Forlorn! forlorn! wondering if it is possible to hide this misery from every eye—pondering plans and schemes of concealment, trying to invent—do not wonder, it is a natural impulse—some generous lie. But Menie’s nature, more truthful than her will, fails in the effort. The time goes on, the lingering moments swell into an hour. Music is in her ears, and smiling faces glide before her and about her, till she feels this dreadful pressure at her heart no longer tolerable, and bursts away in a sudden passion, craving to be alone.
Another heart, restless by reason of a gnawing unhappiness, wanders out and in of these unlighted chambers—oftenest coming back to this one, where the treasures of its life rest night by night. This wandering shadow is not a graceful one—these pattering, hasty footsteps have nothing in them of the softened lingering tread of meditation. No, poor Jenny, little of sentiment or grace embellishes your melancholy—yet it is hard to find any poem so full of pathos as a desolate heart, even such a one as beats in your homely breast to-night.
Softly—the room is not vacant now, as it was when you last entered here. Some one stands by the window, stooping forward to look at the stars; and while you linger by the door, a low cry, half a sigh, half a moan, breaks the silence faintly—not the same voice which just now bore its part so well below;—not the same, for that voice came from the lips only—this is out of the heart.
“Bairn, you’re no weel—they’ve a’ wearied you,” said Jenny, stealing upon her in the darkness: “lie down and sleep; it’s nae matter for the like of me, but when you sigh, it breaks folk’s hearts.”
The familiar voice surprised the watcher into a sudden burst of childish tears. All the woman failed in this great trial. “Oh, Jenny, dinna tell my mother!” Menie Laurie was capable of no other thought.
THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND THE PROTECTORATE IN TURKEY.
Before many weeks shall have gone over, perhaps while these sheets are passing through the press, we shall be able to judge of the accuracy of Lord Ellenborough’s opinion, as expressed in the House of Lords on the 6th February, that we are on the eve of one of the most formidable wars that ever this country was engaged in. Yes; within a short period from the present date much will be known; the Russian problem will be near its solution. The mystery of that force, which is said to be irresistible, and of those resources said to be inexhaustible, will be laid bare to the world. We shall know if all that we have been told of that vast power which has kept Europe in awe, is real; if the colossal idol which all have gazed on with a feeling that cannot be accurately described, does not stand on feet of clay. We confess that recent events have somewhat weakened the general faith in the overwhelming strength of Russia, and people begin to have some doubt whether the world has not been imposed upon. With her vast territorial extent, including nearly one-seventh part of the terrestrial portion of the globe and one twenty-seventh of its entire surface, and her varied population, comprising nearly one-ninth of the human race, she has spoken as if she could domineer over all Europe; and until the Pruth was passed, and the Danube became once more the theatre of battle, mankind seemed, if not entirely to admit, at least unwilling to dispute the claim. The combats of Oltenitza and Citale have, we suspect, disturbed that belief. Foreign and all but hostile flags have, within the last few weeks, floated almost within sight of Sebastopol; the squadrons of England and France have swept the hitherto unapproachable Euxine, from the Thracian Bosphorus to Batoun, and from Batoun back to Beicos Bay, and her fleet has not ventured to cross their path. Should Austria, listening to her evil genius, prove false to her own interests, we believe that the anticipations of the noble Lord referred to will be realised. Should she consult her own safety, and make common cause with those whose warlike preparations are not for aggression, but defence, we still incline to the opinion that hostilities may be limited to their original theatre—to be temporarily arrested, if not closed, by diplomatic intervention. The unsuccessful issue, at least to the date at which we write, of Count Orloff’s mission, gives us some hope that such will be the case; but a very short time will enable us to judge whether the advance of a corps d’armée to the Servian frontier is to aid Russian aggression, or to act, if necessary, against it.
