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Behind the Sultan’s private box
On the western side of the church, and behind the Sultan’s private box, is the Cold Window, so called from the cool wind which always blows through it; it is considered a place of exceptional sanctity, having been the spot whence the celebrated Sheik Ak-Shems-ed-Din, who accompanied the Conqueror, first preached the Koran in St. Sophia. In one of the windows in the western gallery is a translucent stone, called the Shining Stone. The two immense tapers, one on each side of the Mihrab, are only lighted during Ramazan, and are literally columns of wax. The inscription forming a pendant to the pulpit is a quotation from the Koran, and is a masterpiece of ornamental writing; it is the work of Sultan Mahmud II.
Despite the removal of most of the emblems of Christianity and the addition of those of Islamism, the interior of St. Sophia cannot be said to have much changed by its conversion into a mosque; but the addition of towers, walls, minarets, and other structures outside, has altered the exterior appearance of the building almost beyond recogni-tion. The four minarets are the work of different Sultans: that at the south-east corner is the oldest, having been erected by Muhammad II.; it is of different shape from the others; that at the northeast comer was built by Selim II., and those on the western side by Murat III.
Church of St. Irene (HarbiehAmbari = armoury), now used as a museum of ancient arms. Admission by imperial warrant. It is situated in the Old Seraglio grounds guided tours istanbul, and was never converted into a mosque. It was built by Constantine the Great on the site of the heathen temple erected to Irene (Elptfvrj), or Peace, and named after the fane it superseded, and has no connection with St. Irene, the Christian martyr. It was burnt down in 532 A.D. during the Nika riot, and rebuilt by Justinian. This church is in a fair state of preservation, though it suffered considerably during the earthquakes of 1894. The ornamentation is simple in character. According to most authorities the church of St. Irene was the place where the second General Council met in 381 A.D., during the reign of Theodosius the Great, and proclaimed the Nicene doctrine of the Trinity against the followers of Macedonius.
Christian union
It is, however, curious to note that this building, which was once the scene of this Christian union, has now been chosen, as if by the irony of fate, as a museum of objects of strife, and is crowded with ancient arms and armour, modern weapons, and trophies. Most interesting among these are the sword of Muhammad II.; that of Scanderbey; an armlet of Tamerlane; the gold and silver keys of numerous conquered cities, and more ancient tokens of surrender in the form of little bags of earth; and two standards, said to have been those of Ali, bearing three double-edged swords on a red field. The collection also contains a large quantity of chain- mail, some fine Circassian helmets, and numerous red and green banners and flags.
The Church of SS. Sergius and Bacchus, called Kutchuk Ayiah Sofia (St. Sophia the less) by the Turks, from the beauty of its columns and ornamentation, lies behind the Hippodrome, close to the railway line, and near the Marmora sea – shore. Admission 5 piastres per head. It was built in 527 A.D. by Justinian in the vicinity of the palace of Hormisdas, where he resided prior to his accession to the throne. According to tradition the church was erected and dedicated to these two saints by Justinian as a thanksgiving offering, for having, in reponse to his prayers, appeared in a dream to his predecessor, the Emperor Anastasius, and induced that monarch to release him from prison, where he had been cast with hie uncle Justin I. for alleged conspiracy against the throne. Justinian is said to have devoted all his private fortune to the endowment of this church. The building is nearly square, being 109 feet by 92 feet exclusive of the apse.
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Regional Museum of History
14.1. RELIQUARY
Gold, emeralds, sapphires, inlayed garnets 3,8 x 6,5 x 4,5 cm; 227,5 g
Varna, Regional Museum of History,
Inv. Ill – 768
14.2. BOX
Silver 9,3 x 10 x 5,6 cm
Varna, Regional Museum of History,
14.3. BOX
Alabaster 15,5 x 22,4 x 15,5 cm
Varna, Regional Museum of History,
15. RELIQUARY
Asia Minor
Second half of the 4th century Silver
L. 4,8 cm; w. 3 cm; h. 2,8 cm
Inscriptions in Greek: on the lid: OMO NOIA (concordance, harmony); next to Jesus and each of the saints presented: IHC OYC HE TP OC, nAT AOC, AN APE AC, OIA[I]HnOC, [IO]Y[A]AC, IAK OB OC, MAOEOC, [BAPOOAOM]E[0]C, JOAN NIC – Jesus, Peter, Paul, Andrew, Philip, Judas, Jacob, Mathew, Bartholomew, John.
Found accidentally in the foundations of a building, possibly a basilica, in the village of Yabalkovo, Haskovo region, in 1930. According to its discoverer bulgaria tour, the silver reliquary was lying in a ceramic container also inscribed, and yet lost before coming to the Museum.
Relief representations of St. St. Constantine the Great and Elena on both sides of a Latin cross on the lid, and Jesus Christ surrounded by nine of his Apostles on the walls of the container.
16. RELIQUARY
Eastern Mediterranean 4th – 5th century Silver
L. 9,5 cm; max. w. 5 cm; h. 4 cm
Discovered during archaeological excavations of a basilica in Eleshnichka Banya, next to the village of Eleshnitsa, Blagoevgrad region
The silver reliquary was lying in a marble container shaped as a sarcophagus, NIAM – BAS, Inv. N 3767.
17. RELIQUARY
Syria (?)
Late 4th – early 5th century (ca. 363 – 408 AD) Silver gilt
L. 8 cm; w. 8 cm; h. 7 cm
The front wall bears a hammered relief of Chi – Rho monogram, and the Greek letters of A and O be-tween the X hastae. A Chi – Rho monogram was engraved on the backside, and also the Greek letters of A and O below the cross arms.
The reliquary was discovered between two skel-etons in Tomb 3 near the southwest corner, by the apse of the earliest St. Sophia Church in Sofia (Ser- dica) in 1893, during the excavations of Bogdan Filov, It contained remains of decayed cloth and three worn copper coins probably of the sons of Constantine the Great (ca. mid 4th c.).
18. RELIQUARY
Eastern Mediterranean 5th – 6th century Marble 13 cm; w. 8,2 cm; h. 13,5 cm
Discovered accidentally in a field in 1899, in a brick tomb about 1 m deep, in the altar of Basilica N 5 in Hisar (ancient Diodetianopolis), Plovdiv region.
19. RELIQUARY Syria or Italy (?) 5th – 6th century Ceramics
L. 17,5 cm; w. 11,5 cm; h. 8 cm
Inscription, beginning with a cross and terminat-ing in an ivy leaf, rims along the four walls incised in Latin before baking:
Here are the relics of St. Apostle Thomas and Arch-bishop Babyla and the three infants
An accidental find while ploughing afield next to the village of Perivol, Kyustendil region in 1931. Today Perivol is annexed to the village ofDragov- ishtitsa, Sofia region.
