or any certain reason of exultation for their enemies in the thought that with the fall of Constantinople Islam, too, will have fallen.  On the contrary, I see in the coming destruction of the Ottoman supremacy, and in the exclusion of the northern races, even at the cost of their religious support, from the counsels of the faithful, an element of hope in the future far outweighing the immediate chagrin which may be caused by loss of sovereignty or loss of population.

The Mohammedan population which the fall of Constantinople would conceivably cut off from the main body could not at most number more than some twenty millions, and when we remember that this is no more than a tithe of the whole Mussulman census, and that the proportion is a constantly decreasing one, it will be evident that there is little ground for looking at the loss as one necessarily fatal to religion.  The northern races still give to Mohammedanism an appearance of physical strength; but it is an appearance only, and it is given at the cost of its intellectual vigour.  The political success of the Turks has for centuries thrown Islam off its moral equilibrium, and their disappearance from its supreme counsels will give weight to races more worthy of representing religious interests.  Constantinople will be replaced by Cairo or Mecca, and the Tartar by the Arab—­an exchange which, intellectually considered, no lover of Islam need deplore.

One great result the fall of Constantinople certainly will have, which I believe will be a beneficial one.  It will give to Mohammedanism a more distinctly religious character than it has for many centuries possessed, and by forcing believers to depend upon spiritual instead of temporal arms will restore to them, more than any political victories could do, their lost moral life.  Even independently of considerations of race as between Turk and Arab, I believe that the fall of the Mussulman Empire, as a great temporal dominion, would relieve Islam of a burden of sovereignty which she is no longer able in the face of the modern world to support.  She would escape the stigma of political depravity now clinging to her, and her aims would be simplified and intensified.  I have already stated my opinion that it is to Arabia that Mussulmans must in the future look for a centre of their religious system, and a return of their Caliphate to Mecca will signify more than a mere political change.  It is obvious that empire will be there impossible in the sense given to it at Constantinople, and that the display of armies and the mundane glory of vast palaces and crowds of slaves will be altogether out of place.