An aggressive spirit has invariably marked the policy of Russia from the time of Peter the Great. Long harassed by internal enemies, and sometimes struggling for existence, she at length was freed from the dangers which had menaced her from abroad. By a fortunate concurrence of circumstances, the moment when her government became constituted, and began to enjoy its liberty of action, the neighbouring states, from the Baltic to the Caspian, entered into their period of weakness. The wild ambition and the mad enterprise of Charles XII. occasioned the decline of Sweden. The chivalrous monarch, the conqueror of Narva, the vanquished of Pultova, perished in the ditch of Frederickshall. Peter triumphed over his most formidable enemy; and, if he did not from that moment begin his aggression in the Ottoman territory, he was at all events no longer embarrassed by the dangerous diversions in the north. There still, however, remained an obstacle to his designs on those magnificent possessions of the Osmanlis, which have at all times possessed the fatal privilege of attracting the cupidity of the northern barbarian. There still remained Poland; but her anarchy, her internal convulsions, inseparable from her anomalous institutions, proved to be no less profitable to the Muscovite than the madness of the Scandinavian hero; and from the day of her dismemberment, Turkey became the permanent object of the ambition which, even as we write, threatens to convulse Europe.
It rarely happens that up to the close of a long war the original cause of quarrel continues the same. The first dissension disappears as war progresses, and, in the numerous complications which hostilities give rise to, the belligerents themselves either forget, or do not assign the same importance to the question which originally arrayed them in arms against each other. Though the war between Russia and Turkey has not yet a remote date, and though hostilities have not yet been formally declared between Russia and the Western Powers, notwithstanding the recall of their respective ambassadors, we still fear that the public is beginning to lose sight of the primary grounds of quarrel between the Czar and the Sultan, and which has led to the present state of things. The pretext put forward by Russia for intervention in the Ottoman empire is her desire to “protect” the ten millions of Christians of the Greek Church who are subjects of the Porte; these ten millions professing the same faith as the subjects of the Emperor of Russia, and living under the tyrannous rule of an infidel government. We admit the plausibility of that claim, and we are aware how easily the generous sympathies of a Christian people can be roused in favour of such a cause. We can appreciate the feelings of those who are persuaded that the moment has at length arrived when the Cross shall be planted on the mosques of Stamboul, and the orthodox believer take the place of the Mussulman. The claim to a Protectorate over ten millions of suffering Greeks in the European territory of the Sultan has been described as a cover, under which Russia aims at the possession of Constantinople, and, in fact, at the extension of her dominion from the Carpathian to the Danube, and from the Danube to the Sea of Marmora; but the Czar has solemnly and repeatedly declared that he had no such ambition, and that the sole motive which actuated him was to protect a population who professed the self-same religion as himself, he being the visible head of the Eastern Church, and recognised as such by the Eastern or Greek Christians; and the refusal of the Porte to grant that Protectorate is the primary cause of the war. Without examining whether any, or what conditions would justify a foreign government in imposing its protection on the subjects of an independent state, we may be permitted to say something of the nature of the religion whose champion the Czar professes to be; of the alleged homogeneity of the Eastern and Russian Churches, for on this the whole question turns; and of the advantages likely to accrue to the Greeks from Russian protection.
Among the many errors likely to be dissipated by the minute discussion which the Eastern question has undergone in the public press of this and other countries, not the least is that which has reference to the Emperor of Russia as the natural Protector of the Christian communities of the East. The hardihood with which this claim has been constantly put forward, and the silent acquiescence with which it seems to have been admitted by those who should know better, have imposed upon the world. Even now, they who resist the formal establishment of the influence of Russia over the internal affairs of Turkey, do so more by reason of the political consequences of that usurpation to the rest of Europe, than with the thought of disputing the abstract right of the head of the “Orthodox Faith” to the Protectorate he lays claim to. These pretensions, like many others we could mention, will not stand the test of examination. We do not learn, on any satisfactory evidence, that the Christian populations of the Ottoman empire have, during the last ten months, received with sympathy or encouragement the prospect of Russian protection; nor have they, so far as we know, exhibited any very earnest longing for the introduction of the knout as an element of government. The population of independent Greece may, and, we have no doubt, do, indulge in the harmless dream of a new Byzantine empire to be raised on the ruins of that which Mahomet II. won from their fathers; and they would doubtless rejoice that the domination of the Osmanlis were put an end to by Russia, or any other power, on condition of being their successors, as they were their predecessors. We believe that to this sort of revolution the aspirations of the Greeks are limited. But that people dispute the claim of the Czar to the Pontificate of the “Orthodox Faith,” and reject the idea of a temporal submission to him. The Greek Church, however, does not constitute the only Christian community of the Ottoman empire. Other congregations are to be found there, subjects also of the Porte, and who have not less claim to the protection of the various states of Europe, when protection is needed; but who still less desire that Russia should be their sole protector.