they sometimes indulge in pleasures to excess. "The moral character is fundamentally formed in infancy and childhood, not by precept, so much as by the absence of evil; for the Turks receive their early education under the care of their mothers and their female attendants, who are secluded from the promiscuous society of men, and removed from the contagion of corrupt example. Their religion, which is simple, is taught them by their parents in the harem. The minds of the children, as in other countries, are instructed in the dogmas of a particular system: they are inflated with the superiority of their own situation, in a religious sense; and they are taught to indulge in the contemplation of it, and in a contempt bordering on hatred, for the professors of every other religion. The revelations of heaven, and the precepts of the prophet equally inculcate on the minds of Mussulmans, this exalted idea of themselves, and this sentiment of disdain and aversion for strangers to their faith." The prayers of the infidels are not prayer, but wanderings," says the Koran. "I withdraw my foot, and turn away my face," says Mahomet, " from a society in which the faithful are mixed with the ungodly." Nor is the uncharitableness of the sentiment extinguished, or even weakened, by the death of its object. Pray not for those whose death is eternal," is a precept of the Mahometan church, "and defile not thy feet by passing over the graves of men, the enemies of God and his prophet." These commandments are precise and positive: they regulate the principles and the conduct of all classes of Mussulmans. It is vain to suppose their pernicious and uncharitable tendency counteracted by passages of scripture which breathe a milder spirit, or by the example of the prophet, who is known to have frequented the society of unbelievers and pagans. The Mahometan, who has risen above the prevailing prejudices of his religion and country, will alone appeal to these more tolerant precepts, in order to justify his conduct to his own heart, or to sanction it in the eyes of the public: but the vulgar mind, the great majority of the nation in every class of society, will always be chained down to the observance of the most intolerant precepts of religion." “The namaz, the prayer the most obligatory on Mussulmans, and the most pleasing to the Supreme Being, is chiefly a confession of the divine attributes, and of the nothingness of man; a solemn act of homage and gratitude to the eternal majesty. The faithful are forbidden to ask of God the temporal blessings of this frail and perishable life: the only legiti mate object of the namaz is to adore the Supreme Being, by praying for spiritual gifts and the ineffable advantages of eternal felicity. Confident in the efficacy of belief and the virtue of prayer and legal purification, the Mussulmans feel no humility because of the imperfections of human nature, and no repentance because of actual transgressions. The unity of the Supreme Being, and the divine mission of the prophet, are all that are insisted on as necessary to justification with God; and as these imply no contradiction, and involve no mystery, the mind seems to comprehend both points without an effort, and to hold them with steadiness. Hence their consciences are never alarmed at the weakness or insufficiency of their faith; nor can they ever doubt of their acceptance with God. Their religion religion consoles and elevates them through life, and never disturbs their dying moments. "Many of the learned Turks are said to refuse an implicit belief to all the miracles recorded in the Koran; but none of them so far contradict the national prejudices, as publicly to withhold their assent. An effendi, skilled in mathematics, was asked, how he could believe, that Mahomet broke the star of the moon, and caught half of it falling from heaven, in his sleeve. He replied, that indeed in the course of nature it could not be done, nay was contrary to it; but as the miracle is in the Koran affirmed to be wrought, he resigned his reason, and embraced the miracle; for, added he, God can do whatever he pleases. They adinit with equal facility the wonderful stories related by Christians, and on some occasions conform in their conduct to the popular prejudices even of these people; as in the instance given by Cantemir, of the lord of a village, who suffered no work to be done on St. Phocas's day, because formerly the saint, in revenge for the profanation of his festival, had burnt their standing corn. The opinion, that sanctity of life, independently of any particular religious persuasion, is sufficient for salvation, is silently embraced by a few liberal Turks, though it is condemned by the Mahometan church as a heresy. "It has been observed, that in all ages, men satiated with enjoyments, are most inclined to become atheists; and men the most to be pitied are superstitious. But atheism, either speculative or practical, is a vice which is rare among the Turks; for when the doctrines of the existence of God, and the immortality of the soul have been implanted in the mind by early education, they cannot be eradicated, unless, perhaps, by intense and perverted study and reflection, of which the Turks, from habitual indolence, are iucapable. The terrors of conscience, which generate in the vicious and profligate, a wish to disbelieve, and at last, perhaps, a trembling hope that they do disbelieve these doctrines, operate but little on the minds of men who are firmly convinced, that the divine favour is never withdrawn from those, who are stedfast in their profession of faith and constant in the practice of the ceremonies of religion. The belief and performance of both are simple and easy, and not only may exist unconnected with virtue, but may even expiate vicious conduct. Hence that tranquillity with respect to futurity which never abandons the Turk: and hence his neglect of palliatives for an evil, of which, as far as regards himself as a believer, he cannot consistently suspect the exist ence. "The popular religion of the Turks consists in belief, prayers, ablutions, and fastings at stated periods. "They are called to namaz (prayers) five times a day, by the muezzinn (chanter), who recites, from the highest tower of the jami, the hymn ezann, containing a confession of faith in the following form.