The governing force of the empire is strictly Mohammedan. The army is indeed a church militant with no unbeliever among its officers or men, except as European military experts are employed to drill and discipline the troops. The entire administration of both civil and military affairs is a religious administration. Men of other religions are asked to take part in civil affairs only when Mohammedans cannot be found to do the work required. Many high positions, even in the cabinet, have been creditably filled by Armenians and Greeks, but this is the exception and not the rule. Turkey agreed some time ago to admit Christians to her army, but has never seen her way clear to carry out the agreement. At the center of this Mohammedan administration sits the sultan, Hamid II, with his valis or governors at the head of affairs in every province, in close and constant communication with himself and carrying out his imperial will. These local governors are sustained by the Moslem army, commanded by officers who also receive their instructions directly from the palace on the Bosporus. This is the system of administration that has become established in the Ottoman empire, and that must be borne in mind as we proceed with the study of the country, the people, their economic, social, and religious conditions. The position of Turkey and of the Ottoman empire is unique among the countries of the world. For centuries it has stood before the world as the one great Mohammedan temporal power, with its laws and usages built upon the tenets, traditions, and fanaticisms of Islam. Every civilized definition of a government fails when applied to Turkey, and every conception of the duty of a government to its subjects is violated in the existing relations between the Turkish government and the people of that empire. Under these conditions, much worse now than they were two generations ago, mission work is carried on. While there are many Turkish officials who keenly deplore the evils of the system, and would change if they could the untoward relations of the government to its oppressed subjects, they are powerless to act and must even conceal their dissatisfaction for fear of being branded, as many have been, as traitors to the existing rule, for which charge the penalty is banishment or death. There is a general feeling that no reform can be inaugurated or carried out so long as the present monarch sits upon the throne. A distinguished Orientalist, intimately acquainted with affairs at Constantinople, has recently written upon the sultan and his diplomatic methods in the following terms. For obvious reasons the identity of the writer is concealed: