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B 333#
N7M
THE
EASTERN QUESTION;
FROM A
RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL POINT OF VIEW.
Q
lecture
DELIVERED
SUNDAY
BEFORE
THE
LECTURE
SOCIETY,
ST. GEORGE'S HALL, LANGHAM PLACE,
ON
SUNDAY AFTERNOON, 25th MARCH, 1877,
By Dr. G. G. ZERFFI, F.R.S.L., F.R.Hist.S.
lEonbon :
PUBLISHED BY THE SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY.
1877.
PRICE THREEPENCE.
�Origin of the Eastern Question.
Constantine the Great.
State of Society in the East.
Believers and Heretics.
The Hierarchy and the different Christian Sects.
Dissension amongst Christians.
The Schism between the Eastern and Western Churches.
Homousion and Ilomoiusion.
Idolatry in the West; Iconoclasm in the East.
The Arabs.
Mahomet.
The Koran and its Tenets.
Crusades and Scholasticism.
Influence of the East on the West.
Conquest of Constantinople by the Turks.
Social and Religious Organization of Turkey.
Home Rule and Foreign Affairs. Arts and Sciences.
Position of Women in Turkey.
Christians, Jews, Greeks, and Turks.
Russia. The Cross and the Crescent.
Possibility of a Solution of the Eastern Question.
Conclusion.
�THE EASTERN QUESTION;
FROM A
RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL POINT OF VIEW.
HE Eastern Question has come upon us like a political and
intellectual thunderstorm. Thunderstorms in the
world,
Tlike those in the real, are produced by accumulationsidealacting and
of
counteracting electric or religious and social streams or currents.
The negative and positive electric currents rise up and concentrate,
some motion of air brings them into collision, and the storm with
its fierce lightnings and roaring thunder bursts out, often devasta
ting whole districts, but always purifying the air, and leaving
traces of a beneficial influence behind it. Eor more than a year
the thunderstorm of the “ Eastern Question ” has been raging
amongst us with the lightning of well-set, sensational phrases,
real or unreal atrocities, flashes of horrifying contradictory tele
graphic messages, reports of special, unspecial, “ our own,” and
“nobody else’s correspondents,” and the thunders of angry
pamphlets and platform speeches, delivered at boisterous indigna
tion meetings. East and West are one again, not in mutual love,
but in mutual hatred and animosity. There are people who would
like to see Cross and Crescent arrayed against one another in
deadly combat, and who would like to see the Turks leave Europe
at a moment’s notice with “ bag and baggage.”
What is this Eastern Question ? Has it been asked only
recently, or is it a historical problem, that has long stood before
the eves of Europe awaiting a solution ? How and when did this
Eastern Question arise ? Where and when did it originate ?
The Eastern Question began with Constantine the Great, when
he saw a burning cross hovering above the sun with the inscrip
tion “in hoc signo vinces ! ” (in this sign thou wilt conquer). The
same night, according to Bishop Eusebius, Christ appeared to
Constantine, and ordered him to have a banner made, bearing the
sign he had seen during the day, and assuring him that under this
banner (the labarum) he would conquer. It so happened that
Constantine disposed his troops with consummate skill, while his
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The Eastern Question; from a
adversary, Maxentius, occupied a very spacious plain, having the
Tiber in the rear of his army, which rendered retreat impossible.
The cavalry of Maxentius was composed of unwieldy cuirassiers,
or light Moors and Numidians, whilst Constantine had at his
disposal the vigour of splendid gallic horse “ which possessed
more activity than the one and more firmness than the other.”
The defeat of the hostile army was—in consequence of his better
tactics, and not in consequence of his dream and vision—complete.
Maxentius was driven into the Tiber, his head was cut oft’ and
publicly exposed, and Constantine became master of the Roman
Empire, after having put the two sons of Maxentius to death, and
extirpated his whole race. Constantine undoubtedly abolished the
Praetorian guards by the sword, deprived the Senate and people of
their dignities, exposed Rome to the insults or neglect of the
Emperors, and transferred the seat of the Roman Emperors to
Byzantium, which as Constantinople became from that time a new
Rome, and the centre point of the Eastern Question. Constantine
was an ambitious and genial character, as cunning as he was
generous, and as bigoted as he was cruel. He recognised in Chris
tianity a means for effectually destroying the old heathen world
(for monotheism stands so much nearer to “monodespotism ” than
polytheism), and exalting himself as omnipotent ruler on earth
and in heaven through the newr state religion.
The means he employed were not very Christian. He had his
own son, Crispus, executed on an unsupported charge brought
against him by his stepmother, Fausta; at the same time he
murdered his nephew, the son of Licinius ; and finally, convinced
of the groundlessness of the charge brought against his son, he
had his wife, Fausta, killed. Murder, superstition, visions,
dreams, apparitions, and sacred symbolic signs, mixed with
heathen ceremonies and a theocratic organization of the Church,
were the elements of which Constantine formed a new Christianity
in the East.
The Church suddenly raised to power soon arrogated to herself
infallibility, and assumed the terrible right of taliation, waging
sanguinary war against those who were not of her opinion.
Having the mighty arm of the lay power at her disposal, the
Church became by degrees omnipotent, and Christ’s simple teach
ing “ of a kingdom that is not of this world ” wTas used, to
found the most sanguinary Empire.
At the beginning of Christianity there were only loving com
munities that chose their own elders ; the communities increased,
�Religious and Social Point of View.
5
and overseers of the elders were found necessary; the overseers
again required patriarchs, and the patriarchs needed one above
them, the Bishop of Rome. This hierarchical crystallisation went
on gradually and slowly, became sterner and more powerful
through the increasing number of false prophets, mock-philosophers,
necromancers, Taumathurgi, miracle-workers, Egyptian priests of
Isis, Persian Magi, Jewish controversialists, and Greek casuists,
who all united to seek first, a living, and then a position, in order to
prosper through the credulity, superstition, and ignorance of the
masses. There was at that period a vast crowd of adventurers in
the East, who all traded in mystic doctrines, symbolic little
charms, incredible miracles, visions, dreams, and prophetic calcula
tions.
The Spiritualists abounded; they filled the market-places,
where they exhibited the most incredible feats before the eyes
of the gazing, wondering, and believing masses. In reading
history backwards, we may imagine what the effect of those
tricksters in supernatural wares must have been, when we find
in the nineteenth century, in spite of our advanced state of
civilization and learning, numbers of weak-minded men and
women, even of the better classes, who believe in any nonsense,
so soon as it is labelled “ supernatural.”
