an intolerant hatred for all outside of Islam.  The Kalif is the Chief Pontiff.  The Oulema, or Parliament, is composed of the Imans, or religious teachers, the Muftis, or doctors of law, and Kadis, or ministers of justice.  The priests in Turkey are subordinate to the civil magistrate, who is their diocesan, and can remove them at pleasure.  The priests in daily life are like the laity, engage in the same business, and are no more austere than they.

Mr. Forster says, in regard to their devotion:  “When I contrast the silence of a Turkish mosque, at the hour of public prayer, with the noise and tumult so frequent in Christian temples, I stand astonished at the strange inversion, in the two religions, of the order of things which might naturally be expected.”  “I have seen,” says another, “a congregation of at least two thousand souls assembled in the mosque of St. Sophia, with silence so profound, that until I entered the body of the building I was unaware that it contained a single worshipper.”

Bishop Southgate, long a missionary bishop of the Episcopal Church of the United States, says:  “I have often met with Mussulmans who seem to possess deep religious feeling, and with whom I could exercise something of a religious communion.  I have sometimes had my own mind quickened and benefited by the reverence with which they spoke of the Deity, and have sometimes mingled in harmonious converse with them on holy things.  I have heard them insist with much earnestness on the duty of prayer, when they appeared to have some spiritual sense of its nature and importance.  I have sometimes found them entertaining elevated views of moral duty, and looking with contempt on the pleasures of this world.  These are indeed rare characters, but I should do injustice to my own conviction if I did not confess that I had found them.  In these instances I have been uniformly struck with a strong resemblance to patriarchal piety.”  He continues:  “When we sat down to eat, the old Turkish Bey implored a blessing with great solemnity, and rendered his thanks when we arose.  Before he left us he spread his carpet, and offered his evening devotions with apparent meekness and humility; and I could not but feel how impressive are the Oriental forms of worship when I saw his aged head bowed to the earth in religious homage.”

Bishop Southgate adds further:  “I have never known a Mussulman, sincere in his faith and devout and punctilious in his religious duties, in whom moral rectitude did not seem an active quality and a living principle.”

In seasons of plague “the Turks appear perfectly fearless.  They do not avoid customary intercourse and contact with friends.  They remain with and minister to the sick, with unshrinking assiduity....  In truth, there is something imposing in the unaffected calmness of the Turks at such times.  It is a spirit of resignation which becomes truly noble when exercised upon calamities which have already befallen them.  The fidelity with which they remain by the bedside of a friend is at least as commendable as the almost universal readiness among the Franks to forsake it.”