly increasing in Turkey, 
 
 1 ' History of Europe,' vol. iii. 
 ^ ' Decline and Fall,' vol. vii. 
 
128 THE POLITICAL PKOGRESS 
 
 and the Turks as rapidly diminishing, points to 
 the future destiny of these realms as clearly as the 
 handwriting on the wall did to the fate of the King 
 of Babylon. 
 
 The immediate result of the Crimean war, 
 however, did not apparently justify Ahson's* 
 expectations, for the Eussians were defeated, 
 and Turkish rule preserved, while British and 
 French influence over the Turks, though 
 powerful at Constantinople, or anywhere within 
 sight of English and French fleets, has never 
 extended over the remote provinces, even of 
 European Turkey. The Christian population 
 have remained, since the Crimean war, discon- 
 tented and rebellious, with occasiojial petty 
 outbreaks, which have always been suppressed, 
 till 1875, when the Christian inhabitants of 
 Bosnia and Herzegovina openly revolted, allied 
 with their fellow-Christians in the neighbour- 
 ing semi-independent provinces of Servia and 
 Montenegro. 
 
 , After this revolution had continued for 
 some months, and the Turkish Government 
 
OF CHRISTIANITY. 129 
 
 seemed unable to suppress it, a remarkably 
 instructive letter appeared in the Times from 
 Lord Stratford de Eedcliffe, upon the past and 
 present state of Turkey. The statements and 
 opinions expressed are peculiarly valuable, 
 coming from this distinguished and veteran 
 diplomatist, who was British Ambassador in 
 Turkey during the Crimean war and long 
 previously, and was known to have greatly 
 assisted the Turkish Government by his ener- 
 getic advice and counsel. He wrote, May 16, 
 1876,— 
 
 By far the greater part of a year has elapsed 
 since the Christian insurrection in Turkey broke out, 
 and it continues still to be the chief object of poli- 
 tical interest in European politics For the 
 
 origin and very roots of the question we must refer to 
 
 the character of the Turks as a race To 
 
 their Tartar blood, they are indebted for the despotic 
 temper which facilitates the exercise of their power, 
 
 but tends to shorten its duration Their 
 
 fanaticism impelled them to conquest, their despotism 
 enabled them to hold the conquered in subjection, 
 but the effect of these two principles was to keep 
 
 K 
 
130 THE POLITICAL PKOGRESS 
 
 them in a state of isolation as to countries not yet 
 brought under their yoke, and utter antagonism 
 with a large majority of their fellow-subjects. 
 Moreover, they brought their Asiatic manners into 
 the part of Europe they subdued, as an additional 
 cause of alienation from all but their followers in 
 
 religion Turkey, from being an aggressive 
 
 power, dropped gradually into a state of self-defence, 
 
 and internal anarchy While the enervating 
 
 effects of the Turkish system told with growing 
 power upon the resources of the empire, those bor- 
 dering [Christian] powers, who either were most 
 molested by its ambition, or found most, reason to 
 reckon on profiting by its decay, had gathered fresh 
 strength from their superior knowledge, and sounder 
 principles of administration. To a larger increase 
 of their subjects, they added a greater development 
 of industry, a wiser management of their finances, 
 and a healthier progress in secular instruction and 
 military discipline. At the same time the Eayahs 
 [Christian subjects of the Turks], that oppressed 
 and naturally disaffected portion of the Sultan's 
 subjects, had largely advanced in numbers, know- 
 ledge, wealth, the sense of degradation, and the 
 consciousness of growth. So long as the Porte 
 contended singly with Austria or Russia, war after 
 war termiaated in treaties adverse to Turkish in- 
 
OF CHEISTIANITY. 131 
 
 terests. At one time it was an actual cession of 
 territory, at another, the elevation of some Ottoman 
 province into a tributary state approaching to inde- 
 pendence Himgary, the Crimea, Bessarabia, 
 
 and aU. Turkey, north of the Pruth, and Phasis, 
 ceased to be parts of its empire, while the Danubian 
 provinces [Moldavia and WaUachia] and Servia 
 obtained, under Eussian protection, privileges bor- 
 dering on political separation. More than all this, 
 Egypt fell off from the immediate government of 
 the Stdtan; and Greece, with its adjacent islands, 
 
 became an independent monarchy Events, 
 
 of which some witnesses may still survive, showed to 
 demonstration nearly 100 years ago, that the Porte 
 had ceased to be an independent power in the full 
 
 sense of that term Such, in more recent 
 
 years, was the dependence of Turkey on Christendom, 
 that a Eussian navy was admitted into the BoB- 
 phorus for its protection from the forces of Mehe- 
 met AH, a provincial Pasha [of Egypt], that under 
 changed circumstances its capital was saved from 
 capture by a disastrous treaty [with Eussia], and 
 that its independence was subsequently maintained 
 by the joint battalions of France and England. 
 
 Lord Stratford, after stating that the Turks did 
 not fulfil their engagements to these Christian 
 
 K 2 
 
132 THE POLITICAL PEOGEESS 
 
 protectors who saved them from Eussian con- 
 quest by the Crimean war, then powerfully 
 alludes to the present insurrection of the 
 Christian subjects of the Turks in Europe, — 
 
 It would surely be a crying scandal for Christen- 
 dom if the Turks, who effected their conquests in 
 the name of religion, were left to endanger the 
 peace of Europe, and to oppress a numerous popu- 
 lation of Christians, deriving their ability to do so 
 from the wealth of Christian countries, and the 
 indifference, not to say complicity, of Christian 
 governments. . . . Let it not be forgotten that the 
 actual position of Turkey is one of dependence, 
 amounting virtually to tutelage, displayed unmis- 
 takably from time to time, that they who have 
 opened a mediation between the Sultan and his 
 insurgent subjects must either give a stronger tone 
 to their interference, or fall back into a state of 
 inaction. 
 
 The Times (May 6, 1876), commenting on Lord 
 Stratford's letter, thus concludes its article with 
 an ominous threat against the Turkish Govern- 
 ment, — 
 
 If they [Christian powers] made up their minds 
 to go as far as Lord Stratford recommends, they 
 
OF CHRISTIANITY. 133 
 
 might as well go the length of dethroning the Sultan 
 and setting up a more promising monarch. All 
 forcible interference, all assumption of tutelage, 
 mean conquest, or they mean nothing at all. The 
 only possible guarantee for the execution of any 
 reform, or for deference to the regulation of one 
 mixed Commission, is the power and resolution to 
 mar and to overthrow the Government which breaks 
 its engagements. 
 