So long as the Church had no material support from the State,
Christianity spread through love and persuasion in spite of
competing miracle-workers, in spite of treachery, deceit and in
numerable incredibilities that hindered its progress amongst the
so-called educated classes. When Constantine took it up, and
lent it the imperial sword; when the tiaras and Mitres felt
themselves supported by the consuls, pro-consuls, magistrates,
lictors, and especially the executioners of the Roman Empire—
then the miracles ceased, and the supernatural became quite
natural. “ Woe” to any one who would have doubted that the
supernatural was not quite natural, and yet the dissensions
amongst the Christians, the heresies amongst the believers, and
the views the unbelievers took, were of an astonishing variety. But
the mighty State Church was equal to the terrible task which faith
imposed upon it. The massacres and executions of the unbelievers,
infidels, and heretics increased in a corresponding ratio with the
wealth and power, the sweet humility and self-abnegation of those
who styled themselves the followers of Christ. The unification of
the Christian Church, the purification of the different doctrines all
more or less tainted with abominable heresy, became the supreme
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The Eastern Question; from a
duty of the Church. It is a well-known and indisputable fact, that
after the death of Christ, his disciples dispersed, and formed nearly
as many sects as there were disciples.
There were the Gnostics, who most elaborately worked out the
theory of good and evil, of original sin and emanation, but they
could not see “ how the word became flesh,” and though they
believed Christ to be the Demiurgos, that is, an emanation of the
supreme Deity, they were extirpated as heretics in the sixth
century, a.d.
There were the Kerinthians, who could not see how any human
being could be born of a virgin ; they did not doubt that Joseph was
the father of Christ, but they could not believe in the resurrection
of Christ, and were extirpated in the sixth century, a.d.
The Ebionites objected to the genealogy of S. Matthew. Through
one of their leaders, Symmac, they propounded that Jesus was
never incarnate, that the Jews crucified one Simon the Kyerenian,
that Christ witnessed his own execution, ascended into heaven to
join his father, and was neither known by angels nor by men.
These theorists were extirpated in the sixth century, a d.
The Karpokratians believed in Christ as a superior human being,
endowed with a divine genius, but they disbelieved the resurrection
of the body, and they were extirpated in the sixth century, a.d.
The Cainists looked upon Judaism as full of immorality, and did
not believe that Christ could have come into the world to fulfil the
old law. They were also extirpated about the sixth century, a.d.
Marcion dared to teach that the gospels contradicted one another:
fortunately he founded no school, and when the authenticity of the
four gospels was settled by Church and State, there was no more
room for such wicked doubts.
The Alogians rejected the gospel of St. John, but were sacrificed
to that terrible error, and extirpated in the sixth century, a.d.
The Manicheans founded by Manes, who believed himself the
promised “Paraklitos” (St. John, xiv. 26), wished to bring harmony
into the comfortless teachings of the Gnostics and Zoroastrians, and
maintained a general return to God of all purified emanations.
Manes did not believe in the annihilation of matter, assuming it to
have been uncreated. This in itself was, of course, a most wicked
and erroneous assumption. Though Manes believed that Christ
and the Holy Ghost were sent into this world by God in order to
save humanity from the triumphant spirit of egotism, embodied in
Judaism and heathenism; though he himself and his followers led
a life of virtuous simplicity and ascetic self-denial, he was put to
�Religious and Social Point of View.
1
death 274 a.d., and his followers extirpated by fire and sword with
all possible love and kindness in the sixth century, a.d.
The Montanists, founded by Montanus, a Phrygian, who without
the permission of the Church believed himself, like Manes, to be the
promised “ Paraklitos,” professed Buddhistic tenets with the most
irreproachable vigour. “To renounce this world, was according to
Montanus, the duty of every free Christian, to live in God and to
rejoice in death his only aim.” lie proclaimed all knowledge and
earthly enjoyments as sinful. Until the sixth century, a.d., the
Montanists formed a special sect, but their tenets concerning the
duty of profound ignorance, and the sinfulness of all earthly en
joyments, found favour with the State Church, and they were kindly
received in the motherly bosom of Catholicism.
Arians, Novitians and Donatists fared no better than the others,
they were extirpated by fire and sword during the sixth century, a.d.
But the fathers and apologists, primitive writers and propounders
of Christianity, were not less numerous in their divergent opinions
with reference to tenets and dogmas, gospels and writings than
these sects. Simeon and Cleobius published works in the name of
Christ and bis Apostles. Eusebius published a letter from Christ
to King Abgarus, but Pope Gelasius declared this document a
forgery. A letter from the Virgin Mary to the inhabitants of
Messina is preserved in that town, dated Jerusalem, 42 a.d.
Though this was a clear forgery, a Jesuit, Inchofer, proved its
genuineness with great lucidity, and one must be obdurate indeed
not to be convinced by his proofs.
St. Justinus the martyr refers to certain documents relating to
Christ which must have been lost or voluntarily destroyed.
Tertullian mentions that Pontius Pilate sent the minutes of the
trial of Jesus of Nazareth or Bethlehem to the Emperor Tiberius,
who was so struck with the innocence of Christ that he ordered
the Senate to pay divine honours to the memory of Christ, which
the Roman Senate refused, not having been directly asked by those
concerned in the matter. It is scarcely necessary to mention that
this statement of things induced many pious forgers to write
reports in the name of Pilate. Gregory of Tours sternly believed
that he possessed the authenticated accounts of the miracles at the
death and the resurrection of Christ, just as Pilate sent them to
Tiberius. Scarcely had Christ expired on the cross with a prayer
for his enemies on his lips, when a host of forgers inundated the
world with descriptions and details of his private and public life.
S. Luke informs us “that many have taken in hand to set forth
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The Eastern Question; from a
those things which are most surely believed among us” (c. i. v. 1),
and notwithstanding that S. Mark and S. Matthew had written
their accounts, S. Ambrosius, Theophylaktes and other learned
commentators, assure us that this Evangelist only undertook to
write his gospel in order to counteract the great number of false
gospels, which S. Jerome finds too long to enumerate (ennumerare
longissimum esl). Origen, S. Ambrosius, S. Jerome and others,
mention a gospel of the twelve apostles: there were gospels of
S. Barnabas, S. Andrew, S. Bartholomew, S. Mathias, S. Peter
and S. James the younger; there were gospels of the Egyptians,
Hebrews, Nazarenes and a gospel of Truth. According to some,
there were some seventy and according to others about 146 in all.
With Constantine the Great, at last, some kind of harmony was
brought into the discordant spiritual life of the believing, but
disagreeing, Christians. This union was not fostered by persua
sion leading to conviction; but by the inexorable formula of old
Imperial Rome, that was suddenly enunciated in matters of faith.
