Chapter XXIV (1)

“They tell me it’s a haill month since it was a’ settled, but I hear naething of the house or the plenishing, and no a word of what Jenny’s to do. If they’re no wanting me, I’m no wanting them—ne’er a bit. It’s aye the way guid service is rewarded; and whatfor should there be ony odds with Jenny? I might have kent that muckle, if I had regarded counsel, or thought of my ainsel; but aye Jenny’s foremost thought was of them, for a’ such an ill body as she is now.”

And a tear was in Jenny’s eye, as she smoothed down the folds of Menie’s dress—Menie’s finest dress, her own present, which Menie was to wear to-night. And Menie’s ornaments are all laid out carefully upon the table, everything she is likely to need, before Jenny’s lingering step leaves the room. “I canna weel tell, for my pairt, what like life’ll be without her,” muttered Jenny, as she went away. “I reckon no very muckle worth the minding about; but I’m no gaun to burden onybody that doesna want me—no, if I should never hae anither hour’s comfort a’ my days.”

And slowly, with many a backward glance and pause, Jenny withdrew. Neglect is always hard to bear. Jenny believed herself to be left out of their calculations—forgotten of those to whom she had devoted so many years of her life; and Jenny, though she tried to be angry, could not manage it, but felt her indignant eyes startled with strange tears. It made a singular cloud upon her face this unusual emotion; the native impatience only struggled through it fitfully in angry glimpses, though Jenny was furious at herself for feeling so desolate, and very fain would have thrown off her discomfort in a fuff—but far past the region of the fuff was this her new-come solitude of heart. Her friends were dead or scattered, her life was all bound up in her mistress and her mistress’s child, and it was no small trial for Jenny to find herself thus cast off and thrown aside.

The next who enters this room has a little heat about her, a certain atmosphere of annoyance and displeasure. “I will be a burden”—unawares the same words steal over Mrs Laurie’s lip, but the sound of her voice checks her. Two or three steps back and forward through the room, a long pause before the window, and then her brow is cleared. You can see the shadows gradually melting away, as clouds melt from the sky, and in another moment she has left the room, to resume her place down stairs.

This vacant room—nothing can you learn from its calm good order, its windows open to the sun, its undisturbed and home-like quiet, of what passes within its walls. There is Menie’s little Bible on the table; it is here where Menie brings her doubts and troubles, to resolve them, if they may be resolved. But there is no whisper here to tell you what happens to Menie, when, as has already chanced, some trouble comes upon her which it is not easy to put away. Hush! This time the door opens slowly, gravely—this time it is a footstep very sober, something languid, which comes in; and Menie Laurie puts up her hand to her forehead, as if a pain was there; but not a word says Menie Laurie’s reverie—not a word. If she is sad, or if she is merry, there is no way to know. She goes about her toilette like a piece of business, and gives no sign.

But this month has passed almost like age upon Menie Laurie’s face. You can see that grave thoughts are common now, everyday guests and friends in her sobered life, and that she has begun to part with her romances of joy and noble life—has begun to realise more truly what manner of future it is which lies before her. Nothing evil, perhaps—little hardship in it; no great share of labour, of poverty, or care—but no longer the grand ideal life, the dream of youthful souls.

And now she stands before the window, wearing Jenny’s gown. It is only to look out if any one is visible upon the road—but there is no passenger yet approaching Heathbank, and Menie goes calmly down stairs. As it happens, the drawing-room is quite vacant of all but Nelly Panton, who sits prim by the wall in one corner. Nelly is not an invited guest, but has come as a volunteer, in right of her brother’s invitation, and Miss Annie shows her sense of the intrusion by leaving her alone.

“Na, I’m no gaun to bide very lang in London,” said Nelly. “Ye see, Miss Menie, you’re an auld friend. I’m no so blate, but I may tell you. I didna come up here ance errand for my ain pleasure, but mostly to see Johnnie, and to try if I couldna get ony word of a very decent lad, ane Peter Drumlie, that belangs about our countryside. We were great friends, him and me, and then we had an outcast—you’ll ken by yoursel—but we’ve made it up again since I came to London, and I’m gaun hame to get my providing, and comfort my mother a wee while, afore I leave her athegither. It’s a real duty comforting folk’s mother, Miss Menie. I’m sure I wouldna forget that for a’ the lads in the world.”

“And where are you to live, Nelly?” Nelly’s moralising scarcely called for an answer.

“We havena just made up our minds; they say ae marriage aye makes mair,” said Nelly, with a grim smile. “Miss Menie, you’ve set us a’ agaun.”

Perhaps Menie did not care to be classed with Nelly Panton. “July Home will be a very young wife,” she said; “I think your brother should be very happy with her, Nelly.”

“I wouldna wonder,” said Nelly, shortly; “but you see, Miss Menie, our Johnnie’s a well-doing lad, and micht ha’e looked higher, meaning nae offence to you; though nae doubt it’s true what Randall Home said when he was speaking about this. ‘Lithgow,’ says he (for he ca’s Johnnie by his last name—it’s a kind o’ fashion hereaway), ‘if you get naething with your wife, I will take care to see you’re no cumbered with onybody but hersel;’ which nae doubt is a great comfort, seeing there micht ha’e been a haill troop of friends, now that Johnnie’s getting up in the world.”

