perhaps, will be brought home as an argument against me, for such is the
hatred of sects proceeding from the same faith, that England would,
perhaps, have borne more meekly the hardships endured by the Calvinistic
brethren, if they had been subjected thereunto by a Soliman, and not by
him who styled himself the most Christian king of France. However this may
be, it is said at present that, whether oppressed or no, the Greeks never
solicited our intervention. To this it may be answered, that the whole
difficulty would have been solved by the very fact of the solicitation,
for had they had the courage and the means to send a similar and unanimous
message to the Emperor of Russia, they would have had the strength and
unanimity required themselves to strike the blow, and make all
intervention useless. The fact of their having not risen as a man in their
own cause, is a sufficient explanation for their want of boldness in
soliciting their deliverance at the hands of a foreign state. But laying
aside the question of the _subjects_ of the Ottoman empire professing the
Greek faith, to speak of the much more vital interest of the faith itself,
professed as it is by ourselves, let it be permitted to me to submit to
your candid decision, if the work of defending that faith does not belong
pre-eminently to us, and neither to the English nor the French. We
tolerate in the whole extent of our empire both the Roman Catholic and the
Lutheran communions of faith; we have millions of subjects professing both
creeds; we build churches for them. Long before the Roman Catholics were
emancipated in England, the posts of the highest honour, of the greatest
confidence, and of the largest perquisites in the army, the senate, and
the supreme council of the empire, were opened indiscriminately by us to
men professing the Greek, Roman, or Lutheran creeds. Is it because of our
tolerance with respect to sects not our own, that we are condemned to be
indifferent to the hardships of those of our own faith? Are we not only to
allow your church to stand unmolested within our own realm, but also to
allow our own church to fall in ruins within the limits of a neighbouring
state? If so, you condemn our toleration, you call it indifference and
disbelief.”—(P. 9, _et seq._)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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