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University Centre
Varna is the second largest University Centre in the country and also has a Naval School, opened in 1881 when the Russian fleet was transferred to Varna.
Notable monuments are: Museum of History and Art in the former girls’ high school built in the last century. The museum was opened to mark the 13th centenary of the Bulgarian State, founded in 681. The museum has 40 exhibition halls, three of which show artefacts from the famous Varna Necropolis. Also on display are other ancient finds, and artefacts from the Middle Ages and the National Revival period. There is an art gallery exhibiting modern Bulgarian art.
District History Museum, 7 Osmi Noemvri Street, tel. 2-24-23: Archaeological Museum, 5 Sheinovo Street, tel. 2-30-62; Ethnographic Museum, 22 Panagyurishte Street, tel. 2-00-80; Museum of the Working-Class Revolutionary Movement, 3 Osmi Noemvri Street; Museum-Park Wladyslaw Warnenczik;Navy Museum‘ 2 Chervenoarmeiski Blvd. tel.
2-24-06; The Art Gallery, 65 Lenin Blvd, tel. 2-42-81; Georgi Velchev Museum, 8 Zhechka Karamfilova Street, tel. 2-56-39; Natural Science Museum in the Maritime Gardens, tel. 2-82-94; Aquarium and Museum, 4 Chervenoarmeiska Street, tel. 2-41-93 turkey sightseeing.
The Roman Thermae, built in the 2nd century.
The Roman Bath from the 3rd-4th century.
St Nicholas Church 1866
The Cathedral of the Holy Virgin, erected in the centre of Varna in 1886. The iconostasis and the bishop’s throne are the work of master-woodcarvers from Debur, while the icons were painted by a group of Russian painters.
I he Pantheon Memorial in the Maritime Gardens.
The National Revival Alley in the Maritime Gardens, with busts of outstanding figures of that period.
Dimiter Blagoev Monument in the boulevard of the same name, s’
Karel Skorpil Monument, founder of Bulgarian archaeology.
The Monument to Bulgarian-Soviet Friendship, near the Yuri Gagarin stadium.
Hotels: Cherno More, three stars, 35 Georg) Dimitrov Blvd. tel. 3-40-88; Odessa, 1 Georgi Dimitrov Blvd, three stars, with 170 beds, restaurant, bar, coffee shop, information desk, rent-a-car service. Tel. 2-53-12; Moussala, 3 Moussala Street, tel. 2-26-02; Orbita, 25 V.Kolarov Street, tel. 2-51-62; Preslav, 1 Avram Gachev Street, tel, 2-25-83; Repoublika, September Ninth Square, tel. 2-83-53.
Tourist Information Bureau, 6 Koloni Street, tel. 2-28-03.
Balkantourist Bureau, 3 Moussala Street, tel. 2-55-24 and 2-08-07.
Balkan Airlines Office, 2 Shipka Street, tel. 2-29-48.
The Union of Bulgarian Motorists, 9 Dr Zamenhov Street, tel. 2-62-93.
The Rila International Bureau, 3 Shipka Street, tel 2-62-73.
In the Dianavaraster section are the foundations of a basilica from the 6th century with some marble columns, capitals and cornices and a receptacle containing mortal remains, decorated with precious stones, standing between two reliquaries of silver and marble.
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Bulgaria’s prettiest towns
We now head for one of Bulgaria’s prettiest towns, Gabrovo (pop. 80,000), situated in the mountains in the narrow valley of the Yantra. The town was founded in the 14th century. Legend says that after Bozhena founded the village of Bozhentsi, her son Racho settled on the banks of the Yantra and built himself a smity near an ancient tree, and later the town was named after that tree. During Ottoman rule many crafts developed such as homespun and furriery. Gabrovo was famous in the Ottoman Empire for craft.
The town flourished in the 19th century, with the innovation of the water wheel from Transylvannia. Woollen braid, homespun articles, rugs, wood and iron articles were manufactured which found a market beyond the boundaries of the Ottoman Empire. The economic rise boosted the town’s cultural development and a monastery school was founded in 1825, and in 1835 the first new Bulgarian secular school was set up with the assistance of merchants from Gabrovo, who lived in Odessa. The citizens of Gabrovo took an active part in the rebellions and uprisings of the 19th century as well as in the Russo-Turkish War (1877-1878) defending Mount Shipka. The Gabrovo population were most active in the war against fascism and capitalism. Partisans from the Gabrovo-Sevlievo detachment fought fierce battles against the police and gendarmerie on Mount Bouzloudja and near the village of Balvan.
After the socialist victory. Gabrovo developed by leaps and bounds. Old industrial enterprises were modernised and new branches established.
The town has a theatre, children’s art school, district museum, library, art gallery, summer theatre, theatre of Humour and Satire — a festival of humour and satire is held here bi-annually in May. An international biennial of cartoons is also held attended by guests from Aberdeen and many other coum tries.
A technological institute was opened in 1964, in addition to pedagogical institute, technical colleges and secondary schools.
Monuments and sights
The District History Museum, 7 Balvan St.
The Aprilov Grammar School founded 1872 where many prominent Bulgarians studied sofia sightseeing.
The clock tower in May 1st Square, built in 1835.
A group of houses from National Revival times in Opulchenska St.
Church of Virgin Mary, with its remarkable iconostasis.
In front of the Aprilov Grammar school is the Vassil Aprilov Monument built in 1935 to mark the centenary of the opening of the first Bulgarian secular school.
The monument to Racho the Blacksmith stands on a rock in the middle of the Yantra.
The Ossuary in the new part of the town is a compound of sculptural figures, a sacrificial altar, a rostrum and memorial plaques with the names of fallen partisans from 1923-1944.
Mitko Palaouzov Monument built near the school where the young partisan studied.
Hotels: Balkan, 14 Emanouil Manolov St., tel. 2-19-11, two stars, accommodating 415, restaurant, three banqueting halls, coffee shop, day bar.
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Largest production is in textiles
Light industry has also developed at a great pace since the end of the war and the production of consumer goods has increased more than 40 times. Largest production is in textiles, tailoring, fur, glass and porcelain. Bulgaria is well known as an agricultural producer and a considerable percentage of the produce is processed. Tinned fruit, wine, vegetables, meat and fish make up a large part of the country’s exports. There is also an expanding sugar industry and milk processing, tobacco and cigarette production. Agriculture has expanded and cooperative and state farms have almost trebled their capital investment, increased labour productivity and raised farmers’ living standards. Plans are in hand to amalgamate the farms with food processing plants.
