THE RUSSIAN GUARDSMAN: A TALE OF THE SEAS AND SHORES OF THE EAST. BY BEN. P. POORE. EDINBURGH: THOMAS GRANT, 21 GEORGE STREET. MDCCCLIV. 249. t. 461. PREFACE. For many months the eyes of Europe and the world have been turned stedfastly towards 'the East,' the land of purple and rosy hues, the land of fragrance and mellow sun-light, the land, too, of howling wildernesses and scorching deserts, whirling tempests, and desolating tornadoes-above all, the land whose bosom once contained the centre and sun of civilization and art, and, something far higher and grander than either, the bright burning glory of religious and eternal truth. Terrible and absorbing are the recollections that cluster round the history of the East-Turkey, Syria, and Palestine. Once that favoured region was the focus of the world, the spot where emphatically was concentrated all that was good and great in humanity—all that was noble, and virtuous, and brave in the earth. Round its confines there ran a line of separation, which, though moral and spiritual, was as distinct and tangible as the wall of China; and within that mighty enclosure there was light and life, while without it darkness covered the earth, and gross darkness the people.' For several centuries after the Christian era, this region maintained its power and influence; but by degrees the gold of its glory became dim, the much fine gold of its greatness changed; the crown which rested so long on its brow fell down, and very soon its light and Europe's darkness changed places. As the rays of civilization and Christianity brightened and blossomed in the West, they faded in the East; as morning dawned in the former, twilight gathered in the latter; and now, while we on the confines of the Atlantic rejoice in comparative light and liberty, the dwellers on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean and Egean seas have been for ages shrouded in thick darkness. Thus we find the existence of a moral as well as a physical compensation in the universe. While the glorious Scripture prediction has been faithfully fulfilled, 'The people that sat in darkness have seen a great light,' the unrecorded doom has descended, The people that sat in light have seen a great darkness.' And yet this fall of the mighty was not altogether unrecorded. That old Hebrew Book which grew into being during the greater part of that period of prosperity, contains many intimations of its sure and certain coming. Its writers, with a strange intelligence which can only be accounted for on the theory of Divine inspiration, did not fail to warn the inhabitants of the approaching calamity. Before ever the first cloud gathered, or the first shade was pencilled on the Eastern moral sky, they sang a dirge for departed glory, and raised a wail for the fallen greatness of the land. What but Divine guidance could have enabled shepherds and ploughmen, fishermen and tentmakers, to tell of a desolation far off, and to mourn for it as if it had come! The knell of predicted doom rang solemnly out twelve hundred years ago, and its sound has not yet ceased to echo over the resting-place of dead Eastern civilization. When the gloom began to gather, and while it thickened and intensified, the respect and notice which the East commanded from the West gradually lessened, and for hundreds of years the region has been almost excluded from human recollection. The Crusades may be regarded as Europe's farewell visit to the East. |