The “ sic volo, sic jubeo ” of the episcopal majority at the council
of Nicea brought about union, but at the same time the most
sanguinary dissension between the Western and Eastern Churches.
They both agreed in the persecution of so-called heretics, who
could not at once detach themselves from the ancient holy books,
holy dogmas, and holy symbols which they had received on trust
from those who had stood so much nearer to the founder of
Christianity, and who could not follow the new theological casuists
into all their intricate windings of Egypto-Hebrew and Indo
Greek mysticism.
West and East, however, separated.
The small letter i was the real cause of that deadly separation.
“ Equal but not like,” and “like and equal,” this “ equal likeness ”
and “ equality but not likeness ” worked marvels of animosity,
hatred, and persecution amongst those who received the eternal
divine command, “ Love thy neighbour as thyself! ” The disputes
all bore upon the nature of Christ, not upon his glorious enact
ments of love and forgiveness, tolerance and peace, but upon the
mystic words, “Homousion,” meaning equality, sameness, or
oneness of essence or substance or being, and the equally mystic
word, “ Homoiusion,” meaning likeness of essence or substance or
being—as if anything could be like and not equal, or equal and
not like. With the East, Christ’s nature was like God the Father,
but not equal—not one and the same : and in the West, Christ’s
nature was not only like and equal, but the same as that of the
�Religious and Social Point of View.
9
Father. The East began to abhor this blasphemous assumption,
and to prove their subtle distinction with fire and sword. The
West, on the other hand, began to introduce more and more Pagan
ceremonies and festivities, the worship of saints, whose images
were painted and sculptured, in order to bring the originals
nearer to the senses of the believers, and to exhort them through
visible concrete forms to a more exalted spiritual life. No lover of
art will find fault with this tendency. Those painted walls and
painted windows, the sculptured saints and prophets served
Christianity as our modern illustrated alphabets or spelling books.
The child remembers so much easier that A stands for archer, if
it has at the same time the picture of a big-faced, fierce-looking
archer before it, who stands with crooked legs, letting fly an
immense arrow at an enormous black eagle with big claws, or at a
clumsy-looking frog ; or that B stands for butcher, killing a
ferocious, well-chained bull. Whilst the West laid down the
foundations of architectural, sculptural, and pictorial art, the East
demolished statues and quarrelled over abstruse formula. Turn
ing from statues to human beings, the Eastern Church extirpated
sectarians root and branch, murdered and poisoned and changed the
Christian religion into a perfect mockery, a system of most incredible
superstition and hypocrisy, and nameless crimes defiled the
once flourishing, glorious provinces of Asia Minor and the Greek
Peninsula. Temples and statues were hurled into ruin and dust.
In the West the old heathen gods and goddesses became Christian
saints : A enus was revived as the Virgin Mary: Minerva was
turned into St. Sophia: in Hermes,the good shepherd, and Apollo,
the sungod, they worshipped Christ; Bacchus became St. Paul:
J anus was turned into St. Peter; Hercules into St. Christopher:
Poseidon into St. Nicholas ; the “ Lares ” of the Romans were
advanced to household saints; St. Florian had to watch over fire,
like Vulcanus or Hepheistos ; the Titans were declared to have
been the fallen angels, and Cupid or Eros was revived as Asmodaeus, a mischief-making demon in matters of love. The forces
of nature that had been personified as lovely nymphs, tritons,
naiads, and nereids were degraded to uglv witches, imps, devils, or
infernal spectres. Whilst this idolatrous transformation scene
took place in the West, the East, with iconoclastic rage, disputed
on how the hand should be held when blessing, whether the
three fingers should be stretched out, or whether the thumb
should be joined to the third finger, and the first twro
fingers alone held up erect with the fourth, whether to have
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The Eastern Question ; from a
carved or only painted saints on a gold ground, and similarly
important questions.
In the meantime, trade, industry, commerce, arts and sciences
languished, and the new faith that ought to have stimulated the
vitality of humanity into new activity of love and kindness,
excited it to an utter dissolution of the religious and social
condition of the Byzantine Empire. Add to all this the variety
of nationalities, the scattered remnants of house and homeless
Jews, Greek sophists, Egyptian mystics, Roman plunderers,
Persian necromencers, fantastic gipsy cabbalists, and you will have
some idea of the Eastern Question that is to be solved once more
after 1552 years of continuous confusion.
Free from all such dissensions at this period were the direct
descendants of Abraham or Joktan, the son of Heber, or of
Ishmael, the Semitic race of the Arabs, who lived under Sheiks or
Emirs. They were divided into three principal groups : (1) the
Arabs or Aribahs, the direct descendants of Iram or Aram, the
son of Shein; (2) the Mouta-Aribahs, or the settled descendants
of Joktan or Jokatan, according to Erevtag from “Katana,” to
take up a fixed abode, the son of Heber, son of Salah, son of
Arphaxad, son of Shein: and (3) the Mousta-Aribahs, the
descendants of Ishmael (he who was born in the desert). They
had their sanguinary feuds, not referring to theological niceties
but to their tribal genealogical tables—each of the Sheiks or
Emirs priding himself on a purer and more direct descent from
Abraham. They were valorous, loved their independence above
all, and combined the perfect freedom of a nomadic and pastoral
life with the courteous refinement of daring traders. They
possessed settlements, but they hated the corruption of large towns;
they were proud of their one god, one sanctuary, the Caaba, one
horse, one sword, one bow, and as many arrows as they could
carry. They were chivalrous, wild in their love as in their hatred
and sanguinary revenge, but they were like the northern Teutons
of Europe, honest and tolerant of those who had not the honour
of being direct descendants of Abraham, or Joktan or Ishmael.
There were all the elements of a great historical future in these
wandering tribes if they could but be inspired with one common
thought, for one common cause; if they could but be made
conscious of their irresistible power, if once united to destroy
quarrelling and dogmatising Christianity in the East, to spread
one creed all over the world, to instal one God as the Supreme
Lord of the Universe. The moving power to accomplish this
�Religious and Social Point of View.
11
appeared in Mahomet at the right moment. Every right-minded
man must blush when he refers to our so-called learned Encyclo
pedias and finds if he looks for the article Mahomet, the assertion
made with surprising unanimity that Mahomet was “ one of the
greatest impostors.” This false notion, this contemptible ignoring
of the grandeur and intellectual and moral power of individuals,
so soon as they are not of our opinion, produces those entangled
questions between East and West, nations and nations that have
cost humanity torrents of blood. Ideas, which we would resent
with indignation if taught of us, are taught in schools for thousands
of years to millions and millions of human beings, and then we
are astonished if after having sown contempt and wild hatred we
find we cannot reap forbearance and love. If Christians cannot
afford to be charitable, when is charity to come into the world ?