Transport Rail transport has expanded considerably, especially with the change over to diesel and electric locomotives. In addition, road transport has also undergone great expansion since the foundation of the Republic. From a mere 19,500 km in 1939, Bulgaria’s road network reached 36,113 km in 1982. The Bulgarian Civil Air Transport carries over two million passengers annually. Bulgaria has air connection with almost all European capitals as well as the Middle East. The total tonnage of the Bulgarian merchant fleet exceeds 1 million and Bulgarian fishing vessels ply the Black Sea and the Atlantic Ocean.
Social Security In Bulgaria
Health and Social Security In Bulgaria is the concern of the State. No contributions are deducted from wages and salaries. Men retire with a state pension at 60 and women at 55 city tours istanbul, or after 25 and 20 years of service respectively. Workers in dangerous professions retire earlier. Pensions vary from 55 to 80% of the basic salary based on three of the last 10 years worked.
In 1973, pensions were introduced for people over the age of 70 with no income and for persons disabled from birth. The number of places in residential care for the aged and invalids have increased enormously. Mothers receive a full wage during maternity leave of 45 days before the birth of the child and up to six months after delivery. In addition, they receive the minimum wage fixed for the country until the child reaches the age of two as well as a lump sum for the birth and are entitled to a monthly family allowance until the child reaches the age of 16,
Health care and hospital treatment is free. All hospitals and clinics are state owned. Dental treatment is included in the free cover. The sale of medicine is controlled by state health authorities.
Culture The Committee for Culture is elected for a term of five years by the Congress of Culture and manages and assists all cultural institutions and organisations as well as artist’s unions.
Science and Education The two main institutions for research in Bulgari a are the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and the Academy of Agricultural Sciences.! hey cover the activities of over 190 research institutes with some 8,000 research workers. Research is also carried out in colleges, museums etc. Primary and secondary education is free and about 60% of students receive state scholarships for further study. Many students from other European countries, Asia, Africa and Latin America study in Bulgaria at higher education level.
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Cultural and geographical proximity
Its closeness to Scythian decorative art may be explained by the ethnical, cultural and geographical proximity of these two peoples before they had come into contact with the Greeks, when cattle-raising was the economic basis of both peoples. The fate of this Thracian art is very clearly reflected in many objects in which the strong influence of Greek art is felt. Greek art was mainly instrumental in introducing plant motifs, so beloved of ancient Greek ornamentation; it was also instrumental in introducing whole subjects taken from ancient Greek mythology, in which human and animal forms overcome abstractness and come closer to nature. The silver plaques with scenes from the myth of Heracles, found in Panagyurish- te, are of special interest in this respect.
The art of building developed early among the Thracians. In the early periods it may be traced on the evidence of tomb architecture. Under the tumuli not only ordinary graves, but entire tombs are found, of great interest on account of their plan and structure. The cupola tombs are of particular interest in this respect; they are built of stone blocks, and later of bricks as well, covered with a false vault.The largest cupola tomb known so far was discovered in a tumulus near Me- zck (near Svilengrad), which is 14 m. high and has a diameter of 90 m. The tomb contains a passage 20.65m. long, 1.55m. wide and 2.40—2.60m. high, covered with a triangular vault.
Three chambers
This leads into three chambers, placed along an axis, of which the first two are square, 1.48 m. x 1.26 m. and 1.77 m.x 2.22 m.in size; the first is3.20 m. and the second 3.52 m. high, and both are covered like the passage. The third, end chamber, which is round with a diameter of 3.30 m. and a height of 4.30 m.is shaped like a bee-hive. This was the tomb chamber. Although this tomb was robbed in antiquity, a large number of bronze vessels were found here, together with the candelabrum described before, and some gold jewelry. The total length of the tomb is nearly 29.95 m holidays bulgaria. It dates back to the first half of the 4th century B. C.
The brick cupola that Kazanluk is far more modest in its dimensions. Its plan is much simpler, consisting of an open stone antechamber, a short passage and a bee-hive cupola tomb chamber built of bricks. The total length of the brick body is 5.80 m. But its wonderful murals distinguish this cupola tomb from the 13 other similar tombs known so far. They cover the entire inner surface of the passage and the vaulted chamber. Lower down the walls are covered with stucco work imitating a marble plinth, in the passage black orthostat between bands of white blocks, and in the vaulted chamber white orthostat between bands of black blocks.
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BOZHENTSI
It is a small and picturesque village situated just 17 km to the east of the town of Gabrovo. Today it is a historical ethnographic reservation. The village achieved its greatest prosperity in the 18th century when the articles produced by the smiths, carpenters and other craftsmen of Bozhentsi found a ready market in the Ottoman Empire, Austria, Russia and other countries. Then the houses of Bozhentsi began to be built – usually two-storeyed, with spacious wooden verandahs and heavy stone roofs. Inside they were decorated with wood carving done by masters of the Tryavna wood-carving school.
ETUR
An ethnographic historical reservation and museum, situated on both banks of the Seneka River, 8 km south of the Etur Smolyan town of Gabrovo. Craftsmen’s workshops have been restored here, which in the 18th century won Gabrovo the fame of a centre for shoes, wrought-iron articles, earthen-ware vessels, jewellery, wooden articles, etc. A Hungarian traveller justly called the town at that time ‘a tremendous workshop’. Today true copies of those old workshops function in Etur, forging knives and bells, turning round wooden bowls, fashioning silver filigree objects, etc.
In Gabrovo the Balkan Hotel (with restaurant) is at your service (1st class). It is run by Balkantourist and has 127 beds; Balkan 295 beds – tel. 26-31; Yantra, 1st class, 321 beds – tel. 23-72 ephesus daily tour.
SMOLYAN
The highest Bulgarian town – it is at an altitude of 1,010 m above sea level in the Western Rhodope Mountains. In the past it was a small, declining town without a future. During the years of people’s rule it has become the natural centre of the region and marked a rapid growth. It was merged with the former villages of Raikovo and Oustovo, which are now parts of it, and its population grew to well over 20,000. Side by side with its economic prosperity, Smolyan also developed as an exceedingly attractive centre of international tourism. Its wonderful scenic beauty and healthy mountain climate helped not only the town, but also its whole district, develop into a resort zone with great potential. Side by side with the already famous resort of Pam- porovo, there are many other attractive localities and settlements here: the Smolyan Lakes, Chepelare, Progled, Rozhen, the Haidouk Meadows, the Trigrad Walls, Shiroka Luka, the Yagodinski Caves, Momchilovtsi, Manastir and Mogilitsa. With the Pamporovo resort, they are all included in the big Rhodope Mountains Resort Complex ‘Orphei’.
Of particular interest to tourists are the natural phenomena such as the Rock Bridges, the Trigrad Gorge, the Smolyan Lakes, and the peaks Mourgavets, Snezhanka, Sokolitsa. But the greatest cultural wealth of the town are its old architectural monuments, preserved first of all in the Raikovo and Oustovo town districts as well as in the village of Shiroka Luka – the most original village in the Rhodope Mountains. A veritable architectural masterpiece is the Pangalova House in Raikovo district, housing the District Ethnographic Museum. Another remarkable architectural monument is the only feudal ensemble in our country – the Agoushev House in Mogilitsa village.
