The Catholic World, Vol. 20, October 1874‐March 1875

by Various

The Better Christmas.

“'Tis not the feast that changes with the ever-changing times,

But these that lightly vote away the glories of the past—

The joys that dream-like haunt me with the merry matin chimes

I loved so in my boyhood, and shall doat on to the last.

“There still is much of laughter, and a measure of old cheer:

The ivy wreaths, if scanty, are as verdant as of yore:

And still the same kind greeting for the universal ear:

But, to me, for all their wishing, 'tis a ‘merry’ feast no more!”

I said: and came an answer from the stars to which I sighed—

Those stars that lit the vigil of the favor'd shepherd band.

And 'twas as if again the heavens open'd deep and wide,

And the carol of the angel-choir new-flooded all the land

“Good tidings still we bring to all who still have ears to hear;

To all who love His coming—the elect that cannot cease;

And louder rings our anthem, to these watchers, year by year,

Its earnest of the perfect joy—the everlasting peace.

“Art thou, then, of these watchers, if thou canst not read the sign?

The world was at its darkest when the blessed Day-star[120] shone.

Again 'tis blacker to her beam: and thou must needs repine,

And sicken, so near sunrise, for the moonlight that is gone!”

English And Scotch Scenes.

The home life of England has ever been a favorite topic with American writers. The first thing that strikes an American travelling through England is the age of everything he sees, the roots by which every existing institution, custom, or pleasure is intimately connected with its real, tangible prototype in the past. He sees, too, how the people live a thoroughly characteristic life—that which consists in identification with everything that is national. No one is so unadaptive as the pure-bred Briton, and it has truly been said that an Englishman carries his country with him wherever he goes. You never see an Englishman to advantage except at home; but, once enthroned amid his local surroundings, there is a sturdy native dignity in him which none can help admiring. He is no politician in the mercenary, personal, business-like sense of the word, but he takes a pride in following the course of his country's progress, in bearing a hand in all reforms, in exercising his right of censure—or, as some foreigners plainly call it, “grumbling”—and especially in watching closely over the well-being of his own county and neighborhood. By this minute division of labor every county becomes, as it were, a self-governed little nation, jealous and tenacious of its rights, keenly alive to its interests, intensely vigorous, and occasionally aggressive. Political and social life are closely intermingled, and personal disinterestedness is almost everywhere the rule. The varied traditions of different neighborhoods and the strong individuality shown by the different sections of the country, contribute a picturesque element to modern life, and often make the most inherently prosaic actions take on a mask of romance.

Elections to Parliament afford a multiplicity of such scenes, and form one of the greatest periodical excitements that stir up country towns. The candidate is generally one of the sons of some family well known in the county, or sometimes the chief proprietor of the neighborhood, if he be still under fifty. The county constituencies almost always return a member of this class; the commercial representatives come from the great manufacturing towns, where they have slowly toiled to make their fortunes, and risen, by earnest application to business, from the rank of a vestryman to that of lord mayor. The country town in which the hustings and polling-booths are erected is as animated as it would have been at a great fair of the middle ages or an extraordinary sale of wool, which in Gloucestershire, Warwickshire, and Worcestershire was a great article of trade in the XIVth century. Everything in the shape of bunting, evergreens, allegorical pictures, flaming posters, and unlimited ale has been done by both sides to enhance their popularity with the electors and non-electors. Indeed, the latter are quite as important as the former, for from their ranks are recruited the bands [pg 530] of music and the array of stalwart supporters, ready to fight, if required, and to shout at the top of their lungs, so as to bewilder the voters and claim or surprise their votes. The canvassing that goes before an English election is neither a pleasant nor a creditable thing to dwell on; when subjected to the analysis of uncompromising morality, it resolves itself into deliberate and organized “humbug”; for it includes every species of flattery under the sun, not to speak of direct bribery. Very funny incidents sometimes occur to break the monotony of the usual routine. For instance, in canvassing a large seaport town, the Liberal candidate bethinks himself of his yacht—a gem in every way—and organizes a large party, to which are invited the voting citizens and their wives and daughters. A splendid luncheon is provided, and each dame and damsel goes home with the conviction that her smiles have won the heart of the candidate, and that he has sworn them by a tacit but flattering contract to further his claims with their all-powerful husbands and fathers. “Honi soit qui mal y pense.” The latter are as proud of the expectant M.P.'s notice of the female members of their households as the ladies themselves, and the issue is trembling in the balance, when an announcement goes forth that the Conservative candidate has had his drag and four horses sent down from London, and proposes parading the young ladies and the more fearless married women on the roof of this ultra-fashionable vehicle. The invitations are of course more limited than those for the yacht, but promises of repeating them, until all the free electors' families have been included, cheer up the spirits of those not asked the first day. The Liberal pits his yacht against his rival's drag, and invites the maids and matrons to another sail. Apparently, Neptune does not intend to vote for him, for a slight breeze arises, and the waves roll more than landsmen find pleasant. The cabin fills rapidly, and faces once rosy and saucy, turn pale and shrunken; the return against wind and tide is a wretched journey. The poor candidate, in despair, tries to become nurse and doctor, as well as consoler; but he, too, feels his cheeks blanch, not at the lurching of the vessel, but at the fear of the effect of this accident upon the votes which he was already reckoning up so confidently. As the forlorn party lands, the drag sweeps by, drawn by its four fiery horses, the whip cracking, the smart grooms grinning at the windows (in these carriages, made like a mail-coach, the servants sit inside and the master drives, while his guests are packed on the outside seats at the top), the women huddling under cloaks and umbrellas, but all giggling with delight at the adventure, neither damped nor dismayed by water that cannot drown them, and wind that cannot make them sea-sick. The next day those who have recovered from their marine excursion are invited to try the drag, and the Liberal candidate's chances fall as visibly as the barometer did yesterday. When the great day comes, the drag has done its work, and the Conservative is returned by a triumphant majority.