“What was that Randall Home said?” Menie asked the question in a very clear distinct tone, cold and steady and unfaltering—“What do you say he said?—tell me again.”

“He said, Johnnie wouldna be troubled with nane of her friends,” said Nelly; “though he has her to keep, a bit wee silly thing, that can do naething in a house—and nae doubt a maid to keep to her forby—that he wouldna have ony of her friends a burden on him; and a very wise thing to say, and a great comfort. I aye said he was a sensible lad, Randall Home. Eh, preserve me!”

For Randall Home stands before her, his eyes glowing on her with haughty rage. He has heard it, every single deliberate word, and Randall is no coward—he comes in person to answer for what he has said.

Rise, Menie Laurie! Slowly they gather over us, these kind shadows of the coming night; no one can see the momentary faltering which inclines you to throw yourself down there upon the very ground, and weep your heart out. Rise; it is you who are stately now.

“This is true?”

She is so sure of it, that there needs no other form of question, and Menie lays her hand upon the table to support herself, and stands firmly before him waiting for his answer. Why is it that now, at this moment, when she should be most strong, the passing wind brings to her, as in mockery, an echo of whispering mingled voices—the timid happiness of July Home? But Menie draws up her light figure, draws herself apart from the touch of her companions, and stands, as she fancies she must do henceforth, all her life, alone.

“This is true?”

“I would disdain myself if I tried to escape by any subterfuge,” said Randall, proudly; “I might answer that I never said the words this woman attributes to me; but that I do not need to tell you. I would not deceive you, Menie. I never can deny what I have given expression to; and you are right—it is true.”

And Randall thinks he hears a voice, wavering somewhere, far off, and distant like an echo—not coming from these pale lips which move and form the words, but falling out upon the air—faint, yet distinct, not to be mistaken. “I am glad you have told me. I thank you for making no difficulty about it: this is very well.”

“Menie! you are not moved by this gossip’s story? This that I said has no effect on you? Menie! Is a woman like this to make a breach between you and me?”

In stolid malice, Nelly Panton sits still, and listens with a certain melancholy enjoyment of the mischief she has made, protesting, under her breath, that “she meant nae ill; she aye did a’thing for the best;” while Randall, forgetful of his own acknowledgment, repeats again and again his indignant remonstrance, “a woman like this!”

“No, she has no such power,” said Menie firmly—“no such power. Pardon me—I am wanted to-night. My strength is not my own to be wasted now; we can conclude this matter another time.”

Before he could say a word, the door had closed upon her. There was a bustle without, a glimmer of coming lights upon the wall. In a few minutes the room was lighted up, the lady of the house in her presiding place—and Randall started with angry pride from the place where he stood, by the side of Nelly Panton, whose gloomy unrelieved figure suddenly stood out in bold relief upon the brightened wall.

Another time! Menie Laurie has not gone to ponder upon what this other conference shall be—she is not by her own window—she is not out of doors—she has gone to no such refuge. Where she never went before, into the heart of Miss Annie’s preparations—into the bustle of Miss Annie’s hospitality—shunning even Jenny, far more shunning her mother, and waiting only till the room is full enough, to give her a chance of escaping every familiar eye. This is the first device of Menie’s mazed, bewildered mind. These many days she has lived in hourly expectation of some such blow; but it stuns her when it comes.

Forlorn! forlorn! wondering if it is possible to hide this misery from every eye—pondering plans and schemes of concealment, trying to invent—do not wonder, it is a natural impulse—some generous lie. But Menie’s nature, more truthful than her will, fails in the effort. The time goes on, the lingering moments swell into an hour. Music is in her ears, and smiling faces glide before her and about her, till she feels this dreadful pressure at her heart no longer tolerable, and bursts away in a sudden passion, craving to be alone.

Another heart, restless by reason of a gnawing unhappiness, wanders out and in of these unlighted chambers—oftenest coming back to this one, where the treasures of its life rest night by night. This wandering shadow is not a graceful one—these pattering, hasty footsteps have nothing in them of the softened lingering tread of meditation. No, poor Jenny, little of sentiment or grace embellishes your melancholy—yet it is hard to find any poem so full of pathos as a desolate heart, even such a one as beats in your homely breast to-night.

Softly—the room is not vacant now, as it was when you last entered here. Some one stands by the window, stooping forward to look at the stars; and while you linger by the door, a low cry, half a sigh, half a moan, breaks the silence faintly—not the same voice which just now bore its part so well below;—not the same, for that voice came from the lips only—this is out of the heart.

“Bairn, you’re no weel—they’ve a’ wearied you,” said Jenny, stealing upon her in the darkness: “lie down and sleep; it’s nae matter for the like of me, but when you sigh, it breaks folk’s hearts.”

The familiar voice surprised the watcher into a sudden burst of childish tears. All the woman failed in this great trial. “Oh, Jenny, dinna tell my mother!” Menie Laurie was capable of no other thought.

THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND THE PROTECTORATE IN TURKEY.