Hotels: Sokolitsa (with restaurant), Lenin Street, tel. 30-85; Orphei (with restaurant), Lenin Blvd, tel. 20-41; the hotel and restaurant at the Smolyan Lakes, tel. 27-72; a bar and tavern, Lenin Blvd, tel. 23-95.
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Library of the British Museum
Every reader is familiar with the consummate perfection of the Library of the British Museum, the glory of British, the envy of foreign scholars. And it gives one an awful sense of the growth of this form of purism to watch it invading our noble library. Go to the Catalogue and turn to Voltaire, and you will read ‘ Voltaire, see Arouet;and you will have to trudge to the other end of the enormous alphabet. Why Arouet? What has his legal name to do with a writer who put his name, Voltaire, on the title-page of thousands of editions, and never on one, Arouett And Molilre?—is not Molibre, as a name, a part of modern literature? Mr. Andrew Lang tells a most delightful story of a printer, who found in his ‘ copy ’ some reference to ‘the Scapin of Poquelin.’ This hopelessly puzzled him, till a bright idea struck his inventive mind, and he printed it — ‘the Scapiu of M. Coquelin.’
Turn, in the Reference Catalogue of the Museum, to Madame de Slvigtri, and we read: — Sivign, Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, Marchioness de:— see Rabutin-Chantal.’ Why should we ‘see’ Rabutin-Chantal? That was her maiden-name; and since she married at eighteen, and her works are letters to her daughter, it seems a little odd to dub an elderly mamma of rank by her maiden-name. And what in the name of precision is ‘ Marchioness de ’? It is like saying ‘ Mister Von Goethe.’ Once attempt a minute heraldic accuracy, and endless confusion results. Why need ‘ Mrs. Nicholls’ appear in the catalogue of the works of Currer Bell? And why need George Eliot be entered as Marian Evans—a name which the great novelist did not bear either in literature or in private life?
If we apply the baptismal-certificate theory strictly to history, universal confusion will result. Law students will have to study the Digest of Uprauda. His great general will be Beli- Tzar. And by the same rule, the heroic Sala- din becomes Salah-cd-deen, or rather, Malek-Nasser-Yousouf; Dante becomes Durante Alighieri; Copernicus is Kopernik; and Columbus becomes CristSbal Colon. If baptismal registers are decisive, we must turn ‘ Erasmus’ into Gerhardt Praet; ‘ Melancthon ‘ into Schwarzerd; and ‘ Scaliger’ into Bordoni. There is no more reason to change Alfred into AElfred and Frederick into Friedrich than there would be to transform the great sailor into Cristobal Colon, and to talk about the Code of Uprauda.
Vecellio, Vannucci
And the dear old painters, almost every one of whom has a familiar cognomen which has made the tour of the civilised world. What a nuisance it is to read in galleries and catalogues, Vecellio, Vannucci, and Cagliari, in lieu of our old friends Titian, Perugino, and Veronese sightseeing turkey! Raphael and Michael Angelo, Masaccio and Tintoretto are no more: ‘ restorers ’ in oil are renewing for us the original brilliancy of their hues; whilst restorers ’ in ink are erasing the friendly old nick-names with vera copias of the baptismal certificates in their hands. Every chit of an aesthete will talk to you about the Cenacolo, or the Sposalizio, of Sanzio; and the Paradiso in the Palazzo Dncale; though these words are nearly the limit of his entire Italian vocabulary. This new polyglott language of historians and artists is becoming, in fact, the speech which is known to the curious as maccaronic. It recalls the famous lines of our youth:— Trumpeter unus erat, coatum qui scarlet habebat.
There are two fatal impediments to this attempt at reproducing archaic sounds. It is at best but a clumsy symbolism of unpronounceable vocables, and it never is, and never can be, consistently applied. Althelthryth, Hrofesceaster, and Gruffydd are grotesque agglomerations of letters to represent sounds which are not familiar to English ears or utterable by English lips. The ‘ Old-Eng- lish ’ school pur sang do not hesitate to fill whole sentences of what is meant to be modern and popular English with these choking words. Professor Freeman used obsolete letters in an English sentence. Now, I venture to say that English literature requires a work which is intended to take a place in it, to be written in the English language. In mere glossaries, commentaries, and philological treatises, the obsolete letters and obsolete spelling have their place. But in literature, as completely dead as a Greek Digamma.
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Library of the British Museum
Every reader is familiar with the consummate perfection of the Library of the British Museum, the glory of British, the envy of foreign scholars. And it gives one an awful sense of the growth of this form of purism to watch it invading our noble library. Go to the Catalogue and turn to Voltaire, and you will read ‘ Voltaire, see Arouet;and you will have to trudge to the other end of the enormous alphabet. Why Arouet? What has his legal name to do with a writer who put his name, Voltaire, on the title-page of thousands of editions, and never on one, Arouett And Molilre?—is not Molibre, as a name, a part of modern literature? Mr. Andrew Lang tells a most delightful story of a printer, who found in his ‘ copy ’ some reference to ‘the Scapin of Poquelin.’ This hopelessly puzzled him, till a bright idea struck his inventive mind, and he printed it — ‘the Scapiu of M. Coquelin.’
Turn, in the Reference Catalogue of the Museum, to Madame de Slvigtri, and we read: — Sivign, Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, Marchioness de:— see Rabutin-Chantal.’ Why should we ‘see’ Rabutin-Chantal? That was her maiden-name; and since she married at eighteen, and her works are letters to her daughter, it seems a little odd to dub an elderly mamma of rank by her maiden-name. And what in the name of precision is ‘ Marchioness de ’? It is like saying ‘ Mister Von Goethe.’ Once attempt a minute heraldic accuracy, and endless confusion results. Why need ‘ Mrs. Nicholls’ appear in the catalogue of the works of Currer Bell? And why need George Eliot be entered as Marian Evans—a name which the great novelist did not bear either in literature or in private life?
If we apply the baptismal-certificate theory strictly to history, universal confusion will result. Law students will have to study the Digest of Uprauda. His great general will be Beli- Tzar. And by the same rule, the heroic Sala- din becomes Salah-cd-deen, or rather, Malek-Nasser-Yousouf; Dante becomes Durante Alighieri; Copernicus is Kopernik; and Columbus becomes CristSbal Colon. If baptismal registers are decisive, we must turn ‘ Erasmus’ into Gerhardt Praet; ‘ Melancthon ‘ into Schwarzerd; and ‘ Scaliger’ into Bordoni. There is no more reason to change Alfred into AElfred and Frederick into Friedrich than there would be to transform the great sailor into Cristobal Colon, and to talk about the Code of Uprauda.
