No European confederacy, then, still less any single nation, can force Turkey out of Europe by resolving to impose new conditions on it, which it will not, or cannot accept. Yet we do not counsel the folding of the arms in a resignation which borders on fatalism. It may come to pass that Turkey, like any other nation, may so change for the worse its original character, and may so sin against that common law of nations which is more sacred than any statute or treaty, that, as madmen are put by their neighbours in a strait waistcoat, and they who offend against society are sent to Coventry, Turkey may provoke surrounding Governments to vote it out of Europe.[1] “Necessity has no law.” But has Turkey so acted? On the contrary, however far its conduct towards Christians in the East may fall short of that ideal standard by which Russia now takes a fancy to measure it, has there not been for a long time, with occasional exceptions, a marked and steadily progressive improvement in the exercise of its now declining government, as regards them? It would need some sudden and flagrant excess to justify the arming of Europe against it, still more to warrant the zeal of such a solitary champion as the Czar.
But is there no other power which threatens to become, rather than Turkey, a public offender? Are the instinctive and constant apprehensions of all Europe on the side of Russia pure hallucinations? Are they not so strong as to survive every fresh apprehension from France? Is not every help which Russia has lent against revolutionary principles accepted with suspicion, as insincere; with a grudge, as dearly bought; with dread, as dangerous to European liberty? Whatever ties may bind the court of Russia to others, is it not notorious that the hatred of the whole German people to Russia is such, that no German monarch dare tax the loyalty or the pockets of his people in behalf of Russia, and each may count upon both, against her?
Are we so blinded by the spirit of selfish reaction, and so contracted by the spirit of party, as to see none but those proximate evils which the brute can feel, to apprehend danger from nothing but rebellion, and to see wickedness in none but the radicals of Western Europe? Or are we such devotees to the mere catchwords of Christianity, and so given up to believe the religious phrases which political craft takes up into its mouth, (in order to instigate its friends and paralyze its foes,) as to be blind to the realities of things, and deaf to the claims both of interest and of justice? Is our vision so filled with the Antichrist who denies God, that we have no corner for him who confesses Him? Or have we so pinned our faith to the Antichrist of Rome or republicanism that we have no watchfulness left for the great Antichrist of the North, who has lifted his paw to appropriate the spiritual crown of Christ; whose name stands parallel with that of God in the hearts of his serfs, and on the buildings of his realm; and who, at the time dictated by Scythian cunning, will mount his chariot, to drive like a modern Jehu in his zeal for the Lord? Are we Englishmen prepared, after contesting it with those who have paved the way into the East under cloud of night, to look on when the journey is undertaken in broad day? Are we prepared to hail the tyranny of the knout, and the treachery of the bribe, as a blessed substitute for the Bash of the scimitar and the grasp of the spoiler? Are we who, when the fancy took us to be suspicious, could Hardly listen to the pacific assurances of France, ready to swallow any assurance from a government, which is the impersonation of craft, and the tallowy unmoved countenance of which never yet betrayed its passions or projects? Do we believe that those who bide their time in silence are less dangerous than those who anticipate it with bluster? Do we dream that Russia has become such an unwieldy mass, as to endanger us only by its fall? Or do we regard the hordes of the North, which have more than once overrun Europe in savage disorder, as being incapable of doing so again in imperial order? If we do, it is time that we thought otherwise.
Now is the time. War is a sad calamity everywhere, and a shameful thing among Christian nations. Let us beware of being those to bring it recklessly on. But, if it must come, let us beware of avoiding it by ruin to ourselves or others. Russia has, by her own act, set us free from our own former relations to her. Let us see to it that our new relations be more secure. Let her not make the Black Sea a “mare clausum.” Let her not make the Baltic a “mare clausum.” Let her not make the Danube a “fluvium clausum,”—a European pipe with a Russian plug. Let her not make Bornholm a Russian arsenal, the Cattegat a Russian strait, Scandinavia a Russian province, Denmark a Russian landing-place, or Persia a Russian highway. Rather let the Caucasus be secured against future butchery, and Courland, Liefland, and Finland be restored to their natural owners.
Meantime, let none, who must not, meddle in the fray. But let none, who ought, waver. Let them take the right side, and do it heartily; for while decision saves blood, indecision may forfeit all. We may push neutrality into self-contradiction. And while we strike at a distance, let us not lay ourselves bare at home. There are such things as political feints. Moreover, if Austria, through poverty or gratitude, or Prussia, through family ties, shall be won or neutralized by Russia, let them remember that they do it at the almost certain risk of intestine rebellion, and of being despoiled in Italy and on the Rhine by foreign conquest.
Though we believe in the sure word of prophecy, we must beware of its private or premature interpretation. And while we ought not, on the one hand, to be paralysed in doing our duty by prophetic anticipations, neither dare we, on the other, excite ourselves to any breach of duty by a desire to see these realized. God will remove all oppressive powers which stand in His way. But there are wicked powers enough in the earth to do His work of judgment, whether on His Church or on her enemies. We may not be our own saviours. We may not arise, in self-will, to carry out God’s counsels. It is our part to expect His salvation in the way of strict duty. Men may speculate about the drying up of the Euphrates and the restoration of the Jews to their land, as they please. We shall best commend ourselves to God, not by skilful calculations as to the rate at which or the manner in which the chariot of His Church, as the mystery of His Coming Kingdom, rolls along the highways of His providence, but rather by ourselves abiding in the chariot, and trusting to the goodness of its Guide. And the sole true foundation on which we can build up the nobler superstructure of holiness, is scrupulous righteousness between nation and nation, between man and man. He only that has clean hands shall prosper in his deed.
One word more: The votaries of reaction insist that Turkey shall be blotted out as the gathering-place of all revolutionary spirits. But why is it so? Not because the policy of Turkey is revolutionary, but because he who has been the fulcrum of reaction has, by declaring war against Turkey, opened Turkey for them as a door by which they can attack him, and has justified Turkey in using them. Bad, nay blasphemous, as revolutionists may be, he who would hunt them out of the earth, must have an unclean conscience himself. He must feel that he has not been the Shepherd of his people, and that he has more coveted the fleece than loved the flock.
[1] See last paragraph, page 31.