rant in spiritual concerns. The exercise of all religions is free, and at Constantinople (we are told) Monks dress in their habits, and are allowed at funeral processions to elevate the cross, which is more than the English tyranny allowed the Roman Catholics of Ireland to do, till very lately a Turk, however, convicted of apostacy, could not by any means escape death. Meantime it must be observed, that if they keep up a decent semblance of the forms of their religion, no intrusive inquiry is made into their real faith and though it is one of the injunctions of Mahomet to endeavor to convert unbelievers, and they sometimes in obedience to that command solicit the conversion of Christians and others; they never fail to consider any renegado, or person who becomes a convert, with contempt, if not dislike.

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I will conclude this letter with an extract from that most valuable and accurate work, Russel's History of Aleppo, which will give you a better, because a true, notion of Turkish morals, than you are likely to receive from general opinion. "Upon the whole," says he, "whether it be ascribed to the influence of their political constitution, or to the absence of various temptations, which in Europe often lead to the violation of better laws; there are perhaps few great cities where many of the private and domestic virtues are in general more prevalent than at Aleppo."

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LETTER XXXI.

THE use of periodical stated times of devotion is universally admitted, and the necessity of adopting them makes a part of the Christian code. The Mahomedan religion, however, exceeds it far in the rigid attention to, and frequency of, devotion. There are no less than five stated times of prayer in every twentyfour hours, fixed as indispensable, at none of which a true believer fails; and the fervency of their praying exceeds even the frequency. I have heard it asserted,

that if the house was to take fire while they are at their devotion, they would not break off; and so rigidly intent do they conceive it their duty to be during the time of prayer, that if in the midst of it they were interrupted by a fit of sneesing or coughing, they consider all already done as gone for nothing, and always begin them again. And to tell a truth of them, if the Christians curse them, they are pretty even with them in return, never failing to pray for discord, enmity, and dissension among their enemies, as well as health and prosperity to themselves; and to the efficacy of those prayers they fondly attribute all the wars and dissensions which incessantly harass Christendom. A bell tolls as a public notice of prayer; and when a true Mahomedan hears it, let him be where he will, whether at home or abroad, in the highway or in the market, be the place dirty or clean, wet or dry, he immediately falls down and worships.

As subsidiary to prayer they have their ablutions, in which they are full as scrupulously punctual as in their prayers. One is preparatory to prayer, another after cohabitation with women, a third before eating, and another again incidental. Those they never neglect to perform, unless some insuperable obstacle lies in the way. Charity, that most glorious doctrine of any religion, is enjoined by the Koran under the most heavy denunciation of heavenly vengeance, in case of neglect; and by it they are charged to regard no bounds in liberality to the poor. Many Mussulmen in their zeal to discharge this duty have given a fourth, many a third, and some one half of their property. Nay, the instances are not unfrequent of men giving away their all, and living afterwards themselves upon alms. To do strict justice it must be said, that poverty is no where so respectfully attended to, honored, or reverenced, as among the Mahomedans; who have a saying among them, "that the fear of want is a mark of the judgment of God."

Abstinence is considered as a virtue among them, and very strictly enjoined as a religious duty. The great fast appointed by the Koran continues for the month of Ramedan, during which time they neither eat, drink,

nor converse with their wives, from sun-rise till the stars appear, or the lamps are hung out at the mosques. Any man who breaks it is punished with death; but the worst of it is, that they will not allow even travellers, the sick or the wounded, to plead a right to exemption: some of the Turks, however, and all the Christians, have hit upon expedients to pass the month without much mortification; that is, sleeping in bed all day, and sitting up and carousing all night to evade the restraint.

The last and greatest ordinance of their religion is the pilgrimage to Mecca, which when once accomplished is supposed to be a direct passport to Heaven; and there are few of them who do not at one time or other of their lives take that painful and hazardous journey. As this is a very interesting journey, however, to travel in the closet, as it includes the description of a caravan, and serves to shew to what extremities enthusiasm can influence men, I will give you a description of it as handed to me by a very accurate and ingenious person, on whose precise veracity I can rely; first making some remarks upon the preceding part of this letter.

