from the West. They were ready
to surrender their religious belief. On this principle, the monk Barlaam
was despatched on an embassy to Benedict XII. to propose the reunion of
the Greek and Latin Churches, as it was delicately termed, and to
obtain, as an equivalent for the concession, an army of Franks. As the
danger became more urgent, John Palaeologus I. sought an interview with
Urban V., and, having been purified from his heresies respecting the
supremacy of the pope and the double procession of the Holy Ghost, was
presented before the pontiff in the Church of St. Peter. The Greek
monarch, after three genuflexions, was permitted to kiss the feet of the
holy father and to lead by its bridle his mule. But, though they might
have the will, the popes had lost the power, and these great submissions
were productive of no good. Thirty years subsequently, Manuel, the son
and successor of Palaeologus, took what might have seemed a more certain
course. He travelled to Paris and to London to lay his distress before
the kings of France and England; but he received only pity, not aid. At
the Council of Constance Byzantine ambassadors appeared. It was,
however, reserved for the synods of Ferrara and of Florence to mature,
as far as might be, the negotiation. The second son of John Palaeologus
journeyed again into Italy, A.D. 1438; and while Eugenius was being
deposed in the chamber at Basle, he was consummating the union of the
East and West in the Cathedral of Florence. [Sidenote: The Greek Church
yields to the Latin.] In the pulpit of that edifice, on the sixth of
July of that year, a Roman cardinal and a Greek archbishop embraced each
other before the people; Te Deum was chanted in Greek, mass was
celebrated in Latin, and the Creed was read with the "Filioque." The
successor of Constantine the Great had given up his religion, but he had
received no equivalent--no aid. The state of the Church, its disorders
and schisms, rendered any community of action in the West impossible.

[Sidenote: Mohammed II.] The last, the inevitable hour at length struck.
Mohammed II. is said to have been a learned man, able to express himself
in five different languages; skilful in mathematics, especially in their
practical application to engineering; an admirer of the fine arts;
prodigal in his liberality to Italian painters. In Asia Minor, as in
Spain, there was free thinking among the disciples of the Prophet. It
was affirmed that the sultan, in hi