Edinburgh Review, in 1836, before opinions and policy had been warped by a French Alliance:

"Our fears and jealousies of Russia have been stimulated beyond the reasonable pitch, while in order to afford an imaginary counterpoise, we have been called upon to exert our utmost energies in preserving the Turkish Empire. To encourage us in so quixotic an enterprise, every effort has been made to paint the Turks as employed in throwing off the weight of centuries of bigotry and mismanagement, and ready to assist us ably and zealously by reforming their institutions.

"We can not hesitate to express our conviction that of all delusions, it is one of the greatest to expect that the Turkish Empire can or will be long maintained in its present shape, bolstered up, as it is, by foreign support."

Now, England calls on all the world to execrate the name and memory of Nicholas, because, in 1844, he made the same declaration to England, and invited her, as a matter of precaution, to provide for the result-a suggestion which she then received with smiles, and did not reject

until 1853.

The Review, of 1836, proceeds as follows:

"History offers no one instance of an empire which, after its strength and sinews have moldered away, has recovered them again by the mere quiet process of internal improvement. Nor need we stop to show how absolute a barrier the Mohammedan religion presents between the Turks and European civilization; how utterly impossible it is for a state not Christian to enter on equal terms into the civil commonwealth of Christendom. But apart from such general considerations, no one who has seriously observed the national character and peculiar policy of the Turks, can imagine the possibility of an empire possessed of European strength and concentration, composed of them alone or in conjunction with subject nations.

"They do not build, but destroy, They show no wish to adorn the soil which they inhabit, or connect in any way the existence of the present generation with posterity. Their object in this world seems to be mere animal existence, as completely as that of the beasts of the field." •

From what has been presented two conclusions seem to be inevitable: first, that the Turkish Empire, as such, can not be maintained, and that its preservation forms no part of the policy of the Allied Powers, except as a mere dependency of their own; and, second, that whatever change may occur in the form of the government, the settled policy of France and England requires that the lands of Turkey should form merely a vast plantation, worked for the benefit of its masters.

It may well be asked, therefore, and not without some anxiety, what benefits will the world at large receive, and how will the interests of the United States be affected, if the colonial policy of the Allied Powers is extended over Turkey, and if their fleets should control the Mediterranean and the Black Sea? If the yoke of the Ottoman Power could be broken off from the Christian population of the Empire, and they be not only permitted but encouraged to enter upon an independent career, and all the resources of that glorious land could be made available by the power of a true Christian civilization; then, indeed, there might be reason for rejoicing if the march of Russia could be arrested.

But in the present condition of Europe this can not be. England and France have chosen to terminate that arrangement by which the Porte might have tottered on yet longer in a state of merely nominal independence, and the only question now remaining is, by whom shall Turkey hereafter be exclusively controlled-by the East or the West? Another inquiry may be added: will it be better for other nations, and for Turkey, that it should become virtually a colony of the Western Powers, or that it should be incor

porated with Russia? Between these two alternatives there seems now no middle ground.

Nothing is more certain than that France and England intend to apply the principles of the Russian policy to the western hemisphere, and they have seized upon the rebellion. as the entering wedge in American affairs. Could they succeed, Mexico would first of all be shaped into a French colony in reality, whatever the forms of the government might be. Maximilian, if once seated there, would be simply a crowned puppet-the imperial overseer of a French plantation.

Texas would then be seized on the first pretext, and gradually the South, if nominally independent, would become merely a colony to raise cotton, sugar, &c., for the Allies, and the Pacific coast would if possible be wrested from our possession.

The policy of France and England contemplates all this, and all this we have good reason to believe was included in the original scheme of the Anglo-French Alliance. It was against America as well as Russia. It had, as English statesmen said, reference to both hemispheres.

Our great war for national independence is yet to come, and God is ridding us of our weakness, and bringing out our resources, and consolidating our strength, that we may be prepared. The question whether we are to be subjected to the dictation of European Powers is yet to be settled.

CHAPTER XIV.

FUTURE MOVEMENTS OF THE GREAT POWERS.

From this brief review of a portion of European history, it is thought that not only can the present attitude of France and England towards America be fully understood, but that the future relations of the great Powers to each other may also be foreseen.

The rebellion has shown us the deep-seated and now active hostility of some of the chief European nations, and we see clearly that this is the result of settled national policy. The sudden development of our military strength, and especially the rapidity with which we have created a navy among the most powerful in the world, will cause us now, far more than ever before, to arouse the jealousy of Europe. These things, with the movement of France upon Mexico, and the unfriendly temper of England, have brought us within the disturbed circle of European operations and policy, and henceforth we shall be compelled to act in reference to the movements of the great Powers that control the world, because their ambition and jealousies will no longer permit us to remain isolated and pursue an independent course. They seem determined to apply to America the European system of interference, in order to preserve "the balance of power," in other words they propose to combine to

strike down every too prosperous nation. If by our intelligence, our action, enterprise and resources, we are in the estimation of France and England becoming too strong, they propose in some way to interfere and arrest our progress. This is not a sudden passing caprice, but a settled rule of national action, applicable to both hemispheres, as the English have declared; and the same spirit which made an English theatre ring with applause when it was announced that the Emperor of Russia was dead, caused the shouts of Englishmen on the sea when they saw the flame of our ships, fired by a pirate fitted out in their own harbors, and to congratulate each other upon the supposed ruin of the Great Republic.

It seems evident now, that the four nations which will control the destinies of the world in the immediate future, are France and England, Russia and America. The armies and the navies, the commerce, and the manufacturing power of the nations, are mostly in their hands. They wield the forces of the world, whether material or intellectual, moral or religious.

They represent three grand divisions of the human race, the Sclavonic, the Latin, and the Teutonic, and the three forms of religion by which Christendom is divided, the Greek Church, the Latin or Roman Catholic, and the Protestant.

These races are evidently drawing apart from each other and preparing for a separate career. The Sclavonian race tends to consolidate upon Russia, the Latins are drawing around France, and while the Protestants of Europe have as yet no recognized head, owing to the unnatural alliance of England with a Papal power, the United States is the Protestant head of the West.

These three forms of religion tend on all sides, not to union and friend-hip, but to divergence and hostility. The Papacy is incapable of alliance or true peace with any form of religion. Her claim is ever the same-to be the one only and exclusive Church, with the right and the duty to suppress every other whenever she has the power. As she has