Before many weeks shall have gone over, perhaps while these sheets are passing through the press, we shall be able to judge of the accuracy of Lord Ellenborough’s opinion, as expressed in the House of Lords on the 6th February, that we are on the eve of one of the most formidable wars that ever this country was engaged in. Yes; within a short period from the present date much will be known; the Russian problem will be near its solution. The mystery of that force, which is said to be irresistible, and of those resources said to be inexhaustible, will be laid bare to the world. We shall know if all that we have been told of that vast power which has kept Europe in awe, is real; if the colossal idol which all have gazed on with a feeling that cannot be accurately described, does not stand on feet of clay. We confess that recent events have somewhat weakened the general faith in the overwhelming strength of Russia, and people begin to have some doubt whether the world has not been imposed upon. With her vast territorial extent, including nearly one-seventh part of the terrestrial portion of the globe and one twenty-seventh of its entire surface, and her varied population, comprising nearly one-ninth of the human race, she has spoken as if she could domineer over all Europe; and until the Pruth was passed, and the Danube became once more the theatre of battle, mankind seemed, if not entirely to admit, at least unwilling to dispute the claim. The combats of Oltenitza and Citale have, we suspect, disturbed that belief. Foreign and all but hostile flags have, within the last few weeks, floated almost within sight of Sebastopol; the squadrons of England and France have swept the hitherto unapproachable Euxine, from the Thracian Bosphorus to Batoun, and from Batoun back to Beicos Bay, and her fleet has not ventured to cross their path. Should Austria, listening to her evil genius, prove false to her own interests, we believe that the anticipations of the noble Lord referred to will be realised. Should she consult her own safety, and make common cause with those whose warlike preparations are not for aggression, but defence, we still incline to the opinion that hostilities may be limited to their original theatre—to be temporarily arrested, if not closed, by diplomatic intervention. The unsuccessful issue, at least to the date at which we write, of Count Orloff’s mission, gives us some hope that such will be the case; but a very short time will enable us to judge whether the advance of a _corps d’armée_ to the Servian frontier is to aid Russian aggression, or to act, if necessary, against it.

An aggressive spirit has invariably marked the policy of Russia from the time of Peter the Great. Long harassed by internal enemies, and sometimes struggling for existence, she at length was freed from the dangers which had menaced her from abroad. By a fortunate concurrence of circumstances, the moment when her government became constituted, and began to enjoy its liberty of action, the neighbouring states, from the Baltic to the Caspian, entered into their period of weakness. The wild ambition and the mad enterprise of Charles XII. occasioned the decline of Sweden. The chivalrous monarch, the conqueror of Narva, the vanquished of Pultova, perished in the ditch of Frederickshall. Peter triumphed over his most formidable enemy; and, if he did not from that moment begin his aggression in the Ottoman territory, he was at all events no longer embarrassed by the dangerous diversions in the north. There still, however, remained an obstacle to his designs on those magnificent possessions of the Osmanlis, which have at all times possessed the fatal privilege of attracting the cupidity of the northern barbarian. There still remained Poland; but her anarchy, her internal convulsions, inseparable from her anomalous institutions, proved to be no less profitable to the Muscovite than the madness of the Scandinavian hero; and from the day of her dismemberment, Turkey became the permanent object of the ambition which, even as we write, threatens to convulse Europe.

It rarely happens that up to the close of a long war the original cause of quarrel continues the same. The first dissension disappears as war progresses, and, in the numerous complications which hostilities give rise to, the belligerents themselves either forget, or do not assign the same importance to the question which originally arrayed them in arms against each other. Though the war between Russia and Turkey has not yet a remote date, and though hostilities have not yet been formally declared between Russia and the Western Powers, notwithstanding the recall of their respective ambassadors, we still fear that the public is beginning to lose sight of the primary grounds of quarrel between the Czar and the Sultan, and which has led to the present state of things. The pretext put forward by Russia for intervention in the Ottoman empire is her desire to “protect” the ten millions of Christians of the Greek Church who are subjects of the Porte; these ten millions professing the same faith as the subjects of the Emperor of Russia, and living under the tyrannous rule of an infidel government. We admit the plausibility of that claim, and we are aware how easily the generous sympathies of a Christian people can be roused in favour of such a cause. We can appreciate the feelings of those who are persuaded that the moment has at length arrived when the Cross shall be planted on the mosques of Stamboul, and the orthodox believer take the place of the Mussulman. The claim to a Protectorate over ten millions of suffering Greeks in the European territory of the Sultan has been described as a cover, under which Russia aims at the possession of Constantinople, and, in fact, at the extension of her dominion from the Carpathian to the Danube, and from the Danube to the Sea of Marmora; but the Czar has solemnly and repeatedly declared that he had no such ambition, and that the sole motive which actuated him was to protect a population who professed the self-same religion as himself, he being the visible head of the Eastern Church, and recognised as such by the Eastern or Greek Christians; and the refusal of the Porte to grant that Protectorate is the primary cause of the war. Without examining whether any, or what conditions would justify a foreign government in imposing its protection on the subjects of an independent state, we may be permitted to say something of the nature of the religion whose champion the Czar professes to be; of the alleged homogeneity of the Eastern and Russian Churches, for on this the whole question turns; and of the advantages likely to accrue to the Greeks from Russian protection.

