ism, and, as developed by Schopenhauer and Von Hartmann, they avow pessimism as their creed, and make annihilation to be the chief boon for the race. Not to speak more particularly of the contemporaneous movements in France and England, we can now only refer to the alliance, in these three countries, of pantheism and materialism, in their most developed forms, and in a common attack upon the Christian creed and church.

At first it was

the wisdom of

This rapid historic sketch may suffice to show, that in all the periods of this great conflict, there has been a difference in the character, both of the assault and the defense. Christianity against Polytheism, Judaism, and the ancient schools. And here Christianity was vindicated as a positive revelation; and, as a result of the conflict, the old Catholic Church ruled in the East and the West. In the mediæval period, there was not only the subjugation of Northern Europe, but also the consolidation of the Christian system in the scholastic theology and the realistic philosophy. The Christian theory governed the world of thought and kept it in bonds. In the next stadium we have the separation of these elements, and the conflict of Christianity with all the forms of human research and speculation. It has come into conflict with deism, with rationalism in its various modes, with atheism and with pantheism; and now it is contending with atheism, and pantheism allied. And as the form of the conflict has changed, so has the mode of the defense. The Analogy of Bishop Butler, admirable as it is for its specific ends, does not meet the questions raised by Hegel and Baur, by Darwin and Spencer.

And not only are these comprehensive systems making their assaults upon the Christian faith, but each special science joins in the attack. Historical research is trying to undermine the basis of the biblical records. Strauss and Baur, and many critics of no special philosophical school, are endeavoring to disprove the authenticity of the Scriptures, especially of the Gospels and the Acts, and to explain the history of the Christian church as a process of natural development. Astronomy, palæontology, ethnography, and even the special physical sciences, are striving to construct a theory of the earth and the

heavens, of the origin and growth of all life, at war not only with the Scriptures, but with the very dictates of human reason as hitherto interpreted; denying all efficient and final. causes, and making a blind, unconscious force to be that in which we live and move and have our being; so that Apologetics must embrace the whole of natural theology and much of moral science, as well as the so-called evidences of Christianity. Its sphere is necessarily wide, and ever widening. It must, in fact, taken in all its scope, lead to the conclusion, that Christianity is the one absolute system of truth for man; and that this is provable and proved by the facts of history, as well as by the nature of Christianity itself.

IV.

Ever since the time of Schleiermacher, Apologetics, as a system, has been taking on new forms in Germany, as shown in the works referred to at the head of this article, of which that of Sack was one of the earliest, and is not superseded even by that of Ebrard, the latest and, in many respects, the best, of these treatises.

Of these and other kindred works we may at some time give a fuller account, in order to illustrate the nature of Christian Apologetics, and to show its special need for the church of the present day. Meanwhile, we will only add, that it must be apparent, even from this review, that Christian Apologetics as a science derives its materials from a great variety of sources, and embraces within itself some departments of Christian theology hitherto kept distinct-such, for example, as natural theology and the evidences of Christianity (both of which are combined in the interesting volume entitled Christian Apologetics, by the late Dr. Hetherington of Scotland). Without proposing any final arrangement, we only add, in conclusion, that Christian Apologetics, as a science, has for its object to vindicate the divine authority of Christianity and its records, and to show that it is the highest and best system of truth for man. And in doing this, the materials of which it must make use may, perhaps, be best distributed in the following general scheme :

FIRST.-Fundamental Apologetics-Comprising the question; embraced in natural theology: the being and nature of God,

and his relation to us; the spiritual and moral nature of man: with an examination of the anti-Christian schemes of philosophy-materialistic, pantheistic, or mixed.

SECOND.-Historical Apologetics--Comprising the evidence of the divine origin and authority of the Christian faith.

THIRD.-Philosophical Apologetics-Taking its materials (1) from the Philosophy of Religion, proving by the history of religion and a comparison of its various forms, that Christianity is the one absolute religion; (2) from the Philosophy of History. showing that Christianity is the key to the enigma of man's destiny; (3) from the Nature (or philosophy) of Christianity itself, especially as compared with philosophy in generalmaking it evident that Christianity, as a system of truth, is higher and better than any scheme of philosophy—is the sum of wisdom for the human race.

Art. VI. THE DECAY OF THE TURKISH EMPIRE. By EDWARD RIGGS, Missionary of the A. B. C. F. M., in Sivas, Asia Minor.

