What could such a little atom of a country do alone? One can only wonder
that she ever dared to _dream_ of freedom! But a desire for freedom makes
frail, weak bodies marvellously strong sometimes. She resolved that she
would not longer endure the Turkish yoke; and she called to her old
kinsmen in Greece to come and take her into their Christian kingdom. She
said: "We are the same in race and in religion, let us become one in
country, too."
This is not the first despairing cry that has come from the Sultan's
dominions. Again and again have they rung through Europe in the last
century.
The rule of the Ottoman Empire (or Turkey) is the most corrupt, cruel, and
degrading in the world. We have seen that Spain is grasping, avaricious,
and a hard mother to her distant Colonies, which she treats like slaves
rather than children. But for all that Spain is brave and chivalric. She
has a _sense_ of honor and of justice, even if she violates it, and--she
is _Christian_.
But Turkey--Mohammedan Turkey, has not one of these qualities. She has no
conscience, no shame, no remorse for terrible deeds done; indeed, the
murder of Christians is the surest and swiftest passport to her heaven!
Thousands and thousands of Christians perish by the sword every year in
the Ottoman Empire, and awful cruelties are committed every day upon the
living.
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