THE CROSS AND THE CRESCENT.

OUR attention has been attracted to a very able article in the January number of Blackwood's Magazine, in which the writer, after sketching the progress and designs, and describing the preponderating power of Russia, in terms which we are inclined to think somewhat exaggerated, arrives at the startling conclusion that the extension of that power is desirable, as it would promote the views of the Divinity in the extension of the Christian faith.

Such views are common to a great portion of England and of Europe.

It is strange to see, first, differences of political opinion, then matters of religious dogma, contributing to the furtherance of the ambitious schemes of that power whose strength is really in our own weakness of mind, and who succeeds in all her projects merely by the support she derives from the prejudices and ignorance of those most interested in opposing her. It is singular that, notwithstanding the complete exposure that has taken place with respect to her designs, she has, up to this moment, scarcely lost one of the means by which she has acted on the minds of men. We still imagine, in this country, that interference in foreign policy is intervention between discordant domestic principles. We still believe that we can oppose the projects of Russia only by going to war. We are still convinced that her supremacy is actually established in Eastern countries, and there are millions of the devout and pious of Europe, who imagine that the progress of Moscovite hordes is the advancement of civilization and the triumph of Christianity. To this last fallacy we will, for the present, more par

ticularly address ourselves, and we commence by quoting the passage to which we refer, which has called forth these observations.

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While the naval strength and colonial dominions of England have steadily and unceasingly advanced in Western Europe, and its influence is in consequence spread over all the maritime regions of the globe, another, and an equally irresistible power has risen in the Eastern hemisphere. If all the contests of centuries have turned to the advantage of the English navy, all the continental strifes have as unceasingly augmented the strength of Russia. From the time of the Czar Peter, when it first emerged from obscurity to take a leading part in continental affairs, to the present moment, its progress has been unbroken. Alone, of all other states, during that long period, it has experienced no reverses, but constantly advanced in power, territory, and resources; for even the peace of Tilsit, which followed the disasters of Austerlitz and Friedland, was attended with an accession of territory. During that period it has successively swallowed up Courland and Livonia, Poland, Finland, the Crimea, the Ukraine, Wallachia, and Moldavia. Its southern frontier is now washed by the Danube; its eastern is within fifty leagues of Berlin and Vienna; its advanced posts in the Baltic are within sight of Stockholm; its south-eastern boundary, stretching far over the Caucasus, sweeps down to Erivan and the foot of Mount Ararat-Persia and Turkey are irrevocably subjected to its influence: a solemn treaty has given it the command of the Dardanelles; a subsidiary Moscovite force has visited Scutari, and rescued the Osmanlis from destruction, and the Sultan Mahmoud retains Constantinople only as the Viceroy of the Northern Autocrat.

Now it is false to assert that this is the state of Turkey. There is apparent submission, but that submission ceases the moment England chooses to assert that it has ceased. The fact is not so, and therefore the consequences have not yet followed. No doubt the time will arrive when submission will take place, but that will come as the result of the artifices which appear to have been so often successful, and of

the extension of such opinions as those we have just quoted. This passage would exactly suit the columns of the Journal de Frankfort, and puts the question exactly in the light in which Russia has lately been putting it herself. Having passed the point where collision is practicable between Turkey and herself, it is now her policy to discourage us from supporting Turkey by establishing the belief that her power there is all supreme, whilst, at the same time, we are prevented from being alarmed at the consequences of her real occupation, by being led to believe that we have already incurred all the evil, and even all the risk, that such an occupation can entail upon us.

We proceed with our extracts.

The politicians of the day assert that Russia will fall to pieces, and its power cease to be formidable to Western Europe or Central Asia. They never were more completely mistaken. Did Macedonia fall to pieces before it had subdued the Grecian Commonwealths; or Persia before it had conquered the Assyrian monarchy; or the Goths and Vandals before they had subverted the Roman empire? It is the general pressure of the north upon the south, not the force of any single state, which is the weight that is to be apprehended; that pressure will not be lessened, but on the contrary greatly increased, if the vast Scythian tribes should separate into different empires. Though one Moscovite throne were to be established at St. Petersburgh, a second at Moscow, and a third at Constantinople, the general pressure of the Russian race upon the southern states of Europe and Asia would not be one whit diminished. Still the delight of a warmer climate, the riches of long established civilization, the fruits and wines of the south, the women of Italy or Circassia, would attract the brood of winter to the regions of the sun. The various tribes of the German race, the Gothic and Vandal swarms, the Huns and the Ostrogoths, were engaged in fierce and constant hostility with each other and it was generally defeat and pressure from behind which impelled them upon their southern neighbours; but that did not prevent them from bursting the barriers of the