— "God most high! I bear witness that there is no God but God; I bear witness that Mahomet is the prophet of God. Come to prayer; come to the asylum of salvation.Great God! There is no God but God." "The canonical hours for the morning prayer are from the first dawning of the day to sun-rise.— This prayer was first performed by Adam on his expulsion from Paradise, when he returned thanks to God God on being delivered from the darkness of night, and again permitted to behold the approach of day. Towards the conclusion of the morning ezann, the muezzinn exhorts the faithful to be diligent in their devotions, by repeating immediately after the words, come to the asylum of salvation," prayer is preferable to sleep, prayer is preferable to sleep." The namaz of noon, which may be said at any period of the interval between the meridian and the next succeeding namaz, was instituted by Abraham after his purposed sacrifice of his son Isaac. The afternoon namaz, in which the prophet Jonas first expressed his gratitude on being cast up from the belly of the whale, begins when the shadow projected on the dial is of twice the length of the gnomon; and it may be said as long as the sun continues above the horizon. The evening prayer is believed by Mahometans to have been instituted by Jesus Christ; the hours appointed by this namaz are from the setting of the sun to complete nocturnal darkness, when the night prayer is performed, in imitation of Moses. On Friday, which is consecrated to public worship in commemoration of the creation of man, the Mahometans recite an additional namaz, and a prayer salath' uldjuma between sunrising and noon. "In the namaz there are several prostrations, some of which must not on any account be omitted, being farz, or the immediate command of God: others may be omitted, though not without some degree of sin, being sunneth, institutions of the prophet, or rather an imitation of his practice. "The Turks admit of purgatory, in which the believer is to repeat the prayers which he omitted in his life time, or neglected to say at the appointed times. They assert that the sinful soul is greatly benefited by the prayers of the living, and still more so by the reading of the Koran, whereby the angel Gabriel is assisted in guarding the soul from the devils, during the forty days of its hovering about the grave wherein the body is laid. "The abdest, or ablution of the hands, face, mouth, head, neck, arms, and feet, accompanied with suitable prayers, is performed by the Turks in a particular manner, to distinguish them from the Persians, and is an indispensable preparation to the namaz or prayer. Groussoul is the purification of the whole body, in cases which are specified in the religious code of the Mahome. tans. Ghassl, or simple washing, is ordered for removing any visible or substantial impurity, from the clothes or the person, of a nature to invalidate or annul the virtue of prayer. The fast of the month of ramazan consists in abstaining from food or drink, or any gratification of the senses, during the whole time of the sun's continuance above the ho rizon. "The immediate ministers of religion make no part of the body of ulema. In the larger mosques there are sheïks, or preachers: kiatibs, readers or deacons, who, in imitation of the prophet and caliphs, and in the name and under the sacerdotal authority of the sultan, discharge the functions of the imameth or high priesthood; imams, who recite the namaz; and muezzins, who summon the people to prayers; besides cayyims or sextons. In villages, or small parishes, the duties of the whole are performed by the imam, who is sometimes also the hogia, or schoolmaster for the children : but he owes this appointment to his being the only person possessing suf ficient ficient leisure or the necessary qualifications. "The ministers of religion throughout the Turkish empire are subordinate to the civil magistrate, who exercises over them the powers of a diocesan. He has the privilege of superseding and removing those whose conduct is reproachable, or who are unequal to the dignified discharge of the duties of their office. The magistrates themselves may, whenever they think proper, perform all the sacerdotal functions, and it is in virtue of this prerogative, joined to the influence which they derive from their judicial power and their riches, that they have so marked a pre-eminence, and so preponderant an authority, over the ministers of public worship. "The priests in their habits of life are not distinguished from other citizens they live in the same society and engage in the same pursuits they sacrifice no comforts, and are compelled to no acts of selfdenial their influence on society is entirely dependent on their reputa tion for learning and talents, or gravity and moral conduct. They are seldom the professed instructors of youth, much less of men, and by no means are they considered as the directors of conscience. They merely