Mahomet when he appeared on the stage of the world found
human society in a state of dissolution analogous to that which had
existed at the advent of Christ. The Arabs were addicted to a
rude kind of idolatry; they had but one unseemly sanctuary, the
Caaba, a simple square building, by the side of the well in which
Hagar found water for her pining Ishmael. The building contained
a black stone, the grand national talisman, a meteor which the
Arabs believed had been dropped from heaven by their supreme
deity Allah or Allah-Taala (the male or active principle of creation),
in honour of Alilath (the female or passive principle of creation);
the Greek Bacchus and Venus. This black stone was placed in the
south-western corner of the Caaba, at Mecca, and was consecrated
to Sabba, or Abbah (the Abads of the Zend-people in the centre of
Asia, and the Asen of the Teutons in the farthest north of Europe),
and entrusted to the care of the Koreish tribe, more particularly
to the Hashem family of which Mahomet was a descendant.
Abul Kasem Muhammed (the glorious) was born 571 in the sixth
century, a.d.—and died 632 (61 years old). His father was
Abdallah (the beautiful) who married Amina, and on this occasion
two hundred ladies are said to have expired of jealousy and despair.
His grandfather was Abdul Motalleb, who saved Mecca from the
Abyssinians, and triumphantly carried away the talisman, the black
stone, and had it replaced in the sanctuary. His great-grand
father was Hashem, who succeeded in averting a famine by sacrific
ing all his worldly goods to the suffering. What wonder that a
boy, with such a pedigree, should have become a religious dreamer
and a fanatic, in times, when he heard nothing but theological
discussions. The Persian legends assert that at the birth of
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The Eastern Question; from a
Mahomet the eternal fires on the altars of the Magi were ex
tinguished. It was further said that on the night of his birth all
heathen and Christian idols sighed and shrieked, and that a wise
Jew proclaimed from a watch-tower that the star of Messiah had
just risen, and that the Saviour of the world had been born. It
was said, that the first spiritual ray proceeding from Allah was
Mahomet’s soul, of which God proclaimed: “In thee dwells my
light, for thy sake let the earth expand itself, and I create paradise
and hell. The divine first ray had burned in Adam and Seth, in
Abraham and Moses, the prophets and Christ, but became flesh in
Mahomet.” When such ideas with reference to any mortal teacher
are spread, taught, and continually repeated from father to son, he
must in time become a mighty spiritual agent, and sway the minds
of millions and millions of people.
Divested of all “supernatural” cant, Mahomet must have been a
great and powerfid mind. He was undoubtedly a wise man in his
generation. When twenty-five years old he married an elderly but
rich widow Cadijah, and at the age of forty-one he first confessed
that he had received a divine revelation, which commanded him to put
an end to the idolatrous state of humanity and to teach in the true
Semitic sense the absolute indivisible unity of the one indivisible
Deity. Mahomet was illiterate and uneducated in theological
casuistry, but he read and studied the book of human nature. He
travelled as a keenly observant merchant, came into contact with
men of all nations and denominations, drew comparisons and
analogies between the creeds of all nations, and discovered with a
clear perception of combinations the weakness of the fallen Persian
and Roman Empires. He saw with a terrified and troubled heart
the degeneracy, profligacy, licentiousness of his times, and the
division, animosity and hatred amongst the Christian, Jewish,
Greek, and Egyptian absolute and dissolute theologians; he con
versed with Jewish rabbis, Persian parsees, Syrian monks, and
Christian sectarians who found refuge and protection amongst the
wild sons of the desert; he made himself acquainted with the laws
of Moses, the abstruse doctrines of Zoroaster, and the pure vivifying
teachings of Christ. Each year during the month of Ramadan
he withdrew from the world in the cave of Hera, three miles
from Mecca, and there he dreamt dreams, had lively visions,
spiritualistic communications from God, and visits from the angel
Namaus (Gabriel), who thundered into his ears these grand words:
“Devote thyself to the service of Allah (the one God), the Lord of
the East and West, of Winter and Summer; for there is no other
�Religious and Social Point of View.
13
God but He!” During fully three years he succeeded in converting
no more than seven or fourteen persons. The majority of his
family and the leaders of the Koreish tribe were violently opposed
to the reformer, seventy of the latter swore to plunge their swords
into his irreligious heart. Mahomet’s house was surrounded by
these wild fanatics, but he escaped (622 a.d. 16tb of July)- Ten
years later, Syria, the territories on the Euphrates and the Greek
Empire were invaded and Mecca taken by the victorious followers
of Mahomet, and the surrounding country as far as the Arabian
Gulf was conquered and placed under the dominion of this mighty
Puritan monotheistic ruler and his sword. Up to the period of his
flight Mahomet had wished to teach by persuasion: he was kind and
tolerant, but through violent resistance and unexpected victory his
wild Asiatic nature and his Semitic egotistic character gained the
upper hand. He then declared war—sanguinary war against all
those who did not share his religious opinions, and sacrificed them
to the wrath of his Allah. The Koran was to be the only holv
book of the world, written by the pen of light on God’s tablet,
containing the eternal decrees of God himself.
Mahomet’s faith stood to the other religions of the East exactly
in the same relation as Puritanism to the Established Church in
England; his soldiers were the mighty valiant covenanters of the
East, who rushed with their Koran as these with their Bibles into
battle and conquered. “To believe in the one God, to fast, to drink
no wine (which neither our covenanters have observed, and least of all
their descendants do observe), to remove the sense of speciality and
consequent separation from the infinite, arising from bodily limita
tion, and to give alms, that is, to get rid of particular private
possession,” were Mahomet’s principal injunctions; but the highest
merit in a believer on earth was his dving for the orthodox faith of
the prophet. “He who perished for this faith in battle after having
killed at least one infidel, was sure of Paradise.” Eor twelve
centuries Mahomet’s ideas have ruled the daily life, the hopes in a
future world, the prayers, morals and destinies of nearly one-fifth
of the human race. Since he first proclaimed his revelation to the
world, 3765 generations have passed away, amounting to about
thirty-six thousand millions of human beings (at a low rate), who
all acknowledge him as a special messenger from God. His
followers kindled in the West an analogous fanatic religious ex
citement, first in Charlemagne, who was a Christian Mahomet,
wielding the cross instead of the crescent, obeying a pope, instead
of Allah and his prophet; next in the mighty crusaders. Through
�14
The Eastern Question; from a
the Mahometans poetry, arts and sciences, chivalry and philosophy
were revived in the West. Scholasticism with all its brilliant
negative successes, its division into realists and nominalists, its
fierce battles on inherited sin and grace, regeneration, predestina
tion, and the eucharist—and its final positive results, showing at
last the utter uselessness of the dry, barren, dialectical efforts
leading to mere verbiage —or to speak with Hamlet to “words—
words—words!” — had its root in Mahometanism. Whilst our
ecclesiastical wise men contended that it is sinful to use blood, or
to eat things strangled, to partake of lard, to wear rings on the
fingers, that the priests ought to have beards, and that at baptism
men ought not to be contented with one single immersion, the
Arabs in the East still retained a high degree of zeal for the culture
of the sciences. They studied astronomy, arithmetic, algebra,
geometry, anatomy, chemistry, botany, and above all geography
and philosophy, especially in the more practical sense of Aristotle
through the immortal Averroes. Architecture and decorative
art received new impulses—for as long as Persians and Arabs
were the apostles of Mahometanism it had vitality. Thirtysix thousand fortified camps and places in Persia, Asia Minor,
Africa, and Europe were stormed and taken. More than twenty
thousand four hundred mosques, pointing with their slim minarets
to heaven, were constructed from the borders of the Ebro in Spain
to the shores of the Granges, from the Oxus and Euphrates to the
Atlantic Ocean, proclaiming the glory of Allah. All this was
accomplished a few decades after Mahomet's flight to Medina.
