Government, must therefore, it is contended, tolerate that Government in such adherence to the prevailing faith of the 'country; that is, tolerate its intolerance, and wink at idolatry. We trust that such liberal notions as these will never receive the countenance of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. With Mr. Anderson, we would rather hope for the speedy abrogation of the intolerant edict.

The French language has long contended with the Italian for the ascendancy in the Levant, the one being the language of commerce, the other of diplomacy; but we had hoped that by this time an acquaintance with the English language, the genius of which much more closely resembles that of the Greek, would have come to be regarded as not less essential an accomplishment than a knowledge of either;-that our sovereignty in the Mediterranean would have been followed by a wide diffusion of that language which seems to be identified with the spread of the religion of the Bible. We must confess that we are far more solicitous for the spread of the English language, the symbol and vehicle of our moral power, than for the extension or perpetuity of our political empire. What the Arabic is to Mohammedism, what the Latin and the modern languages derived from it are to Popery, those of the Teutonic family, and chief among them, though latest born, the language of Milton and Taylor, Chillingworth and Barrow, Newton and Locke, Bunyan and Watts, are to Reformed Christianity. By its progress, we may almost trace the spread of Christian civilization over the face of the globe. Its forced substitution for any native language in any part of the British dominions, would be an act of impolicy as well as of oppression and injustice; but it seems not unreasonable to expect, that it should obtain the preference and ascendancy over languages equally foreign to the country in which our power has become naturalized. With high satisfaction we have heard, that it is to be allowed at last to supersede the Persian in the courts of British India. It is not long that Dutch law and Dutch pleadings have been in like manner superseded by English in the Cape Colony. Eventually, we should hope that the Venetian will be expelled from the islands of the Ionian Sea, which are as properly Greek as those of the Egean, and that the cultivation of the Greck itself will keep pace with the diffusion of the English.

It is, we repeat, on the ground of moral considerations only, that we regret the policy which our Government has pursued with respect to Greece, and the alienation of England (as we find it characterized by Mr. Anderson) from the country lately under the rule of Capo d'Istrias. Into the causes of that alienation, we do not now inquire: the blame may rest upon the Greeks themselves. At the same time, we cannot but feel it as a reproach upon the British character, that the French, and even the Americans, should have discovered a more lively and active sym

pathy in the fortunes and interests of the Greek nation, than either the politicians or the religious public of our own country. Since the exposures connected with the Greek loan, since the abandonment of Greece by our philosophical codificators, Stock exchange philhellenists, and liberal regenerators, followed by the rejection of the proffered crown by Leopold, the interest excited by the Greek Revolution has seemed wholly to have subsided. The eager interest of the republicans of the United States in the affairs of the rising State, has also declined from the moment that it was decided to give to Greece a king. To our Missionaries, not to our politicians, Greece must look for the consummation of her freedom.

While, however, Great Britain retains the sovereignty of Ionian Greece, it cannot be a matter of indifference to her, what European power shall acquire a dominant influence in the Morea and Continental Greece. It matters little, indeed, to whom they nominally belong, or what puppet is set up as the pageant king of a territory, the real capital of which is Corfu, and the chief emporium Malta. But it does concern us more intimately than any other nation, except the Greeks themselves, what language is spreading and taking root in their soil, what literature is becoming naturalized, what moral influence is shaping the rising mind of Greece. The apparent indifference of our statesmen on this point, is not creditable to their political sagacity, if it be real. While it became our Government not to manifest any anxiety to acquire the sovereignty of the territory rescued from Turkish domination, which would be of comparatively little use to us, it is the part which philanthropy and policy unite to recommend, to take every means of strengthening the moral relations between the Greeks and the English nation, and of encouraging them to look to the Protector of the Ionian Isles as their benefactor.

Our true policy will now be, to promote as much as possible the cultivation of the modern Greek, as the language of education. By this means alone the Frankish dialects can be displaced, and Greece be as it were re-peopled with Greeks. We rejoice to find that the press at Malta has for a long time been very active in furnishing school-books to Greece, as well as tracts and other small publications in Modern Greek. An edition of 15,000 copies of the Alphabetarion, a Greek spelling-book, has been printed at Andover, in Massachusetts, and forwarded to the American Missionaries in Greece. Hitherto, the absurd mode of teaching children to read by means of obsolete languages, has been universal in the Levant. The Greek child,' we are told, has 'been condemned to labour upon the ancient Greek, the Ar'menian upon ancient Armenian, the Turk upon Arabic, the Jew upon Hebrew."

6

Government, must therefore, it is contended, tolerate that Government in such adherence to the prevailing faith of the 'country; that is, tolerate its intolerance, and wink at idolatry. We trust that such liberal notions as these will never receive the countenance of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. With Mr. Anderson, we would rather hope for the speedy abrogation of the intolerant edict.

The French language has long contended with the Italian for the ascendancy in the Levant, the one being the language of commerce, the other of diplomacy; but we had hoped that by this time an acquaintance with the English language, the genius of which much more closely resembles that of the Greek, would have come to be regarded as not less essential an accomplishment than a knowledge of either;-that our sovereignty in the Mediterranean would have been followed by a wide diffusion of that language which seems to be identified with the spread of the religion of the Bible. We must confess that we are far more solicitous for the spread of the English language, the symbol and vehicle of our moral power, than for the extension or perpetuity of our political empire. What the Arabic is to Mohammedism, what the Latin and the modern languages derived from it are to Popery, those of the Teutonic family, and chief among them, though latest born, the language of Milton and Taylor, Chillingworth and Barrow, Newton and Locke, Bunyan and Watts, are to Reformed Christianity. By its progress, we may almost trace the spread of Christian civilization over the face of the globe. Its forced substitution for any native language in any part of the British dominions, would be an act of impolicy as well as of oppression and injustice; but it seems not unreasonable to expect, that it should obtain the preference and ascendancy over languages equally foreign to the country in which our power has become naturalized. With high satisfaction we have heard, that it is to be allowed at last to supersede the Persian in the courts of British India. It is not long that Dutch law and Dutch pleadings have been in like manner superseded by English in the Cape Colony. Eventually, we should hope that the Venetian will be expelled from the islands of the Ionian Sea, which are as properly Greek as those of the Egean, and that the cultivation of the Greek itself will keep pace with the diffusion of the English.

