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

THE GREEK RELIGION IN RUSSIA.351

an example of, but that there was a madman to shut up; and he added that the diseased man should be placed under medical care.

This judgment was put in execution without delay, and in so severe a manner that the reputed madman thought he should have justified the derisive decree of the absolute head of church and state. The martyr of truth had very nearly lost the reason that was denied him. At present, after a three years' treatment, as degrading as it was rigorous and cruel, the unhappy theologian first begins to enjoy a little liberty : but is it not a miracle ! . . . he now doubts his own reason, and, upon the faith of the imperial word, he owns himself insane ! О ! ye depths of human misery ! . . . In Russia, the word of the sovereign, when it reproves a man, equals the papal excommunication of the middle ages!

The pretended madman may now communicate with a few friends. It was proposed, during my stay in Moscow, to take me to see him in his retreat, but mingled fear and pity withheld me ; for my curiosity would have appeared to him insulting. I did not learn what was the punishment of the censors of his book.

This is a quite recent example of the mode of treating affairs of conscience in Russia. I ask again, for the last time, if the traveller so fortunate or unfortunate as to have learnt such facts, has the right to let them remain unknown? In things of this kind, what we positively know enlightens us with regard to what Ave surmise; and from all these things together there results a conviction which we feel under an obligation of communicating to the world if we are able.

I speak without personal hatred, but also without