To return to our country town in its holiday attire. No great arts are resorted to here; the common kind of canvassing will do for these quiet, agricultural people, and the only day that is worth mentioning is that of the election itself. The [pg 531] festive look of the place does not portend any very desperate contest, although there is a free display of the two opposite colors—blue (Conservative) and yellow (Liberal). The rivals come down from their neighboring seats in gay carriages full of the ladies of their families, wearing their respective colors. The horses and postilions wear bunches of blue or yellow ribbon; even the whip has its conspicuous knot of color. Brass bands clash forth a whole host of discords; the hired partisans good-humoredly shout for one or the other party; an air of great good-will prevails. The whole thing looks more like the welcoming home of a bride than a serious political gathering. The candidates ascend the hustings, or platform for speeches, and cordially shake hands with one another. They think it fun to be opposed to each other in public, whereas in private they are friends, companions, and neighbors; they have had the same training, the same education, the same associations, the same local interests, and the question that will decide their election will more likely be their reputation as farmers and their popularity as landlords than their political opinions as to the affairs of the nation at large. Talking of bribery and undue influence in elections, there is a law yet in force (though, of course, its effect is merely nominal) which forbids any peer to be present at an election. His presence is, by a legal fiction, supposed to hamper the freedom of the voters, and the law thus provides against the appearance of coercion or intimidation. The candidates for the counties are almost invariably the sons, brothers, or nephews of peers; but, however near the relationship, no member of the House of Lords is allowed to infringe on this rule. A contested election, one in which party spirit runs high and the passions of the people are artfully fanned and excited on both sides, is a scene worth witnessing once; but the excitement is of too rough a sort to make one wish for a second edition of it. A foreigner once said that the two best sights which England had to offer to a stranger were an Oxford “commemoration” and a contested election. The latter seldom takes place in the peaceful neighborhoods of the midland counties, and the only other species of elections, as distinguished from the festive one which we have just sketched, is, as a remnant of old-time indifferentism, a curiosity in its way. There are no longer what were called “rotten boroughs” and “pocket boroughs,” the former representing what had once been a populous town or large village, now reduced to half a dozen ruinous tenements and an old, disused parish church, but still retaining the right to return one or more members to Parliament; the second being a village still worthy of the name, but from time immemorial voting strictly in accordance with the wishes of the “lord of the manor,” whether peer or commoner. These were also called “close boroughs.” The Reform Bill of 1830 did away with all such transparent abuses, but family influence, exerted in a milder form, still remains an important element in all agricultural counties; and it sometimes happens that for a whole generation, no one will think it worth his while to oppose a candidate whose good working qualities are recognized by friend and foe, and whose personal popularity, joined with his powerful connections, [pg 532] makes his success almost absolutely certain. Such was the case in the election at O——, for which the same member has run unopposed for at least a quarter of a century. The nomination was made by the high sheriff and the magistrates of the county, assembled in the town-hall. This is a portion of a ruined castle or abbey, the Norman windows of which still assert their identity, though they have been shamefully mutilated and forced to conform to the ugly, shallow openings called windows in our days. The inside showed no signs of beauty. It was a huge barn, with grim-looking benches or pews at one end, towering amphitheatre-wise one above the other. Public business of all kinds was transacted there. The decoration of the hall is somewhat peculiar, consisting of nothing but horse-shoes. From time immemorial the custom of the county has been that every peer setting foot within the little town should put up a horse-shoe in this hall, or give an equivalent in money, which is spent by authority of the town council in buying a horse-shoe in his name. There is some dispute as to when and how the custom originated. The common belief is that Queen Elizabeth, passing through O——, stopped to get one of her horses shod, and, in perpetual memory of her royal visit, gave the town the privilege of exacting the tribute of a horse-shoe from every peer setting foot within the county. By an anachronism, which at any rate does honor to O——'s public spirit, there are horse-shoes bearing dates far more remote than the XVIth century, and some one has actually put the Conqueror himself under contribution, and unblushingly labelled a very antique shoe with his mighty name and the eventful date, 1066. During the last three hundred years genuine historical horse-shoes have abounded; some plain as the real thing, some gold or silvered, some painted with heraldic devices, some immense as children's hoops, some minute as the shoe of a Shetland pony. Whether the thousand-year-old superstition of the connection between luck and a horse-shoe, and the belief in the power of the latter against witches, has anything to do with the custom, we do not know for certain, but it is not unlikely.

