The Emperor of CONSTANTIN...
she EGmperor of CoNS,TANTINoPLE, it will have been scen by our readers, has published an edict, restraining the Jreedom of Turkish women in respect to dress and public appearance. The Ottoman statesmen are said to attribute the gradual decline of the empire whichl they have to go- vern, to the prevailing corruptness of morals. They are right. Vice will invarial;ly sink a nation into inbecility, and render it an easy prey to its adversaries, be they fo- reign or domestic. All the states proressing Islamism, together with the religion itself, were establishedI by the sword; and if the martial virtues fail, the establishments also, civil and religious, wlhich had been consolidate(d by the exercise of those virtues, must fall asunder. It would hardly, indeed, have been sufficient for the Mahomnettns to ha-e continued stationary in virtue, in order to uphold their position in the worl(d: for the doctrines of Chris- tianity have been purified, and its practice improved, by a free access to the sacred records on whiclh it is founded, since the progress of Mahoinetanism upon earth, and the foundation of states professing that faith. It cannot, indeed, excite wonder, that a reli- gion allowing only of one God, should prevail against another religion, the professors of which were seen paying the outward marks of adoration, at least, to stocks and stones-to images, relicks, and pictures ; and who not only had one God, but one Goddess also, whom, in their prayersr andliturgies, they blasphernously styled the "Queen of Hea.I y ven." But the excesses even of Popery have been pruned, by the uprising of a more rational and scriptural faith; though we believe the God(dess, the Queen of Heaven, is stIll retained in her forms of worship: and if any miracles are now worked by her pretended saints, or their statues, the operation is generally performed at a distance from the scrutinizing eye ofProtestantism, and to convince those who have no need of aeouversion-the Papists themselves. For our own parts, we do not like to see or hear of " the " Cross as opposed to the Crescent," in the war between the Greeks and Turks. They are alike superstitious badges, and have nothing to do with true religion, which is spiritual. The Saviour of the world undoubtedly suffered death upon a cross, and he so suffered tbr the sins of man; but de those facts instil any virtue or merit into the in- strument of his tortures, or into the resemblance of that instrument, or into similar instruments, wherever they are seen, or of whatever materials they are composed ? Had he sufered death by decapitation, should we have bowed the head to a hatchet every time we saw one, and instead of crossing ourselves, tossed down the right arm as if the weapon fell ? However, let the Turkish Government but purify the morals of its subjects, which may be best done by the in- troduction of a pure faith, and it will find that it has im- parted to the state one of the surest principles of duration. It would seem hard to punish the husbands for the ex- cesses of their wives; but in Mahlometan countries the wo- men are more under control.