any thing but harbor winds. It is a historical fact, that the total destruction of the Turkish fleet, twenty years ago, in the harbor of Sinope, was due to the fact, that the whole force was prostrated with sea-sickness, and had to put into port on that account!

But it is in the local and provincial government that the empire shows its most hopeless weakness and corruption. It may be laid down as a universal fact, that in the Turkish courts justice is never rendered simply for justice's sake. It is impossible to convey to the mind of any one, who has not actually seen it, any idea of the utter prostitution of the very name of government in the provincial towns, or the bold effrontery with which the highest officers will shift their ground from one untenable falsehood to another in dodging the necessity of performing the plainest duties. The pretense that the government has removed the disabilities and disadvantages of the non-Moslem inhabitants is a woful falsehood, and the local government, in spite of the contrary position known to have beeu assumed by their superiors, to this day do not blush calmly to repeat and enforce the obsolete law, that the testimony of non-Moslems cannot be taken for any thing against that of the faithful! Since the writing of this article began, three Christian butchers in an neighboring town have been cast into a dungeon of the vilest description for the sole. offense of refusing to furnish meat on the Sabbath. And when the Protestant preacher ventured to remonstrate with the local governor he was insulted, and upon answering rather too plainly, was seized with brutal violence and cast into the same prison. This is but one instance of cases that are constantly occurring, and the discouraging part of it is, that when appeals are made to higher authorities, the plaintiff finds himself at war with a league of shameless and intriguing officials, bound in self-defense to support and defend one another in all conceivable wickedness by any amount of falsehoods, and giving and receiving of bribes. Foreigners, though they have ambassadors at the capital, and consuls in every port, are never sure against insult and injustice from those petty officials, who cannot control their disposition to an insolent and indiscriminate exhibition of the little authority unworthily entrusted to them.

The reforms in administrative government adopted by the predecessor of the present Sultan,* though in form adopted throughout the country, utterly fail of accomplishing the ends aimed at, partially through the persistence of the Turks in adhering to former principles, despite being forced to adopt more civilized forms, and partly from the abasement and unworthiness of those in whose favor the changes were made. Moreover, these reforms exchanged for the simplicity of the ancient and barbarous regime, a complicated machinery of mixed councils and independent offices, which indefinitely elongates all processes, and offers innumerable opportunities for corruption and intrigue. These mixed councils, composed of Moslem and non-Moslem members, and intended to give the Christian populations a share of responsibility in the administration of government, or, at least, to put into their hands a check on their rulers, are practically a failure; for even the nominally Christian members are, almost without exception, induced by cupidity, fear, lack of self-respect, and general unfitness for self government, to retain their seats and salaries by yielding passive assent to all the machinations of their Turkish associates, and with closed eyes and placid countenances affix their seals to all papers offered to them. The limits of this article forbid further detail, though the materials are abundant and somehowalmost force themselves in. The matter of collection of taxes must be alluded to, as it bears directly on the financial question. There are two methods of collecting the internal revenue, the respective abuses of which cause the government constantly to vacillate between them. These are, by farming, and by direct official collection. In the former, the producers are sold, as it were, into the power of unprincipled and grasping speculators, who use their power most unrighteously. The results of such abuses, when carried too far, are such revolts as those already alluded to in Herzegovina, etc. In the latter method, the collectors, careless of the results, will at one time receive bribes to favor the producers, and at another so neglect the business as to leave produce for days and weeks rotting in the rain and sun, because it must not be stored till it is measured and the tax collected. In either of these methods the taxes

* This was written before the recent change of Sultans.-EDITOR.

when collected have to pass through the hands of numerous grades of officers, and in each transfer suffer sad depletion, so that, when they finally reach the central treasury, they represent but a shadow of what was squeezed from the hard laboring producers. Honesty on the part of the middle-men in this one business would speedily throw the balance on the right side of the budget, and give Turkish loans a very different appearance in the stock market.

III. When we turn to the contemplation of the social and religious condition of the people, we meet with even still more disheartening revelations, and here we begin to approach an explanation of the material and political prostration already described. Habits transmitted from a nomadic, tent-dwelling ancestry cause the people to live huddled together in narrow quarters, where filth, disease, and vice grow uncontrollable. Poverty and ignorance so rivet the chains of these habits, that even improved circumstances in these respects fail to correct them. The present age undoubtedly sees a wonderful waking up and reaching forth toward education; but even this is only a small movement as compared with the mass of the people. As is invariably the case in such degradation, the female portion of the community suffers most deeply. A man whose house is filled with congratulating neighbors on the occasion of the birth of a son, will feel insulted at the slightest allusion to the birth of a daughter. And an evangelical native preacher, who had enjoyed an educational and religious training of more than a half a dozen years, under missionaries, asked the writer a few weeks since, if it is "possible that any parent should love a daughter as well as a son!" A missionary, on asking a village woman why she did not learn to read, received the significant reply, "What can a cow learn?"

