It was full time that these seditious demonstrations, and the sanguinary scenes enacted under former Sultans, should teach prudence to the fortunate, but daring and impetuous Mahmud. He felt the necessity of surrounding himself with faithful and vigorous-minded friends. He chose men qualified both as intelligent advisers and men of action. He invited to a great banquet in his palace his great state functionaries, the teachers of the law, the professors, the officers, the seven generals of the empire, the magnates of the nation, and the warmest partisans of his reforms. With glowing confidence and enthusiasm he spoke in the name of the national interest and the public cause, and called upon all to sacrifice personal feelings, party spirit, and internal divisions, to the fortune and the destinies of the empire. Mahmud’s unusual familiarity astonished the greater number of the bystanders. It was an innovation at variance with the dignity of the “_Shade of Allah on earth_,” but all felt themselves individually flattered by it. When the _salams_ that Oriental courtesy prescribes had been multiplied to a countless number, at a hint given to the Great Master of the Ceremonies, a large piece of tapestry was raised, a gate was thrown open, and the Sultan invited all to enter. It was a vast hall, magnificently lighted. A large number of splendid ensigns covered a table inlaid with amber, and upon it lay the Prophet’s mantle. All prostrated themselves before the holy ensign; and by order of Mahmud, the Grand Seraskier pronounced a formula, and the sovereign, with his own hands, put on his minister’s breast the great decoration of the civil and military order. The ceremony was a kind of Masonic inauguration; the ribbons of the several degrees were distributed to all present, who were invited to pledge themselves to the Sultan and to each other. The mystery attending the meeting had given it a more solemn character. All repeated the Grand Seraskier’s formula; and the work of the regeneration of the empire had commenced. This happened in October, 1831. That Grand Seraskier was Kosrew Pacha, in whose service the Croat fugitive Latkes, now Mussulman Omer, had lived for the last year. Eight years afterwards, on the 3d of November, 1839, the same hall was opened in broad day, and there, with all the solemnity of a national ceremony, the warmest supporters of Old Turkey, Sheik-ul-Islam, (the chief of the faith,) and the members of the body of Ulemas, who before the same holy shrine were sworn on the hands of the Mufti (ecclesiastical president) to observe the Tanzimat, were assembled. The ashes of Mahmud were still warm: it was the first act of the reign of Abdul Medjid. The victory had been rapid: Young Turkey had, on that day, triumphed over Old Turkey.