when collected have to pass through the hands of numerous grades of officers, and in each transfer suffer sad depletion, so that, when they finally reach the central treasury, they represent but a shadow of what was squeezed from the hard laboring producers. Honesty on the part of the middle-men in this one business would speedily throw the balance on the right side of the budget, and give Turkish loans a very different appearance in the stock market.

III. When we turn to the contemplation of the social and religious condition of the people, we meet with even still more disheartening revelations, and here we begin to approach an explanation of the material and political prostration already described. Habits transmitted from a nomadic, tent-dwelling ancestry cause the people to live huddled together in narrow quarters, where filth, disease, and vice grow uncontrollable. Poverty and ignorance so rivet the chains of these habits, that even improved circumstances in these respects fail to correct them. The present age undoubtedly sees a wonderful waking up and reaching forth toward education; but even this is only a small movement as compared with the mass of the people. As is invariably the case in such degradation, the female portion of the community suffers most deeply. A man whose house is filled with congratulating neighbors on the occasion of the birth of a son, will feel insulted at the slightest allusion to the birth of a daughter. And an evangelical native preacher, who had enjoyed an educational and religious training of more than a half a dozen years, under missionaries, asked the writer a few weeks since, if it is "possible that any parent should love a daughter as well as a son!" A missionary, on asking a village woman why she did not learn to read, received the significant reply, "What can a cow learn?"

This state of things, which might be much more largely illustrated, points clearly to the degrading influence of false and sensual religion. The creed of Mohammed, though not violently forced upon all the subjugated adherents of an already enfeebled Christianity, still has had a powerful iufluence to debase the character of this religion. Under the garb of righteously evading oppression and tyranny on the part of the conquering Moslem, the crushed and cringing nominal Christians justified themselves in all manner of deception and fraud, which gradually crept into their religion and their character, till now falsehood

may be rightly deemed the prominent characteristic of both classes of the mingled population. Islamism it is which has enervated and degraded the race of Turks, said to have been once noted for bravery, honesty, and chastity, and with its own adherents has dragged down into something of its own pollution the degenerate Christianity about it. This it is, that by its fatal consequences forbids the increase of population in its dominions. In a land where marriage is universal and fecundity remarkable, it is a significant fact, that the population in many places is actually diminishing, and where it increases, does so at an almost imperceptible rate.

Islamism it is which palsies every effort at reform throughout the empire, and which forbids the hope of Turkey ever taking its stand properly among the civilized nations of the world. The celebrated oriental traveler, Vambery, in his latest work, says, "Islamism is now engaged in a final struggle with western civilization, which must result in the success of the latter. For fifty years Christian missionaries have been laboring for the evangelization of the empire, and it is a cheering fact, that great results have been achieved, but all has been among the nominal Christians. This movement carried to completion may instil a vitality into these communities which shall enable them to survive the crash of the Turkish power when it comes. But to this day Islamism presents a solid front against the spirit and success of evangelical and enlightened progress. The conviction is inevitable, that until the power of Islamism is broken, the true reformation of this land is an impossibility. At whose door shall we lay the blame of cherishing such a viper? That the solution of the vexed question of the political status of Turkey involves grave difficulties cannot be denied. But those that are pleased to preserve the existing state of things as a barrier for themselves, against the encroachments of an already overgrown European power, ought to take into consideration. the results of encouraging the continuance of a power at once so poisonous and so suicidal as that of the waning crescent. And to come nearer home, those who pray "Thy Kingdom come," and yet do little or nothing for the reformation of unevangelized lands, will do well to ponder the above facts, and judge whether these may not be, in the salvation of such a country as Turkey, a sphere for the investment of personal labor or money.

Art. VII.-THE AMERICAN STAMP ACT.

By Rev. FREDERIC VINTON, Librarian of Princeton College. In a summer's morning we have often seen the sun obscured, just after rising, by clouds which threaten immediate rain. After a few moments those clouds disperse, and a child may imagine a sunny day is to follow. But the farmer knows a storm is coming, and it never fails. The American Revolution of 1775 was heralded by the Stamp Act excitement of 1765. The revolution cannot be accounted for, without knowing what went before it at a distance of ten years.

