The growth of a New Power beyond the Black Sea,--of Russia,--and brilliant combinations by leaders in Hungary, Poland, and Austria, arrested the fatal advance. Then came the struggle to keep instead of to acquire. Hungary and Poland were torn from her, and the dismemberment had begun. With these losses came loss of prestige at home, and revolts and internal disorders. The Janizaries could no longer be trusted. They were open to bribes, intriguing, and a source of danger rather than strength; and finally a reforming Sultan touched a mine of gunpowder which led under their barracks, and they were exterminated, the bowstring and sword finishing the few which had escaped. At this very time (1826) the Greek peninsula had just wrung her freedom from Turkey and was electing her new king. Servia, Bosnia, Montenegro, Bulgaria (1876), one after another revolted, and was made autonomous, or self-governing, by the Powers of Europe. Thus was formed a group of states known as the Balkans, which made a bulwark of neutral territory between Europe and the dissolving and decaying Empire. * * * * * In 1850 Nicholas, the Czar of Russia, determined to take the Christians in Turkey under his own protection. This gave to Russia a virtual Protectorate over the Turkish dominions, and excited the jealousy of England and France. Affecting to think it was an unfair advantage, and an infringement upon the rights of Turkey, those two countries united in a great war upon Russia. This was known as the Crimean War, which ended disastrously for Russia and placed the persecuted Christians under the combined protection of Europe. England and France have made little use since of a right which they purchased with thousands of precious lives! The present Sultan, Abdul Hamid, is the thirty-fifth in descent from Othman. He is the most luxurious and the most powerful barbarian in the world! As he sits surrounded by six thousand attendants, eating his pancakes without table or plate or knife and fork, he is sovereign over lands in three Continents. Absolute lord over some of the richest provinces in the world, surrounded by a fabulous luxury at Constantinople, he is still one of the most abject and miserable of beings. This man, known as the "Great Assassin," whose will is law, and whose nod is death to millions of people, is as ignorant as a child, as nervously timid as an hysterical woman, and as he cowers in the palace of his ancestors, he trembles at an approaching footstep. It is his own subjects that he really fears. The Powers could depose--but his subjects can assassinate. The Sultan knows, and the Powers know, that when they demand a vigorous policy in defence of the Christians they are asking and he is assenting to an impossibility. The millions of wild, turbulent people whom he rules only endure his authority because he stands to them in the place of the Prophet. But the Prophet taught death to non-Mussulmans.