chant aloud the church ser vice, and perform offices, which the master of a family or the oldest person in company, as frequently, and as consistently, perform as themselves. The Turks know nothing of those expiatory ceremonies which give so much influence to the priesthood: all the practices of their religion can be, and are performed without the interference of their priests. "The institution of the different orders of dervishes is foreign to the genuine spirit of the Mahometan re. ligion. Some of the Ottoman ministers have even attempted their suppression; but the vulgar, who certainly consider their ceremonies as of the nature of incantation, sub→ mit to their caprices, and court their benediction by respect and liberality. "The professors of Islamism, in the genuine spirit of piety, consider that religion is best characterised by acts of public utility. They have been accused of ostentation in their charities, and of being actuated only by the spirit of pride or superstition; but it is surely a pardonable, if not even a laudable, superstition, to suppose the author of all good looking with complacency on the humble imi tation of his perfections; and a justifiable pride, to feel the heart swell upon seeing the weary and the hungry fed and refreshed, the ignorant instructed, and the sick healed, by our beneficence. A khan or cara. vanserai for the accommodation of travellers, a mosque with its schools and hospitals, a fountain, a bridge, or a public road, cannot be unostentatiously established, without abridging their utility. "We must not attribute their erection," says Mr. Eton, "to patriotism or public spirit." Be it so: but I have gallopped across a scorching desert, in hopes of discovering a fountain to allay the thirst of myself or y horse, and have blessed the philanthropy which had searched out, and erected a monument on, the only spot which furnished water. Baron de Tott asserts, that the namaz giahs, or places for ablution and prayer erected on the road side, are worth a great number of indulgences, for which the Turks, who obtain them, find a ready sale."But the Turks are unacquainted with indulgences: they indeed allow that the merit of good works may be transferred transferred or sold; and their historians relate that Sultan Bajazet, after vainly endeavouring to prevail on a pasha to yield to him the merit of erecting a bridge over a torrent which interrupted the communication between Constantinople and Adrianople, struck off the pasha's head, swam across the torrent at the hazard of his life, and ordered his army to halt till the waters had abated. "Hospitality to strangers and giving alms to the poor, are virtues to which the Oriental nations are much habituated. In imitation of the patriarchs, and with unaffected simplicity, the tables of the rich and great are daily open to all who can with propriety present themselves; while inferior persons of every class range themselves around the tables of the officers of their household and their domestics; and the fragments are distributed at the door to the poor and the hungry. A servant would blush at the idea of mak ing a perquisite of them: even the peasant will offer the corner of his hut to the traveller, and rather than refuse him a welcome, will put himself to considerable inconvenience to entertain him. The right of proprietorship is seldom exerted to exclude from a garden, an orchard, or a vineyard, any person who may choose to enter them, and to pluck and eat the herbs or the fruit. I will not wholly attribute to the same principle their tenderness to the inferior classes of animals, as in some cases they seem to be restrained from molesting or destroying them, as much by indolence as humanity. The dog, as an unclean animal whose contact produces legal defilement, is rigorously excluded from their dwellings and the courts of their mosques. But they allow dogs to increase in their streets till they become an intolerable nui sance, even in the day time, and are really a formidable evil to those, who have occasion to pass through the Turkish quarter of the town at night. These animals have divided the city into districts. They jealously guard from encroachment the imaginary line which bounds their native territory; and they never transgress it, either in their pursuit of an invading dog, or in their attack on the passenger, whom they deliver over at their frontier to be worried by the neighbouring pack. Contsantinople may be considered as the paradise of birds: the doves feed unmolested on the corn which is conveyed in open lighters across the harbour, and they feed with such a confidence of safety that they scarcely yield a passage to the boatmen or labourers. The confused noise of the harbour is increased by the clang of sea-birds: to shoot at them in the neighbourhood of the city would be rash; and even in the villages on the Bosphorus inhabited by Franks, where the Turks can only censure, they never fail to reproach the murdering of them as wanton cruelty. The hog alone, of all animals, excites in the Turks a sense of loathing and abhorrence; and though permitted in the infidel quarters of some provincial towns, is scrupulously banished from the capital and its suburbs. The hog, however, is a creature destined by nature to live in filth and mire, and to cleanse the neighbourhood of the habitations of men; and it may be worth inquiry, whether the absence of so useful an animal, by derang. ing the order of nature, may not tend to the production, or facilitate the progress, of the plague. "The physical effect of climate upon the character, though its ope ration cannot be wholly denied, is yet |