You will observe from what I have already said, that, excepting the mere points of religious faith, the moral ordinances of Mahomedanism comprehend most of those parts of the Christain religion, on the practice of which the reputation of piety is founded; and that for strict obedience to those ordinances the Mahomedans are more remarkable than we are. Adultery is not frequent among them; wine is seldom or never used; theft is little known; so is murder. Then in the practical parts of devotion, there are in the first place, prayers; secondly, abstinence or fasting; thirdly, charity. Those are all Christian doctrines, more zealously observed by them than by us. Their ablutions are at least no injury to the cause of morality or piety; but rather, being done as a religious exercise, serve to keep up the series of intercourse which should subsist between the creature and his Creator: besides, I cannot help thinking with our inimitable poet Thomson, that

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-from the body's purity, the mind Receives a secret sympathetic aid.

SEASONS-Summer.

And as to the pilgrimage to Mecca, however irrational it may appear to us, it is at least recommended by sincerity and zeal, and is doubtless in the eye of an all-seeing providence, meritorious. He, we are to suppose, will judge, not by the value of the act," but the purity of the motive; and will accept it as the offering of a frail, blind mortal, bending in obedience to that which he conceives to be the will of Heaven. Besides, for the life of me, I cannot see why a pilgrimage to Mecca is at all more culpable than a pilgrimage to Jerusalem; not to mention the thousand other holy places to which well-meaning Christians go, for their soul's sake, at imminent hazard of their lives, and certain mortification and hardship to their bodies.

Banish then, my FREDERICK! banish from your heart all illiberal and uncharitable prejudices, if any have yet found their way to it. Revere and cling to your religion as the best and most conducive to eternal and temporal happiness; and the more good because it enjoins us to be charitable even to the Jews as well as to the Gentiles : but never think that you advance the cause of that religion, or do service to your God, by waging war against your fellow-creatures for opinions they can no more help entertaining, than you can help having yours, or by denouncing against them that eternal sentence which rests with the Almighty alone to judge of or to pronounce.

To a benevolent mind, the animosities of mankind present a most afflicting picture; and the frivolous pretexts upon which those animosities are grounded, render it only the more horrible. One would think that the substantial traffic of life, and the struggle of mankind for the superfluities of it, of themselves afford ample materials for scuffle, without resorting to the shadows of speculation for contention. Yet experience has shewn us that opinion is a much more copious source of animosity and warfare; and that for one man who has been cursed, mur

dered, or destroyed by his fellow-creatures in a contest for property, there are a thousand who have fallen sacrifices to the vengeance of hostile opinion.

Were it possible that I could obtain from the bounty of Heaven a grant of the first wish of my heart, that wish should be to see all mankind in harmony and mutu al good will, ranging without distinction under the one great name of man and brother. As those who foment the disunion between them are the most pernicious monsters of society; so he who endeavors to bring them one step nearer to a general accommodation of sentiment, who strives to inculcate the principles of mutual toleration, and encourage the growth of reciprocal affection between men as fellow-beings, may be justly ranked among the best friends of mankind, and the most faithful servants of Him who gave being to all.

Among the gross misrepresentations of which I complain, and which for the sake of mankind I lament, is that general falsehood, the infidelity of the Turkish women. The respectable author whom I have before taken the freedom of quoting, I mean Dr. Russel, declares that in twenty years residence at Aleppo, he did not remember a public instance of adultery; and that in the private walks of scandal, those he heard of were among the lower class, and did not in number exceed a dozen." In respect to the Franks (continues he) the undertaking is attended not only with such risk to the individual, but may in its consequences so seriously involve the whole settlement, that it is either never attempted, or is concealed with a secrecy unexampled in other matters. I have reason to believe that European travellers have sometimes had a Greek courtesan imposed on them for a sultana; and after having been heartily frightened, have been induced to pay smartly, in order to preserve a secret which the day after was known to half the sisterhood in town." He remarks, however, that at Constantinople the state of gallantry is different.

On the subject of the Turkish moral character, I have endeavored to be as concise as justice would allow me to be; and yet I find that I have gone to some length. I cannot however dismiss it without giving you