be strong motives for such an effort. The Turk, with his savagery and unbelief, was, alike to Greeks and to Latins, the immediate precursor of that awful Antichrist of whose advent in the latter days prophets and apostles had so plainly warned the Church of Christ. And Constantinople, though its grandeur and glory had faded, and though its faith in Western opinion was tainted with heresy, might still, especially at such a crisis as the present, claim to be regarded as Sion—the city of God—as well as the heir of Roman traditions and civilisation. Rome could never quite disown her as a daughter, though she might have been disobedient and refractory; still less could she see her trampled under foot by the infidel without a sense of humiliation and self-reproach.
Nor could there be much doubt that Europe possessed resources amply sufficient to save the city, and even to push back the Turk into his proper home in Asia. When we look back upon the situation, we may well accept Gibbon's opinion, that "a moderate armament of the maritime states might have saved the relics of the Roman name, and maintained a Christian fortress in the heart of the Ottoman Empire." But one soon sees that there were many substantial reasons why the effort was not made. Europe was very different from what it had been three centuries ago. The thoughts and ideas of men had greatly changed. The religious enthusiasm which had responded to the preaching of Peter the Hermit had yielded before a new class of impulses. Social and political movements were coming to the front and stirring the popular mind. It would have been difficult for an
