Ever since his day, the struggling beams of knowledge and truth have been casting a mistlike glow over these dominions, sometimes almost bursting into a blaze of brightness, and again subsiding into the obscurity of olden times and religions bigotry.
The principles of progress, and the maintenance of ancient and long established usages were now at war; the former supported by the semi-enlighted portion of the people, and the latter by the formidable body of the ulema or the Mohammedan clergy.
The Rayas, or Christian subjects, hitherto quiescent and despairing, now saw the star of hope and comparative liberty in their horizon, and were ready to grasp at any straw of deliverance from the storms of oppression and tyranny. The mass is in commotion--Mussulman power trembles at the vision of the emancipation of its victims. Oppressed and suffering humanity even dares to utter one vast groan, and to raise a furtive glance towards the glorious temple of liberty, and the equality of man with man.
Mahmoud, the bold champion of his country, is surrounded by intrigues, both foreign and domestic, and becomes entangled in the web of turbulence and opposition, until his soul can endure no longer, and wings its flight from the terrible field of battle.
But the iron gates of barbarism had been unlocked; and even the extreme youth of the succeeding Sultan, Abd-ul-Medjid, bringing with him a sort of regency, could not refasten the heavy bolts.
Thus we find this empire only advancing in progress, the more wonderful since there has been comparatively so little reform in the actual government. Even the Sultan has abrogated his absolute and despotic sway; the once powerful viceroy still sits at his right hand, but no longer unfettered; and the various religious and civil functionaries, although the same as the creatures of yesterday, are themselves amenable to the tribunal of justice and reform, where the spirit of Mahmoud seems to linger as a reproving and condemning monitor.
The opposing influences to all innovations were strong; the very soil rank with bigotry, conceit, and prejudice, and the powers in actual possession of the commonwealth self-willed and cunning. Hitherto a comparative isolation had created natural walls, within which despotism had its unmitigated sway. But as distance became annihilated throughout the world's dominions, as oceans dwindled into lakes, rivers into little rills, and broad acres into mere pleasure gardens, before the mighty achievements of modern invention, all natural barriers disappeared.