 Within a few weeks after this remarkable 
 ' leader ' appeared in the most influential of 
 the English papers, the reigning Sultan, Abdul 
 Aziz, was deposed, and soon after died by 
 alleged suicide, and his two nephews, Murad 
 and Abdul Hamid, were successively pro- 
 claimed Sultan, and called by ,some more pro- 
 mising monarchs. But the Christian revolt 
 continued without heeding these changes in the 
 Mahometan royal family at Constantinople. 
 The strong censure of Lord Stratford, so long 
 the firm friend of Turkey, upon the Maho- 
 metan Government for its treatment of its 
 Christian subjects, will probably draw English 
 attention closely to the evils of Mahometan 
 
134 THE POLITICAL PEOGBESS 
 
 rule in Europe, which, indeed, for many years 
 past has only existed by the assistance and 
 sufferance of European Christian powers. Yet 
 while Christianity is politically triumphant 
 throughout the world — the Eussians introduc- 
 ing it in the North of Asia, the English in the 
 South, and even the Dutch on a small scale 
 extending it in the islands of the Malay archi- 
 pelago — it has latterly been much opposed and 
 distrusted in Europe. Eor though Western 
 and Latin Christianity was long previously 
 divided and subdivided into hostile sections 
 who abused and persecuted each other with 
 extraordinary bitterness and ferocity during 
 the Protestant Eeformation, yet they all held, 
 or professed to hold. Christian doctrines. Thus 
 Christianity survived the violence of its in- 
 ternal dissensions ; for when pohtical peace was 
 restored, Europe was found divided, certainly, 
 between different forms of it, yet adhering, as 
 before, to the chief doctrines of Jesus. But after 
 the Protestant Eeformation a singular distrust 
 of the Gospel history arose among Christians ; 
 
OF CHRISTIANITY. 135 
 
 for many learned English and foreign writers, 
 like the philosopher Voltaire in France, and 
 the great historians Hume and Gibbon in 
 England, abandoned Christianity utterly, and 
 professed a sort of Deism, resembling, to some 
 extent, the ancient Deism of the Jews ; while 
 others again apparently distrusted and ridiculed 
 aU religious belief. Yet, though Deism and 
 Atheism found many followers among the 
 educated classes, especially in France and 
 Germany, they never became the avowed 
 principles of political government, except in 
 France during the Eepublican revolution at 
 the end of the last century. There, for a few 
 years, all religion was publicly denounced, and 
 an infidel Eepublic estabhshed of men who, 
 although born Christians, formally decreed 
 that there was no God, and prohibited all 
 pubhc or private worship of any kind as not 
 only absurd and false, but dangerous to the 
 poHtical safety of the state. 
 
 At this time the Irish revolt of 1798 
 brought French infidels and Irish Eoman 
 
136 THE POLITICAL PKOGEESS 
 
 Catholics into a strange and unnatural alliance. 
 The chief leaders of the rebellion, though 
 born Protestants, mostly shared the views and 
 opinions of the French Eepubhcans, who had 
 openly disavowed Christianity, while the ma- 
 jority of their followers had taken up arms to 
 restore the supremacy of the Eoman Catholic 
 faith in Ireland. When, therefore, the French 
 landed in Ireland to assist the rebels, who, 
 except some ^urope";ir leaders, were chiefly 
 earnest Eomaiiis!s;"-fhe two allies found &ij 
 held very diiFerent views.^ The jfe*ii ^^ions 
 gents declared themselves in ch other with 
 re-establishment of the Eoman LVity during 
 which their French aUies boasted theysHid jiisft* 
 suppressed in France with extreme severity — a 
 severity, indeed, which far surpassed that of 
 the Enghsh Government against the Irish 
 Catholics. Here, then, was displayed the 
 curious spectacle of the most determined foes 
 to Eoman Catholicism in their own country 
 
 ' Plowden, Gordon, and Maxwell's Histories of the Irish 
 Bebellion. 
 
OF CHRISTIANITY. 137 
 
 allying themselves with its keenest supporters 
 in another, and united only by political animo- 
 sity against England. 
 
 Yet neither Christianity generally, nor 
 Eoman Catholicism in particular, suffered per- 
 manently from these fierce dissensions among 
 those born in the Christian faith. The fall of 
 the infidel Government in France, and the 
 triumph of British Protestants over Irish 
 CathoHc rebels, caused no change in the reli- 
 gious feehngs of the majority either in France 
 or Ireland. When poHtical agitation subsided, 
 Christianity vras again supreme in both coun- 
 tries, and infidehty, effectually suppressed, in 
 a pohtical sense, never obtained power after- 
 wards, though its principles are often avowed 
 by writers of ability in private fife. 
 
 Lord Macaulay ^ describes the wonderful 
 changes in the European mind during this 
 eventful period. Alluding to the extraordinary 
 violence of the French infidel Eepublicans 
 when in political power (for Voltaire, whom 
 
 » 'Essay on Ranke's History of the Popes.' 
 
138 THE POLITICAL PROGRESS 
 
 they nominally followed, had always advocated 
 freedom of thought and general toleration), he 
 says, — ' To show reverence for rehgion was 
 to incur the suspicion of disaffection ; ' and 
 the reckless cruelties perpetrated by them 
 were calculated, as history proved, to disgust 
 France and all Europe, and to pave the 
 way for the restoration of Christianity. For 
 since that time the established religion of 
 France has been the Eoman Catholic form of 
 Christianity, which remained undisturbed till 
 the French and German war in the year 1871, 
 when, for a few weeks, an infidel, or Eed 
 Eepubhcan party, caUing itself the Commime, 
 obtained supreme power in the capital, and put 
 to death the Archbishop of Paris and some 
 other priests without accusation or trial. These 
 French EepubHcans showed the same ferocious 
 spirit as their predecessors under Danton and 
 Eobespierre at the close of the last century. 
 Like them, they repudiated not only Christi- 
 anity but every other rehgion, and thus in- 
 curred the distrust and hostiUty of their own 
 
OF CHEISTIANITY. 139 
 
 fellow-countrymen, as well as of all European 
 nations. Their reckless and outrageous con- 
 duct alienated from them all the most respect- 
 able Frenchmen, who perceived that, though 
 these Communists might call themselves disci- 
 ples of Voltaire, they were acting quite con- 
 trary to his tolerant advocacy of civil and 
 religious hberty. In reality, therefore, the 
 cause and influence of Christianity in Prance 
 were strengthened rather than weakened by 
 such disreputable foes, who attempted to sup- 
 press it only by force and lawless violence. 
 But the power of this faction, which this time 
 was confined to Paris alone, was soon over- 
 thrown by the Prench army under Marshal 
 MacMahon, now (1877) President of the 
 Prench EepubUc, and the Eoman Catholic faith 
 restored. 
 
 Yet though Christianity has been politically 
 established throughout Europe, it has been and 
 continues to be distrusted by many learned 
 writers, especially in Germany ; and these new 
 attacks — domestic revolutions, as it were — . 
 
140 THE POLITICAL PEOGKESS 
 
 within its acknowledged dominions, have been 
 far more formidable and wide-spread than 
 those during the last century. The works of 
 Voltaire, Paine, Gibbon, and Hume, were never 
 so extensively read as the anti-Christian works 
 of the present day, though all were men of 
 superior ability to many of the modfern scepti- 
 cal authors. Tet amid these dangers to Chris- 
 tianity, there seems no tendency to agreement 
 amoiig its different divisions and sections — no 
 alliance for the defence of doctrines which are 
 common to all Christians. The old enmity 
 between the Greek and Latin Churches still 
 continues, while in Western Europe the contro- 
 versial writings of Protestants and Eoman 
 Catholics even now show an aversion to each 
 other's alleged superstitions or heresies, almost 
 as intense as they could feel towards Deism, or 
 even utter infidelity. And among the natural 
 consequences of such disgraceful bitterness 
 among Christians is the increasing vigour and 
 energy with which Christianity is attacked by 
 educated men who were born in that faith, and 
 
OF CHRISTIANITY. 141 
 
 whose characters are sometimes in accordance 
 with its precepts. Two of the ablest living 
 English writers — the one Protestant, the other 
 Eoman Cathohc — Mr. Fronde and Dr. New- 
 man, who, though differing in their views of 
 Christianity, seem each anxious for its preserva- 
 tion — thus mention the prevaihng distrust of it 
 in Christendom. Mr. Troude observes,^ — 
 
 The truth of the Grospel history is now more 
 widely doubted in Europe than at any time since the 
 conversion of Constantino ; 
 
 while Dr. Newman says,^ — 
 
 For 300 years, the documents and facts of Chris- 
 tianity have been exposed to a jealous scn^tiny. Not 
 only have the relative situations of controversies and 
 theologies altered, but infidelity itself is in a dififerent 
 — I am obliged to say in a more hopeful — position 
 as regards Christianity. The assailants of dogmatic 
 truth have got the start of its adherents of whatever 
 creed, philosophy is completing what criticism has 
 begun, and apprehensions are not unreasonably ex- 
 cited, lest we should have a new world to conquer 
 before we have weapons for the warfare. 
 
