can be no doubt that spiritual and intellectual life is retarded by schism, and that the Russians in general take little interest in the movements and questions of nations further south. But to say of them, as Mr. Wallace says,' that "of theology and of what Protestants term the 'inner religious life' the Russian peasant has no conception," is to go beyond the truth.

Inactive minds are always a prey to superstitions, and the Russians are specially deluded by the idea that the preservation of the body for an unusual length of time in an incorrupt state is a sign. of sanctity and is miraculous, whereas Cardinal Newman takes particular care in his notes to show that such incorruption often arises from natural causes and sometimes occurs in the case of persons who have led wicked lives. Cardinal Lambertini (Benedict XIV.) does not go beyond this-that "writers on canonization commonly admit that the incorruption (as they speak) of a corpse is to be accounted a miracle, in case it is clear that the man whose corpse is in question was, in his lifetime, conspicuous for heroic virtues." The Patriarchs, having surrendered their rights into the hands of the Tsar, have forfeited their existence as an order, have paralyzed the action of their Church as a spiritual body, have frozen up, to a great extent, the waters of salvation, and punished the fault and error of severing their communion from the See of Peter. It remains to be seen whether repentance and reënlightenment will ever again restore them to unity, and rescue them from many superstitions. Nothing can show more clearly than the Coronation service used in Russia the state of subjection of the Church to the Tsar. Mr. Palmer has pointed out with great accuracy-insomuch that Cardinal Newman does not think it necessary to confirm his statements by any references-the points in the Ritual, both in word and act, indicating the imperial supremacy in ecclesiastical affairs. Everything is made to proceed from his own proprio motu. The Emperor Paul, who crowned himself at Moscow in 1797, and is regarded by Mr. Palmer as the founder of a new dynasty, after the Liturgy, or Mass, read aloud publicly in the church that act regulating the Imperial succession by which the present dynasty was established in its rights. He then placed it upon the altar, where, or behind which, it is still preserved. It contains the words he had just before read aloud, that the Sovereign of Russia is always to profess the creed of the Greco-Russian Church, "because he is the Head of the Church." He sat alone in the centre of the nave of the church, a carpet being laid thence up to the Holy Doors, and the members of the Synod (who may, or not, be bishops) and the bishops stood below, on either side of this carpet, opposite one another. He sat, in short, exactly as a

1.66 Russia," by D. Mackenzie Wallace, vol. i., p. 97.

patriarch or primate would sit at the head of his clergy, and showed himself visibly in the church as the Head of the Church and of the so-called Synod and all the clergy. As did the Emperor Paul, so have done the Tsars who have succeeded him.

It was still summer, in the year 1840, when Mr. Palmer was able to lay before the Ober Prokuror, Count Pratasoff, to be presented to the Emperor, the special object with which he had visited Russia, namely, to live in the Spiritual Academy, or some monastery, or under some bishop, and thus learn the Russian language, study the doctrines, discipline and ritual of the Church of the country, and be admitted into its communion, not as a convert but as a Catholic belonging to another orthodox branch of the Church of Christ. The request could not but cause great surprise for various reasons, but above all because it seemed to be wholly at variance with the habits and notions of other Englishmen and Englishwomen, including travellers, residents abroad, merchants and officials, servants, writers, bishops and archbishops, ministers, and the sovereign and supreme head of the Church of England. None of them, or at most a handful only, could be found to lend any countenance to the very peculiar views and aspirations of the Oxford Fellow.

