CHAPTER XXVI.
THE ARMENIANS.
1860-1861.
The fleets and armies of Europe had retired, and the Turk felt in a measure freed from a troublesome guardianship; which had, however, greatly promoted both religion and reform in Turkey.

The fact that the war had materially weakened Russian influence at the Porte, may have been among the reasons that induced England now to relax its hold on the government of the Sultan.

As a consequence, French diplomacy was decidedly in the ascendant, and lent its influence to promote Papal schemes.

"The Armenians," writes a well informed missionary, "accept a declaration of the Bible as ultimate, and as the Protestant missionaries made the Bible the basis of all their work, and accustomed the people to refer to it for authority in all spiritual matters, the Papists have been shut up to the use of political measures to gain adherents.

This they have done by espousing the cause of any party in litigation on condition that he should register himself a Roman Catholic.