Such, they say, is his thought; and such doubtless would be the empire of the future that Mussulmans would choose.  Only it is improbable that it would continue to be in any sense Ottoman, or that Abd el Hamid would have the opportunity of himself establishing it.  The loss of Constantinople would be a blow to his prestige he could not well recover from, and no new empire ever yet was founded on defeat.  What is far more likely to happen is that, in such an event, Abd el Hamid and his house would disappear, and an entirely new order of Caliphal succession take their place.  Even without supposing any such convulsion to the empire as a loss of the Bosphorus, his reign will hardly be a long one.  The Ulema of Constantinople are by no means all on his side, and the party of “Young Turkey,” cowed for the moment by the terrorism which there prevails, is his bitter enemy, and will not let him rest.  It will infallibly on the next danger from Europe, show its head again and take its revenge.

It is said to be the programme of this party, when it next comes to power, to separate the spiritual functions of the Caliphate from those of the head of the State, copying, in so far, the modern practice of Europe towards the Papacy.  I suppose that it would be attempted to restore that state of things, which as we have already seen, existed at Cairo in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; and it is just conceivable that, as far as Turkey itself was concerned, such an arrangement might, for a time, succeed.  There would then be two powers at Constantinople, a Maire du Palais who would reign, and a Caliph who would be head of religion;—­a separation of offices which would certainly facilitate the sort of reform that Midhat and his friends desire.  But to the world at large the event would only signify that Constantinople had formally abdicated her claim to leadership, and Islam would never acknowledge as Caliph the mere puppet of an irreligious clique of officials, because he happened to be a member of the Beni Othman.  His political power is the only thing that reconciles Islam with an Ottoman Caliph, and without sovereignty he would be discarded.  In whatever way, therefore, that we look at it, there seems justification in probability for the conviction already cited that after Abd el Hamid a new order of Caliphal succession will be seen.

It seems to be an universal opinion at the present day among those who think at all upon the matter, that whatever change may be impending for Islam, it will be in the direction of concentration rather than of extension.  All parties see that the day of outside conquest is at an end, and that the utmost that Islam can look forward to politically is the maintenance of its present positions, and as an extreme possibility the emancipation of its lost provinces in India and North Africa from Christian rule.  There is, therefore, a conviction that the removal of the seat of supreme authority, when made, will