Among the many errors likely to be dissipated by the minute discussion which the Eastern question has undergone in the public press of this and other countries, not the least is that which has reference to the Emperor of Russia as the natural Protector of the Christian communities of the East. The hardihood with which this claim has been constantly put forward, and the silent acquiescence with which it seems to have been admitted by those who should know better, have imposed upon the world. Even now, they who resist the formal establishment of the influence of Russia over the internal affairs of Turkey, do so more by reason of the political consequences of that usurpation to the rest of Europe, than with the thought of disputing the abstract right of the head of the “Orthodox Faith” to the Protectorate he lays claim to. These pretensions, like many others we could mention, will not stand the test of examination. We do not learn, on any satisfactory evidence, that the Christian populations of the Ottoman empire have, during the last ten months, received with sympathy or encouragement the prospect of Russian protection; nor have they, so far as we know, exhibited any very earnest longing for the introduction of the knout as an element of government. The population of independent Greece may, and, we have no doubt, do, indulge in the harmless dream of a new Byzantine empire to be raised on the ruins of that which Mahomet II. won from their fathers; and they would doubtless rejoice that the domination of the Osmanlis were put an end to by Russia, or any other power, on condition of being their successors, as they were their predecessors. We believe that to this sort of revolution the aspirations of the Greeks are limited. But that people dispute the claim of the Czar to the Pontificate of the “Orthodox Faith,” and reject the idea of a temporal submission to him. The Greek Church, however, does not constitute the only Christian community of the Ottoman empire. Other congregations are to be found there, subjects also of the Porte, and who have not less claim to the protection of the various states of Europe, when protection is needed; but who still less desire that Russia should be their sole protector.

The points of difference between the Greek and Latin Churches are familiar to the world. But it may not be so generally known that, while the Russian branch of the former professes to preserve the Byzantine dogmas as its basis, the condition of its hierarchy, and the mechanism of its discipline, have become so altered with the lapse of years, that, at the present day, there exists no identity in this respect that would justify the head of the Russian Church in his pretensions to a temporal or spiritual protectorate over that church whose administrator and head is the Patriarch of Constantinople. Besides the difference of language, which is not without its importance—the one speaking Greek, the other Sclavonic—the Church of Constantinople still boasts that she has preserved her Patriarch, who is independent of secular interference in spirituals, while no such privilege belongs to Russia. A serious difference, too, exists between the Russian and Greek Churches (and one which would create new schisms and new convulsions) on the important question of baptism. Converts are admitted into the pale of the former from other communities, when they have been already baptized, without the obligation of again receiving the sacrament; while the Church of Constantinople makes the repetition of the sacrament indispensable in similar cases. The difference of church government is of the greatest importance: the Greeks have never admitted that the Holy Synod of St Petersburg, established by Peter the Great, represents in any sense the spiritual authority which he forcibly overthrew. The substitution of the chief of the state for it was never pretended to be otherwise than for political purposes, and as a means of realising the ambitious and aggressive designs of the Czar; and, while we do not deny the success it has met with, we believe that, since that event, the Russian clergy, as a body, has become the most ignorant and the most servile of any ecclesiastical corporation that now exists. The edict of Peter the Great admits the merely temporal object he had in view. “A spiritual authority,” it states, “which is represented by a corporation, or college, will never excite in the nation so much agitation and effervescence as a single chief of the ecclesiastical order. The lower classes of the people are incapable of comprehending the difference between the spiritual and secular authority. When they witness the extraordinary respect and honour which encompass a supreme pontiff, their admiration and wonder are so excited, that they look upon the chief of the Church as a second sovereign, whose dignity is equal, or even superior, to that of the monarch himself; and they are disposed to attach to the ecclesiastical rank a character of power superior to the other. Now, as it is incontestable that the common people indulge in such reflections, what, we ask, would be the case if the unjust disputes of an arbitrary clergy were added to light up a conflagration?” At the time this edict was issued, the Russian Church had already lost its patriarch. Full twenty years had elapsed since that event; and if ever the mitre of a prelate rivalled the diadem of an emperor, it was not in the reign of Peter that such an instance was to be found. No serious antagonism of the kind did or could exist in Russia; and the real object of the abolition of the patriarchate was, to combine with the absolutism of the sovereign the prestige of spiritual supremacy—that the Czar might not only say, with Louis XIV., “The State! _I_ am the State;” but also, “The Church! I am the Church.”