 ' ' Short Studies,' p. 278. 
 
 ' ' Development of Ohiistianity,' p. 28. 
 
142 THE POLITICAL PROGEESS 
 
 But hitherto, though anti-Christian works 
 are much read, and issued with perfect immunity 
 to both author and publisher, they have not, at 
 least avowedly, actuated or influenced the poli- 
 tical conduct of a single government. Sir G. 
 Cornewall Lewis observes ^ with great clearness 
 on this subject, — 
 
 All the civilised nations of the modem world, to- 
 gether with their colonies and settlements in all parts 
 of the earth, agree not merely in believing in the 
 existence of a Grod — a belief they hold in common 
 with Mahometans, Hindoos, and heathens generally— 
 but in recognising some form of the Christian reli- 
 gion. Christendom includes the entire civilised 
 world — that is to say, all nations whose agreement on 
 a matter of opinion has any real weight or authority. 
 When, however, we advance a step beyond this point, 
 and enquire how far there is a general agreement 
 throughout Christendom with respect to any particu- 
 lar form of Christianity, and whether all Christians 
 are members of one Church, recognising the same set 
 of doctrines, we find a state of things wholly different. 
 We perceive a variety of Churches, some confined to 
 a single country, some common to several countries, 
 
 1 I 
 
 Influence of Authority,' pp. 48-51. 
 
OF CHEISTIANITT. 143 
 
 but each -with its own ecclesiastical superiors and 
 peculiar creed, and each condemning the members of 
 other Churches as heretics, schismatics, separatists, 
 and dissenters, or at least infected with graye errors, 
 and sometimes not even recognisijig them as Chris- 
 tians. 
 
 Sir George Lewis makes the following power- 
 ful reflections on Ckristianity and modern civili- 
 sation, — /' 
 
 /' 
 
 The diversity of Christian creeds is the more 
 apparent when it is cojitrasted with the general uni- 
 formity upon moral questions which prevails through 
 the civilised world. (' Amongst all civilised nations a 
 nearly uniform standard of morality is recognised. 
 The same books on.'ethical subjects are consulted for 
 the guidance of lifeL and if the practice differs, the 
 difference is not in | general owing to a diversity of 
 theoretical rules of/ conduct. It will be observed that 
 the great controversies between Christian sects either 
 turn upon questjions which have no direct bearing 
 upon human coMuct (such as the doctrine of the 
 Trinity and Tr*ansubstantiation), or upon forms of 
 Church govemqient and discipline which are matters 
 of positive institution. They rarely turn upon the 
 moral doctrines which are involved in Christianity. 
 
144 
 
 ITHE POLITICAL PEOGEESS 
 
 Upon these tfeere is a- prevailing tendency and ap- 
 proximation to\ agreement. 
 
 In ch. 4, f^j. 71, Sir G. C. Lewis makes a 
 statement whicH would, perhaps, be denied by 
 some Mahometaias and Jews, — 
 
 Although there la no agreement as to the pecidiar 
 doctrines of any ChriJjtian Church, there is an agree- 
 ment among all civilis&d nations in accepting some 
 form of Christianity, and Jin recognising the Christian, 
 revelation according to soii^g construction of its effect 
 and intent. 
 
 Yet, surely the modeUjews, who stiU 
 reject Christianity, may be considered civilised,; 
 living, as they do, chiefly among Christian 
 nations, and sharing with theL all the advan- 
 tages and benefits of the Lme civilisation.:! 
 But their history among Christian nations has, 
 till recently, been one continVied tale of in- 
 justice and oppression. Since\ their national 
 dispersion, they hved, first undW the rule of 
 Eoman pagans, and then under Christians 
 and Mahometans, and were certainly better 
 treated by the pagans than by Uher of the 
 
OF CHRISTIANITY. l45 
 
 Others. lu many Christian cities they were 
 compelled to live only in certain streets called 
 ' The Jews' quarter,' and besides legal disabilities 
 and penalties, were exposed to constant insult, 
 and often to actual outrage.^ In Mahometan 
 countries they were also despised and detested 
 to an extraordinary degree ; yet this patient and 
 determined race clung closely together, pre- 
 serving their ancient faith and traditions, and, 
 engaging almost entirely in trade and com- 
 merce, gradually became better treated by their 
 Christian and Mahometan rulers. They never, 
 however, sided with Mahometans, or even with 
 modern Deists or Atheists, against the Christians, 
 but took little part in political affairs. While 
 sharing all the benefits of modern civilisation, 
 they have generally lived in strict obedience to 
 the laws of whatever country they inhabit ; stiU 
 expecting, it is said, their national restoration, 
 but hitherto taking no practical steps for that 
 purpose, although political history has latterly 
 rendered their return to Judea not only possible 
 
 1 Hallam's ' Middle Agea.' 
 L 
 
146 THE POLITICAL PROGRESS 
 
 but easy, for the perplexed and bankrupt Turks 
 "would now probably be glad to sell that pro- 
 vince to the rich Jews of Europe, if they had 
 the offer. 
 
 In all the civilised and educated countries 
 of Europe the Christian and Jew are almost on 
 an equality, yet, though politically and socially 
 united, they remain theologically nearly as 
 much separated as any other two existing 
 races. Eor the Mahometan recognises much 
 that is good and true in Christianity, and even 
 admits (by avowing Jesus to be the latest and 
 truest prophet, except Mahomet) that from the 
 death of Jesus till the birth of Mahomet, Chris- 
 tianity was the truest rehgion in the world. 
 Even when Mahomet appeared, he enjoined 
 great respect to be paid to the name of Jesus, 
 and placed his religion far above either Judaism, , 
 Paganism, or any other religion, except his own. 
 But- the Jews disown the Gospel utterly, not 
 accepting a part, like Mahometans ; according , 
 to them, their fellow-countryman, Jesus, was a 
 mere enthusiast, either deluded, or deluding ; 
 