Without the quarrelling Christians there could have been no
Mahometans. The appearance and success of Mahomet prove the
eternal law of action and reaction in the intellectual as well as in
the physical world. The disturbed balance between morals and
intellect, between professions and actions, between mind and matter,
was to be adjusted in the East, and Mahomet with his faith worked
at this task. Religion was freed from all metaphysical subtleties.
The simplicity of faith was concentrated in one single indisputable
sentence : “There is but one Grod”—or “one first incomprehensible
cause.” Allah was to be the Grod of all, whether poor or rich, wise
or ignorant, who believed in Him, and his worship was to be purely
intellectual. No ceremonies, no symbols, no mystic representations,
no images of animals or men were tolerated. When Omar came
from Medina on a camel, carrying only two bags, one with rice,
the other with dates, a wooden dish and a leathern water-bottle,
constituting the whole of his furniture, and took possession of
�Religious and Social Point of View.
15
Jerusalem, the sacred town of Judaism and Christianity, he proved
the power of the fanatic faith on which Mahometanism was based.
In opposition to the Christian Church, pomp and vanity were to
give way to stern and shapeless faith. Theological discussions had
to yield to a deeper study of nature and science. The ink of the
doctors, not discussing incomprehensible mysteries, but the powers
of nature or the abstractions of geometry and mathematics, was
considered “equally valuable with the blood of martyrs.” Under
the gentle sway of the Caliphs, paradise was as much for him who
had rightly used his pen, not in questions of faith, (for these were
all settled in the Koran), but in subjects of medicine or alchemy,
as for him who had fallen by the sword. The world was declared
to be sustained by/our things: the learning of the wise, the justice
of the great, the prayers of the good, and the valour of the brave.
Instead of erecting dim-looking churches and splendidly decorated
public-houses in close vicinity, they built the school near the
mosque, and often the mosques were merely schools. Every thing
changed, when by degrees the wild Mongol hordes came down
from the highlands of Northern Asia, took possession of the
kingdom of the Caliphs, superseded the gentler rule of the Persians
and Arabs, and developed all the hidden faults and incongruities of
the Koran. The Eastern question became from that moment not
a religious, but a racial or tribal and social question. About 1100
a.d. the Mahometans were divided into several states, namely, the
Persian, Syrian, Median, Khorasan and the territory beyond the
Oxus river. The Tartars rose to power in the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries, and these hordes, under their leader Osman, meaning the
“ bone-breaker,” strengthened by robbers, fugitive Christian slaves,
founded a mighty Ottoman Empire on the ruins of the Seldshooks,
Arabs and Persians, aided by the dissensions of the degenerated
subjects of the Byzantine Emperors. This Empire expanded under
his successors, especially Mahomet I., who advanced as far as
Salzburg and Bavaria, whilst the pious fathers of Western Europe
tried to give spiritual peace to the Church by burning Huss at
Constance and deposing three popes. His son Murad II. though
opposed by the heroic Skanderbeg, and the still more heroic
Johannes Hunnyady, augmented the Empire till Mahomet II. took
Constantinople on the 29th of May, 1453, with the help of Christian
soldiers, who felt themselves more comfortable under the sway of
the Turks and Tartars than under their more implacable theological
masters. We may sneer at the Turks, who struck terror into all
Europe by their conquests, but it is a fact, that for three centuries
�16
The Eastern Question; from a
and a half, under twelve heroic sultans, they were invincible: they
subdued Egypt, the Barbary States, and all the Arabian Coasts on
the Bed Sea. “ In Europe they conquered the Crimea, and the
countries along the Danube; they overran Hungary and Tran
sylvania, and repeatedly laid siege to A ienna. At sea, notwith
standing the gallant resistance of the Venetians, they subdued
Rhodes, Kyprus, and all the Greek islands,” says the immortal
Cobden in his pamphlet on Russia, written exactly a quarter of a
century ago, in which he gave us sound advice with reference to
Turkey. He was, however, a preacher in the desert. Cobden
referred to the social and religious organization of the Turks, which
dates from 1538, when Soliman united in the Sultan the dignities
of the A ice-regent of the Prophet and the lay-ruler. The Koran
became from that time the only guide in social and political
matters: all other fields of learning and art were cordially despised.
The Turks are religiously ignorant of all that forms the education
of an Italian, Englishman, Frenchman or German. A Turk, or
rather Ottoman, knows nothing of the countries beyond the bounds
of the Sultan's dominions. “Notwithstanding that this people
have been for nearly four centuries in absolute possession of all the
noblest remains of ancient art, they have evinced no taste for
architecture or sculpture, whilst painting and music are equally
unknown to them.” But why? Because they have to bow down
to the most bigoted and intolerant branch of the Mahometan faith.
They have become what we should have become if the intolerant
bigots had borne all before them. Our own bigots whitewashed
our sacred buildings, smashed in our painted windows, abominated
sculptured men and women, whether saints or heathen gods and
goddesses. They tried to stop all progress, cursed astronomy,
zoology and geology as contrary to the word of God, despised
learning as creating sceptics and infidels; and some of their leaders,
who pretend to learning, even now force chronology in the narrow
time-boundaries of Rabbi Hillel’s and Bishop Usher’s dates. They
composed garbled inscriptions in our own British Museum, which
they keep closed ou Sundays, fearing lest the masses should find
greater spiritual delight in draughts of knowledge than in alcoholic
spirits. They are afraid that comparative mythology might dawn
upon the people; that Egyptian monuments and relics might teach
them that their important symbols, about which they quarrel with
the same bitterness as the Turkish theologians on the knotty point,
“whether the feet should be washed at rising, or only rubbed with
the dry hand,” are only purloined from old heathens; that their
�Religious and Social Point of View.
