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

IN REJECTING CATHOLICISM.41

sistencies and hypocrisies, monstrous as they appear in the eyes of men sincerely pious, ought not to shock statesmen or philosophers."

" You do not pretend to say that there are no u`ood Christians in the Anglican church ?"

" No : I merely maintain that among such Christians the ideas of the greater number are illogical. I therefore do not envy for France the religious policy of England, though I admire at each step I take in this country, the religious submission of the Russians. Among the French, every clergyman who has influence becomes an oppressor in the eyes of the powerful minds, who, while governing, have been disorganising the country for the last hundred and thirty yeai·s, either openly by their revolutionary fanaticism, or tacitly by their philosophical indifference."

The really enlightened man with whom I talked appeared seriously to reflect; and then, after a long silence, resumed : —

" I am not so very far as you may suppose from sharing your opinion ; for since I have travelled, one thing has always struck me as involving a contradiction—the unfriendliness of the liberals to the Catholic religion. I speak even of those who call themselves members of that church. How is it that such minds— for there are some who argue clearly, and carry reasons to their farthest consecµiences, — how is it that they cannot see that, in rejecting the Catholic religion, they deprive themselves of a guarantee against the local despotism which every government, of whatever character it may be, always tends to exercise ?"