The New York herald., 1871-02-14
The Sultan and the Pope.

Some English journals seem struck with
Rmazement at Pho Mono having recently ac-
cepted baksheesh from Abdul Aziz to the
extent Of twenty thousand francs, aud pro-
nounce this entente cordi0le between the sue
cessors of Mohammed and st. Peter to be
trrecOncilable with the Crusades and with the
bitter warfare waged by Christendom against
Mohammedanism. This idea is most childish.
1T Is true that the predecessors of Pho Mono
denounced the Turks as ant-Christians and
polygamists, and for several centuries all
Christendom united to drive the Moslem out
of Europe. But all such notions have become
obsolete and things of the past. Polygamy is
even tolerated in this country in the valley of
Brigham Young, and harem life pervades the
whole civilized and uncivilized world in forms
more or less overt. The peculiar religious and
social features Of Mohammedan life have
ceased long since to give umbrage to Chris
tian nations, and these English journals
ought to have remembered that Queen Vic
toria herself, forgetting the fame of her
ancestor, Richard Ceur de Lion, by her en-
thusiastic reception of the Moslem monarch
indirectly encouraged the Roman Pontiff to
extend the hand of Christian fellowship to the
Sultan and to pocket his baksheesh. Not only
was Abdul Aziz received as an equal by Vic
toria the Good, but then prominent member
of her government, Mr.. Layard, the present
British Minister to Madrid, declared in the
House of Commons that England had virtu-
ally become an Asiatic and Mohammedan ma
Zion. The age of crusades and chivalry has
gone by, and, in the words of Burke's beauti-
full lamentation, that Of economists and cal
culators has succeeded. Interest is now the
directing power: A large number Of Levan-
tines in Constantinople and other Turkish
cities are followers of the Pope, and the
twenty thousand francs which the Sultan in
vested in the Holy Father can only be re-
garded in the light of shrewd political
speculation, because it will make him popular
among the Roman Catholics of the East and
enable him to run this class Of Rayaas, or Otto
man subjects Of Christian nationality, against
the Papal bulk of the legion followers of his
foe, the Emperor of Russia's, Greek Church. The
same animosity against the Gar which prompts
the Poles to espouse the cause of the Turks
prompts the Sultan to tender his baksheesh
to the Pope. He has been studying in the
school of those great masters of statecraft-
Bismarck Sweeney and Boss Tweed. In the
same spirit it is entirely the dread of Rus
sian progress toward Afghanistan which
impels England to identify herself with the
cause of Mohammedanism in the East. In the
face of these wei, known facts the sentimental
force Of the English journals anti-Turkish
surprise loses all practical significance. II
these twenty thousand francs tend to render
the good old Pic Mono more comfortable in
his present temporal dethronement most good
Christians will rejoice, and will not be in
clined to look the Sultanic gift horse in the
mouth. There is nothing surprising in the
whole affair, excepting the surprise these
English journals express in respect to a very
natural little stroke of business between the
Vatican and the Divan.