17
eastern and western postures are as irrevalent to piety, as the
Turk’s turning towards Mecca (the birth-place of the prophet), in
saying his prayers.
■ From the moment when the Turks placed their home-rule and
foreign affairs under the stable, immovable dictates of the Koran
progress became impossible. For the. nomadic character of the
shepherd predominates in them. “ The Divine Glory,” is said, in
a speech of Mohamet’s, “ is among the shepherds; vanity and
impudence among the agriculturists.” The accredited collections
of traditions tell the following of Abu Umama al-Bahili : “ Once
on seeing a ploughshare and another agricultural implement, he
said, 1 heard the prophet sav : “ These implements do not
enter into the house of a nation, unless that Allah causes lowmindedness to enter in there at the same time.”—(Abuchan
Recueil). Of Chalif Omar the Turks believe, that when dying he
recommended in his political testament the Bedawi (nomads) to
his successors, “ ff»r they are the root of the Arabs and the germ of
Islam,” and “ how little this Arabian politician could appreciate
the importance of agriculture,” says Dr. Goldziher in his work,
“Mythology among the Hebrews” (London: Longmans, Green,
and Co., 1877), “ is evident from the edict in which he most
strictly forbade the Arabs to acquire landed possession and
practise agriculture in the conquered districts. The only mode of
life equally privileged with the roving nomad life, was held to be the
equally roving military profession, or life of nomads without herds
and with arms.” These few lines permit us a deep insight into
the state of Turkey. The Turks keep too faithfully to their
sacred book and the traditions of the military founders of their
faith.
We advance because we possess the great talent of bringing
our sacred laws into harmony with the exigencies of our times and
social condition. It is enacted that “ the hare because he cheweth
the cud (which the hare, however, does not do), but divideth not
the hoof (which the hare most extraordinarily does), he is unclean
unto von ; ” but we eat it. It is enacted that “ the swine, though
he divided the hoof and be clovenfooted, yet he cheweth not the
cud, he is unclean to you ; ” yet we eat bacon for breakfast, and
pork in many ways. It is enacted “ that if anyone asks your
coat, we ought to give him our cloak: ” but if anyone writes to
us a mere begging letter, we give him in charge as au impostor,
and leave him to the tender mercies of the police, or of a Rev.
County magistrate, who sends a little girl of nine years of age to
�18
The Eastern Question ; from a
jail, because she picks up a few potatoes or a half-rotten cabbage
in some rich farmer's field. It is enacted “ that if anyone smites
your right cheek, you should turn to him your left; ” but if any
good believer were to smite anybody’s right cheek, he would soon
find out in a police-cell that we refuse to hold out our left cheek,
but have, in the interest of society, the man locked up who would
dare to live up to the literal sense of our holv book. Unhappily
with the Turks all this is not the case. They still believe with
blind faith in fatalism, or as we call it, in predestination. “ What
must happen will happen ! ” For Allah's will must be done.
1 have often had the pleasure of visiting mighty Pashas in the
East, they lived in castles and fortressess at Belgrad, Widdin,
Rustshuk, Varna, and Constantinople; half the windows were
broken, sometimes mended with paper, sometimes left broken—
“ Allah will mend them
but Allah does not do so. The Pasha,
however, who lived in a castle with broken windows, dilapidated
staircases, broken doors, without any furniture, smoked a “tshibuk”
that had an amber mouthpiece set with diamonds worth from two
to three thousand pounds ; the coffee was brought in on a tray of
pure gold, and served in “ filtchans ” of gold studded with precious
stones. Everything here still betrays the nomadic character—they
hoard moveable goods, but have no concern with agriculture or a
settled state of life. Their administration is as bad as was that in
France before the grand and sanguinary revolution. The judges
administer justice according to the dictates of the Koran. The
tax-gatherers are farmers of the public revenue. “ The situations
of Pasha, cadi, or judge are all given to the highest bidders,” and
all offices are publicly sold. Under such an administration pro
gress must be very slow or altogether impossible. A fierce
unmitigated military despotism, swayed bv a gloomy, religious
fanaticism, that teaches its followers to rely solely on Allah and
the sword crushes all vitality in the state-body, checks arts, and
makes science subservient to the requirements of the army or
navy, hinders the growth of cities, the increase of knowledge, and
the accumulation of wealth. The first step with the Ottomans in
the direction of reform must be to separate politics and religion,
and obtain an honest and conscientious administration for Greeks,
Turks, Jews, Christians, Roman Catholics, Nestorians, Unitarians,
Armenians, and Bashi-Bozouks. Above all they must emancipate
their women !
The Turks, like all oriental nations, especially those of the Semitic
branch of humanity, degrade the position of women. We ourselves
�Religious and Social Point of View.
19
are struggling against the religious remnants of Asiatic customs,
tempered to a certain degree by our Teutonic forefathers, and the
teachings of Christianity. We still look upon women as inferior
creatures, teach them less than men, and leave them more at the
mercy of the spiritual advisers, who often use the powerful female
element to create serious mischief in families and even States.
Neither Russian police officers, nor Kosacks, nor a mixed com
mittee of European statesmen, none of whom will agree with the
other, each of whom will strive to promote some secondary object
in the East, will be of any service in the regeneration of Turkey—
but the advantage to be gained by replacing woman into her legiti
mate social and family position would be incalculable.
