Russia in 1839 -Empire of the Czar: A Journey Through Eternal Russia

THE CHRISTIAN CHURCHES.341

eternal principle of life and power. The future is her own, because she has kept herself pure from alloy. Let Protestantism agitate and divide, — to do so is the very principle of its nature; let sects quarrel and dispute, — this is their vocation: the Catholic church waits ! . . . .

The Greco-Russian clergy have never been, and never will be, any thing more than a militia dressed in a uniform rather different from that of the secular troops of the empire.

The distance which separates Russia from the West has wonderfully aided hitherto in veiling all these tilings from us. If the astute Greek policy so much fears the truth, it is because it so well knows how to profit by falsehood; but what surprises me is that it should succeed in perpetuating the reign of that influence.

Can the reader now understand the importance of an opinion, of a sarcastic word, a letter, a jest, a smile, or, with still greater reason, of a book in the eyes of a government thus favoured by the credulity of its people, and by the complaisance of all foreigners ? A word of truth dropped in Russia is a spark that may fall on a barrel of gunpowder.

What do the men who govern the empire care for the want, the pallid visages of the soldiers of the emperor ? Those living spectres have the most beautiful uniforms in Europe; what matters, then, the filthy smocks in which the gilded phantoms are concealed in the interior of their barracks ? Provided they are only shabby and dirty in secret, and that they shine when they show themselves, nothing is asked from them, nothing is given them. With the Q 3