This state of things, which might be much more largely illustrated, points clearly to the degrading influence of false and sensual religion. The creed of Mohammed, though not violently forced upon all the subjugated adherents of an already enfeebled Christianity, still has had a powerful iufluence to debase the character of this religion. Under the garb of righteously evading oppression and tyranny on the part of the conquering Moslem, the crushed and cringing nominal Christians justified themselves in all manner of deception and fraud, which gradually crept into their religion and their character, till now falsehood

may be rightly deemed the prominent characteristic of both classes of the mingled population. Islamism it is which has enervated and degraded the race of Turks, said to have been once noted for bravery, honesty, and chastity, and with its own adherents has dragged down into something of its own pollution the degenerate Christianity about it. This it is, that by its fata! consequences forbids the increase of population in its dominions. In a land where marriage is universal and fecundity remarkable, it is a significant fact, that the population in many places is actually diminishing, and where it increases, does so at an almost imperceptible rate.

Islamism it is which palsies every effort at reform throughout the empire, and which forbids the hope of Turkey ever taking its stand properly among the civilized nations of the world. The celebrated oriental traveler, Vambery, in his latest work, says. "Islamism is now engaged in a final struggle with western civilization, which must result in the success of the latter. For fifty years Christian missionaries have been laboring for the evangelization of the empire, and it is a cheering fact, that great results have been achieved, but all has been among the nominal Christians. This movement carried to completion may instil a vitality into these communities which shall enable them to survive the crash of the Turkish power when it comes. But to this day Islamism presents a solid front against the spirit and success of evangelical and enlightened progress. The conviction is inevitable, that until the power of Islamism is broken, the true reformation of this land is an impossibility. At whose door shall we lay the blame of cherishing such a viper? That the solution of the vexed question of the political status of Turkey involves grave difficulties cannot be denied. But those that are pleased to preserve the existing state of things as a barrier for themselves, against the encroachments of an already overgrown European power, ought to take into consideration the results of encouraging the continuance of a power at once so poisonous and so suicidal as that of the waning crescent. And to come nearer home, those who pray "Thy Kingdom. come," and yet do little or nothing for the reformation of unevangelized lands, will do well to ponder the above facts, and judge whether these may not be, in the salvation of such a country as Turkey, a sphere for the investment of personal labor or money.

Art. VII.-THE AMERICAN STAMP ACT.

By Rev. FREDERIC VINTON, Librarian of Princeton College. In a summer's morning we have often seen the sun obscured, just after rising, by clouds which threaten immediate rain. After a few moments those clouds disperse, and a child may imagine a sunny day is to follow. But the farmer knows a storm is coming, and it never fails. The American Revolution of 1775 was heralded by the Stamp Act excitement of 1765. The revolution cannot be accounted for, without knowing what went before it at a distance of ten years.

When we learn that the Stamp Act merely required such colonists as had occasion to do certain familiar acts, to pay a small sum for a license, the opposition it encountered may seem astonishing. Those occasions were such as suits at law, transfers of real estate, passing notes of hand, making of wills, and contracting marriage. The present generation may hear with amazement, that so small a matter provoked universal resistance; that, in fact, it would have brought on the Revolution then, if the act had not been speedily repealed. We well remember, it may be said, when our present government imposed upon us just such a Stamp Act as this, and we never thought of resisting, burdensome as it was, and entirely a new thing to us. To abate this surprise, it is necessary to consider under what circumstances the American colonists had been living, and to observe what other things were contemporaneous with the Stamp Act, and showed its meaning.

The settlers at Plymouth in 1620, the emigrants to Boston in 1630, and those who came afterward and planted the whole Atlantic slope, came to find quiet homes and cheap land in a new continent. They were too few, and too poor, to be followed by the tax-gatherer, and they brought charters from the crown, permitting them to govern themselves. Neither they nor their children ever paid taxes to any European prince. When Catholic France, at war with England, assailed their coast with fleets, and hounded the savage upon their settlements, they cheerfully contributed men and money for their