the
Caliphs, he would build up once more a purely theocratic empire.

Such, they say, is his thought; and such doubtless would be the empire
of the future that Mussulmans would choose. Only it is improbable that
it would continue to be in any sense Ottoman, or that Abd el Hamid would
have the opportunity of himself establishing it. The loss of
Constantinople would be a blow to his prestige he could not well recover
from, and no new empire ever yet was founded on defeat. What is far more
likely to happen is that, in such an event, Abd el Hamid and his house
would disappear, and an entirely new order of Caliphal succession take
their place. Even without supposing any such convulsion to the empire as
a loss of the Bosphorus, his reign will hardly be a long one. The Ulema
of Constantinople are by no means all on his side, and the party of
"Young Turkey," cowed for the moment by the terrorism which there
prevails, is his bitter enemy, and will not let him rest. It will
infallibly on the next danger from Europe, show its head again and take
its revenge.

It is said to be the programme of this party, when it next comes to
power, to separate the spiritual functions of the Caliphate from those
of the head of the State, copying, in so far, the modern practice of
Europe towards the Papacy. I suppose that it would be attempted to
restore that state of things, which as we have already seen, existed at
Cairo in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; and it is just
conceivable that, as far as Turkey itself was concerned, such an
arrangement might, for a time, succeed. There would then be two powers
at Constantinople, a Maire du Palais who would reign, and a Caliph who
would be head of religion;--a separation of offices which would
certainly facilitate the sort of reform that Midhat and his friends
desire. But to the world at large the event would only signify that
Constantinople had formally abdicated her claim to leadership, and Islam
would never acknowledge as Caliph the mere puppet of an irreligious
clique of officials, because he happened to be a member of the Beni
Othman. His political power is the only thing that reconciles Islam with
an Ottoman Caliph, and without sovereignty he would be discarded. In
whatever way, therefore, that we look at it, there seems justification
in probability for the conviction already cited that after Abd el Hamid
a new order of Caliphal succession will be seen.

It seems to be an universal opin