Most of their chiefs had received a Roman
culture; and their early conversion to the Christian faith
facilitated the revival and permanence of the old Roman
constitution. In the East it was different. The conquerors had
no touch of Roman civilization, and, followers of the Prophet,
they were animated with an intense hatred, which, after the
conquest, was changed into a superb contempt, of Christians and
Romans. They had their civil constitution 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.
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