Neither Cross nor Crescent can bring about freedom and a
salutary reform in the East till woman is reinstated in her rights
in Eastern society, freed from the stupifying and brutalising
influences of the Harem. Women are the teachers of our next
generations during the most sacred time of our lives, the dawn of
our consciousness, when all impressions are most vivid and leave
imperishable traces. And what are the women in the East ? They
must be elevated to be the companions of the Turk’s social life in
which woman ought to shine as the static, passive element of
humanity, softening man's passions, guiding his taste, and elevating
his more boisterous nature. Woman in the East has no share in
the administration of the Empire, except the brutal influence under
sensual impulses. The disturbed relations between men and
women in Turkey practically transform morality into immorality,
checking in men the use of their brain-power, and making them
peevish women. Men and women, thus deprived of freedom of
action, can neither establish the rule of intellect nor the sway of
genuine morals. There are, however, many good qualities in the
Turks. Air. W. R. S. Ralston has pointed them out in a masterly
article on “ Turkish Story-books ” in the first number of “ The
Nineteenth Century Review.” “ All who know the Turkish common
people intimately speak well of them. Sober, honest, and
industrious, the Turk, so long as he is poor and lowly, is a
respectable member of society.” We must not forget that the
Turks keep guard with guns and swords at the grave of Christ at
Jerusalem, and prevent the dissenting Greeks and Roman
Catholics, Armenians, and Nestorians from discussing their theo
logical differences with blows at that sacred place. There is
undoubtedly more cohesion amongst the Turks than amongst the
motley crowd of Greeks, Jews, Catholics, and Protestants, who all
�20
The Eastern Question; from a
hate one another, persecute one another, and prefer to bend under
the government of their common foe, the Turk, than to allow any
of the other tribes or denominations to rule over them. The
Jews, Armenians, Greeks, and Roman Catholics are all free under
the Turks, but all of them persecute one another. The Jew must
not possess in Servia, the Greek is hunted down in Bosnia, the
united Armenian will have nothing to do with a Greek not
united believer, and to this religious animosity must be added
the national idiosinerasies. The Slavons hate the Greeks, the
Bosnians detest the Bulgarians, the Greeks return the feeling
with interest to the Slavons. The Turks have not hitherto been
able to bring union and cohesion into these antagonistic elements.
How then might this difficult question be solved ? So long as Sir
Stratford Canning (now Lord Stratford de Redcliffe) ruled
supreme in Constantinople, Turkey prospered and advanced steadily;
for to assert that nothing has improved in Turkey during the last fifty
years is a deliberate untruth, or the outburst of utter ignorance ; but
since Lord Stratford de Redclifle left, the Turks have relapsed into
their “koranic” apathy of fatalism. We ought to send out English
administrators to teach the Turks how to rule and become masters
of the eternal intrigues of Slavon agitators, conspirators, emissaries,
spies, diplomatic agents, missionaries, theologians, and special
correspondents, who go out from here, without any historical or
social knowledge of the country, and who on arrival become
“ atrocity-mongers ”—reporting one-sidedly, according to the cue
thev receive—endeavouring to excite a Russian crusade in the
name of down-trodden Christianity. Are we perhaps to revive
the old rule of the Greek Christian Emperors in the East—are we
to have a repetition of the misdeeds that disgraced humanity, and
produced the Mahometan reaction ? Do we aspire to see another
Basilios murder Michael and usurp his throne ; is a second Con
stantine to rule by the grace of his mother, and priests and
monks ? Is another Theophana to poison her husbands ; a second
Tzimiskes to become Emperor, after he had murdered Nikepheros
in his bed room, to be slowly poisoned in his turn to make room
for another murderer? Do we want to see another Basilios II.
(976—1015) blind 15,000 Bulgarians, sending them back to
their country, because they dared to attack him? The Turks had
in the Christian rulers, that swayed the destinies of the East
before them, not exactly the most forgiving teachers in the practice
of forbearance and tolerance. Are these times to be revived ?
Can we hope anything for Turkey from mere diplomatic agents,
�Religious and Social Point of View.
21
settling the destinies of 30,000,000 of human beings with pen and
ink ? If we are not prepared to support our protocols with
Armstrongs and Woolwich infants, with “blood and iron,” as
Bismarck would say, it would be better for us to pour oil on the
troubled waters, instead of fanning the flames of rebellion in the
East bv frightening the Turks, rousing their fanaticism, or by
encouraging the Slavons to disobedience, and then leaving them to
the tender mercies of their terrified task-masters, abusing them in
their turn, when they dared to imitate our ways to put down a
rebellion. The Austrian Government, after it restored peace in
Hungary with 80,000 Russians, had more than 1000 of the
noblest Hungarian patriots hanged and shot: Louis Napoleon III.,
after having dragonaded the Bourgeoisie of Paris, shooting down
some 4000 human beings, bombarding the Boulevards des Italiens,
had from 20—30,000 Trench citizens, who dared to adhere to the
legitimate Republican Government, transported to Cayenne. Men
and women were seized in the dead of the night and hurled away to
perish in misery and want. Are the riders of Turkey to govern
according to these noble examples? We must teach the Turks to
rely upon themselves. Exhausted, down-trodden, over-regulated,
the Hungarians gloriously attained their rights and privileges,
their freedom and happiness, not through foreign intervention or
protocols, newspaper articles, and one-sided speeches, to make
political capital out of the sufferings, agonies and despair of
Christians and Turks—but by relying on themselves.
Russia can, and will never solve the Eastern question. Of
her Government Herzen says in his work, “ Russia, and her
Social Condition : ” “ Terrible, nay fearful is the lot prepared for
him who dares in Russia to lift his head above the yoke imposed
upon us by the imperial Sceptre. The history of Russian litera
ture is a list of martyrs, or a register of criminals.” Rylejeff was
hanged. Pushkin was shot, when scarcely twenty-eight years old.
Gribojedoff was murdered at Taheran. Lermontoff was killed in
the Caucasus. Wenewitinoff perished, when thirtv-two years old,
through the influences of a dissolute society. Kolzoff was per
secuted to death by a bigoted relative, and died of grief at the age
of thirty-three. Belinsky, when thirty-five, starved to death in
misery. Polejaeff died in exile. Bestusheff died when quite young
in the Caucasus as a private soldier, after having served a period of
hard labour in Siberia. These are the Russian Byrons, Words
worths, Swinburnes, Buchanans, Macaulays. Maurices, and Carlyles,
who are treated in this merciless style. From Russia we have to
�22
The Eastern Question; from a
hope nothing for the regeneration of the East, neither from an
intellectual nor commercial point of view. Freedom and tolerance
are even less practised in Russia than in Turkey.
We may hope everything from an internal movement of the
united populations of Turkey. Let them become conscious of the
beauty, fertility and resources of their soil, which extends from 34
to 48 degrees north within the temperate zone, upon the same
parallels as France, Spain, and all the best portion of the United
States. Let them revive industry and agriculture, for “ Turkey in
many parts is more fruitful than the richest plains in Sicily.