Vecellio, Vannucci
And the dear old painters, almost every one of whom has a familiar cognomen which has made the tour of the civilised world. What a nuisance it is to read in galleries and catalogues, Vecellio, Vannucci, and Cagliari, in lieu of our old friends Titian, Perugino, and Veronese sightseeing turkey! Raphael and Michael Angelo, Masaccio and Tintoretto are no more: ‘ restorers ’ in oil are renewing for us the original brilliancy of their hues; whilst restorers ’ in ink are erasing the friendly old nick-names with vera copias of the baptismal certificates in their hands. Every chit of an aesthete will talk to you about the Cenacolo, or the Sposalizio, of Sanzio; and the Paradiso in the Palazzo Dncale; though these words are nearly the limit of his entire Italian vocabulary. This new polyglott language of historians and artists is becoming, in fact, the speech which is known to the curious as maccaronic. It recalls the famous lines of our youth:— Trumpeter unus erat, coatum qui scarlet habebat.
There are two fatal impediments to this attempt at reproducing archaic sounds. It is at best but a clumsy symbolism of unpronounceable vocables, and it never is, and never can be, consistently applied. Althelthryth, Hrofesceaster, and Gruffydd are grotesque agglomerations of letters to represent sounds which are not familiar to English ears or utterable by English lips. The ‘ Old-Eng- lish ’ school pur sang do not hesitate to fill whole sentences of what is meant to be modern and popular English with these choking words. Professor Freeman used obsolete letters in an English sentence. Now, I venture to say that English literature requires a work which is intended to take a place in it, to be written in the English language. In mere glossaries, commentaries, and philological treatises, the obsolete letters and obsolete spelling have their place. But in literature, as completely dead as a Greek Digamma.
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Most symmetrical of modern cities
It would be idle to regret the inevitable — more especially when the inevitable means the rebuilding and laying-out of the most brilliant, most spacious, most symmetrical of modern cities. For us it is enough that, down to the Revolution of 1789, Paris was an intensely old- world city; and that to-day it is the type of the modern city. Ill the eighteenth century London had lost every trace of the fortress, of the feudal city, of subservience to king, aristocracy, or church. It had neither ramparts, nor traces of rampart, nor convents, nor proud palaces, nor royal castles in its midst. The Reformation had swept away the monasteries, the aristocracy were more than half bourgeois (at least whilst they lived in London), and the King was a popular country squire, who, in things essential, was governed by a Liberal Parliament.
The Tower was a popular show; the Mayor and Corporation were a powerful, free, and public-spirited body; the capital was being extended and beautified in the interest of those who lived in it; and, in all its main lines, the city of London was much what it is to-day. It was about one-third more populous than Paris, better paved, better lit, with a better supply of water and means of communication, and with a far superior system of administration. It was practically a modern city, even then: it was the current type of the modern city private turkey tours, and was regarded by all as a far more agreeable, more civilised, more splendid city than Paris. It was natural enough that, when the liberal nobles and wits of France began to visit England (as in the eighteenth century they universally did), an Anglo-mania resulted — which was one of the main causes of the Revolution.
Great ornaments of Paris
Some of the great ornaments of Paris existed complete in 1789, but they were encumbered with narrow streets and cut off from each other. The Louvre, the Tuileries, the Palais Royal existed much as we have seen them, but they were all divided from each other by blocks of buildings and intricate lanes. The Palais de Justice, the remains of the palace of St. Louis, and Notre Dame were there, but were blocked up by modern buildings. Portions of the Luxembourg and of the Hdtel de Ville were standing. The Invalides, the Ecole Militaire, stood as we know them; the Place de la Concorde (then Place de Louis XV) was already laid out, and the two great offices flanking the Rue Royale were already built.
On the other hand, the bridge now called de la Concorde was not open, nor did it abut on the Hall of the Corps Ltgislatif; there was no Arc de ’Etoile, no Madeleine, no Column of Venddmc, no Place de’Opera, du Chtelet, or de la Bastille. The Place du Carrousel was blocked by buildings, and the Rue de Rivoli, the Rue de la Paix, did not exist. The Panthion was not quite finished; the Louvre was not continued on the northern side; the site of the Halles was a network of streets; cemeteries and charnel-houses existed within the city; the quays were irregular and rude structures; the bridges were picturesque edifices of four or five different centuries, and only one-third of their present number; there were no pavements for foot-passengers, no cleansing of the streets, whilst open sewers met one at every turn. Paris in 1789 was much what Rome was in i860 — a huge, ancient, fortified city, filled with dense, squalid, populous districts, interspersed with vast open tracts in the hands of powerful nobles or great monasteries, and the whole perpetually dominated by a bigoted, selfish, and indifferent absolutism.
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Rule as representatives of Charlemagne
The chiefs who claimed to rule as representatives of Charlemagne, and all who depended upon them, or held title under them (that is, the greater part of Western Europe), were bound to treat the claims of the Eastern Empire as preposterous insolence. The traders of the Mediterranean regarded the Byzantine wealth and commerce much as the navigators of the sixteenth century regarded the wealth and trade of the Indies — as the lawful prize of the strongest. And lastly, the scholars, the poets, the chroniclers of the West, from the age of the Crusades to the age of Gibbon, have disdained a literature, in which, as they said, spiritless and obsequious annalists recorded the doings of their masters in a bastard Greek. Western genius, Western Christianity, Western heroism and civilisation much surpass the Eastern type; but, with such a combination of causes for hostility and contempt, the West could not fail to be grossly unjust to the record of the East.
The root of the injustice is the treating of a thousand years of continuous history as one uniform piece, and attributing to the noblest periods and the greatest chiefs the infamies and crimes which belong to the worst. Un-fortunately, we are much more familiar with the periods of rottenness and decline than with the ages of heroism and glory; every one knows something of the Theodoras, Zoes, and Irenes, and, too often, very little of Heraclius, Leo, and Basil ephesus sightseeing. The five centuries which intervene from Justinian to the Comnenian house — a period as long as that which separates Camillus from Marcus Aurelius — is the important part of the Roman Empire of the East; and the really grand epochs are in the seventh, eighth, and tenth centuries—whose heroes, Heraclius, Leo HI., and Basil ii., may hold their own with the greatest rulers of ancient or of modern story.
Empire of which Constantinople
The most urgent problem of all is to find an adequate name to describe the Empire of which Constantinople was the capital for at least a thousand years. Every one of the conventional names involves a confusion or misrepresentation, great or small. Lower Empire ’ — ‘ Greek Empire ’ — ‘Byzantine Empire ’ — ‘Eastern Empire ’ — ‘ Later Empire ’ — ‘ Roman Empire ’ — either suggest a wrong idea, or fail to express the true idea in full. In what sense was the empire at Constantinople ‘ Lower ’?