The Holy Synod of St Petersburg is, it is true, composed of some of the highest dignitaries of the Russian Church, (taken from the monastic order); but these are appointed by the secular authority; are presided over by a layman who represents the Czar, and whose _veto_ can suspend, or even annul, the most solemn resolutions of the Synod, even when _unanimously_ adopted. The person who occupied for years, and who, we believe, still occupies the important post of President of the Supreme Ecclesiastical Council, which regulates and decides on all matters concerning the discipline and administration of the Church of Russia, is a general of cavalry—General Protuson! The body thus controlled by a military chief, may be increased in numbers, or reduced, according to the pleasure of the Czar; but those who ordinarily constitute that Ecclesiastical Board are the metropolitan of St Petersburg, the archbishops, a bishop, the Emperor’s confessor, an archimandrite (one degree lower than a bishop), the chaplain-general of the naval and military forces, and an arch-priest. But, whatever be the rank, the learning, or the piety of the Synod, one thing must be well understood by them;—they must never dare to express an opinion, or give utterance to a thought, in opposition to the Czar. The edicts of the Synod bear the imperial impress; they are invariably headed with this _formula_, “By the most high will, command, and conformably to the sublime wishes of his Majesty, &c. &c.” If it be alleged that the authority of the Holy Synod, with its bearded, booted, and _sabred_ president, relates merely to the temporal administration of the Church, and that should a question of dogma arise recourse would be had to an _Œcumenical Council_, composed of all the churches of the Oriental rite, we reply that the superintendence of the Synod is _not_ confined to points of mere administration or discipline. The canonisation of a saint, for instance, is not a matter of mere administration. When a subject is proposed for that distinction—and the Russian Hagiology is more scandalously filled than the Roman in the worst times of the Papacy—it is the Synod, that is, the Emperor, who decides on the claims to worship of the unknown candidate, whose remains may have been previously sanctified by the gross superstition of a barbarous peasantry. It is true that, in consequence of some notorious criminals having, not many years ago, been added to the list of orthodox saints, the Emperor, since the discovery of this, has manifested considerable repugnance to exercising this important part of his pontifical functions. He has, on recent occasions, refused his _fiat_ of canonisation. A few years ago, some human bones were dug up on the banks of a stream in the government of Kazan, which, for some reason or other, were supposed to possess miraculous powers. A cunning speculator thought it a regular godsend; and petitions were forthwith sent to St Petersburg claiming divine honours for the unknown. The petitions were repeatedly rejected, but as often pressed on the Emperor. His Pontifical Majesty, who was assured, on high authority, that the claims of the present candidate were quite as well founded as those of many in the _Hagiology_, at last consented to issue his order of canonisation, but roundly swore that he would not grant another saintship as long as he lived. Yet it is not doubted that the opportunity offered by the present “holy war” of continuing the sacred list will be made use of unsparingly.

In other Churches the sacerdotal character is indelible; it is conferred by the ecclesiastical authority, and whether by the imposition of hands, or any other formality, cannot be destroyed even where the party is suspended from his sacred functions, or prohibited altogether from performing them. But neither suspension, nor degradation, can be considered as a matter of mere administration, or ordinary discipline; and the Emperor’s military representative has it in his power to decide on the degradation of any clergyman, and to completely efface the sacerdotal character acquired by ordination.

But, supposing the improbable event of an _Œcumenical Council_, in which the various Churches of the East should enter as component parts, in what manner, we may be permitted to ask, would the Russians claim to be represented? Would the Patriarch of Constantinople, or those of Antioch, Jerusalem, and Alexandria, who are under his spiritual jurisdiction, and who pronounce the Muscovite Church as, if not heretical, at least schismatical, submit to be presided over by an aide-de-camp of the Czar; or would they recognise, in favour of his Majesty, the quality of impeccability, or infallibility, which they refuse to the head of the Latin Church?

With that complete dependence in spiritual as in temporal government on the chief of the State, and that debasing servitude of the Russian Church, may be compared with advantage the immunities and privileges of the Church of Constantinople even under the Mussulman government. Its Patriarch is the chief of the Greek communities, the president of their Synod, and the sovereign judge, without interference on the part of the Sultan’s authority, of all civil and religious matters relating to these communities which may be brought before it. The Patriarch, and the twelve metropolitans who, under his presidency, compose the Synod, or Grand Council of the Greek _nation_, are exempt from the _Haratch_, or personal impost. The imposts the Greek _nation_ pays to the government are apportioned, not by the Mussulman authorities, but by its own archbishops and bishops. Those prelates are _de officio_ members of the municipal councils, by the same right as the Turkish governors and muftis. The cadis and governors are bound to see to the execution of the decisions or judgments of the bishops, in all that relates to their dioceses respectively; and to enforce the payment of the contributions which constitute the ecclesiastical revenues. The clergy of the Greek Church receive from each family of their own communion an annual contribution, for the decent maintenance of public worship. They celebrate marriages, pronounce divorces, draw up wills, and from all these acts derive a considerable revenue; and, in certain cases, they are authorised to receive legacies bequeathed for pious objects. For every judgment pronounced by their tribunals, the Patriarch and metropolitans are entitled to a duty on the value of the property in litigation, of ten per cent. They have the power of sentencing to fine, to imprisonment, to corporal punishment, and to exile, independently of the spiritual power they possess, and which they not rarely exercise, of excommunication. The Patriarch and the prelates are paid a fixed contribution by the priests to whom the higher functions of the ministry are confided; and these, in turn, receive a proportional amount from the clergy under their immediate superintendence. The incomes of the Patriarchs of Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria, of the thirty-two archbishops, and the one hundred and forty bishops of the Ottoman empire, are paid out of these public contributions.

These immunities present, as we have said, a striking contrast with the condition of the orthodox Church in Russia. A Church so endowed, and with powers over the millions who belong to its communion, would naturally tempt an ambitious sovereign to become its master under the name of Protector. We discard completely any inquiry into the relative merits of the two communities; but we think it must be evident to any impartial mind, that the protectorate of the Czar, in his character of head of the orthodox faith, would make him the supreme ruler over the Ottoman empire in Europe.

We do not mean to allege that the immunities of the Christian population have been faithfully respected by the pashas, the cadis, or other agents of the Porte. We admit that most of what has been said of the intolerance and the corruption of Turkish officials is true, and that acts of oppression and cruelty have been perpetrated, which call for the severest reprehension, and require the interference of the Christian governments of Europe. But what we dispute is, the exclusive right of the Emperor of Russia to such intervention or to such protectorate.

