Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1902 edition. Excerpt: ... GENERAL. BEM'S CONVERSION Hose who have consistently maligned the cause of order and constitutional freedom in Hungary have extracted what poisonous acid they were able from Bern's assumption of Mahometanism. This acid they would fain apply as a test whereby to approve the heroic Magyars plated ware and not pure metal. The systems of such persons must be so constituted as to secrete venom from mother's milk. We confess that we see nothing very extraordinary in Bern's conduct. He had lived in every Christian territory of Europe except Russia. He had in his own person experimentally tried the Christianity o all Christendom. If he had no country, it had been taken from him by Christian princes. If he were an Ishmaelite, he had been made so by those who profess the religion of Jesus. He had seen his countrywomen scourged in Christian market-places with Christian knouts, and his friends starving in Christian exile or entombed alive in Christian dungeons. They were most Christian Majesties who demanded of the Turk that he should violate the sacred rites of a hospitality as old as the human heart, by delivering up the suppliants who sate at his gates to the justice of Haynau and the Orthodoxy of Nicholas. Bern might have addressed the Sultan in the words of Coriolanus to Aufidius, --"Now this extremity Hath brought me to thy hearth; not out of hope--Mistake me not--to save my life, but in mere spite, To be full quit of those my banishers, Stand I before thee here. Then if thou hast A heart of wreak in thee, that wilt revenge Thine own particular wrongs, and stop those maims Of shame seen through thy country, speed thee straight, And make my misery serve thy turn; so use it That my revengeful services may prove As benefits to thee, for I..."