OP CHRISTIANITY. 147 
 
 while they join the Christians in condemning 
 Mahometanism, and every other religious belief, 
 as falsehood and imposture, • There has always 
 been, however, this remarkable difference be- 
 tween the political histories of Christianity and 
 Judaism, which, at the present day, seems as 
 marked as ever. The Jewish faith remains 
 ^contentedly stationary, gains few converts, and 
 hardly avspires to political influence. So exclu- 
 sive and national does this extraordinary race 
 stiU. appear, that they seek no alliance, even 
 with modern Deism, which seems increasing 
 over Europe. It is true that most Deistical 
 writers, while denying Christ's divinity and 
 miracles, acknowledge him to have been a good 
 and vu-tuous man, which the Jews have never 
 yet pubhcly admitted. Dr. Farrar, indeed, 
 says,^ there ■ is a great difference in the feehngs 
 of modern Jews towards Jesus, and even thinks 
 that they now believe him their greatest and 
 wisest prophet. But he gives no proof from 
 modern Jewish writers of this complete change 
 
 . > Preface to ' Life of Ghrist.' 
 L 2 
 
148 THE POLITICAL PEOGEESS 
 
 of opinion, and until such proof is publicly 
 given, the Jews must surely be supposed to 
 stiU share the views of their chief men and 
 High Priests, Annas and Caia|)has, in their 
 rejection of Jesus, though the effects of their 
 modem civilisation may make them censure 
 and regret his barbarous execution. Mr. 
 Gladstone observes,-' — 
 
 The Jews, who, taken together, are rather a large 
 coramunity, have hitherto believed themselves the 
 stewards of an unfulfilled Eedemption. But it seems 
 that a portion at least of them are now disposed to 
 resolve their expected Messiah into a typical per- 
 sonage, prefiguring the blessings of civilisation ; 
 
 and he adds that, — 
 
 It may be doubted whether such a modification as 
 is thus indicated would greatly add to the moral force 
 of Judaism. 
 
 And hitherto the Jews have remained as scat- 
 tered as ever since their dispersion in Christian 
 and Mahometan countries, steadily preserving 
 their religion, and seeking neither their faith's 
 propagation, nor their own national restoration. 
 
 1 'Contemporary Eeview,' Jime 1876. 
 
OF CHKISTIANITT. 149 
 
 But Christianity, besides spreading over all 
 America, and rapidly conquering Asia, seems 
 making a slow, but steady progress in Africa, 
 while, except Turkey (where Mahometan go- 
 vernment is only preserved by Christians for 
 political reasons), Christianity is the established 
 teUgion of every country, without a single ex- 
 ception. Earl Eussell remarks,^ and, perhaps, 
 few men have had better means of knowing 
 and judging than himself, — 
 
 In looking at the present state of Christianity in 
 Europe, and the progress of opinions among the 
 Christian communities of America, Asia, and Africa, 
 there is much to encourage Christianity, great reason 
 for hope and no ground for despair. 
 
 The native Christians of Asia comprise the Ar- 
 menians, Georgians, Nestorians, and Maronites. 
 Of these, the Georgians are now under Eussian 
 rule ; the Armenians, a more numerous body 
 than the Nestorians and Maronites put together, 
 are under both Turkish and Persian authority ; 
 
 ' 'History ofWestem Christianity .' 
 
150 THE POLITICAL PROGRESS 
 
 while the Nestorians, of whom very few remain, 
 live entirely under Persian rule, ancj the Maron- 
 ites entirely under that of the Turks. None of 
 these four denominations however enjoy com- 
 plete political hberty, and far less either power 
 or influence. 
 
 In Africa, the only native Christians are the 
 Abyssinians and the Copts ; the latter live only 
 in Egypt, and are descended from its ancient 
 inhabitants, but they have for centuries been in 
 a very degraded position, under the Mahometan 
 rule of a Turkish viceroy. The Abyssinians, 
 though hitherto an ignorant and savage people, 
 have now a king of their own religion and race, 
 and have recently been able to set their Ma- 
 hometan neighboiu-s of Egypt completely at 
 defiance. None of these native Christians of 
 Asia, and Africa have extended the political in- 
 fluence of their religion, and, except the Abyssi- 
 nians, have always been more or less under 
 Mahometan rule qr influence. It is from 
 European invasion or interference that they 
 have always expected and sought intercession 
 
OF CHRISTIANITY. 151 
 
 and support. And it is Europe alone which 
 has conquered not only all America, but part 
 of Africa, and an immense part of Asia, while 
 its influence, represented almost entirely by 
 England and Eussia, is paramoimt over nearly 
 all the rest of it. 
 
 Yet it is very remarkable how completely 
 among modern Christian nations, poUtical jea- 
 lousies have overcome those religious sympa- 
 thies which, in the Middle Ages, so powerfully 
 influenced the policy and thoughts of Europe. 
 ' During the various recent wars of the English 
 against the Sikhs, Afghans, apd revolted Sepoys 
 — of the French against the Arabs in Algiers — : 
 and of the Eussians against Turks, Circassians, 
 Persians, and Tartars — it is certain that all these 
 three European nations regretted each other's 
 victories, and either openly or secretly wished 
 for the success of their heathen or Mahometan ' 
 foes. In the Sikh war and Sepoy revolt, the 
 French sympathised vdth the enemies of Eng- 
 land, and during the war in Algiers, where the 
 Arab chief, Abdel-Kader, long resisted French 
 
152 THE POLITICAL PEOGKESS 
 
 invasion, and also in the Caucasus mountains, 
 where the Circassians, under Schamyl Bey, 
 for years bravely resisted Eussian invasion, 
 the English sympathies were decidedly with the 
 , Mahometans in both countries. The French 
 and English have often vindicated the rights of 
 the natives of India and Algiers to indepen- 
 dence, each condemning the lust of conquest in 
 the other. As to the Eussian wars against 
 Mahometanism, along their vast Asiatic bound- 
 ary, English hostihty is openly expressed, and 
 the English government warmly urged to form 
 alliances with the Mahometan rulers of Aff- 
 ghanistan and Kashgar, to oppose the Eussian 
 advance toward India. It was weU knOwn , 
 with what delight the English disasters in, 
 Affghanistan were viewed by both French and 
 Eussians, and it is certain that if the Eussians 
 were now defeated by any of their numerous 
 Mahometan foes, the English, both in India 
 and at home, would sinceirely rejoice. As Mr. 
 Froude remarks,^ — 
 
 1 'Short Studies,' toI. ii. 
 
OP CHKISTIANITY. 153 
 
 In truth, were the world wide enough for all of us 
 [Christians] we should each advance our own way and 
 fulfil our own mission, troubling ourselves little about 
 mutual jealousies. The inevitable work of annex- 
 ation goes forward, and as we approach more nearly 
 to each other's frontiers", as countries lie at our feet 
 in which we may all claim a share, we watch each 
 other with anxiety and terror. But this is, for the 
 most part, true, that wherever England, France, 
 Kussia, and America have set their foot, they have 
 taken with them something better than what they 
 have supplanted, and the farther that they can go 
 on in the same course, the better for mankind. 
 