The Church of Constantinople regards that of St Petersburg as schismatical, however nearly they approach in some respects; and so far from acknowledging a right of Protectorate, either in the Synod or the Emperor, she claims over her younger and erring sister all that superiority which is imparted by primogeniture. She would reject the claim of Russia to supremacy, and refuse to be administered by a servile Synod, with a nominee of the Czar for President. To submit to that Protectorate would be to admit foreign authority; that admission would involve the loss of her Patriarch, the evidence of her independence; and to this conviction may be traced the indifference of the Greek population to Russian influence, and the co-operation its clergy has given to the Porte.

But, scattered amid the immense population which are subject to the Sultan, may be found communions not belonging to the Confession of Photius as adopted by the Eastern Churches, and still less to the schismatical branch of it which is known as the Russian Church. These communions have no relation, affinity, or in fact anything whatever in common with the Synod of St Petersburg, or the Czar, whom they regard as a spiritual usurper, and the creed he professes as all but heretical. The Eutychian Armenians amount to no less than 2,400,000 persons, of whom nearly 80,000 are actually united to the Latin Church; but, whatever be the difference in dogma or ceremonial between them, they unite in opposition to the Synod of St Petersburg, and in submission to the Porte. There are moreover, upwards of a million of Roman Catholics and united Greeks—that is, Greeks who admit the supremacy of the Pope, while observing their own ceremonial, and who, it will not be questioned, have an equal right to protection, where protection is requisite. We can easily understand the interference of the European powers on behalf of those communities among whom are to be found persons of the same religious belief as themselves; but we cannot understand on what grounds an _exclusive_ claim is put forward by a power which can have no sympathy with them, and which has destroyed the most important link that connected the Church of St Petersburg with that of the Patriarch. The possession of Constantinople by the Russians would, we are convinced, be followed by the destruction of the independence of the Eastern Church, the substitution of some Russian general or admiral, Prince Menschikoff perhaps, or Prince Gortschakoff, or whoever may happen to be the favourite of the day, for the venerable Patriarch; and by the most cruel persecution, not perhaps so much from religious intolerance, as for the same reasons assigned by Peter the Great for his abolition of the patriarchal dignity. The treatment of the united Greeks of the Russian empire, the Catholics of Poland and of the Muscovite provinces, is sufficient to show to those who, _now_ at all events, live tranquilly under the rule of the Sultan, what they have to expect from the tolerance, the equity, or the mercy of such a Russian Protector. One-fourth of the Latin population ruled over by the Czar is made up of various religious sects and forms of worship—Catholicism, Lutheranism, Calvinism, Mahometanism, Judaism, Lamaism, Schamaism, &c. In theory these different persuasions have a right to toleration; but in practice the case is different. The jealousy of the Czars, and their determination to reduce all that comes within their grasp to the same dead level of servitude, cannot endure a difference of any kind, religious or political; and pretexts are never wanting for persecutions, which have been compared to those of the worst days of the Roman emperors. The Baltic provinces, Lithuania and Poland, testify to the truth of these allegations. It appears clear, then, that the Christian communities of the Ottoman empire do not require the protection or domination of Russia, which would crush all alike.

We beg to point out another, and a material error into which the generality of people have fallen with reference to the Christian population of Turkey in Europe. The oppression of a Christian people by a misbelieving despotism is sufficient, of itself, to enlist the sympathies of a civilised and tolerant nation; and the fact of that oppression being practised by a small minority over a multitude composing three-fourths of the population of the Ottoman empire in Europe, is denounced as a monstrous anomaly; and the public indignation has been roused at the idea of scarcely three millions and a half of Turks grinding to the dust more than ten millions of Christians. We execrate religious oppression as much as any one can do; and whether the persecuted be numerous or few, one or one thousand, the crime is, in principle, the same. But we can show that, in the present instance, the aggravating circumstance of so great a difference in numbers does not exist. Those who speak of ten millions of Greek Christians being oppressed by three millions of Turks, forget, or may not be aware, that Moldavia and Wallachia, known as the Danubian Principalities, and now “protected” to the utmost by synods of another kind from that of St Petersburg—by military tribunals, and martial law—contain a population of above four millions, all of whom, with the exception of about fifty thousand Hungarian Catholics, are members of the Greek, though not of the Russo-Greek Church. Now, the Moldo-Wallachians are, in their domestic administration, independent of the Porte, the tie which attaches them to it—the payment of a comparatively small tribute—being of the slenderest kind. The Principalities are governed by their own princes or hospodars, formerly named for life, and, since the convention of 1849 between Russia and the Porte, for seven years; they are selected from among their own boyards, and receive investiture only from the Sultan. The Moldo-Wallachian army is recruited from the Moldo-Wallachian population, and is organised on the Russian plan, with Russian staff-officers. In neither of the three provinces is there a Turkish garrison, nor a Turkish authority of any kind, nor a single Turkish soldier; there is consequently no Turkish oppression or persecution. Servia, with a population of about a million, mostly Christians of the Greek communion, is equally independent of the Porte. The Turks have, it is true, a garrison in Belgrade, limited, by treaty with Austria, to a certain force; and Belgrade itself is the residence of a Pasha; but, beyond this trifling military occupation, the acknowledgment, as a matter of form, of the supremacy of the Sultan, and a small tribute in money, nothing else is left them. And, as in the case of the Danubian provinces, the internal government is entirely in the hands of the Servians themselves. The liberal institutions established in Servia by Prince Milosch Obrenowitsch, were not disturbed or interfered with by the Porte, to which they gave no umbrage, but were overthrown by Russian intrigue. In Servia no oppression, no persecution, is or can be practised by the Turks, who are powerless. Thus, we have about five millions of population to be deducted from the ten millions said to be mercilessly oppressed, outraged, and persecuted by Mussulman bigotry;—and also said to be eager for the religious Protectorate of Russia.