It is, we repeat, on the ground of moral considerations only, that we regret the policy which our Government has pursued with respect to Greece, and the alienation of England (as we find it characterized by Mr. Anderson) from the country lately under the rule of Capo d'Istrias. Into the causes of that alienation, we do not now inquire: the blame may rest upon the Greeks themselves. At the same time, we cannot but feel it as a reproach upon the British character, that the French, and even the Americans, should have discovered a more lively and active sym

pathy in the fortunes and interests of the Greek nation, than either the politicians or the religious public of our own country. Since the exposures connected with the Greek loan, since the abandonment of Greece by our philosophical codificators, Stock exchange philhellenists, and liberal regenerators, followed by the rejection of the proffered crown by Leopold, the interest excited by the Greek Revolution has seemed wholly to have subsided. The eager interest of the republicans of the United States in the affairs of the rising State, has also declined from the moment that it was decided to give to Greece a king. To our Missionaries, not to our politicians, Greece must look for the consummation of her freedom.

While, however, Great Britain retains the sovereignty of Ionian Greece, it cannot be a matter of indifference to her, what European power shall acquire a dominant influence in the Morea and Continental Greece. It matters little, indeed, to whom they nominally belong, or what puppet is set up as the pageant king of a territory, the real capital of which is Corfu, and the chief emporium Malta. But it does concern us more intimately than any other nation, except the Greeks themselves, what language is spreading and taking root in their soil, what literature is becoming naturalized, what moral influence is shaping the rising mind of Greece. The apparent indifference of our statesmen on this point, is not creditable to their political sagacity, if it be real. While it became our Government not to manifest any anxiety to acquire the sovereignty of the territory rescued from Turkish domination, which would be of comparatively little use to us, it is the part which philanthropy and policy unite to recommend, to take every means of strengthening the moral relations between the Greeks and the English nation, and of encouraging them to look to the Protector of the Ionian Isles as their benefactor.

Our true policy will now be, to promote as much as possible the cultivation of the modern Greek, as the language of education. By this means alone the Frankish dialects can be displaced, and Greece be as it were re-peopled with Greeks. We rejoice to find that the press at Malta has for a long time been very active in furnishing school-books to Greece, as well as tracts and other small publications in Modern Greek. An edition of 15,000 copies of the Alphabetarion, a Greek spelling-book, has been printed at Andover, in Massachusetts, and forwarded to the American Missionaries in Greece. Hitherto, the absurd mode of teaching children to read by means of obsolete languages, has been universal in the Levant. The Greek child,' we are told, has 'been condemned to labour upon the ancient Greek, the Ar'menian upon ancient Armenian, the Turk upon Arabic, the Jew ' upon Hebrew."

6

6

The natural effect has been,' continues Mr. Hartley, to render the acquisition of knowledge odious and difficult, and to leave by far the larger portion of the Levantine population, for ages, in a state of semi-barbarism. Nor was any suavity of manner employed, on the part of the schoolmaster, to obviate the difficulties which absurdity of system presented. The law of coercion is applied, in Turkey, to all ages and to all circumstances. The instrument for inflicting the punishment of the bastinado, which by the Greeks is named Crazyas, and which is often seen in the court-yard of the Turkish Pashas, was an appendage of Greek schools. Whenever an offence was perpetrated, the little delinquent was thrown upon his back, his legs were elevated upon the bar of punishment, and blows of considerable force applied to the soles of his feet. I once happened to enter the large school of the Armenians, at Smyrna, when one of the boys was just arriving at the very crisis of punishment. The master was raising his arm; and probably, in another second, infliction would have ensued. My unexpected entrance disconcerted the whole project. The rod of punishment instantly fell; the poor boy escaped from his perilous situation; and the master appeared perfectly ashamed of the position in which I found him.

It is a surprising fact, that, under circumstances so discouraging, a large portion, even of the lower orders, were competent to read. I have heard it estimated, that no less than two-thirds of the population of liberated Greece had attained the art; and, without vouching for the accuracy of such a statement, I can assert, that, wherever I have met with Greeks, I have always found a considerable number who could read the books which were presented to them.

One of the earliest effects of the Revolution has been, a very promising reformation of the mode of public instruction. The thirst for knowledge which existed during my visit to Greece, was extraordinary. The ear was perpetually saluted by the word goxon, which they employ to signify educational improvement; and, to express myself in the language of a friend, "there was quite a fever for education". The absurdity of the old system, which had been pursued, for the most part, by the priests, was universally acknowledged, and became a frequent topic of sarcasm and amusement. The system of Mutual Instruction, which has been so successfully employed in this country by Bell and Lancaster, was welcomed with delight; and, as soon as introduced, appeared to have admirable success. A very interesting school of this description was set on foot at Tripolitza, in a Turkish mosque, during the period which intervened between the capture of that city by the Greeks and its re-capture by Ibrahim Pasha. In Syra, in the year 1827, I found several small schools on this system, which appeared to proceed very usefully; and at Napoli di Romania, a very flourishing one existed.

The Greek Government has uniformly patronised this method of public education. They have been solicitous to establish public free schools of this nature, in all directions; and I understood that it was their intention to leave no town, village, or hamlet, in the whole of their territory, without these means of acquiring elemental knowledge.