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

would tolerate hypocrisy, as one of the stays of the machine of state. Faith is more tolerant."

" I did not expect to hear you make an apology for hypocrisy !"

" I detest it as the most odious of all vices: but I say that, injuring man only in his relations with God, hypocrisy is less pernicious to society than barefaced incredulity; and I maintain that it is only truly j)ious people who have any right to qualify it with the name of profanation. Irreligious minds, philosophical statesmen, ought to view it with indulgence, and might even use it as a political auxiliary. This, however, has not often happened in France; for Gallic sincerity revolts from drawing advantages out of falsehood, in order to govern men : but the calculating genius of a rival nation has known better than we have how to make use of the yoke of convenient fictions. The policy of England — a country which excels all others in the practical character of its views and aims—has liberallv rewarded theological in-consistency and religious hypocrisy. The church of England is certainly much less reformed than is the Catholic church, since the Council of Trent has done justice to the legitimate claims of princes and people : it is absurd to destroy unity under the pretext of abuses, and at the same time to perpetuate those abuses for the abolition of which the fatal right of making sects has been arrogated; nevertheless, the English church, founded upon patented contradictions, and maintained by usurpation, still continues to aid the country in prosecuting the conquest of the world ; and the country recompenses it by a hypocritical protection. I therefore maintain, that these incon-