In prosecuting his design, the singular defender of "AngloCatholicism" was brought into contact with persons scarcely less remarkable than himself, and the records he has given of his intercourse with them, though exceedingly simple and unpretentious, are, in the highest degree, curious and entertaining. When taken to the Synodal Palace, he was presented to M. Mourarieff, and dropped at once into the discussion of grave points with "a tall, indeed gigantic, man, for a cavalry officer, and needing a strong horse to carry him." The next acquaintance was the Arch-priest Vasili Kontnevich, High Armorer of the Army and Fleet. He ranked last of the eight members of the Synod, and so had always to give his opinion first on any matter brought before it. He conversed with Mr. Palmer in Latin, and their conversation threaded the narrow paths of the question of the procession of the Holy Ghost and of the primacy and supremacy of the Pope. The Catholic, who follows attentively this and the many subsequent debates, will remember Dr. Johnson's wise words: "The human mind is so limited that it cannot take in all the parts of a subject, so that there may be objections raised against everything;" and he will rejoice that, for him, at least, Christian dogma is settled, once for all. The Greco-Russian Church is not conscious of any such immutability, though it is not by any means given to change. Prince Alexander Galitzin, Grand Master of Requests, another acquaintance made by our traveller, admitted that there had been an inno

vating spirit in some of the Russian divines, mentioning Philaret of Moscow as having been foremost in showing that tendency. "But, it has now," he said, "been checked." There were some manifest Latinisms in the Eighteen Articles of Bethlehem of A. D. 1672, which had been omitted or corrected (according to Mr. Palmer) in the Russian translation then recently published. The variations were concerned with the use of the words substance and accidents in reference to the subject of transubstantiation. But there were priests in Russia during Mr. Palmer's visit-the Arch-priest Kontnevich was one-who still maintained, as their own opinion, that their Church agrees with Rome about the distinction of substance and accidents in the Blessed Eucharist. 1

"In the last century," said M. Mouravieff to Mr. Palmer," here, as everywhere else, there was a leaning towards Protestantism. Peter III. and Catherine II. did much mischief, and had well-nigh abolished the monasteries; but now all that is past, and there is everywhere a reaction, and the monks have nothing to fear. The only thing to be done now is to keep things as they are, and to improve them."

Unsatisfactory as the dogmatic status of the Greco-Russian Church must appear to a Catholic, he will be perfectly satisfied with the judgment the authorities at St. Petersburg pronounced on Mr. Palmer's application. They regarded it as altogether inadmissible, and, with every wish to be polite and conciliating, they were scarcely able to consider it seriously. It flew in the face of history and put forward a claim than which nothing could be more unreasonable. The supremacy of the Tsar was innocent and orthodox in comparison with the monstrous and even blasphemous assumptions of the British Crown. But it is to be observed that highly cultivated theologians, who were deeply sensible of the deep mental degradation of the Russian clergy and the still greater ignorance of the Greek priests, were not, on that account, a whit the less firm in their opinion that it would be impossible to admit Mr. Palmer to communion. "Any one," they said, "who would. communicate with the Oriental Church, must take her just as she is, for she can do nothing to meet him."

Many privileges were accorded to Mr. Palmer seldom shared by English travellers, because seldom sought and requiring conditions for mutual intercourse seldom in existence. He visited the Monastery of St. Sergius, where he was permitted to remain for a few days, and he conversed with the Archimandrite Brenchininoff. Such monasteries have commonly a plan and appearance, such as the traveller here describes: "As one approaches from without, one sees a battlemented wall, with towers perhaps at

1 See the "Notes of a Visit," etc., pp. 153, 169, and Schaff's “Creeds,” p. 431.

intervals, especially over or near the great gates, the walls about which are painted in colors, with some scriptural or ecclesiastical history, and there will be an icon over the doorway. The walls themselves are whitewashed, but the copings of the battlements and the conical tops of the towers are colored green or red. But, before noticing them, one has probably seen in the distance, or caught glimpses at intervals, of the five gilded cupolas or crosses of the chief church, rising above the walls or among the trees, and, highest of all, the bulb of the belfry-tower. On entering, one sees the lodgings of the monks attached all round to the wall of the precinct, like casemates. Even if there is no cemetery, there will be green turf round the central church, divided by gravel-walks or flag-pavements, sometimes with avenues of trees leading up to the church, and there will be similar pavements or walls running all round the precinct in front of the cells. Probably, too, there will be a number of trees scattered about within, which, though not of any beauty or size in the north of Russia, give a more varied and more cheerful aspect to the place, especially in summer."

