Consuls to the foreign Governments, praying them to put an end to the effusion of blood in the island, will probably bring about fresh efforts at mediation. The Sublime Porte will hardly persist in its refusal to listen to the proffered mediation, as in such case it would become the duty of the Christian Powers to follow it up by a decided pressure."

From the Times, August, 1867 :-" For some time past the policy of Russia has undergone a certain transformation in regard of Turkey. Those who represent her officially, and those who serve unofficially, no longer speak of the dissolution' of the Ottoman Empire, but of its 'dismemberment.’ Opinions, they observe, may differ as to the epoch when dissolution shall take place. It is quite intelligible why people at St Petersburg are more and more convinced that it cannot be far distant, and that people in London persist in believing that the agony will be long, and that Turkey will yet take centuries to die, as peoples have disappeared after having filled the world with their renown and their grandeur. But it is impossible not to admit the fact that the Ottoman Empire has for 50 years back been considerably dismembered; that other dismemberments are at this moment in progress, with the consent, more or less formal, of Europe; and that more are preparing to which Europe is resigned beforehand. All those dismemberments are the natural consequence of the immense movement of regeneration and organization in Europe, to which a

new impulse has been given, to the recent proclamation of two principles-nationalities, and the sovereignty of peoples. It is particularly in the European provinces of the Turkish Empire that those principles are frequently applied; it is there that they are more rapidly developed, and produce their most powerful effect; for in these provinces there exist a great number of distinct nationalities, which have preserved all their original traits in spite of the oppression to which they have been subjected for centuries. This mode of reasoning on the part of the Russian agents is substantially correct, and the statesmen who govern the Austrian Empire are struck by it. The greater part of them admit that the Ottoman Empire is inevitably doomed to progressive dismemberment, which must lead to its total disappearance. They are convinced that Russia will act with untiring perseverance till she attains her end-turning to her own account at once the action of time and the influence of modern ideas. This, however, does not suit Western Europe, and the danger which menaces it can only be conjured by the solid and lasting union of Austria and France; and in this respect it is evident that the interests of the two Powers were identical. To be convinced of this it suffices to consider the state in which Europe would find itself after the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire, if Russia were allowed to act by herself. The territory which, in the beginning of the century, formed Turkey in Europe would be cut

up into a multitude of states more or less petty, of which the subjects, Greeks or Sclaves, would have close affinity with the populations of Russia. These states, which would possess a sort of autonomy,' would be in reality the satellites of Russia, whose protection would be indispensable to them. In this manner the domination of Russia would extend, in point of fact, over the whole of that vast country, covered with a numerous population, traversed by the Danube and other great streams, and bathed by the Adriatic, the Mediterranean, and the Black Sea. Russia would thus form round Austria a continuous enclosure, and would menace Italy, whose frontier she would touch. From that moment Europe might expect to witness the invasion of Cossacks, which the First Napoleon predicted at St Helena. Such results will infallibly be produced by a short-sighted and listless policy, which contrasts forcibly with that vigilant and enlightened policy to which the war in the Crimea and the stipulations of the treaty of Paris were owing.

"The political personages of Vienna assert that it is impossible this great question of the East, now arrived at maturity, should not be thoroughly examined at Salzburg. They fully hope that resolutions will be adopted conformably to the interests of both Empires, all the more so as the inevitable dismemberment of Turkey would permit the Emperor Napoleon to insist upon Austria obtaining the equit

able compensation which he desired a year ago for the loss of her Italian provinces.'

The reformation in Turkey in Europe has really become a revolution in its later stages. The sooner, therefore, the Crescent vanishes in the future sunrise, and Constantinople becomes a Christian capital, the better for all, and the nearer will be the everlasting summer. The Caliph, the spiritual representative of Mahomet, has in 1867 betrayed his trust. The ruler may live, but the Caliph is dead. The Koran has been denuded of its supremacy. The channel of the Euphrates remains. The water is almost dried up. If we turn to the West, and watch the progress of events there, we shall find the signs of the times no less numerous, vivid, and sharply defined. In the autumn of 1866 the protecting secular power retired from the hopeless task of defending an indefensible system. The very year and autumn long ago fixed by prophetic expositors for the descent of the last providential stroke on the Papacy has arrived, and justified their predictions. The kings of the earth have withdrawn their material support. Italy has confiscated the Church property, and how long Rome will continue as the seat of the Pope seems a question of months, not years.

The Pall Mall Gazette writes, August 1, 1867:"In this unsettled state of a question which equally concerns the Church and the Treasury, the first symptoms show themselves of the impatience of the

extreme Liberal party to bring about a revolution at Rome. It has been obvious that the Papacy has been sitting on a volcano since the French troops left, and that the endurance of the Garibaldians would in time be exhausted. The telegrams from Italy may possibly somewhat overstate existing facts, but it has been known for some time that a storm was preparing. The defections of the Antibes Legion, for example, reducing it in a short time to about half its numbers, were hardly to be explained except by some secret stimulus to desertion; and at this moment the Pope is powerless to put down an insurrection. The movements of the Garibaldians have been guarded by such jealous secrecy that it may be doubted whether the government at Florence knows either the hour or the scope of their project."

The grand ecclesiastical show of June, 1867, was the dying flash of an expiring light, an attempt to seduce, by a sensuous spectacle, the nations that have broken with the Vatican as a doomed wreck.

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The fraudulent bankrupt usually launches out into his greatest extravagance on the eve of bankruptcy. Arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and gilded with gold, and precious stones, and pearls," she will show till the far-off nations hear the sound on the very eve of her ruin. "I sit as a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow. Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death and mourning and famine."