onstitution in the Koran; and the Koran, in its principles, doctrines,
and spirit, is exclusive and profoundly intolerant. The Graeco-Roman
constitution was always much weaker in the East, and had far greater
obstacles to overcome there than in the West; yet it has survived the
shock of the conquest. Throughout the limits of the ancient Empire of
the East, the barbaric constitution has received and is daily receiving
rude blows, and, but as reenforced by barbarians lying outside of the
boundaries of that empire, would be no longer able to sustain itself.
The Greek or Christian populations of the empire are no longer in
danger of being exterminated or absorbed by the Mohammedan state or
population. They are the only living and progressive people of the
Ottoman Empire, and their complete success in absorbing or expelling
the Turk is only a question of time. They will, in all present
probability, reestablish a Christian and Roman East in much less time
from the fall of Constantinople in 1453, than it took the West from the
fall of Rome in 476 to put an end to the feudal or barbaric
constitution founded by its Germanic invaders.

Indeed, the Roman constitution, laws, and civilization not only gain
the mastery in the nations seated within the limits of the old Roman
Empire, but extend their power through out the whole civilized world.
The Graeco-Roman civilization is, in fact, the only civilization now
recognized, and nations are accounted civilized only in proportion as
they are Romanized and Christianized. The Roman law, as found in the
Institutes, Pandects, and Novellae of Justinian, or the Corpus Legis
Civilis, is the basis of the law and jurisprudence of all Christendom.
The Graeco-Roman civilization, called not improperly Christian
civilization, is the only progressive civilization. The old feudal
system remains in England little more than an empty name. The king is
only the first magistrate of the kingdom, and the House of Lords is
only an hereditary senate. Austria is hard at work in the Roman
direction, and finds her chief obstacle to success in Hungary, with the
Magyars whose feudalism retains almost the full vigor of the Middle
Ages. Russia is moving in the same direction; and Prussia and the
smaller Germanic states obey the same impulse. Indeed, Rome has
survived the conquest--has conquered her conquerors, and now invades
every region from which they came. The Roman Empire may be said to be
acknowledged