THE "Eastern Question" has come to be classed in many minds among the things hopelessly insoluble, and those who think at all about it, after floundering laboriously through a pile of theories, generally settle down to the conclusion, that the fault must be somewhere in the indomitable inertia and stolidity of oriental character. Without attempting to prove the incorrectness of this view, suffice it to state, that the trouble lies far to the west of the Bosphorus, and the mutual jealousy of the European states is all that prevents the collapse of the undermined structure. The trouble is not that the " sick man" will not die, but, being long since dead, like the dead king, who, in the old readers, used to frighten and yet fascinate us, he is painted and bolstered up by his cowardly attendants to deceive the people, and defer for a while the hazardous question of a successor. Perhaps there is no harm done by the transparent mockery, but when inquiries in regard to the state of Turkey, made in the British Parliament, are replied to by flimsy falsehoods and bombastic bunkum, it would seem to

be time for those who have good facilities for observing the truth, to share their conclusions with thinkers less favorably situated in this respect. Those travelers who consider themselves qualified to write on Turkey after a week's visit to Constantinople, should remember that they have seen but the gilded outside. It takes a residence of years in the interior of the country to be able to judge truly of the state of the country. The late discussion on Turkey in the British Parliament, and its echo in the London press, reminds one of the romantic and adulatory extravagances of Lamartine, whose estimate of the character of the Turks is a sample of the errors that learned historians may make, and is of a piece with his reverent mention of "Ethiopia, where lie concealed the fountains of the Nile." Perhaps humanity will be as much served in the course of modern investigation by revealing the sources of the melancholy state of affairs in the Turkish empire, as by opening up the head-waters of the Nile. It is as a slight contribution toward this enterprise that this article is undertaken. It is its purpose to illustrate, rather than describe, the present state of things in the empire, and thus rather hint at than determine the character of the changes required.

Before examining the present status of the empire, let us take a rapid glance at its origin, which may aid in the understanding of its decline. Eight centuries ago a horde of armed shepherds swept down from the steppes north and east of the Caspian Sea, and took possession of Turkestan. While conquering with a high hand, they were themselves conquered, and became ready adherents of the Mohammedan faith, of which they soon figured as the fiercest and most successful upholders and missionaries. Their conquests spread rapidly till the empire of the Seljookian Turks touched China on the East, and westward came to the gates of Bagdad. In taking possession of this city, they virtually brought to an end the power of the Caliphs, and while Togrul Bey, with humble mien, stood to hold the stirrup for the Prophet's successor to mount his horse, he, in fact, held him more a prisoner than Victor Immanuel holds Pius IX, to-day.

Strengthened by such acquisitions, the Turkish power rolled on till it reached the Mediterranean and the Bosphorus, and

making the Greek empire tremble, roused all Europe to plunge into the crusades.

Like all such immense empires acquired by the sword, the Seljookian empire soon fell to pieces; but, still proud of the name, survived in parts, one centre being at Iconium in Asia Minor. These Turks, brave and successful in war, were not less diligent and successful in the arts of peace, and it must be from the romantic story of their exploits in arms and arts that many moderns have formed a picture of character which they arbitrarily and erroneously consider a correct likeness of the modern Turk. Besides furnishing an asylum for science and literature, and forming a sort of connecting link between the Arabian and the European periods, they cultivated the æsthetic arts, and gave birth to a distinct style of architecture, which is not only recognized in the standard classifications, but of which the noble specimens still standing bear powerful testimony, and put to shame the awkward and puny efforts of their degenerate successors.

In course of time another wandering shepherd soldier strayed down from the East with a troop of followers, and early in the thirteenth century, having served the Sultan of Iconium some good turn, received from the latter a strip of territory in Central Asia Minor. This wild free-booter's son was Othman, the founder of the present dynasty, who gave his name to the Osmanli Turks. (The Arabic letter th is pronounced s in Turkish.)

The conquests and aggressions of the successive Sultans it is needless to relate. Suffice it to say, that after their power had reached its acme, and their territory stretched far and wide all around the eastern end of the Mediterranean, instead of falling to pieces, like its Seljookian predecessor, there began within it a more undemonstrative process of disintegration by moral corruption, which has gone on ever since, and has now reached such a point that it is beyond the power of political specifics to restore life to the decayed mass. National vitality has long since ceased to exist, and the very appearance of it would soon fade away, were it not that this would cause a vacuum in the political atmosphere; and it is to avoid the concussion of the opposing elements which would rush in to occupy the space, that this artificial and pestilential cloud is