While staying in the Monastery of St. Sergius, and conversing from time to time with the Archimandrite, there was nothing, unfortunately, more evident than that the Russian priesthood at present, so far as it can be said to have studied the question at all, reject in the most decided manner the "Filioque" and the supremacy of the Pope, and cling with tenacity to a long list of ecclesiastical customs to which Rome would undoubtedly be averse. And what is to be the end of an empire in which the government is inseparably bound up with a Church whose vital powers are paralyzed and frozen by schism, in which the clergy are brutal and ignorant, and a Synod, not necessarily composed of bishops, sways the course of ecclesiastical affairs in obedience to the State? How will such pastors prepare the minds of the rising generation to resist and repel the fallacies of atheists, nihilists, liberals, communists, wild sectaries, bible societies, Salvation Armies, and Protestants of every type and name? Will this effete schism of Photius, so far behind the rest of the world in culture and refinement, support the Tsar in his supreme conflict with democracy, whenever that shall arrive, or rather hang like a millstone round his neck and drag him into the dust? Even in respect of civilization the married clergy and the monks are plebeian and crass. It is fearful to think of the destiny of a flock of which the shepherds are so unfit to hold the rod and staff. The state of society appears to be exceedingly corrupt, if we may judge from the fact that during the past year the police arrested in St. Petersburg 82,243 persons, of whom 76,000 were men. This makes an average of 225 arrests per day. The clergy do not take, and are not fitted to take, the lead in the

education of the people. They are persecuted with reproaches and derision; they are constantly held up to ridicule. They do not introduce into the people the life of the Spirit of God; they rest in the dead forms of outward ceremonial, which they themselves often despise; the most scandalous tales are related in regard to their morals; their habits and companions are low; the sacraments fare badly by their administrations; their slovenly garb is a symbol of their inward disorder; they give false certificates to those who do not wish to partake of the Eucharist; they practise simony and give churches to their daughters as dowries. Many, it is true, are honest, respectable, and well-intentioned, but less learned and cultivated than the Catholic clergy.' Other reports, proceeding from different sources, are more favorable, and in all such cases one testimony should be balanced against another. M. Voitsechovich, Director of the Chancery of the Ober-Prokuror, said to Mr. Palmer: "You should go to Moscow, and to Kieff, to see the piety of the Russian people." He knew some places where the whole population communicated four times in the year, as the Church recommends, and there were more men than women in the churches. The outrages and massacres, however, committed recently on the Jews, give us anything but a favorable idea of the piety and intelligence of Muscovite Christians. The Princess Dolgorouky told Mr. Palmer there were women "who really do not know who our Lord is, or what He did for us, so that the brutalized state of the peasantry cannot be believed by those who have not had personal knowledge of it." Another priest with whom Mr. Palmer conversed was named Stratelatoff. He spoke much of the Procession, and said (in Latin): "Our doctrine is this: Spiritum sanctum in Patre per Filium procedere, and that from all eternity the Spirit is the proper Spirit of the Son, not communicated to Him; but immanent in Him as His own Spirit." If he had quoted the decrees of the Synod of Jerusalem (1672) he would have said: πιστεύομεν πνεῖμα ἅγιον ἐκ τοῦ πατρὸς ἐκπορευομενον, πατρὶ καὶ δεῶ ὁμοούσιον. The Archpriest, Kutnevich, conversed also with Mr. Palmer on doctrinal points, particularly the Procession and Transubstantiation. He also made many subtle distinctions, and stoutly maintained the exclusive orthodoxy of the Greco-Russian Church. A Russian lady, whom Mr. Palmer met at dinner, rated him in a most amusing manner on his attempt to obtain communion, of which she had heard. She declared it would " upset all Russia. And then," she asked, "what would the different ambassadors say? No, no; des torrents de sang doivent couler, avant que cela ait lieu. To give communion to you would be to give it to all your Church." This

1 Wallace's Russia, i. 89-91.

VOL. XI.-33

2 Schaff's Creeds, p. 401.