Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 132.djvu/138

 Christians; but there is no indication of opinion, or account of any steps taken, at the Foreign Office.

I have thus stated the claim put forward by the Greeks themselves to a hearing at the conference of the powers on Eastern affairs, if such a conference should be held. There are signs which render it more or less probable that they may proceed to substantiate their claim by votes de fait. In any alternative it is not wise to attempt to get past the present disturbance without giving their existence even a thought.

For months the Christians of Turkey, other than Slav, have been out of sight and out of mind. It certainly is not too early to examine a little into their cases.

There are four Christian races under the dominion of the Porte. The question of the Slavs is going to the conference, or the sword. The case of the Wallachs of Roumania is happily disposed of; one of the greatest and best results of the Crimean war. The case of the Armenians, who, like the Wallachs, are stated to be four millions, is presented argumentatively in a Mémoire dated October, 1876, and laid before each of the great powers. The more proximate case of the Hellenic provinces of European Turkey is that which I shall now endeavor to unfold. And this not only because it is the portion of the house next to the present conflagration, and most likely to be caught by it; but also because the history of the proceedings, through which the kingdom of free Greece was established, affords most interesting precedents, and an admirable guidance for any government, or representative of a government, desirous to deal with the great Eastern problem in the spirit of the best traditions of his country. On their title to be dealt with by the conference I do not presume absolutely to pronounce. We may see applied to these populations the maxim, —

I cordially hope that it will be deemed wise and just to consider their case. But without prejudging the point, I proceed to sketch in outline the most material parts of an interesting history.

In common with the Italians, but in a still more conspicuous degree, the Greeks have been remarkable among men alike for the favors and the spite of fortune. And it is no wonder if, amidst many difficulties and discouragements, and even such discouragements as arise from defects and vices of their own, they cling to the belief that the severity of their trials is in truth a presage of a happy and distinguished future, acting like the flame of the furnace on the metal which is to issue from it. The fall of the race was indeed from so great a height, and to such a depth of misery, as is without parallel in history. The first stage of their descent was when they came under the Roman dominion. But Græcia capta ferum victorem cepit. This first reverse was mitigated by the majesty of the power to which they succumbed, and by a continuous intellectual reign; such that, when Christianity went forth into the world, no sooner had it moved outwards from its cradle in Jerusalem, than it assumed the aspect of a Greek religion. That aspect it bore for centuries. In the Greek tongue, and by minds in which the Greek element predominated, was moulded that creed, which still remains the intellectual basis of the Christian system. In the second century, it was still the ruling Christian tongue in Rome, where Pope Victor was the first who wrote in Latin on the business of the Church. Perhaps the greatest measure, ever accomplished by a single man at a single stroke, was the foundation of Constantinople; whose empire survived, by a thousand years, that of the elder Rome. Here, too, Greek influences acquired ascendancy: and we ought to wonder, not so much at the final fall of the 