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

NATIONAL AND UNIVERSAL RELIGION.335

the voice of God can no longer rise above the voice of the emperor.

Such is the inevitable final fate of national churches. The circumstances may vary, the moral abjectedness will be the same everywhere : whenever the priest abdicates, the state usurps. To make a sect, is to enslave the minister of Christ. In every church separated from the trunk, the conscience of the priest is an illusory power; thenceforward the purity of faith becomes adulterated, and charity, that fire of heaven with which the hearts of the saints burn, degenerates into mere humanity. Grace gives place to reason, which, in matters of faith, is only the hypocritical auxiliary of physical power. Hence the profound hatred of all ministers, of all sectarian teachers, towards the Catholic priest. All recognise him as their only enemy, for he alone is priest, he alone teaches; the others do but plead.

To complete the portrait of Ivan Ave must again have recourse to Karamsin. I shall finish my sketch by some of the most characteristic passages in his history.

After recounting that quarrels respecting preeminence still took place at court (etiquette in the den of a wild beast!), he observes : " But if the Czar shut his eyes to disputes about precedency that took place among the Vaivodes, he never pardoned faults in their military conduct: for example, Prince Michael Nozdrovoty, an officer of high rank, was whipped in the stables, for having ill-managed the siege of Milten."

Such was a Czar's appreciation of the dignity of the nobles and the army.