In Constantinople one does not fail to meet Greeks and Armenians who are bright and entertaining and obliging, or Mohammedans who are noble and courteous, and thoughtful enough to make their acquaintance an acquisition. But every study of the people in mass is a revelation of arrested development, absence of initiative, and general uselessness by reason of narrow selfishness. The city, and with it the millions to whom the city is model, seems hostile to what is best in the world’s work. High-sounding phrases of lofty principle are heard in the city. Custom provides for this much of concession to the sensibilities of others. But the centuries seem to have frayed off the last semblance of meaning from the words. To quote a remark of a sage official in India which applies to the whole of Asia, “Whilst the mouth is proclaiming its enlightenment and progress, the body is waddling backward as fast as the nature of the ground will permit.” The bane of Constantinople is not solely poverty of resources; it is poverty of ideals. —HENRY OTIS DWIGHT, LL. D. in “Constantinople and its Problems.” While the political and commercial importance of Constantinople is supreme, when considered in relation to the Powers of Europe and the far East, this is insignificant in comparison with its religious importance in relation to the Mohammedan world. So far as we can learn, this fact did not receive large consideration at the time missions in Turkey were begun. The truth is that it did not then hold the commanding relations to the Mohammedans of other countries that it holds to-day. The present reigning sultan, Hamid II, has done more than any of his predecessors to secure for himself recognition by all the faithful as the one supreme head, the caliph of Islam. He has sent presents with messages of sympathy and encouragement to Mohammedans in India, China, and Africa, and these have been received as from the great living head of the Moslem faith. When our government found itself in possession of a country in which a Mohammedan ruler was enthroned, it found it convenient to carry on negotiations for submission through the sultan of Constantinople. There are probably 230,000,000 Mohammedans in Turkey, Europe, Persia, Africa, India, China and other countries, who look upon the sultan of Turkey as the representative on earth of their revered prophet Mohammed. As such, he does not possess or assume temporal authority, or even well-defined spiritual prerogatives, but he does command an influence that has been secretly discussed in many European cabinets, and which has been taken into consideration in dealing with Moslem races and in administering ultimata to the head of the Ottoman empire. The sultan clearly represents a temporal and a religious power. The strength of the temporal influence lies in his relations religiously, not only to his