Danube and the Rhine, and overwhelming the civilization, and wealth, and discipline, of the Roman empire. Such internal divisions only magnify the strength of the northern race, by training them to the use of arms, and augmenting their military skill by constant exercise against each other; just as the long continued internal wars of the European nations have established an irresistible superiority of their forces over those of the other quarters of the globe. In the end, the weight of the north, thus matured, drawn forth, and disciplined, will ever be turned to the fields of southern conquest.

The moving power with these vast bodies of men is the lust of conquest, and a passion for southern enjoyment. Democracy is unheeded or unknown amongst them; if imported from foreign lands, it languishes and expires amidst the rigours of the climate. The energy and aspirations of men are concentrated on conquest; a passion more natural, more durable, more universal, than the democratic vigour of advanced civilization. It speaks a language intelligible to the rudest of men; and rouses passions of universal vehemence. Great changes may take place in human affairs; but the time will never come when northern valour will not press on southern wealth, or refined corruption not require the renovating influence of indigent regeneration.

This, then, is the other great moving power which in these days of transition is changing the destinies of mankind. Rapid as is the growth of the British race in America, it is not more rapid than that of the Russian in Europe and Asia. Fifty millions of men now furnish recruits to the Moscovite standards; but their race doubles in every half century; and before the year 1900, one hundred millions of men will be ready to pour from the frozen plains of Scythia on the plains of central Asia and southern Europe. Occasional events may check or for a while turn aside the wave; but its ultimate progress in these directions is certain and irresistible. Before two centuries are over, Mahometanism will be banished from Turkey, Asia Minor, and Persia, and a hundred millions of Christians will be settled in the regions now desolated by the standards of the Prophet. Their advance is as swift, as unceasing, as that of the British race to the rocky belt of Western America.

There are, at the present time, two great nations in the world,

which seem to tend towards the same end, although they started from different points; I allude to the Russians and the Americans. Both of them have grown up unnoticed; and, whilst the attention of mankind was directed elsewhere, they have suddenly assumed a most prominent place amongst the nations, and the world learned their existence and their greatness at almost the same time.

But peaceful Christianity, urged on by democratic passions, pierced the primeval solitude of the American forests; and warlike Christianity, stimulated by northern conquest, was fitted to subdue Central Asia and Eastern Europe. The Bible and the printing press converted the wilderness of North America into the abode of Christian millions; the Moscovite battalions, marching under the standard of the Cross, subjugated the already peopled regions of the Mussulman faith. Not without reason then did the British navy and the Russian army emerge triumphant from the desperate strife of the French revolution; for on the victory of each depended the destinies of half the globe.

Arbitrary institutions will not for ever prevail in the Russian empire. As successive provinces and kingdoms are added to their vast dominions—as their sway extends over the regions of the south, the abode of wealth and long established civilization, the passion for conquest will expire. Satiety will extinguish this, as it does all other desires. With the acquisition of wealth, and the settlement in fixed abodes, the desire of protection from arbitrary power will spring up, and the passion of freedom will arise as it did in Greece, Italy, and modern Europe. Free institutions will ultimately appear in the realms conquered by Moscovite, as they did in those won by Gothic, valour. But the passions and desires of an earlier stage of existence will long agitate the millions of the Russo-Asiatic race; and after democratic desires have arisen, and free institutions exist in its oldest provinces, the wave of northern conquest will still be pressed on by semi-barbarous hordes from its remoter dominions. Freedom will gradually arise out of security and repose; but the fever of conquest will not be finally extinguished till it has performed its destined mission, and the standards of the Cross are brought down to the Indian Ocean.

What! has England no interest in Hindostan? Can we