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First. That, in spite of the assurances from economists, no progress whatever had been made by England or by any state which lent any sanction to the hope of ever eradicating poverty from society.

Secondly. That, in absolute contradiction of the whole hypothesis relied on by M— and his brethren, in its most fundamental doctrine, a legal provision for poverty did not act as a bounty on marriage. The experience of England, where the trial had been made on the largest scale, was decisive on this point; and the opposite experience of Ireland, under the opposite circumstances, was equally decisive. And this result had made itself so clear by 1820, that even M— (as we have already noticed by anticipation) was compelled to publish a recantation as to this particular error, which in effect was a recantation of his entire theory.

Thirdly. That, according to the concurring experience of all the most enlightened states of Christendom, the public suffered least (not merely in molestation but in money), pauperism benefited most, and the growth of pauperism was retarded most, precisely as the provision for the poor had been legalized as to its obligation, and fixed as to its amount. Left to individual discretion, the burden was found to press most unequally; and, on the other hand, the evil itself of pauperism, whilst much less effectually relieved, nevertheless through the irregular action of this relief was much more powerfully stimulated.

Such is the abstract of our latest public warfare on this great question through a period of nearly fifty years. And the issue is this–starting from the contemptuous defiance of the scriptural doctrine upon the necessity of making provision for poverty as an indispensable element in civil communities, the economy of the age has lowered its tone by graduated descents, in each one successively of the four last decennia. The philosophy of the day as to this point at least is at length in coincidence with Scripture. And thus the very extensive researches of this nineteenth century, as to pauperism, have re-acted with the effect of a full justification upon Constantine’s attempt to connect the foundation of his empire with that new theory of Christianity upon the imperishableness of poverty, and upon the duties corresponding to it.

Meantime, Mr. Finlay denies that Christianity had been raised by Constantine into the religion of the state; and others have denied that, in the extensive money privileges conceded to Constantinople, he contemplated any but political principles. As to the first point, we apprehend that Constantine will be found not so much to have shrunk back from fear of installing Christianity in the seat of supremacy, as to have diverged in policy from our modern methods of such an installation. Our belief is, that according to his notion of a state religion, he supposed himself to have conferred that distinction upon Christianity. With respect to the endowments and privileges of Constantinople, they were various; some lay in positive donations, others in immunities and exemptions; some again were designed to attract strangers, others to attract nobles from old Rome. But, with fuller opportunities for pursuing that discussion, we think it would be easy to show, that in more than one of his institutions and his decrees he had contemplated the special advantage of the poor as such; and that, next after the august distinction of having founded the first Christian throne, he had meant to challenge and fix the gaze of future ages upon this glorious pretension–that he first had executed the scriptural injunction to make a provision for the poor, as an order of society that by laws immutable should ‘never cease out of the land.’

II. Let us advert to the value and functions of Constantinople as the tutelary genius of western or dawning Christianity.

The history of Constantinople, or more generally of the Eastern Roman empire, wears a peculiar interest to the children of Christendom; and for two separate reasons–first, as being the narrow isthmus or bridge which connects the two continents of ancient and modern history, and that is a philosophic interest; but secondly, which in the very highest degree is a practical interest, as the record of our earthly salvation from Mahometanism. On two horns was Europe assaulted by the Moslems; first, last, and through the largest tract of time, on the horn of Constantinople; there the contest raged for more than eight hundred years, and by the time that the mighty bulwark fell (1453), Vienna and other cities upon or near the Danube had found leisure for growing up; so that, if one range of Alps had slowly been surmounted, another had now slowly reared and embattled itself against the westward progress of the Crescent. On the western horn, in France, but by Germans, once for all Charles Martel had arrested the progress of the fanatical Moslem almost in a single battle; certainly a single generation saw the whole danger dispersed, inasmuch as within that space the Saracens were effectually forced back into their original Spanish lair. This demonstrates pretty forcibly the difference of the Mahometan resources as applied to the western and the eastern struggle. To throw the whole weight of that difference, a difference in the result as between eight centuries and thirty years, upon the mere difference of energy in German and Byzantine forces, as though the first did, by a rapturous fervor, in a few revolutions of summer what the other had protracted through nearly a millennium, is a representation which defeats itself by its own extravagance. To prove too much is more dangerous than to prove too little. The fact is, that vast armies and mighty nations were continually disposable for the war upon the city of Constantine; nations had time to arise in juvenile vigor, to grow old and superannuated, to melt away, and totally to disappear, in that long struggle on the Hellespont and Propontis. It was a struggle which might often intermit and slumber; armistices there might be, truces, or unproclaimed suspensions of war out of mutual exhaustion, but peace there could not be, because any resting from the duty of hatred towards those who reciprocally seemed to lay the foundations of their creed in a dishonoring of God, was impossible to aspiring human nature. Malice and mutual hatred, we repeat, became a duty in those circumstances. Why had they begun to fight? Personal feuds there had been none between the parties. For the early caliphs did not conquer Syria and other vast provinces of the Roman empire, because they had a quarrel with the Caesars who represented Christendom; but, on the contrary, they had a quarrel with the Caesars because they had conquered Syria, or, at the most, the conquest and the feud (if not always lying in that exact succession as cause and effect) were joint effects from a common cause, which cause was imperishable as death, or the ocean, and as deep as are the fountains of animal life. Could the ocean be altered by a sea-fight? Or the atmosphere be tainted for ever by an earthquake? As little could any single reign or its events affect the feud of the Moslem and the Christian; a feud which could not cease unless God could change, or unless man (becoming careless of spiritual things) should sink to the level of a brute.