The change for them is certainly a happy one, and it is not strange that the Turks who remember the old times feel that the power of Islam is waning, and that reform has gone quite far enough. It is this old Turkish spirit which inspires the present Government to choose the most inopportune moment to proclaim to the world its determination to repress all free thought among Mohammedans. A Turkish Khodja has just been condemned to death for assisting an English missionary to translate the English Prayer Book and some Tracts into Turkish. This is not done secretly. The Turkish papers have discussed the case, and one of the most liberal of them speaks of his offence as follows:--"The abject author of this act of profanation has been drawn into his sin by Satan and by his own evil heart, and has thus dared to commit a sacrilege, by which he is condemned to the curse of God and to eternal torture. We demand that the miserable creature may receive an overwhelming punishment, so that he may, by his example, deter others from selling their religion for a few pence." This is an act of intolerance and barbarity worthy of the bloody days of Mahmoud II., and is far less excusable than it would have been then. It remains to be seen whether it will be approved by those Powers who maintain the Turkish Empire. In one respect Constantinople has undoubtedly suffered by the changes of the last fifty years. It is no longer the picturesque Oriental city that it was then. Its natural beauties remain, but in everything else it has become less interesting as it has become more European. The steamers, whose smoke clouds the clear air of the Bosphorus and blackens the white palaces, are no doubt very convenient; but they are a sad contrast to the tens of thousands of gay caiques which used to give life to the transparent waters of the strait. Ugly north-country colliers are no doubt profitable to their owners, but there is very little interest in watching their passage in comparison with the wonderful displays which were formerly seen when, after a long north wind, a southerly gale would take hundreds of vessels, under full sail, through the Bosphorus in a single day. I have counted over three hundred in sight at once. The square walls and narrow eaves of modern Turkish houses may be more European, but they do not compare favourably with the light Moorish architecture and gilded arabesques of the olden time. German ready-made clothing may be very cheap, and the European style of dress may be adapted to active pursuits; but it is not likely to rouse the enthusiasm of a lover of the picturesque who remembers the gorgeous costumes of fifty years ago, when the streets of Constantinople were crowded with gay and fantastic dresses, as in a perpetual carnival, and each rank, profession, and creed had its own peculiar costume. Even the Sultan is now no longer worth looking at, with his little red fez in place of the magnificent turban