 For though it is generally believed that all 
 European Christian nations have steadily im- 
 iproved of late years in civilisation, knowledge, 
 and virtue, the same can scarcely be said 
 of Mahometan' races. The modern Turks, 
 Persians, Arabs, and Tartars, seem, on the 
 contrary, inferior to the Saracens of old, 
 whose scientific attainments are admired and 
 acknowledged even by Europeans of the pre- 
 sent day. For modern Mahometans have 
 neither the literary nor scientific genius of 
 their ancestors, while among modern Chris- 
 
154 THE POLITICAL PROGRESS 
 
 tians both former Christian writers and also' 
 the classic authors of Greece and Eome are 
 more studied and admired than ever. Even 
 Piersian and Saracen poets and philosophers 
 would probably be more appreciated by modern 
 Christian's than by their own descendants, who, 
 though alike inferior to the Turks in poHtical 
 strength, have always been superior to them 
 in intellectual acquirements. Mr. Gladstone 
 observes of the Turks,^ — 'They are not the 
 mild Mahornetans of India, nor the chivalrous 
 Saladins of Syria, nor the cultured Moors of 
 Spain. They were, upon the whole, from the 
 black day when they first entered Europe, the 
 one great anti-human specimen of humanity.' 
 For, in modern history there have been no Ma- 
 hometan rulers who could be compared to either 
 Mahomet himself, or the Saracen caliphs, Sala- 
 din^ and Haroim al Easchid,nor have any great 
 conquerors appeared among them rivalling Ta- 
 
 ' ' Bulgarian Horrors and the Question of the East.' 
 ' Mr. Froude chserves, — ' Mahometanism rapidly dege- 
 nerated. The descent from Saladin to a modern Moslem despot 
 is lite a fell over a precipice.' — ' Short Studies,' vol. i. 
 
OF CHEISTIANITY. 155 
 
 merlane, JSTadir Sliah, or Genghis Khan, none bf 
 wrhom, however, were bounded and checked on 
 all sides by Christian powers, who would now 
 probably prevent Mahometan aggression. Yet 
 the European Christian powers, instead of de- 
 nouucing all infidels alike, as those witli whom' 
 friendship is impossible, and alliance disgrace- 
 ful, which was the idea of most Christians in 
 former times, now constantly advocate making 
 treaties with them against fellow-Christians. 
 Another circumstance, the dissensions between 
 difierent Christian denominations under Maho- 
 metan rule, has always retarded and still impedes 
 their political emancipation. The Armenians 
 have often irritated their Persian rulers against 
 the Nestorian Christians. Arid the hatred be- 
 tween the different Christian denominations 
 under Turkish rule in Eiu:ope hinders, their 
 alliance, and thus" strengthens their common 
 oppressors, who detest all Christians alike. But, 
 notwithstanding these quarrels and jealousies 
 among Christians, their conquests are yearly 
 extending and increasing — Mahometans and 
 
156 THE POLITICAL PROGKESS 
 
 pagans yielding to them in every patt of the 
 world where they come in contact ; and this 
 result is far from being caused by any alliance 
 or unity of action among Christian govern- 
 ments. For, within the last thirty years, all 
 the chief Christian powers of Europe have 
 been at war with each other,^ and profound 
 distrust and hostility towards each other have 
 since remained among them. No such wars 
 have occurred during this century among 
 Mahometan or heathen nations. Yet such is 
 the evident strength and vitahty of European 
 Christians, compared to the steady dechne of 
 Mahometan and pagan nations, that no advan- 
 tage was taken by pither of these wars among 
 Christians. In Asia alone, India, parts of 
 Burmah, and China, the Caucasus, Georgia, 
 Siberia, and a vast part of Tartary, and in 
 Africa, Algiers, the Cape of Good Hope, 
 and other settlements, ' remain completely 
 
 ' England and France against Eussia, Austria against 
 France and Italy, Prussia against Austria, and lastly, France 
 against Prussia and North Germany. 
 
OF CHRISTIANITY. 157 
 
 subject to English, French, or Eussian influ- 
 ences, while the adjacent Mahometan or 
 pagan countries are more or less overawed 
 by their Christian neighbours. There appears 
 nothing required now save a cordial alhance 
 among Christian powers to complete their 
 pohtical conquest of the world. And the in- 
 tellectual as well as political decHne of all the 
 non-Christian nations in the world will, pro- 
 bably, in the end induce, if not compel, a union 
 of action as well as feehng among civilised men, 
 who are now alone politically represented by 
 Christians.^ National jealousies may, and pro- 
 bably will, defer any such Christian alliance 
 for many years ; but the teaching of past his- 
 tory, as well as the present state of the world, 
 
 ' As Mr. Gladstone observes ('Contemporary Eeview,' 
 June 1876), — ' The Ohristian thouglit, tlie Christian tradition, 
 the Ohristian society, are the great, the imperial thought, tra- 
 dition, and society of this earth. It is from Christendom out- 
 wards that power and influence radiate, not towards it, and 
 into it that they flow. There seems to be one point at least on 
 the surface of the earth — namely, among the negro races of 
 ^West Africa — where Mahometanism gains ground upon Chris- 
 tianity, but that assuredly is not the seat of government from 
 whence will issue the flats of the future to direct the destinies 
 of mankind.' 
 
158 TUE POLITICAL PKOGEESS 
 
 seem to indicate that this is the natural result 
 to which the achievements of modern warfare 
 and the efforts of modern diplomacy and educa- 
 tion are steadily, if not rapidly, tending. It is 
 also a historical tact that not a single country 
 conquered by Christians has been regained by" 
 those professing any other religion. The Eng- 
 lish invasion of Affghanistan, though a disastrous 
 failure, was never undertaken to annex- that 
 country, and the Turkish empire in Europe, the 
 only country where Christian rule has been re- 
 placed by Mahometan, exists merely by the suf- 
 ferance of Christian powers, otherwise Christian 
 supremacy would have been long since re- 
 established at Constantinople. 
 
 Thus, at the present time (1877), the poh- 
 tical rule or influence of Christianity is cer- 
 tainly more extended than ever before in the 
 world's history. The whole of Europe is 
 avowedly Christian — the Turkish Empire being 
 hardly an exception, where, only for the Chris- 
 tian powers, Mahometan rule would be replaced 
 by Christian government. Africa, both North 
 
OF CHRISTIANITY. 159 
 
 and South, is yielding slowly but steadily to 
 the advance or influence of England at the Cape 
 and Natal, and of France in Algeria. In the 
 East, Egypt is almost entirely under EngHsh and 
 French influence ; the Khedive, unlike his great 
 ancestor, Mehemet Ah, is now an obedient 
 vassal of the Turkish Sultan, and his Coptic 
 Christian, subjects, descendants of the ancient 
 ' Egyptians, are free from persecution ; while to 
 the South, in Abyssinia, a native Christian ruler, 
 Prince Kassa, calling himself, King John, is 
 friendly with England. From Egypt to Tunis, 
 Mahometan rule prevails, and the ' nominal 
 supremacy of the Turkish Sultan acknowledged 
 by the governors of Tripoli,' Barca, and Tunis. 
 But these inaritime countries have httle mill 
 tary and no naval strength, and would certainly 
 yield to any pressure from France or Eng- 
 land. On the West of Algiers, the Mahometan 
 Empire of Morocco is so far from being aggres- 
 sive, that two of its towns on the Mediter- 
 ranean coast, Ceuta and Melilla, are held by 
 the Spaniards without opposition. In the last 
 
160. THE POLITICAL PROGRESS 
 
 war with- the French in Algiers, the Moors, 
 who sided with their Arab neighbours, were 
 completely ' defeated, and glad to make 
 peace on French terms. On the West, the 
 Ashantee heathens have lately been defeated 
 by the English, who keep them in awe 
 from their~irgighbouring settlement of Sierra 
 Leone. The vast interior of Africa still- 
 remains more unknown than, perhaps, any 
 other part of the world, nor, indeed, has it 
 ever been visited except by very few tra- 
 vellers.^ In the South, British rule prevails 
 over the Cape and Natal, while the Dutch 
 settlers, or Boers, though independent ahke of 
 
 ' The following-iEipassioned lines well describe this savag6 
 and sequestered'part of the world : — 
 
 Africa ! vast immeasurable void ! 
 
