THE AMERICAN PRESS ON THE OUTBREAK OF WAR.

Inangahua Times, Volume IV, Issue 30, 18 June 1877, Page 2

THE AMERICAN PRESS ON THE OUTBREAK OF WAR.

The- San Francisco Cbsonicle says:— The real purpose of the war which now seems to be certain between Eussia and Turkey, is to secure a naval expansion for the former. Russia has no outlet fov 1 communication, with the rest of the world bat the Baltic, and its ports there are usually frozen up iv winter? Its dream for centuries has been commercial development in the Black Sea.. But the Turk, keeping watch and ward at the Dardanelles, has stood in, the way of its realisation. England has. aided him* for she did not want so powerful a nation as Russia planted on the route to India, Austria has inclined the same way, be» cause if the Turks should be expelled from Europe* some of this European territory would fall to her share, which it is said would; disturb tht? equilibrium between Slav and Magyar, which constitutes what is. known, as. Austrian dualism. In a general sort of way Italy, , because she lies wholly in the Mediter- ; janean,. and France, becaase she abuts upon it, tided with England and Austria, considering that Bussia might be an , undesirable neighbour. It waa for tb««e reasons that ihtte of ttate nations, England, france, and Bar dtWi wade oommpa ctvpe with the Twks in 1894 «d laid, siege to S«ba»topol. Bui with, the g*ea.t mass, of, the people who will deploy in, lio/9 o£ batjtle, if war should really come) these com-*

mercial and material considerations trill not hare much weight. Perhaps ft » general way it may be laid that tbevftM scarcely know* to them. The «iS«J! crie3 on one side will not be commercial expansion and free navigation of it.l Black Sea, but Hojy • jfiJJLg ■ 5* Sophia. Id the Turkish lines the *LJ.« of battle will be ..that which Kg oS! resounded ominously tbroaffh Eb-a-,"" "God « God, and MoffiJT*^ Prophet" The ostensible <Wtf ftl warm 1854 abiding to KmgLli^ Jerusalem and the Holy pwTliki manner, the ostensible cause of th« ••» now impending is the harsh treatment cJ 1 Caliph ° P Chrißtian ****$£ In this way a cause of quarrel- wM*h dates back to the tenth ?entary b** fruit in the nineteenth. LawreniL !^T ing of the Greek Church, wyl^?£ language is still that in which the Gospels. | were written and Polycarp and Ignatius. : preached ; its melodious ritual reaches back to the days of Constantine and Athanasius. 1 ' It was the Church founded by Constantine when he set tip (he Eastern Empire at Constantinople. "Under Justinian," says the same author, "arose that tall and graceful dome of St. Sophia, the most wonderful of the inventions of the later architects, whose fair proportions still rise over theMoslem city and reproach the- Eastern Church with the spectacle of its desecrated shrine." It was from this source that Eussia derived its Christainity. Vladimir, in 988, who is described ts a rude and simple sarage, cruel and terrible, became a convert to the faith of Constantine. Tie Envoys of various religions argued their cases before him. " The MussuK mans of the Volga," it is written* " pressed him to believe in their prophet, the Western Christians in the Pope, the Jews in Moses, the Greek philosophers in Attic culture." The ferocious ruler listened, but sent an embassy to. Constant tinople to observe the manners and the faith of the city of the Cswars. Their report induced the Pelavonio Prince to get baptised. He then went to work to convert the people, but by • system of proselytising not common ta these days. He ordered the whole population of his capital of Kief to be im* mersed in the Dnciper, while priests read prayers ou the banks. But not long after these events,. Constantinople foil into- th* hands of the Turks, and St. Sopvia wit converted into a Mosque. ♦•' AmidstJh^- ; groans and cries,.*' writes Lawrence, %■£ the host of dying Greeks, Mahomme* «h ' strode up the- blood-stained nave and \ proclaimed from, it* high altar the God , and prophet of an accursed faitk. A , goldea crescent ws* raised above the> dome of St. Sophia. The Greek Chanel j fallen and powerless* yet wept over the . desecration of its eternal shnne, as the p chief of its baixUiaiiona > not in all its wide domain is there to>day t priest or layman, who does not remember that St. Sophia was. torn from Us anceston by the • savage Turk, or long for the day of its. restoration. Thjsse are the sentiments, which animate the vast hosts which the [ ozar has been mustering fos the onset. • Moscow, since the tall of Conttanti- » noplc, lias been, the sacred cUy of tha > Greek Church. In tbe< Kremlin, some of > tho glories, of St. Sophia an> reproduced^ i Bat it has, never been regarded in any > other light but as a temporary subsitute. s for Constantinople.. There is na son of - Kurik any whoso who does not reverently j believe that the Cross is again, to replace . the Cresent on the central fane of bis, , faith* and. that Constantinople iajo. be the, capital of Holy Ku^siai . j It is in this way that the tenth, century comes to project itself into the nine* 3 teenth. A nine hundred year old quarrel f is now, to all appearance,, about to seek 1 a final adjustment. But from, the eler ments of fanaticism,' which, so. largely 1 enter into, it, the chances are thai it will t be prolonged till one side or the other is . wholly exhausted. The Turk will fight } with as muoh tenacity— perhaps, from, the s peculiarity of h-s religious belief, with. x more heroim than the Kuasian. Bat i weight of men an t material of war is i against him. Tuc time for retirement of 5 the Moslem from. Europe has aoparenltj > arrued A