The Danubian Principalities were formerly governed by princes called _waywodes_, who were appointed by the Sultan. Those waywodes, it is true, exercised every species of oppression; but our readers will perhaps be surprised when they learn that these provincial tyrants were _not_ Mussulmans: they were _Christians_, and Christians of the same communion as the people whom they ruled over; and they were selected because they were Christians, to administer Christian dependencies. The waywodes were Fanariote Greeks, and denizens of Constantinople. We do not deny that the Turkish government were bound to see that their provinces were properly administered; but they were powerless to repress these abuses, as they were powerless to repress the abuses in the Turkish Pashalicks.

The influence of Russia for a long time, and particularly for the last twenty-five years, has been paramount in the Danubian Principalities. We have shown that the Moldo-Wallachians, with a slight exception, prefer the Greek rite; but there is no evidence that they have any religious sympathies with the Church of which the Emperor of Russia is the head. The Moldo-Wallachians also regard the Russian dogmas as schismatic, and recognise only the religious supremacy of the Patriarch of Constantinople. In Paris there is a Russian chapel for the use of the Russian embassy, the residents of that nation, and the few subjects of Independent Greece who may think it proper, or useful, to attend Russian worship. The Moldo-Wallachians who also reside in the French capital have been often pressed to attend that chapel, with a view, no doubt, to establish in the eyes of the world a homogeneity which in reality does not exist. As a proof of the antipathy between the two communions, we quote a passage from a discourse delivered on the occasion of the opening of a temporary place of worship for the Moldo-Wallachians by the Archimandrite Suagoano. To those who still believe that there exists the bond of a common faith between the Church of Constantinople and that of St Petersburg, and that the Moldo-Wallachians, or the Greeks of the Ottoman empire, desire a Russian Protectorate, we recommend the perusal of the following, which was pronounced to a numerous congregation in the beginning of January last. “When we expressed a desire,” said the archimandrite, “to found a chapel of our own rite, we were told that a Russian chapel already existed in Paris, and we were asked why the Roumains (Moldo-Wallachians) do not frequent it? What! Roumains to frequent a Russian place of worship! Is it then forgotten that they can never enter its walls, and that the Wallachians who die in Paris, forbid, at their very last hour, that their bodies should be borne to a Muscovite chapel, and declare that the presence of a Russian priest would be an insult to their tomb. Whence comes this irreconcilable hatred? That hatred is perpetuated by the difference of language. The Russian tongue is Sclavonic; _ours_ is Latin. Is there in fact a single Roumain who understands the language of the Muscovites? That hatred is just; for is not Russia our mortal enemy? Has she not closed up our schools, and debarred us from all instruction, in order to sink our people into the depths of barbarism, and to reduce them the more easily to servitude? On that hatred I pronounce a blessing; for the Russian Church is a schism which the Roumains reject; because the Russian Church has separated from the great Eastern Church; because the Russian Church does not recognise as its head the Patriarch of Constantinople; because it does not receive the Holy Unction of Byzantium; because it has constituted itself into a Synod of which the Czar is the despot; and because that Synod, in obedience to his orders, has changed its worship, has fabricated an unction which it terms holy, has suppressed or changed the fast days, and the Lents as established by our bishops; because it has canonised Sclavonians who are apocryphal saints, such as Vladimir, Olga, and so many others whose names are unknown to us; because the rite of Confession, which was instituted to ameliorate and save the penitent, has become, by the servility of the Muscovite clergy, an instrument for spies for the benefit of the Czar; in fine, because that Synod has violated the law, and that its reforms are arbitrary, and are made to further the objects of despotism. These acts of impiety being so notorious, and those truths so known, who shall now maintain that the Russian Church is not schismatic? Our Councils reject it; our canons forbid us to recognise it; our Church disavows it; and all who hold to the faith, and whom she recognises for her children, are bound to respect her decision, and to consider the Russian rite as a schismatic rite. Such are the motives which prevent the Roumains from attending the Russian chapel in Paris!” This address was received with enthusiasm by the assemblage. Letters of felicitation have been received by the archimandrite from his unhappy brethren of the Principalities, who are driven with the bayonet to the churches to chant _Te Deum_ for Russian victories; and, impoverished as they are, the prelates and priests of Wallachia send their mites to Paris, to aid in the construction of a true Greek church.[2]