 Where no imperial march of History 
 
 Solemn resounds from echoing age to age ! 
 
 No lynx-eyed peril-ai&onting pioneer 
 
 Since the beginning until yesterday 
 
 Dared violate thy sultry somnolence ; 
 
 Oouch'd a grim Lion in thine ancient lair, 
 
 Sullenly, self-involved, impenetrable, 
 
 Or if one ever bearded and aroused, 
 
 Thy winds have spumed his unrevealing dust. 
 [' Livingstone in Africa,' by the Hon. Koden Noel. Oanto 
 the First, p. 12.] 
 
OF CHRISTIANITY. 161 
 
 England or Holland, are Christians, and form 
 a barrier for the British against the native 
 Kaffirs, a warlike race, but whose hostility 
 has diminished of late years. The whole 
 vast continent of. America acknowledges Chris- 
 tianity, except some Indian tribes, who still 
 preserve a savage independence. Of these 
 natives, the Sioux and Oamanches in the United 
 States and Mexico, and the Araucanians in 
 Chili, seem the most considerable, but from all 
 accounts their strength and numbers are fast 
 diminishing. Asia — the home alike of Christi- 
 anity, Judaism, and Mahometanism — has always 
 resisted, and continues to oppose, the political 
 progress of Christianity, but this resistance is 
 certainly becoming weaker year by year. 
 
 For during the present centmy, Eussia alone 
 has encountered the Mahometan forces of Tur- 
 key, Circassia, Persia, and Tartary, all along 
 her immense Southern frontiet, and single- 
 hartded, without the slightest aid from any 
 other power, has defeated them all in succes- 
 sion, wresting from them province after pro- 
 
 M 
 
162 THE POLITICAL PKOGKBSS 
 
 vince. The Eussian frontier in Georgia, on the 
 river Araxes, now borders both Turkey and 
 Persia, who are both more or less subject to 
 Eussian influence. The resistance of the Circas- 
 sian mountaineers has been overcorne, and their 
 last chi6f,, Schamyl Bey, made captive, while, 
 having acquired perfect control over the Cas- 
 pian Sea,^ the Eussians have pushed their con- 
 quests through Tartary, annexing Khiva and 
 Khokand, and reducing Bokhara to complete 
 submission to their influence, AU these ex- 
 ploits have been accomplished by this one 
 Christian power, not only without assistance^, 
 but to the manifest alarm and irritation of the 
 other Christian powers — ^England especially, 
 who, as appears from the Crimean war, and 
 lately from the writings of such distinguished 
 men as Sir Henry Eawlinson and Colonel 
 Baker, would gladly strengthen any Maho- 
 
 ' Mr. Arthur Arnold (' Contemporary Review,' June 1876), 
 •writing on Persia, says, ' The Caspian Sea is ii, Eussian lake. 
 Except Persia, there is no other power which holds a foot of 
 its shores, and by the treaty of Gulistan, it was arranged that 
 none but the Bussian flag should be hoisted in that sea.' 
 
OF CHRISTIANITY. 163 
 
 metan or heathen power to assist in opposing 
 the dreaded approach of the Kussians to ' 
 India. 
 
 Between Eussian influence at Bokhara and 
 English direct rule at Peshawiu:, Affghanistan 
 is now alone interposed, a mountainous coun- 
 try, held by a brave Mahometan ■ race, de- 
 scended from the ancient Parthians, who so 
 gallantly resisted the Eomans, and whose - pos- 
 terity seems not unworthy of them in courage 
 and love of independence. To the North-East 
 of Affghanistan, a Mahometan prince, Yakoob 
 Khan (called the Atalikh Ghazee) of Kashgar, 
 is said to. be a man of abihty, and has been 
 hitherto quite independent. He rules over a 
 vast part of Mongolia, extending to the Chinese 
 frontier. To the South of his dominions, the 
 remote region of Thibet is ruled by its native 
 chief,' the Grand Llama, a Buddhist - prince, 
 who has always been friendly with the English, 
 from whose territories he is separated by the 
 kingdoms of Cashmere and Nepaul, whose na- 
 tive Eajahs are hkewise friendly; None of these 
 
164 THE POLITICAL PROGRESS 
 
 three rulers, however, have shown the ability 
 or energy of Yakoob Khan, who maintains a 
 considerable army, and has hitherto preserved 
 the independence of Kashgar. Eecent ac- 
 counts, however, say that he is- making treaties 
 with the Eussians, whose increasing power on 
 his northern and western frontiers will, pro- 
 bably, bring them into collision with him or 
 his successors. In India, the British during 
 this century have not only annexed Scinde, the 
 Punjaub, and Oude, but have greatly increased 
 their influence over the rulers of Cashmere, 
 Nepaul, the Nizam of Hyderabad, and also 
 over the two princes, Scindiah and Holkar. 
 The late reception of the Prince of Wales in 
 India showed clearly how the chiefs of all 
 these countries now consider themselves more 
 or less under the direct or indirect authority of 
 England. 
 
 The recent English wars against Bur;mah 
 and China resulted, as usual, in the complete 
 defeat of both these heathen monarchies, who, 
 after every war, are more and more subject to 
 
OF CHEISJ^IANITT. 165 
 
 British influence. The wars of the Dutch in 
 the islands of Borneo and Java with the natives 
 have likewise iended in the -steady triumph of 
 the Europeans ; while the English, in their vast 
 colonies of AustraUa and !New Zealand are now 
 completely supreme. In the latter country, 
 though so much smaller than Australiaj the 
 Maori natives, being numerous and warlike, for 
 some years fought bravely against the English ; 
 but their resistance Jias now entirely ceased : 
 while Australia and Tasmania, being thinly 
 inhabited, have never made any organised 
 or regular opposition to British soldiers and 
 colonists. 
 
 Yet, notwithstanding , this vast increase of 
 Christian power and influence, it must be 
 owned that Mahometanism, among the con- 
 quered races, steadily holds its ground. Mr. 
 Mackenzie Wallace, in his able work on Eussia 
 (vol. ii. chap, x.), thus compares the different 
 position of Christianity when opposed to paga- 
 nism and Mahometanism : — ' The Tartars can- 
 not unconsciously imbibe Christianity as the 
 
166 THE POLITICAL PEOGEESS 
 
 Finns have done. Their religion is not a rude, 
 simple paganism, but a monotheism as exclu- 
 sive as Christianity itself.' It may safely be 
 said that Christians are impervious to Islam, 
 and genuine Mussulmans impervious to Christi- 
 anity ; but between the two [in the Eussian 
 Empire] there, are certain tribes which present' 
 a promising field for missionary enterprise. In 
 this field the Tartars show much more zeal 
 than the Eussians. ' Both clergy and laity in the 
 Eussian Church are, asarule, very tolerant where 
 no political questions are involved.' The complete 
 triumph of Christianity Over all European pa- 
 ganism, including that of Finland, is a remark- 
 able contrast to its comparative failure hitherto 
 anjong Mahometans. As Mr. Wallace further 
 observes, — ' He -[a Mahometan] has already a 
 theology and a prophet of his own. Perhaps 
 he wiU show you more or less openly that he 
 pities your ignorance, and wonders that you 
 have not been able to advance from Chris- 
 tianity to Mahometahism ; ' for, according to 
 Mr. Wallace, modern Mahometans of education, 
 
