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

334THE ONLY INDEPENDENT CHURCH.

and dependent. Every true priest is a citizen of the world and a pilgrim of heaven. Without placing himself beyond the laws of his country as a man, he has alone for the judge of his faith as an apostle, the bishop of bishops — the only independent pontiff that can be found upon earth. It is the independence of the visible head of the church that assures to all the Catholic priests their sacerdotal dignity: it is it also which promises to the Tope the perpetuity of power. All the other priests will return to the mother church when they recognise the sanctity of their missions, and they will then weep, with burning shame, for their apostacy. The temporal power will then no longer find preachers to justify its encroachments on the spiritual. Schism and heresy, those national religions, will give place to the Catholic Church—the religion of the human race: for, in the beautifully expressive words of M. de Chateaubriand, " Protestantism is the religion of princes."

Nevertheless, it must be recorded that, despite the proverbial timidity of the Russian clergy, it was the religious power that, during the incomprehensible reign of Ivan IV., made the longest resistance. At an after-period, Peter I. and Catherine II. avenged their predecessor. The sacrifice is consummated; the Russian priest, impoverished, humiliated, degraded, married, deprived of his supreme spiritual head, divested of all spiritual influence, a mere thing of flesh and blood, follows the triumphal car of his enemy, whom he still calls his master. He has become, through the perseverance of Peter and of Catherine, the humblest slave of the autocracy ; and the spirit of Ivan is appeased. From one end of the empire to the other,