When grazed by the rudest plough, it yields a more abundant
harvest than the finest fields between the Eure and the Loire, the
granary of France. Mines of silver and copper and iron still exist
(and could be worked to the benefit of the country), and salt
abounds. Tobacco, cotton and silk might be made the staple
exports of this region, and their culture admits of almost unlimited
extension throughout the Turkish territory: whilst some of the
native wines are equal to those of Burgundy. The heights of the
Danube are clad with apple, plum, cherry, and apricot trees—whole
forests cover the hills of Thrace, Macedonia and Epirus. The olive,
orange, mastic, fig and pomegranate, the laurel, myrtle, and nearly
all the beautiful and aromatic shrubs and plants are natural to the
soil. Nor are the animal productions less valuable than those of
vegetable life. The finest horses have been drawn from this
quarter to improve the breeds of Western Europe; and the rich
pastures of European Turkey are, probably, the best adapted in the
world for rearing the largest growth of cattle and sheep.”
Let the Turks above all discard all religious prejudices and
national animosities, and unite in one brotherhood to free their
country for the benefit of every citizen of whatever nationality or
religion. Freedom will be a stronger bond of union than Russian
battalions. But freedom never comes from heaven downwards, it
must take root in the lowest layers of a people here on earth and
grow upwards, and when grown it will apparently shower down its
blessings from above.
Neither Sultan nor Czar will free men, they must do it for
themselves. Greeks, Serbs, Bulgarians, Bosnians, Armenians and
Turks must hope everything from themselves: they must not
refuse to go to their so-called mock-parliament, they must go and
make their brethren hear the public voice of wants and complaints,
of right and justice. They must take their constitution as we took
ours, cherish and fondle it, nurse it during its childhood, educate
�Religious and Social Point of View.
23
it into boyhood and rear it in time into manhood. They must
learn to do as we did, and not think that neglected nations can
grow over-night into patterns of freely constituted societies. They
must, however, do all their reforms amongst themselves, on their
own soil unaided, uninspired by foreign secret societies.
“Man’s fate lies in his own hand,” is an old apophthegm, and it
stands for nations as well; for nations are but multiplications of
individuals. The destinies of nations have generally been most
retarded or altogether ruined by foreign meddling.
Our duty in England is to watch over Turkey with a heart full of
love for freedom and justice. We have only the sacred interests of
humanity to guard, we have nothing in common with the clandestine
Bulgarian conspirators nor their mysterious instigators, or the
Servian rebels, nor with the wild and wrathful Bashi-Bozouks: we
must try to bring them all to their senses and relative duties.
Why does diplomacy not venture to interfere with our Home
rulers or our Fenians or our prosecutions of spiritualists or
refractory ritualistic priests? Simply because we have learned to
manage our own business. Why did no one attempt to interfere
with the North American presidential elections and ask for an
international committee for the protection of Republicans and
Democrats ? Because the American people know how to manage
their own business. We should teach the Turks that Bible and
Koran, missal and hymn book might go together; that Patriarchs
and Sheik-Ul-Islams, Imams and Papas, preachers and Khatibs,
rabbis and priests, Great-Logethets and Khakham-Bashis can be
made to agree, if they live under an enlightened lay-government
that knows how to enforce respect for the laws, and grants perfect
freedom to the individual to develop as an independent member of
a well regulated society. A new life would arise on the golden
horn—Constantinople would become the most splendid city in
Europe, the most attractive resort for civilized Europeans, a kind
of 1 ans of the East. F reedom and equality of religion would
bring the three monotheistic religions into fraternal union and
glorious harmony—the demoralizing position of women would be
changed—Greek, Slavon and Arab, poets and learned men would
vie with one another on the fields of glowing imagination and cool
reflecting reason. Instead of a burning Eastern question we
should then have a solution worthy of the spirit of our age, and
should give a new life to Turkey in the North of Asia, as we have
given to India in the South.
�SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY.
To provide for the delivery on Sundays in the Metropolis, and to encourage
the delivery elsewhere, of Lectures on Science,—physical, intellectual,
and moral,—History, Literature, and Art; especially in their bearing
upon the improvement and social well-being of mankind.
THE SOCIETY’S
LECTURES
ARE DELIVERED AT
ST. GEORGE’S HALL, LANGHAM PLACE,
On SUNDAY Afternoons, at FOUR o'clock precisely
(Annually—from November to May).
Twenty-Four Lectures (in three series), ending 29tli April, 1877, will
be given.
Members’ .£1 subscription entitles them to an annual ticket transfer
able (and admitting to the reserved seats), and to eight single reservedseat tickets available for any lecture.
Tickets for each series (one for each lecture) as below,—
To the Shilling Reserved Seats—5s. 6d.
To the Sixpenny Seats—2s., being at the rate of Threepence each
lecture.
For tickets, also for printed lectures, apply (by letter) to the lion.
Treasurer, Wm. Henry Domville, Esq., 15, Gloucester Crescent, Hyde
Park, W.
Payment at the doorOne Penny;—Sixpence;—and (Reserved Seats)
One Shilling.
The Society’s Lectures by the same Author, which have
been printed, are—on
“ Natural Phenomena and their Influence on different Religious Systems.”
“ The Vedas and the Zend-Avesta : the First Dawn of Religious Conscious
ness in Humanity.”
The above are out of print.
“ The Origin and the Abstract and Concrete Nature of the Devil.”
“ Dreams and Ghosts.”
” Ethics and ^Esthetics.”
“ The Spontaneous Dissolution of Ancient Creeds.”
“ Dogma and Science.”
All price 3d., or post-free, 3bd.
By the same Author are the following Works:—
“ Faust,” by Goethe, with Critical and Explanatory Notes. Second Edition.
London: David Nutt, 270, Strand. 18(52.
“ Spiritualism and Animal Magnetism.” Third Edition. London: Hardwicke & Bogue, 192, Piccadilly. 1870.
“ A Manual of the Historical Development of Art: Pre-historic, Ancient,
Classic, and Early Christian.” London: Hardwick & Bogue, 192,
Piccadilly. 1876.
Kenny & Co., Printbbs, 25, Camden Road, London, N.W.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
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Original Format
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Pamphlet
Dublin Core
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Title
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The Eastern question from a religious and social point of view : a lecture delivered before the Sunday Lecture Society, St George's Hall, Langham Place, on 25th March, 1877
Creator
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Zerffi, G. G. (Gustavus George)
Description
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 23 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Part of the NSS pamphlet collection. Publisher's advertisements on back page. In diplomatic history, the "Eastern Question" refers to the strategic competition and political considerations of the European Great Powers in light of the political and economic instability in the Ottoman Empire from the late 18th to early 20th centuries. [Source: Wikipedia, 3/2018].
Publisher
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Sunday Lecture Society
Date
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1877
Identifier
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N701
Subject
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Ottoman Empire
Religion
Rights
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The Eastern question from a religious and social point of view : a lecture delivered before the Sunday Lecture Society, St George's Hall, Langham Place, on 25th March, 1877), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
Eastern Question
NSS
Ottoman Empire