When we learn that the Stamp Act merely required such colonists as had occasion to do certain familiar acts, to pay a small sum for a license, the opposition it encountered may seem astonishing. Those occasions were such as suits at law, transfers of real estate, passing notes of hand, making of wills, and contracting marriage. The present generation may hear with amazement, that so small a matter provoked universal resistance; that, in fact, it would have brought on the Revolution then, if the act had not been speedily repealed. We well remember, it may be said, when our present government imposed upon us just such a Stamp Act as this, and we never thought of resisting, burdensome as it was, and entirely a new thing to us. To abate this surprise, it is necessary to consider under what circumstances the American colonists had been living, and to observe what other things were contemporaneous with the Stamp Act, and showed its meaning.

The settlers at Plymouth in 1620, the emigrants to Boston in 1630, and those who came afterward and planted the whole Atlantic slope, came to find quiet homes and cheap land in a new continent. They were too few, and too poor, to be followed by the tax-gatherer, and they brought charters from the crown, permitting them to govern themselves. Neither they nor their children ever paid taxes to any European prince. When Catholic France, at war with England, assailed their coast with fleets, and hounded the savage upon their settlements, they cheerfully contributed men and money for their

own defense. With a manly pride they tore Louisbourg out of the teeth of the Bourbon, and gallantly they followed Wolfe, up the heights whence Quebec threatened their religion and freedom. More than their share of money, as well as men, as the mother country judged, had they furnished on these occasions, but nothing of this was taxation; that would not have been endured. Two or three times before the Stamp Act, it had been proposed in parliament to tax America, but the attempt had been prudently desisted from, even by William Pitt. It was in the days of peace that followed, when France had been driven from the new continent, that the project was initiated. America was now populous and rich, well able to pay a large revenue to the crown. Would she not do it? Might she not be forced? Why had not England demanded it, and enforced her claim before the colonists were strong enough to say no? The answers to these questions lie beneath the surface of history.

The origin of these colonies differed far from those of antiquity. A Greek or Roman colony was an enterprise set on foot by the parent state, to conquer, or to garrison a foreign country. The design was to provide homes for a superabundant population, or to hold in subjection a conquered people. But an English colony was a body of refugees, acting as individuals, expatriating themselves because of misgovernment at home. They forsook the land of bad laws and tyrannical rulers. Of course, they established new laws, and meant to be independent from the first. The Massachusetts men never meant to recognize the home government. When the New Englanders found the King disposed to bridle them, they accepted governors from him, resigning part of their autonomy, under charters which secured the rest. In like manner, New York and the other colonies received governors, judges, and other officers from the crown, but paid their salaries by vote of legislature, so as to hold them responsible to themselves. It is true that when the tyrannical Stuarts were gone, the colonists became reconciled to kings who meant them no harm, and all the while, blood and language and religion drew their affections out to the glorious land beyond the sea; so that for a hundred years they felt themselves one people with the parent state, and would have chosen to continue so. It was a renewal of misgovernment that alienated their affections once more. And

yet, those affections were now so strong, that tenyears of mismanagement were necessary, to make them see that Providence would have it so for its own end.

Inasmuch as in 1765, the English lawyers maintained the royal right to tax America, it might well be asked, why that right had never been exercised before, in the long interval since 1620. It was because, in another way, England was deriving a rich revenue from the colonies, which it was not worth while to imperil. Long before (in the thirteenth century) English kings and parliaments had made a law, that whatever was brought into England to sell, or carried from one part of the island to another, must go in English ships, built, owned, and manned by Englishmen. It is true these laws were not strictly enforced. But when, in the days of the commonwealth, it was seen that the Dutch were getting rich by trading with America, it was enacted that all English colonies should be reckoned part of the English coast. By the old law it followed, that nothing could be exported from America, except to British marts. That which we read of so much, as "The Navigation. Act," was indeed passed in 1660, under Charles II.; but it was founded on the legislation of October 9, 1651. That law enacted that no commodity, colonial or other, should be imported into England, unless in vessels owned, commanded, and three-quarters manned by English subjects. Infraction of this law worked forfeiture of ship and cargo. The object was plainly avowed, “to make this kingdom a staple of the commodities of the plantations," and consequently of foreign goods wanted in the colonies. In other words, the British merchant was to make a profit out of everything bought or sold by the colonists. Whatever the American had to sell, must be sold to him. He only could sell to the foreign purchaser. Bancroft says, "the colonists could not export the chief products of their industry to any place but Great Britain, not even to Ireland; nor might any foreign ship enter a colonial harbor." In like manner, their manufactures were restricted and discouraged. "The colonists had land and sheep, but lest they should make woolen cloth, they might not use a ship, nor boat, nor carriage, nor pack-horse, to carry wool, or any manufacture of which wool forms a part, across the line of one province to another." To prevent the manufacture of iron, slitting mills, steel furnaces,