, OF CHEISTIANITT. 167 
 
 "vyliile feeling a sincere respect for Moses and 
 Jesus Christ, believe them both to have been 
 ' entirely superseded by Mahomet,' ■ precisely 
 as Christians believe 'that Judaism was super- 
 seded by Christianity.' The numerous forms 
 of pagan worship which Mahometaiiism extin- 
 guished and supplanted, have never been. re- 
 stored except in the single instance of China, 
 whose Tartar Mahometan conquerors embraced 
 the faith of the conquered native Chinese. In 
 every other country where it appeared, Maho- 
 metanism has taken firm and lasting, root, 
 though when opposed to Christianity, in poli- 
 tical power it .seems destined to yield alto- 
 gether. But the ancient idolatry of Arabia 
 which Mahomet overthrew has never revived, 
 and in that country even now the Mahometans 
 are stiU energetic and warlike enough to' often 
 threaten the British settlement of Aden on 
 the Southern coasts the only spot in the Maho- 
 metan prophet's country under Christian rule.' 
 In Syria, however, the Druses, a small pagan 
 tribe, still remain near Mount Lebanon, con- 
 
168 THE POLITICAL PEOGEESS 
 
 stantly fighting with the Maronite Christians, 
 who have chiefly become Eoman Catholics; 
 but, both these races are under Turkish rule, 
 which has lately been preserved only by the 
 efforts and wishes of France and England. 
 
 The two ancient and banished races — Jews 
 and Parsees— still remain apart from all other 
 rehgious communities, making and seeking few 
 converts, and alike without home or country. 
 Yet both are civilised races, of education and 
 intelligence, mixing freely with Christians and 
 Mahometans, and living, chiefly engaged in 
 trade in the principal cities of Europe and Asia. 
 But hitherto they have exercised little political 
 influence, nor do they, apparently, desire it ; 
 toleration, and a fair share of civil and legal 
 rights, seem all that they wish for ; while their 
 original countries, Persia and Syria, remain 
 under Mahometan rule, the one at the mercy 
 of France and England, and the other, more 
 and more, at the mercy of advancing Russia. 
 
 But, though the political jealousies of Euro- 
 pean Christians have, especially of late years, 
 
OF CHRISTIANITT. 169 
 
 greatly impeded their foreign conquests, it is 
 evident that it is now only Christians themselves 
 who can retard the political progress of their 
 religion, when neither' Mahometan nor pagan 
 foes are any longer ., able to do so. Eor the 
 triumph of Christianity during this present cen- 
 tury has never experienced any serious reverse 
 from without. Its new danger has arisen with- 
 in its own dominions, and its doctrines and 
 history are now more opposed, questioned, and 
 resisted by some of the most learned men in the 
 chief cities of Europe than by Moslem or pagan 
 foes. And these cannot be considered mere 
 Atheists or scoffers, who, as Macaulay says 
 of Voltaire, ' venerate nothing,' for many are 
 sincere Deists who admire and obey Christian 
 precepts, while denying both Christ's divinity 
 and the Gospel history ; ^ while, others again 
 (like the late Lord Ambelrley in his ' Analysis 
 of Eeligious Behef), view Jesus almost in the 
 
 1 As Paley remarks (' Evidences of Ohristianity/ p. 374), 
 < It is possible that many may he kept in order by Okristianity, 
 who are not themselves Christians. They may be guided by 
 the rectitude which it communicates to public opinion.' 
 
170 THE POLITICAL PROGRESS 
 
 same light as did the Jewish priests, Annas and 
 Caiaphas. But the most influential of those 
 who now distrust part of the Christian doctrines, 
 do so in a very different spirit from Voltaire-, 
 Hume, or Gibbon, whose constant sarcasms 
 made less permanent impression on the public 
 mind than might have been expected, perhaps, 
 considering their great abilities and the im- 
 mense popularity of their works. For, many 
 modern Deists view Jesus with respect as a 
 great and virtuous teacher, while denying His 
 divinity and part of the Gospel history. Yet, 
 though their arguments and opinions have 
 been much discussed, and with perfect free- 
 dom, they haVe hitherto never been the avowed 
 principles of'atiy poHtical government. The 
 writings of Eenan in France, of Strauss in 
 Germany, and of many other Deistical and 
 infidel writers of ability in Great Britain and 
 America, seem hitherto to possess little or no 
 influence with the rulers and governments of 
 those countries. Indeed, the terrible failure of 
 the French infidel Eepublic in the last century 
 
OF CHEISTIANITY. 171 
 
 seems to have since deterred all aspirants 
 to political power from manifesting distrust, 
 not only of religion, but of the Christian 
 form 'of it. For in all the revolutions and 
 political changes of Christian countries, France 
 alone has. ventured publicly to repudiate the 
 faith ; but, in doing so, she repudiated all other 
 rehgions as well. The previous English revo- 
 lutions headed by Cromwell and William HI. 
 were ahke supported and opposed by men of 
 sincere religious feelings arnong the contending 
 parties. All previous, cotemporary, and subse- 
 quent political changes in the Christian" world 
 have carefully preserved the Christian religion 
 in its most essential respects. Even at Eome, in 
 1848, during the flight of the' Pope, and the 
 rule of a revolutionary Triumvirate, though the 
 political pOwer of Christian clergy was over- 
 thrown, the Christian faith was still acknow- 
 ledged. In all other European revolutions, 
 Christianity was never either abolished or con- 1 
 demned. When Loiiis Napoleon seized supreme 
 power in Prance, and slippressed the Egpublic 
 
172 THE POLITICAL PEOGKESS 
 
 over which he presided (1851), he did so with 
 the aid of the clergy, and inaugurated his suc- 
 cessful assumption of absolute authority by a 
 solemn service in the cathedral of Notre Dame. 
 ' It appears very remarkable, that in Prance 
 where Christianity has been more attacked and 
 disavowed than in any other civilised country, 
 apd which has had so many political changes, 
 no regular government, since the brief Eeigu of 
 Terror, has vfentured to repudiate it. Napoleon 
 I., the restored Bourbon family, the Eepubhc 
 successively presided over by Lamartine and 
 General Cavaignac, the Empire of Napoleon III., 
 and lastly, the present Eepublic, under Marshal 
 MacMahon, have alike steadily acknowledged 
 Christianity as the established religion, and in a 
 form almost unchanged from that of the early 
 French monarchs, ' Clovis and Charlemagne. 
 The present governments of Great Britain, Ger- 
 many, Austria, Italy, &c., are all Christian, 
 either Protestant or Eoman Catholic ; and yet, 
 in all these countries many anti-Christian writers 
 have appeared and disappeared without perma- 
 
OF CHRISTIANITY. - 173 
 
 nently affecting tlie established religion, though 
 their talents have often aroused admiration' and 
 attention. The changes effected in Christendom 
 by the Protestant Eeformation, which prevailed 
 in a portion of it, leaving the greater part as 
 before, certainly never weakened Christianity in 
 a political sense by advancing or promoting any 
 other rehgion in its place. So completely do 
 Christian doctrines prevail in modern civihsed 
 countries, that no attacks upon them by those 
 whose Uves violate their essential principles 
 would have much effect on the public mmd. 
 It is only when anti-Christian thinkers and 
 writers are men of estimable character, whose 
 ' system of ethics,' as Macaulay says,^ ' are 
 borrowed from the Christian morahty,' that 
 they now command attention and respect. 
 Even the Jews, while preserving their ancient 
 faith, are now a changed race in other respects 
 from their former state, owing to the influences 
 of European civilisation, whose laws and usages 
 are founded on the leading principles of Christi- 
 
 ^ ' Essay on Ranke's History.' 
 
