Then what a diversified scene is spread before the mind by the variety of religious faiths professed here. A native of Constantinople put the case before the Parliament of Religions, held at the Chicago Exposition, thus: “We have a Parliament of Religions every day in Constantinople.” The faith of Israel, Mohammedanism, and Christianity, are here matched against each other in great organised communities, with the marks of the controversies and wars which form so large a part of the history of this Eastern world fresh and clear upon them.
Here are the sects and schools of thought which divide Islam; the Sunnites who maintain the legitimacy of all the Caliphs, the Shiites who hold that Ali, the cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet, was his first lawful successor, and who gather annually in the court of the Validè Khan in Stamboul, to cut and gash themselves, like their brethren in Persia, as they mourn the murder of Ali’s sons, Hussein and Hassan; the Howling and the Dancing Dervishes who hope to apprehend the Divine in their ecstasy, the Bektashs Dervishes, more rationalistic, more tolerant, more latitudinarian. Here are the sects that divide the Christian world; Orthodox Greek, Roman Catholic, Gregorian Armenian, Protestant, representatives of the Nestorian Church, and of the Syrian Jacobites. What long vistas of Church History are thus open on every hand; what different modes of conceiving truths stare you in the face at every turn!
Finally, but not least, there is the spacious outlook afforded by the political situation, of which Constantinople has long been the centre. The question of the continued existence of the Ottoman rule in Europe, if not also in Asia, has been a burning question for many generations, affecting both the destiny of the peoples subject to that rule and the interests and relations of all the Great Powers of Europe. It is one of the biggest, most important, most complicated problems that can occupy the minds of the statesmen of the world, and it has no less magnitude in its appeals to the concern of philanthropists. Here, to speak with malice to none and with charity for all, is a rule established by the might of conquest over different races, rival nationalities, various creeds. As already observed, the conquerors have neither wished nor been able to efface these distinctions, nor have the conquered had any inclination to be merged into a common life and polity. In such a state of things it is not surprising that no love has been lost. Legend has it that the battle of Chalons was waged with such ferocity, that, after the bodies of the combatants lay cold upon the ground, their spirits continued to fight in the air. The struggle between the conqueror and the conquered in Turkey has raged in their hearts even when, to all appearance, it seemed to have ended. In thought and sentiment the country has always been in a state of war. That a rule carried on in the spirit of conquest and of religious exclusiveness should have involved intolerable treatment of the subject peoples is only what might be expected, notwithstanding occasional good intentions. And that peoples thus treated, and persistently reminded of their subjugation and inferior legal standing should never abandon the hope of deliverance, and should even endeavour to create opportunities to achieve emancipation is, likewise, only what might be expected. Whether the subject peoples could have already gained their liberty, if they had been united, is a question open to debate. But what is certain is that their rivalries, their dissensions, and their natural but incompatible expectations, have retarded the realisation of their ambitions. To a large extent, this is their misfortune; the fate imposed upon them by their circumstances. Look, for example, at the situation in the European portion of the Empire. How can any one expect Roumanians, Servians, Bulgarians, Greeks, and Albanians to forget their historical antecedents, their race distinctions, and their associations with different parts of the country, in order to become one nationality? How can they be persuaded to combine in a common effort to become free, while the points in dispute between themselves remain unsettled? The question is rendered yet more difficult when these peoples, as is often the case, dwell side by side in the same section of the country.