The Sun.
London, England, 1854-03-24 00:00:00

treat.ei
them
'ler, so as
.-sesion when Le time shall Issirt.j:iseettgit.:lo4
enemies to discuss the use they 41.444412''Aikajf their
victory. They will plead for-tl4- itaty of her
empire, to avoid a precedentfor, trisetnember-
ment of their own ; and if wo hase Ru is disfaeto
as she is, with nothing changed but treaties, it is
very certain that we will have our work yet to do.
We commend to Mr. Cobden's especial attention
the extract from the St. Petersburg Journal; ex-
tracted into the Times of Saturday, the 11th in-
stant. When he has studied it we shall desire to
be informed on what data he founds his assertion
of the retrograde character of Turkish policy—the
unprogressive spirit of Mohammedanisea—the effete
barbarism of Islam institutions ? Why, the very
charge of the Emperor of Russia against Turkey is,
that it is struggling to emancipate itself from the
genius of Al Koran ; that " ancient Turkey disap-
peared from the time when it was sought to esta-
blish these institutions diametrically opposed, as
well to the genius of Islamism as to the character
and usages of the Mussulmans—institutions more
or less borrowed from modern liberalism, and con-
sequently entirely opposed to the spirit of the Ot-
toman Government. It is for this crime—for the
offence of braving the fanaticism, prejudice, the
fierce intolerance of Mahomet, the barbarous abso-
lutism of the East, by our advice and in deference to
our example, and of daring the experiment of ele-
vating his country by free institutions, equality of
subjects before the law, and of introducing the spirit
of Christianity into the domestic polity of the State,
that the Sultan (for ever honoured be his name,
and 'stablished be his throne !) was, according to
the deliberate confession of the Czar in this State
Paper, to be made the victim of " a plan by which
Russia and England might dispose beforehand, and
between themselves, of the different provinces
which constitute the Oitoman Empire' —by " a
formal agreement to be concluded between them
without the knowledge, and unassisted by the
counsel and intervention of the other Courts."
And it is this Imperial Cagliostro, this Barabbas
Whitefeather, who has been for the last six months
protesting, in the face of all Europe, that lie had
never entertained the most remote idea of cribbing
one inch of the territory of Turkey, or affecting in
the slightest degree the throne or authority of the
Sultan ! We are infinitely indebted to the blun-
dering and wholly unintentional candour of Nicho-
las, albeit revealed by a gross breach of confidence,
fcr the most unimpeachable testimony to the pro-
gressive and reforming spirit of the Government of
the Sultan. A more touching, ennobling, edify-
ing, deeply affecting spectacle never was exhibited
on the theatre of history, than that great and good
man's revelation to his own heart of the hollowness
of his people's theology, the necessity of awakening
them from the night-mare dream of a vicious polity
founded on a false faith—the clear perception of the
superiority of Christian institutions and European
ideas—the duty at all hazards, and almost against
hope, of redeeming his country from its moral
and mental desolation the resolution of
putting the thought in act of upraising his
empire from the despair of ignorance and
despotism, and leading her forward to the line
of European progress and Cliciliaation the
reconciling of his chief subjects to his enterprise—
their united, manly, brave, and patient wrestlings
with the honest fanaticism. of many, and the politic
hypocrisy of. rival chiefs. It is to- this pious and
patriotic endeavour that the Czar himself traces
the weakness of the Sultan ; it is of a peril so
caused that he proposes to England that they
should make a mutual profit • and Mr. Cobden, in
the face of such facts, so confirmed, asks us to allow
Nicholas to become the Liberator of TUrkey, and
to establish the progressive civilisation of Muscovy
on the ruins of the worn, out barbarism of Islam !
Long live the Sultan. "He shall not die, by God !"
Not all the cotton in Manchester shall burke or
smother his cause. Not a conscript is in our army,
not a pressed sailor in our navy. Every man is a
volunteer, and every volunteer a hero. After forty
years of " piping times of peace," the majestic
genius of the nation rises more proudly than ever.
Tho blessing of God is on our arms. We are the
vicegerents of his eternal justice. Never did Eng-
land draw the sword of might more clearly after
having exhausted the patience and forbearance of
right. We are sacrificers, not butchers—the pro-
videktial executors of outraged public law, not the
mere prostituted instruments of material force.
Lay the proud usurper low,.
Tyrants fall in ev'ry foe. ,
Liberty's in ev'ry blow, " ,•". 51,1
Struck by laud or seat ", earrolf

dnIJOtZM
MR. GLADSTONE AND MR. DISRAELI.
( Prom the Morning Herald.)