174 THE POLITICAL PROGRESS 
 
 anity. It is true that many pious Deists, 
 Jews, &c.-, affirm that these principles, though 
 politically associated with Christianity, are not 
 exclusively cdnfined to it, but are also enjoined 
 by other religions. Yet it is evident that, in 
 modern times at least, no country, except under 
 Christian political rule, has attained to real 
 civilisation. A purely Deistical government 
 has never existed since the conquest of Judea . 
 by the Eomans, and at present neither Deists, 
 Freethinkers, Jews, nor Parsees, have supreme 
 authority in any country; for the whole world 
 is pohtically ruled by either Christians, Maho- 
 metans, or heathens, of different denominations. 
 Although Christianity has for centuries been 
 divided between hostile sections, its political 
 triumph throughout the world has thus, for 
 many years, been steady and apparently re- 
 sistless. And despite the wars between Christian 
 nations in Europe, the bitterness of Christian 
 controversies, and the attacks of Deism and 
 infidelity within its pale, the political extension 
 of Christianity over the other quarters of the 
 
OF CHRISTIANITY. 175 
 
 globe has been more or less successful in all 
 of them. Tins continued triumph is, perhaps, 
 as much owing to the political dechne of all the 
 non-Christian nations as to the increasing power 
 of the Christians. Por, although their power is 
 decidedly in,creasing', it is certainly not caused 
 by either moral or political combination among 
 them. The Greek and Latin branches of the 
 Christian faith are as hopelessly opposed as 
 ever. The more recent strife between Eoman 
 Catholics and Protestants, though now confined 
 to peaceful arguments and discussions, is still 
 far from being ended in a spirit of either philo- 
 sophical agreement or even Christian charity, 
 while the Greek or Eastern Church, though 
 politically oppressed by Mahometan rule in 
 Turkey, has been comparatively -free from dis- 
 pute or difference within its more restricted 
 communion. In recent history, however, and 
 especially during this century, the increased 
 facilities of communication, and the vast spread 
 of education, have added immensely to the 
 political strength of the Christian powers of 
 
176 THE POLITICAL PROGRESS 
 
 Europe and America, but these advantages 
 have hardly extended to the Mahometan and 
 pagan nations of Asia and Africa. And, not- 
 withstanding the recent conflicts within Christen- 
 dom, political power was never so exclusively 
 in Christian hands as at present, and the exist- 
 ing state of the world proves the utter weak- 
 ness of all Mahometan and heathen countries 
 in comparison. For the immense armies and 
 fleets still maintained by Christian powers reveal 
 their fear and distrust of each o,ther, but, except 
 from themselves, all danger has long passed 
 away. The few non-Christian governments re- 
 maining in the world are all on the defensive, 
 and thankful to be left alone. Never, in history, 
 was Christian supremacy so complete and un- 
 disputed ; and yet it is remarkable that for a 
 long period there have been no national con- 
 versions to Christianity throughout the chang- 
 ing poHtical world. It is mainly Europeans 
 that have spread Christianity, and are stiU 
 extending it by carrying it with, them into 
 all the countries they invade and inhabit. The 
 
OF CHRISTIANITT. 177 
 
 native Indians of America are gradually disap- 
 pearing with their ancient superstitions, and, in 
 those countries where they intermarried with 
 Europeans, their descendants have adopted 
 European habits with the Christian faith, 
 while the few Indian tribes that yet remain 
 independent, reject Christianity and civili- 
 sation alike. In Asia and Africa, the subject 
 Mahometans, pagans, and Parsees of India, Tar- 
 tary, and Algiers, , while obeying English, Rus- 
 sian, and French laws, retain their ancient cus- 
 toms as far as their Christian rulers permit, and 
 steadily preserve their different religions ; and 
 the few mdependent Mahometan and pagan 
 nations remaining in Asia and Africa show little 
 desire either to convert or be converted. It 
 is the vast increase and extension of Euro- 
 pean races over the world that has spread the 
 Christian faith, which, as a rule, has been re- 
 jected by the native races of Asia, Africa, and 
 America ; but all these races, for many years, 
 have become , fewer in number ,or weaker in 
 political power ; nor does there seem the least 
 
 N 
 
178 THE POLITICAL PROGRESS 
 
 sign of reviving energy and strength in any 
 of them ; for the progress of (Dhristianity goes 
 steadily on without incurring any serious check, 
 though often delayed by the frequent wars 
 among European nations themselves for politi- 
 cal purposes alone. For the different Christian 
 powers conquer and annex other Christian 
 countries without eveli converting their inhabi- 
 tants to separate forms of Christianity, while 
 Jews, Mahometans, Parsees, and heathens, under 
 Christian rule, steadily adhere to their different 
 rehgions. The English, French, and Eussians, 
 alike, politically govern Mahometans, yet neither 
 in India, Algiers, nor Tartary, do the subject 
 races become Christians, except in rare in- 
 stances, even when they might do so with safety. 
 Nevertheless, the extension of Christian rule 
 increases rapidly. No obstacles greater than 
 those already surmounted, nor, perhaps, as 
 great, seem likely to arise, and judging from 
 past and present history, there appears sufficient 
 reason to beheve that the poUtical dominion of 
 Christianity will, in time, comprehend the world. 
 
OF CHEISTIANITT. 179 
 
 And yet, while its external triumph is so vast 
 and irresistible, it is evident that in the most 
 civihsed countries of Europe, Christianity is now 
 more doubted and questioned than ever by 
 those who were born and educated in that faith. 
 These new opponents are neither ignorant en- 
 thusiasts nor eager advocates of other rehgions. 
 Many of them have had all the advantages of 
 modem education and enlightenment, and. have 
 chiefly arisen in Europe amid the oldest Chris- 
 tian communities, while throughout vast Chris- 
 tian colonies and settlements in other quarters 
 of the globe, the Christian faith has been com- 
 paratively undisputed. Thus modern history 
 shows that Christianity, when opposed to other 
 rehgious systems, flourishes and triumphs, but 
 when successful and undisturbed, it often be- 
 comes distrusted by some of the most educated 
 and enlightened members of its own commu- 
 nion, who, without substituting other religions 
 in its place, have hitherto contented themselves 
 with denying more or less of its doctrines and 
 history. It is, however, remarkable that these 
 
180 POLITICAL PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 new enemies to, or rather deserters from the 
 faith, were never either very numerous or 
 influential when Christianity was endangered 
 by other rehgious systems. Yet now, when its 
 ^political success throughout the world appears 
 so rapid and irresistible, this singular opposition 
 arises peacefully in the heart of Christendom 
 itself, as if to warn sincere Christians against 
 that spirit of indolent security which a long 
 course of continued triumph usually inspires. 
 
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