With certain exceptions, the Ruling Institution constituted the government of the Ottoman Empire. According to the Sacred Law, the rendering of justice belonged to the Moslem Institution, and many internal matters were left to be regulated by the subject nationalities, which were organized as churches, and by the foreign colonies, which remained under their own laws; but even over these bodies the Ruling Institution held the sword, and in the case of the Moslem Institution it held the purse-strings also. Aside from such exceptions, it attended to all the functions of government that were performed within the empire. These, however, as will appear, were by no means so numerous and extensive as are the activities of a progressive twentieth-century state. Some of the functions of government cared for by the Ruling Institution have already been described in the previous chapters. The guidance of the educational system, the management of the army of the empire, the conduct of local government, the oversight of the household, the care of the sultan’s gardens, pastures, and forests, the regulation of ceremonies at his court, may be all be regarded as tasks of government. To some of them it will be necessary to refer again briefly; but the fact that they have been described already simplifies the problem of setting forth the plan of the government in its narrower sense. FUNCTIONS OF THE OTTOMAN GOVERNMENT All governments must in some fashion maintain themselves in place and in operation; they must obtain means to meet expenses, and they must keep some kind of record of their receipts and expenditures and of their acts. They must alter and expand the unwritten and the written rules under which they operate, at least enough to keep their system workable. They must protect their subjects sufficiently to enable them to earn a living and the means to meet taxation. They must meet the efforts of other governments of both a diplomatic and a military character. All these things the Ottoman government did in its own way. In addition, it remained in the sixteenth century strongly under the ancient impulse to increase its bounds and the number of its subjects, particularly at the expense of Christians and Shiites and in the interest of Sunnite Islam.