Semi-weekly herald., 1912-12-09
A LITTLE LAY SERMON.

HitI Vi Vic ikpiiidfi VI
the east, where nearly sixteen cen
turies ago Christianity was en-
throned by Constantine after $40
years of the most barbarous perse-
cutions of Christians the world had,
or has, ever known. II may be that
the present Balkan war will not re-
suit in the restitution of CONSTANT
nople and the relagation of the Turk
to Asia, where, if anywhere, he
rightfully belongs. 1t has been the
dream of the Balkans for hundreds
of years to see Constantinople once
more under the dominion of Chris
tian civilization and to celebrate the
mass in the mosque of Santa Sophia,
once the great Christian cathedral yio-
lated by Moslem brutality
There is splendid sentimental lit
ress in the vision of a mosqueless
Europe, just as there is fine emo
tional appropriateness in the res.ora-
tion of the Holy Land, sacred to
Christendom, the altar wnereon hun
dreds of thousands of Christian ;
were sacrificed. Whether the Balkan
war will effect either of these re-
suits remains to be seen. A reason
able guess would be that the dream
is doomed to disillusion for long
time to come, though in effect it will
be realized in the wrestling of Chris
tian Europe and Christian Asia from
the hard grasp of Islam.
This alone is enough to establish
the conflict before the gates of Con-
stantinople as one of the decisive
struggles of history. There are piouS
fatalists who are fond of believing
that the mighty events of history
transpire for the best in the long run,
that every monumental struggle eveh-
tuates in accordance with bencf-
cent Providence. There is both proct
and refutation of the theory, and
some of the refutations have been
more signal than the verifcations.
The speculative students of events are
fond of looking back upon the past
through the eyes of the present. They
are often and easily led into the
error of believing that because mai,y
of the most memorable wars and bat
ties in which the race has engaged
have resulted in moving civilization
forward in the direction in which il
was best for the world to go, this is
the invariable rule of history.
But there is sinister sequence of
events that parallels the benign. Ma
tions and civilizations have had th.i
defeats as well as their victories. The
success and failure of the same na-
tion cannot both be for the best. If
mankind won splendid victories when
the Greeks hurled back the Asiatc
hordes, it sustained heavy if not IL
reparable loss when the Greek civil
taxation fell before the Roman and
if it was for the races highest well
fare that Rome should become the
mistress of the world, it was distinct
" against those interests that the Ro-
man empire should fall in turn be-
fore the barbarians of the north,
lnt WoIlu lIlO lne IuluUiRnl
of the Dark Ages. If it was for
the glory of the Christian civilization
that the Semitic hordes should have
been huled back at Chalons and that
Karl Martell should crush the Sara
cen at Tours, then it was very ca
tastrophe of history that the follow
ers of the Mohammedan prophet
should blot out the empire of the east
and change the cathedral of the Chris
tian capital into a mosque. 1t is
still to be proved that history de-
cided wisely when it permitted Harold
to fall at Hastings or the ancient
Jewish civilization to be crushed be-
meath the iron hoofs of the Roman
legions.
But backward looks, after all, are
only speculative. Possible it is true
that there is a stronger foundation
for the optimistic historian than is
TO be built upon the outcome of this
or that struggle, no matter how
tremendous it may have been. Look
ing at centuries as only the mile
posts in the march of the worlds S
progress, the defeats may be regard
ed as merely missteps, even though
the faux pas cost the world other CEN
turies of retrogresson. From this
point of view the dominion of the
Turk, that has been scourge to
Christian civilization, may be only the
reprisals and punishments for sins
committed by that civilization itself.
For it will hardly be denied that
the Christian world itself has been
rather assiduously engaged in empha-
sizing its authority with the sword
We shudder at the ferocity of the
Turk, but what Of the ferocity of
those Christian nations which have
matched the barbarity of the Otto
man? The very latest dispatches f;om
the Balkan front tell of massacres of
Jews by the Greeks-the representa-
,ives of that same Christian civiliza-
tion which hopes to celebrate mass
in the mosque Of Santa Sophia. One
needs only to mention Russia tn call
to mind hideous persecutions that