Again and again is it demonstrated how God makes the wrath of man to
praise him.
When he was seeking to do evil only, in the pursuit of his cruel
and tyrannical policy, Sultan Abdul Hamid was all the time
unconsciously promoting some of the great designs of divine
Providence. He did good in ways altogether unintended, never for
a moment foreseeing how his own policy in the end would recoil
upon himself. For he banished hundreds of the most enlightened
and patriotic of his subjects to various provinces, little
thinking how their influence would work against himself. The
head of the revolutionary party, Ahmed Riza, for twenty years
quietly and steadily during his exile worked in the cause of
liberty. And this heroic man toiled on in face of the depressing
obstacles furnished by what seemed to be an utterly unresponsive
country. When he was living in dire poverty in France he refused
to accept £2,000 a month from the Sultan, and at one crisis he
just as firmly and indignantly rejected an offered bribe of a
million pounds simply to shut his mouth. (Text.)
(1271)