It would be unjust to charge any religious community with the responsibility of the crimes or vices of individual members. The police offices and law courts in our own country occasionally disclose cases of moral depravity among members of the clerical profession; but these cases are few, we are happy to say, in comparison with the number of pious and learned men that compose the body. Nor do we pronounce a sweeping anathema on the Russo-Greek Church, because, with the exception of, as we are informed, a few of the superior dignitaries, no ecclesiastical corporation can produce more examples of gross ignorance and vicious habits. The degradation, the miserable condition of the mass of the Russian clergy, the pittance they receive from the State, being insufficient to keep body and soul together, and the almost total want of instruction, are, no doubt, the cause of this state of things. Marriage is a primary and indispensable condition for the priesthood; and the death of the wife, unless where a special exemption is accorded by the Synod or the Emperor, involves not merely the loss of his sacerdotal functions, but completely annuls the priestly character. The widowed priest returns to a lay condition from that moment; he may become a field labourer, or a valet; a quay porter, or a groom; a mechanic, or a soldier of the army of Caucasus; but his functions at the altar cease then, and for ever. The irregularities which in Russia, as elsewhere, prevailed in the monastic establishments, afforded a pretext to that rude reformer, Peter the Great, for abolishing the greater number of them. Their immense wealth, the gifts of the piety or the superstition of past ages, was a temptation which the inexorable despot could not resist; and having once acquired a taste for plunder, he appropriated not only monastic property, whilst abolishing monasteries, but filled the imperial treasury with the confiscated wealth of the secular clergy. What Peter left undone Catherine II. completed. During the reign of that Princess, whose own frailties might have taught her sympathy for human weaknesses, the whole of the remaining immovable property of the Church was seized. The correspondent and friend of Voltaire and the Encyclopedists filled with joy the hearts of the philosophers of Paris, by the appropriation of the resources of superstition, which she devoted to the realisation of her ambitious projects, or to recompense richly the services of her numerous favourites. Miserable pittances were allotted to the functionaries to whom that great wealth had belonged; but the distractions of love and war too often interfered with the payment of even those pittances. In Moscow, St Petersburg, and some other large cities, there are still, perhaps, a few benefices which afford a decent subsistence to the holders; but the stipends, even when augmented by the _casuel_, the chance and voluntary contribution paid by individuals for special masses, and certain small perquisites for funerals, &c., are insufficient to maintain, in anything approaching to comfort, a single, much less a married clergyman. There appears to be some difference of opinion among the best authorities on the exact stipends received by the higher clergy. The income of the senior metropolitan, the first dignitary of the orthodox church, including all sources of revenue, has never been estimated at more than from £600 to £700 per annum; that of the other metropolitans, at about £160; of an archbishop, £120; of a bishop, £80; of an archimandrite, the next in rank after a bishop, from £40 to £50. The wooden hut inhabited by a parish priest is not superior to that of the poorest of his parishioners, and the spot of land attached is cultivated by his own hands. The destitute condition of the inferior clergy has many times been brought under the notice of the government, and commissioners have been named to examine into the complaints, but without producing any result.

Under such circumstances, it is not extraordinary that the clergy should become degraded in the eyes of the people, and be regarded, when not in the performance of their sacred functions, as objects of derision and contempt. With starvation at home, they are forced to seek in the houses of others what their own cannot supply; to satisfy the most pressing wants of nature, they submit to scoff and insult; and wherever feasting is going on, the priest is found an unbidden, and in most instances an unwelcome guest. This state of life leads to vagrant, idle, and dissolute habits, and it is declared, on what appears to be competent authority, that intemperance is the general characteristic of the lower clergy of Russia. Intemperance easily leads to other vices. According to official reports laid before the Synod, there were, in the single year 1836, 208 ecclesiastics degraded for _infamous crimes_, and 1985 for crimes or offences less grave. In that year the clergy comprised 102,456 members;—the number degraded and sentenced by the tribunals was therefore about two per cent. In 1839, the number of priests condemned by the tribunal was one out of twenty; and during the three years from 1836 to 1839 inclusive, the cases were 15,443, or one-sixth of the whole. A good deal of scandal, as well there might be, was occasioned by the reports of the Synod, and that body received a hint to be more discreet in exposing to the sneers of the heterodox the state of the orthodox church. It attempted, in a subsequent report, to explain away or palliate those disorders. “If such things,” says the Synodical Report of 1837, “cannot be entirely avoided by reason of the vast extent of the empire; of the want of seminaries, attendance at which has been only recently obligatory; of the little instruction received by the clergy, who in this respect are, as it were, in a state of infancy—so much so, that one old barbarism has not yet disappeared—nevertheless, the same clergy has exhibited rich examples of ancient piety and severity of morals.” Dr Pinkerton assures us that there are to be found among the families of the parochial clergy, a degree of culture and good manners peculiar to themselves. If we can rely on accounts more recent, and quite as good, these are but rare exceptions; and we fear that matters are pretty much the same as when Coxe was in Russia, and many of the parish priests were so ignorant as to be unable to read, even in their own language, the gospel they were commissioned to preach. M. de Haxthausen, whose testimony is entitled to great respect, says, “Ecclesiastics of merit are rare in the country. The greater number of the old popes are ignorant, brutal, without any instruction, and exclusively given up to their personal interests. In the performance of religious ceremonies, and in the dispensation of the sacraments, they have often no other object in view than to obtain presents. They have no care about the spiritual welfare of their flocks, and impart neither consolation nor instruction to them.” This ignorance, added to relaxed morals, accounts for their want of influence with the people, who are in the habit of treating them with the most contemptuous familiarity. The lower classes have special sarcasms and insulting proverbs applicable to their popes.