All questions relating to the internal government of the Ottoman empire would be greatly simplified and much more easily comprehended, were the people of Turkey substantially of one race like those of China or Japan. But this is not the case. As the Moslems overran Syria, Mesopotamia, Armenia, and Asia Minor, they conquered peoples of other races than themselves and of other religions. In their wars of conquest the Mohammedans revealed a degree of toleration which is to be commended. All conquered people were asked to embrace Islam. If they persistently refused, they were conceded the right to live upon the payment of an annual tribute _per capita_. The acceptance of this condition was an outward recognition that the Moslems were their masters, while the money thus obtained enabled the conquerors to extend their conquests. Whoever declined to accept Islam and refused to pay the life tax was put to the sword. This left within the conquered districts only two classes, the Mohammedan rulers and those who, by annual tribute, confessed themselves to be a conquered people, permitted to live from year to year by virtue of the money paid. It is most natural that this distinction, perpetuated for thirty generations, should lead to aggravated relations of conqueror and conquered. It was inevitable that the Moslems should become imperious and the other people depressed and subservient. In order to understand certain governmental and religious phases of the Turkish empire, it is essential that we look a little in detail into the history and characteristics of these divergent elements of its population which together make up the populations of that country. It is a subject preeminently of races and religions. Within the empire there is only one unifying force and that is Mohammedanism. All who embrace Islam, irrespective of the race from which they sprang, become an integral part of the governing body. Such begin at once to use either the Turkish or the Arabic language and to bear the name “Turk.” Besides this one unifying force, there is no tendency to bring together the different races or to amalgamate them. There is little intermarriage. Each race has its own language and its distinct religion. To them all religion is racial, or, as they call it, “national.” A man without a religion is beyond their conception; and under the laws of the empire he can have no place in any community or possess any rights that others are bound to respect. Each man, woman, and child must be registered upon the rolls of some national church. There his name stands, and in that record his rights inhere until he changes to Islam. Turkey allows few rights or privileges to one not a registered member of a religious community. We will consider briefly a few of the old historical and, in some cases, once powerful races, now found in that empire, and among which mission work is carried on. Only by acquaintance with these races can we understand the real factors in the problem.