It certainly regarded itself as infinitely higher; an advance even upon the classical Roman Empire. Justinian with justice holds his rule to be above that of Aurelian and Diocletian; and from his day to the age of the great Charles, there was no power in Europe which could compare for a moment with the Roman Empire of the Bosphorus. The Empire was not ‘ Greek,’ even in tongue, until the seventh century; it was not Greek in spirit until the twelfth century; till then hardly any of its emperors, soldiers, or chiefs had been Greek; and it was never quite Greek by race. If we say ‘ Byzantine ’ Empire, we are localising a power which was curiously composite in race, nationality, character, and tradition; and the term ‘ Byzantine ’ has a sense too directly contrary to Roman, and also has acquired a derogatory meaning. The great heroes of the empire are utterly unlike what men now understand by ‘Byzantine’; and there could hardly be a more violent contrast than that between the Alexius or Bryennius of Sir Walter Scott’s romance and the Nicephorus Phocas or Basil II. of actual history.
‘ Eastern Empire ’ is erroneous and ambiguous; for it suggests a break with Rome, and it applies to the kingdoms of Persians, Saracens, or Ottomans, to the Sultan of Roum, or the Emperors of Nicsea and Trebizond. ‘Roman Empire’ is accurate in a sense. But in the fourth and fifth centuries there were often two co-ordinate governments; and after the coronation of Charlemagne, in 800 A.D., there were always two Roman Empires, and sometimes more. The term, ‘ Later Roman Empire,’ which Mr. Bury adopts, is far better; but it might be applied to Valentinian IIL, or to Romulus Augustulus; and it fails to suggest the continuance of the Empire for a thousand years. After the coronation of Charles, the term, ‘Later Roman Empire,’ is inadequate; and yet that event marks no essential break in the Empire at Constantinople.
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Dazzling brilliance in Oriental marbles
The walls of these sumptuous edifices are all of dazzling brilliance in Oriental marbles, bright with mosaic and with frescoes, and their roofs are covered with plates of hammered gold. In the far distance, across terraces and gardens shady with the dark foliage of cypress and stone pine, might be seen the aqueducts which bring from the mountains whole rivers into the city, to fill its thousand baths and its hundred fountains. And between the aqueducts and the porticoes, far as the eye can reach to the hills beyond, villas gleam in the sun with their terraces, gardens, statues, and shrines, each a little city in itself.
This earth has never seen before or since so prodigious an accumulation of all that is beautiful and rare. The quarries of the world had been emptied to find precious marbles. Forests of exquisite columns met the gaze, porphyry, purple and green, polished granite, streaked marbles, in the hues of a tropical bird, yellow, orange, rosy, and carnation, ten thousand statues, groups and colossi of dazzling Parian or of golden bronze, the work of Greek genius, of myriads of slaves, of unlimited wealth and absolute command. Power so colossal, centralisation so ruthless, luxury so frantic, the world had never seen, and we trust can never see again bulgaria vacations.
Strangely enough
Strangely enough this portentous accumulation of riches and splendour lay open to all comers. The one thing that could not be seen (till the Empire was nearing its close) was a wall, a fortress, a defence of any kind. Rome of the Caesars was as free from any military look as London to-day. It had neither wall nor citadel nor forts. It was guarded only by a few thousand soldiers and a few thousand police. For four centuries or so it flourished in all its glory.
There followed some ten centuries of ruin, waste, desolation, and chaos, until its restoration began — a restoration sometimes that was a new and worse ruin. The broken fragments only can be seen to-day. Here and there a few mutilated columns, cornices, staircases, and pavements, the foundations of vast temples, theatres, and porticoes, the skeleton of a few buildings too vast to be destroyed, a few half-ruined arches, a number of broken statues in marble, and one complete in bronze, rescued because it was wrongly supposed to be a Christian sovereign. All else is dust and endless tantalising dreams. But that dust draws men to it as no other dust ever can. And he who begins to dream longs to dream again and again.
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French labouring man
Another thing is that the French labouring man, and still more the labouring woman, is a marvellously penurious, patient, frugal creature who deliberately, for the sake of thrift, endures hard fare, uncleanness, squalor, such as no English or American freeman would stomach except by necessity. The life led by a comfortable English or American farmer would represent wicked waste and shameful indulgence to a much richer French peasant.
I myself know a labourer on wages of less than twenty shillings a week, who by thrift has bought ten acres of the magnificent garden land between Fontainebleau and the Seine, worth many thousand pounds, on which grow all kinds of fruits and vegetables, and the famous dessert grapes; yet who, with all his wealth and abundance, denies himself and his two children meat on Sundays, and even a drink of the wine which he grows and makes for the market. I know a peasant family in Normandy, worth in houses, gardens, and farms, at least 500,000 francs, who will live on the orts cast out as refuse by their own lodgers, while the wife and mother hires herself out as a scullion for two francs a day. The penuriousness of the French peasant is to English eyes a thing savage, bestial, and maniacal.
The French peasant has great virtues; but he has the defects of his virtues, and his home life is far from idyllic. He is laborious, shrewd, enduring, frugal, self-reliant, sober, honest, and capable of intense self-control for a distant reward; but that reward is property in land, in pursuit of which he may become as pitiless as a bloodhound city tour istanbul.
He is not chaste (indeed he is often lecherous), but he relentlessly keeps down the population, and can hardly bring himself to rear two children. To give these two children a good heritage, he will inflict great hardships on them and on all others whom he controls. He has an intense passion for his own immediate locality; but he loves his own commune, and still more his own terre, almost as much as France. He is not indeed the monster that Zola paints in La Terre; but there is a certain vein of Zolaism in him, and the type may be found in the criminal records of France. He is intelligent; but he is not nearly so well educated as the Swiss, or the German, or the Hollander.
Englishmen and Americans
He is able to bear suffering without a murmur; but he has none of that imperturbable courage that Englishmen and Americans show in a thousand new situations. He is shrewd and far-seeing, and a tough hand in a bargain; but he has none of the inventive audacity of the American citizen. He is self-reliant, but too cautious to trust himself in a new field. He is independent, but without the proud dignity of the Spanish peasant. He has a love for the gay, the beautiful, and the graceful, which, compared with that of the Englishman, is the sense of art; though he has nothing of the charm of the Italian, or of the musical genius of the German.
Take him for all in all, he is a strong and noteworthy force in modern civilisation. Though his country has not the vast mineral wealth of England, nor her gigantic development in manufactures and in commerce, he has made France one of the richest, most solid, most progressive countries on earth. He is quite as frugal and patient as the German, and is far more ingenious and skilful. He has not the energy of the Englishman, or the elastic spring of the American, but he is far more saving and much more provident. He ‘wastes nothing, and spends little ’; and thus, since his country comes next to England and America in natural resources and national energy, he has built up one of the strongest, most self- contained, and most durable of modern peoples.