In this remarkable town-hall were assembled the electors and magistrates one November morning. All the prominent country “gentlemen” and many farmers and tradesmen were present, besides a few ladies, come to see the proceedings. The member who had been re-elected every time that an election took place for the previous twenty years was the brother of one of the great land-owners of the neighborhood, and a Conservative. No one thought of opposing him. His friends and constituents mostly appeared in riding-boots, some in “pink.”[121] One young magistrate got up and proposed him formally to the electors in a girlish, awkward speech; another seconded him in a still briefer address, and the question was asked: “Has any one any objections to make or any candidate to oppose?” A squeaky voice at the end of the hall propounded a query in this form:

“Would the honorable member vote for universal suffrage and cry down church rates?”

A laugh ran through the crowd, and an impatient movement stirred the knot of magistrates. Year after year some wag of this kind mounted the Radical hobby, and rode it in this unoffending fashion at the steady-going “churchman” and loyal upholder of the constitution who represented the county in Parliament. The uneasy movement continues, and horses are heard neighing and pawing outside. Men in red coats take out their watches and put on long faces. It is nearly twelve o'clock, and the business of the nation is delaying the “meet.” The hounds are waiting not far off, and candidate, sheriff, magistrates, and electors are all alike anxious to be off. The hall is soon cleared and the election quietly over—a very secondary matter in the consideration of those who have been kept from kennel and field for two long hours. They rush out with all the zest of school-boys let loose to play, and the hunt that day has twice its ordinary success, or at least its members think so, because the beloved sport has been intermitted, and requires extra enthusiasm as a peace-offering at their hands. So with redoubled vigor the search after foxes goes on, and not till long after sundown will the candidate, magistrates, and constituents return to their homes.

Very different are those elections whose surroundings remind us rather of a clan gathering to the standard of their chief than a modern constituency crowding to the polling-booths. The mere description of these election scenes through Great Britain and Ireland would form an interesting chapter in contemporaneous history. The political differences need not even be alluded to; the contrast of outer circumstances is suggestive enough. In an agricultural neighborhood, such as that round the town of O——, a certain kind of torpidity exists among the prosperous and contented farmers. Not a hundred miles from the palace of the people at Westminster the interest in politics is subordinate to that excited by a cattle-show or the prospect of a drought; in a word, there is so little local change called for which could be beneficial to the county that the passive but deep-rooted clinging to old traditions, which is so characteristic of the genuine Englishman, is in this case rather a matter of course than a virtue or a meritorious turning away from temptation.

