ment. The scheme of each succeeds against the opposition of the other; the remonstrance of each fails against the scheme of the other. Consul Wood goes on charging the Turkish Government with perfidy, in devising the scheme of the Caimacanships; Consul Rose goes on charging it with perfidy, for enforcing the Tariff. Both are kept in ignorance that the scheme which they oppose is that of their own Government, and are left severally to expound to the people, the villany of the Porte in having devised it. How surprised they must be when they read the Blue Book; for at least Consul Wood and Consul Rose will read the Blue Book.

"With such measure as ye mete, the same shall be meted unto you again." When that prediction is in our respect accomplished, there will not be a man throughout the land able to say "this is a righteous judgment." They will see in what happens to them then, no more than what they now see in what they do to others-the work of the stars.

This is the testimony of the Blue Books: First, the Five Powers are engaged in convulsing the country; Secondly, any attempt to restore tranquillity involves a struggle with the Five Powers; Thirdly, the means by which such a struggle may be successful, or even exist is, by inducing the people to represent their grievances with effect and unanimity.

Our proceedings in the Lebanon are to us simple and natural, in consequence of the progress we have

made in civilization; they appear strange and unnatural to this people, because they have not yet attained to the distinction between public and private morality. Not having as yet learnt that public affairs are only contrivances to afford amusement to the public, they are at a loss to comprehend how such acts remain beneath the notice of the eminent and practical men who adorn and instruct Europe in morals and philanthropy.

Unless the English had found some section of the people to patronize, none of these operations could have been carried on; and yet to a common mind there was no section available. The French could patronize the Maronites as Ultramontanes; the Russians the Greeks as Starovirtze; the Chinese could alone patronize the Druzes, as heterodox Buddhists. On what twig the English dove of peace could perch did not appear, and yet the patronage could begin only on religious grounds. In this, therefore, the source of it will be sought; there must have been religious sympathy. In looking closer into the matter a connection may be found. An English religious writer, who never heard of the Druzes, used these words: "England is divided into Infidelity and Fanaticism ;"* that is to say, that some profess the faith of infidelity, and some the faith of fanaticism; whereas, amongst the Druzes, the two faiths are combined in each. It matters not whether the characters really apply to the Druzes, *Bosanquet, "Perils of the Nation."

the supposition is enough for the association, and failing this there is nothing else to account for it. We could not take grounds as supporting their independence, for two reasons. First, that they do not want our help; secondly, that England does not support independence in any people. If such were → her disposition, the Circassians afford her a field, but no English consulate spreads its benign influence from Anapa.

One concluding observation suggests itself. It has been a labour of care and anxiety to find and form Woods and Stratford Cannings, Moores and Roses. Such men were rare incidents in the nation. But the time will come when they will not be rare incidents. The whole British nation cannot be Ambassadors, Consuls, and Companions of the Bath, yet the whole British nation will become Woods and Cannings, Moores and Roses. Then some Sheik Beshir, Consul at Manchester, in furnishing his quota to a Turkish Blue Book on the "rights and privileges of the Roman Catholics and Dissenters of Great Britain," may have the regret to express himself in these terms:

"I must consider the moral condition of England as very low."

* Reply of Mr. Moore in Dr. Bowring's Report.

CHAPTER XXII.

CHRISTIANITY OF THE LEBANON.

THE scheme above detailed rests entirely on the maxim, that a Mussulman shall not rule in this Province of the Sultan. This maxim has been established as a corollary to another; namely, that the Lebanon is the stronghold of Christianity in the East. The argument is thus stated:

I know of no individual in this country who unites the qualities requisite for the office of a Prince of Mount Lebanon. If he is a Maronite, the Druses will not bear his rule, and if he is a Druse, he will not be tolerated by the Maronites, and it would not be desirable that a Mahometan Prince should rule over a country which is the stronghold of Christianity in the East.*

Again:

The very peculiar circumstances of the Mountain population, whose industry, poverty, and impatience of restraint are alike known to all Europe, and amongst whom the religion of Christ has found for ages a precarious, yet noble asylum, towards which the hopes of the good and the devout of more than one country have of late been turned with peculiar zeal.+

*Colonel Rose to Lord Aberdeen. Syrian Papers, Part II. p. 108.

Sir S. Canning to Lord Aberdeen. Syrian Papers, Part I.

p. 53.

II.

2 F

Here is the introduction of an international maxim alarming to the world; and peculiarly terrible in its application to Great Britain. The Maltese are Maronites, and France is their protector. The Canadians are Roman Catholics; so are the Irish. The Ionians are Greeks, and Russia is their Protector. The Cingalese are Buddhists, and China is their Protector. Thirty millions of Indians are Mussulmans, and the Sultan is their Protector. The Hindus will find a Protector, as cognate as are the English to the Druzes. This maxim admitted, the human race becomes a society of wild beasts, preying upon each other, not by satiable, but by insatiable lusts.

The Christianity put forward for such ends by the English Government, is not the established religion of Great Britain; the patronage afforded by that Government is at this very time, to the rival sect of this so-called "Christianity."

This Christianity is not a germ planted in the East by England, or by the other Powers. It has been found there, existing under the Turkish sway; and peaceably existing up to the moment of their interference.

Now let us see what this Christianity is. The Blue Books contain a specimen.

"The Catholic Bishop of Zachlé, to the Christians of the same place.

"We have exceedingly and extremely praised