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Aristotle and Descartes
Albert, Roger, Thomas, combined, as did Aristotle and Descartes, the science of nature with the philosophy of thought; and, though we look back to the Opus Majus of Roger Bacon with wonder and admiration for his marvellous anticipatory guesses of modern science, we cannot doubt that Aquinas was truly the mightier intellect. Roger Bacon was, indeed, four centuries in advance of his age — on his own age and on succeeding ages he produced no influence at all. But Aquinas was ‘ the master of those who know ’ for all Christian thinkers from his death, in 1274, until the age of Francis Bacon and Descartes. Roger Bacon, like Leonardo da Vinci, or Giordano Bruno, or Spinoza, belongs to the order of intellectual pioneers, who are too much in advance of their age and of its actual resources to promote civilisation as they might do, or even to make the most of their own extraordinary powers.
An age which united aspiring intellect, passionate devotion, and constructive power, naturally created a new type of sacred art. The pointed architecture, that we call Gothic, had its rise, its development, its highest splendour in the thirteenth century, to which we owe all that is most lovely in the churches of Chartres, Amiens, Reims, Paris, Bourges, Strasburg, Cologne, Burgos, Toledo, Westminster, Salisbury, and Lincoln.
It is true that there are some traces of the pointed style in France in the twelfth century, at St. Denis, at Sens, and at Laon; but the true glories of this noble art belong, in France, to the reigns of Philip Augustus and of St. Louis; in England, to those of Henry in. and Edward i. In these two countries we must seek the origin of this wonderful creation of human art, of which Chartres, Amiens, and Westminster are the central examples. These glorious fanes of the thirteenth century were far more than works of art: they were at once temples, national monuments, museums, schools sofia daily tours, musical academies, and parliament halls, where the whole people gathered to be trained in every form of art, in all kinds of knowledge, and in all modes of intellectual cultivation.
They were the outgrowth of the whole civilisation of their age, in a manner so complete and intense, that its like was never before seen, except on the Acropolis of Athens, in the age of Eschylus and Pericles. It is not enough to recall the names of the master masons — Robert de Luzarches, Robert de Coucy, Erwin of Steinbach, and Pierre de Montereau. These vast temples are the creation of generations of men and the embodiment of entire epochs; and he who would know the Middle Ages should study in detail every carved figure, every painted window, each . canopy, each relief, each portal in Amiens, or Chartres, Reims, Bourges, Lincoln, or Salisbury, and he will find revealed to him more than he can read ‘in a thousand books.
Great age of architecture
Obviously the thirteenth century is the great age of architecture — the branch of art which of all the arts of form is at once the most social, the most comprehensive, and the most historic. Great buildings include sculpture, painting, and all the decorative arts together; they require the co-operation of an entire people; and they are, in a peculiar manner, characteristic of their age. The special arts of form are more associated with individual genius. These, as was natural, belong to centuries later than the thirteenth. But, even in the thirteenth, sculpture gave us the peopled portals and the exquisite canopies of our northern cathedrals, the early palaces of Venice, and the carvings of Nicolas and John of Pisa, which almost anticipate Ghiberti and Donatello. And in painting, Cimabue opens in this century the long roll of Italian masters, and Giotto was already a youth of glorious promise, before the century was closed.
The literature of the thirteenth century does not, in the strict sense of the term, stand forth with such special brilliancy as its art, its thought, and its political activity. As in most epochs of profound stirring of new ideas and of great efforts after practical objects, the energy of the age was not devoted to the composition of elaborate works. It was natural that Dante should be a century later than Barbarossa and Innocent, and that Petrarch of Vaucluse should be a century later than Francis of Assisi. But the thirteenth century was amply represented, both in poetry, romance, and prose history. All of these trace their fountain-heads to an earlier age, and all of them were fully developed in a later age.
But French prose may be said to have first taken form in the chronicle of Villehardouin at the opening of the century, and the chronicle of Join- ville at its close. The same century also added to the Catholic Hymnal some of the most powerful pieces in that glorious Anthology— the Dies Irce, the Stabat Mater; the grand hymns of Aquinas, of Bonaventura, and of Thomas of Celano. It produced also that rich repertory of devotional story, the Golden Legend of Voragine. It was, moreover, the thirteenth century which produced the main part of the Roman de la Rose, the favourite reading of the Middle Ages, some of the best forms of the Arthurian cycle, Ruteboeuf and the French lyrists, some of the most brilliant of the Troubadours, Sordello, Brunetto Latini, Guido Cavalcanti, and the precursors and associates of Dante.
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No rational understanding of history
No rational understanding of history is possible without attention to geography and a distinct hold on the local scene of the great events. Nor again can we to any advantage follow the political, without a knowledge of the aesthetic and practical life of any ancient people. For the geography we need Spruner s Atlas, or Freeman’s Historical Geography, Wordsworth’s or Mahaffy’s Travels in Greece, the first chapter of Curtius’ History of Greece. Dr. Smith’s Dictionaries of Antiquities and of Biography, A. S. Murray’s History of Sculpture, or Liibke’s History of Art, Middleton’s Rome, Dyer’s Pompeii, and our museums may serve for art.
It is no personal paradox, but the judgment of all competent men, that the Decline and Fall of Gibbon is the most perfect historical composition that exists in any language: at once scrupulously faithful in its facts; consummate in its literary art; and comprehensive in analysis of the forces affecting society over a very long and crowded epoch. In eight moderate volumes, of which every sentence is compacted of learning and brimful of thought, and yet every page is as fascinating as romance, this great historian has condensed the history of the civilised world over the vast period of fourteen centuries—linking the ancient world to the modern, the Eastern world to the Western, and marshalling in one magnificent panorama the contrasts, the relations, and the analogies of all. If Gibbon has not the monumental simplicity of Thucydides, or the profound insight of Tacitus, he has performed a feat which neither has attempted. ‘ Survey mankind,’ says our poet, ‘ from China to Peru! ’ And our historian surveys mankind from Britain to Tartary private tours istanbul, from the Sahara to Siberia, and weaves for one-third of all recorded time the epic of the human race.
