During all the years since 1856, there was one subject which had been constantly upper-most in the mind of England; and that one subject was the one above all others which her Prime Minister tried to make people forget. It was perfectly well known when one after another of the Balkan states revolted against the Turk--first Herzegovina, then Montenegro, then Bosnia--that they were suffering the cruelest oppression, and that not one of the Sultan's promises made to the Powers in 1856 had been kept. But in 1876 no one could any longer feign ignorance. An insignificant outbreak in Bulgaria took place. In answer to a telegram sent to Constantinople a body of improvised militia, called Bashi-Bazuks, was sent to manage the affair after its own fashion. The burning of seventy villages; the massacre of fifteen thousand--some say forty thousand--people, chiefly women and children, with attendant details too revolting to narrate; the subsequent exposure of Bulgarian maidens for sale at Philippopolis--all this at last secured attention. Pamphlets, newspaper articles, speeches, gave voice to the horror of the English people. Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, Gladstone, John Bright, Carlyle, Freeman, made powerful arraignments of the government which was the supporter and made England the accomplice of Turkey in this crime. However much we may suspect the sincerity of Russia's solicitude regarding her co-religionists in the East, it must be admitted that the preservation of her Faith has always been treated--long before the existence of the Eastern Question--as the most vital in her policy. In every alliance, every negotiation, every treaty, it was the one thing that never was compromised; and Greek Christianity certainly holds a closer and more mystic relation to the government of Russia than the Catholic or Protestant faiths do to those of other lands.