Decline and Fall
Half the hours we waste over desultory memoirs of very minor personages and long-drawn biographies of mere mutes on the mighty stage of our world, would enable us all to know our Decline and Fall, the most masterly survey of an immense epoch ever elaborated by the brain of man. There is an old saying that over the portal of Plato’s Academy it was written, ‘ Let no one enter here, till he is master of geometry.’ So we might imagine the ideal School of History to have graven on its gates, ‘ Let none enter here, till he has mastered Gibbon.’ Those who find his eight crowded volumes beyond their compass might at least know his famous first three chapters, the survey of the Roman empire down to the age of the Antonines; his seventeenth chapter on Constantine and the establishment of Christianity; the reign of Theodosius (ch. 32-34); the conversion of the Barbarians (ch. 37); the kingdom of Theodoric (ch. 39); the reign of Justinian (ch. 40, 41, 42); with the two famous chapters on Roman Law (ch. 43, 44). If we add others, we may take the career of Charlemagne (ch. 49); of Mahomet (ch. 50, 51); the Crusades (ch. 58, 59, which are not equal to the first-men-tioned); the rise of the Turks (ch. 64, 65); the last siege of Constantinople (ch. 68); and the last chapters on the city of Rome (69, 70, 71).
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Intellectual and material framework
The task to be accomplished was immense. It was nothing less than the foundation of permanent and organised society. Till this was done all was in danger. All knowledge might be lost, the arts might perish, the civil community might break up. Hitherto there had been no permanence, no union, no system. What was needed was to form the intellectual and material framework of a fixed nation. And this the Egyptian priesthood undertook. The spot was favourable to the attempt. In that great, rich plain, walled off on all sides by the desert or by the sea, it was possible to found a society at once industrial, peaceful, and settled. They needed judges to direct them, teachers to instruct them, men of science to help them, governors to rule them, preachers to admonish them, physicians to heal them, artists to train them, and priests to sacrifice for them. To meet these wants a special order of men spontaneously arose, by whose half-conscious efforts a complete system of society was gradually and slowly formed. In their hands was concentrated the whole intellectual product of ages; this they administered for the common good local ephesus tour guides.
Gradually by their care there arose a system of regular industry. To this end they divided out by their superior skill all the arts and trades of life. Each work was apportioned, each art had its subordinate arts. Then as a mode of perpetuating skill in crafts, to insure a sound apprentice¬ship of every labour, they caused or enabled each man’s work to become hereditary within certain broad Jimits, and thus created or sanctioned a definite series of castes. To give sanction to the whole, they consecrated each labour, and made each workman’s toil a part of his religious duty. Then they organised a scheme of general education. They C provided a system of teaching common to all, adapted to the work of each. They provided for the special education of the sacred class in the whole circle of existing knowledge ; they collected observations, they treasured up discoveries, and recorded events.
Established property
Next they organised a system of government. They established property, they divided out the land, they set up landmarks, they devised rules for its tenure, they introduced law, and magistrates, and governors; provinces were divided into districts, towns, and villages ; violence was put down, a strict police exercised, regular taxes imposed. Next they organised a system of morality; the social, the domestic, and the personal duties were minutely defined; practices relating to health, cleanliness, and temperance were enforced by religious obligations : every act of life, every moment*of existence, was made a part of sacred duty. Lastly, they organised national life by a vast system of common religious rites, having imposing ceremonies which awakened the imagination and kindled the emotions, bound up the whole community into an united people, and gave stability to their national existence, by the awful sense of a common and mysterious belief.
If we want to know what such a system of life was like, let us go into some museum of Egyptian antiquities, where we may see representations of their mode of existence carved upon their walls. There we may see nearly all the arts of life as we know them—weaving and spinning, working in pottery, glass-blowing, building, carving, and painting; ploughing, sowing, threshing, and gathering into barns; boating, irrigation, fishing, wine-pressing, dancing, singing, and playing — a vast community, in short, orderly, peaceful, and intelligent; capable of gigantic works and of refined arts, before which we are lost in wonder; a civilised community busy and orderly as a hive of bees, amongst whom every labour and function was arranged in perfect harmony and distinctness : all this may be seen upon monuments 5000 years old.
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British and Foreign Bible Society
By this time the British and Foreign Bible Society had been organized. And so it came about that the first Turkish version of the New Testament, published for that Society at Paris in 1S19, was the work of a Mohammedan, revised and improved by Russian and French linguists. This cosmopolitan version was imperfect, and was quickly revised. But that first version has always been in the hands of later translators. The Turkish book language has much changed in the last fifty years, through exclusion of needless Arabic and Persian forms of expression. This has compelled several revisions of the Turkish Bible.
The present Turkish version, which has taken the place of all previous translations, is the work of a Committee composed of missionaries of the American Board and a missionary of the Church Missionary Society of England, assisted by native Turkish scholars. It is now printed in three editions, one with Arabic, one with Armenian, and one with Greek letters, the actual words of all three being identical. In meeting the expense of this great work Great Britain and the United States have stood side by side private balkan trip.
Bible Societies
The American missionaries all over Turkey long acted as the agents of the Bible Societies to induce the people to buy and read the Bible in these different languages of the people. By long and patient effort they have at length succeeded in one of the objects with which they began their work in Turkey. It is fair to claim that they have at last convinced the people of the Eastern Church, both Greeks and Armenians that as Christians they ought to read and understand the Bible instead of merely worshipping it on the altar, like any other relic of antiquity. This success alone, by the way, is enough to justify Missions in Turkey.
The Bible House, where the preparation of books is done, is a monument to the prophetic vision and the energy of one man. The late Rev. Dr. Isaac G. Bliss, when agent at Constantinople of the American Bible Society, conceived the idea of such a building, was thrilled by foresight of the influence that might emanate from it, and overcame all obstacles to its construction. He raised the necessary funds, single-handed, and literally stood upon the works until the last stone had been placed in position. The building is owned by Trustees chartered by the State of New York, whose duty it is to see that the property fosters use of the Bible in Turkey.
After the modern Turkish dwellings upon the site had been removed, excavations for the foundations of the Bible House brought to light a hall, of the Byzantine period, whose vaulted roof is supported by columns marked with the Greek cross. Hard by, were the massive foundations of a small Christian church whose stamped bricks seem to fix the date of construction at the very beginning of (he Sixth Century. With part of its walls resting upon that old church foundation, the modern Bible House has been erected by men from the West upon ground consecrated by the prayers of the Eastern Church of the period before the schism. Upon this holy ground the Bible Societies and the Mission of the American Board are privileged to carry on their work of publication.
Besides books, the Mission of the American Board publishes a weekly family newspaper and a monthly illustrated paper for children in two or three languages. It sells its works in all parts of the Turkish Empire, in Persia, in Russia, and even to Armenians in America and India. In fact for all the missions in Turkey which use either Turkish or Armenian the press at the Bible House is the sole source of supply of modern Christian literature. The tracts which the Mission has published with money generously granted by the Religious Tract Society of London and by the American Tract Society, are given away to people who show a desire to read them. But the books from the Mission press are never given away. In the last twenty years sales of books and papers have brought into the Mission treasury $116,000 which has been used again for new publications.
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