Life is hard to the masses in a city. Sharp ills require sharp remedies, say the demagogues; and straightway the voters adopt the extremest doctrine they can find, and fancy it a panacea for all ills. An English paper recently defined this kind of voter as the man “who has just learned sufficient to be sure that there can only be one side to a question.” The Irish elections, proverbial for their storminess, are of another nature; appealing to our sympathy by the wild earnestness of the voters, and governed by feelings which, though often misdirected, are yet noble in their origin. Religion and patriotism are the prime movers of the passions of Irish constituents; they often look upon their exercise of the franchise as a protest against tyranny and a confession of faith. And indeed the “tyranny” is no mere political scarecrow to them. It is very tangible; it strikes home to them, for its immediate result may be eviction and starvation. The wild, humorous individuality of the people of the western baronies [pg 534] of Ireland redeems much that is reprehensible from vulgarity in the faction fight—a not infrequent concomitant of the election. There is a rough romance left in these fights, making them the direct counterparts of the sudden encounters between the clans of the various kings of Celtic history; and what is best and most palliative is this: that sordid considerations are almost wholly absent from the voters' minds. If men must fight, let them do it for anything rather than money; and, to do these electors justice, we will say that there is less bribery in all the Irish country districts put together than in one English manufacturing town. You will say there is intimidation instead; but, even that is better than bribery, for it is less degrading to a human being to barter away his vote, in view of the threats of his landlord to turn his wife and children out of doors, than to sell it for money. But there are other elections to speak of—those in the Highlands of Scotland.

Education is more universal among the humbler classes in Scotland than in either of the sister countries, and by nature the Scotchman is more reflective than the Englishman or Irishman. There is less of collective life in his country; the land is poor and barren, the northern parts are broken up by lochs and treacherous estuaries, and many counties include rocky islands among the billows of the Atlantic. In Inverness-shire the elector is far removed from all common external influence. He thinks slowly and seriously, working out his own problems, answering his own questions by the aid of his strong native sense. He and many of his fellow-voters are shepherds or “keepers.” They inhabit an isolated cottage in some remote glen—a cottage that is only approached by some faint sheep-track. Australia or the Territories of the United States are hardly less solitary; but, on the other hand, the Scottish Highlands, if solitary, are not barbarous. In newly-settled countries, where the population is only gradually fusing into a national people, there is lawlessness to contend with; the school and the church are yet open to the attack of ruffianly bands, and dependent on a few respectable though equally rough settlers to stop the brigandage of their unruly neighbors. An old country, however sparsely peopled, has the past to guide it; its hermit settlers are the heirs, not the founders, of a state and a history. So it is with ancient Scottish shires, and thus you will find their electors sober, silent, reflective men, conscious of their dignity as clansmen of the old families whose names are in the records of Scotland from the VIIIth and IXth centuries; and perfectly aware of their personal, political value as present electors to the joint Parliament of a great empire. In England there were serfs, but in Scotland (and in Ireland also) there were clansmen—not slaves, but sons by adoption; freemen with the right to bear arms; protected, not owned, by the great chiefs of the North. They were used to a certain degree of power and responsibility, and their descendants were not intoxicated by a sudden rise to independence, as were the corresponding classes in England when the franchise was extended to them.

To continue our description of the local surroundings of the Inverness-shire voters—men removed from the ordinary circumstances which make most elections pretty much the same dull, time-worn, vulgarized [pg 535] sight—we quote from a recent article in an English publication: “The nearest neighbors on one side are beyond a great mountain-range, while for miles upon miles on the other there stretch the unpeopled solitudes of a deer-forest. The nearest carriage-road is eight miles off, and that is travelled only three days in the week by a mail-cart that carries passengers. The church and school are at twice the distance; so the children must trust to the parents for their education, and the father can only occasionally join in the Sunday gossip, in the parish churchyard, that expands the ideas of some of his fellow-parishioners. His cottage is ten miles from the nearest hovel where they sell whiskey. His work is arduous; he is afoot among his sheep from the early morning until dusk. In the best of times and in the height of summer it is but seldom that a stray copy of the county paper finds its way to the head of the glen. He is thoughtful by nature, as you may see in his face, which has much the same puzzled expression of intelligence that you remark in the venerable rams of his flock. No doubt he thinks much, after a fashion of his own, as he goes ‘daundering’ about after his straggling sheep, or stretches himself to bask in the hot sunshine, while he leaves his collies (sheep-dogs) to look after his charge.”

This is a very true picture. Of course, in such a situation, it is impossible for the Highland shepherd to follow the questions that affect the fate of ministries. He can know nothing of foreign affairs, probably never heard of the Alabama, and would be at sea on the subject of the Franco-Prussian war. Mr. Gladstone's financial schemes are not only puzzles but terra incognita to his mind. He knows nothing of the extension of the suffrage in counties, and even local rates are indifferent to him, as the only one that concerns him is the dog tax—concerns him, but does not affect him; for his master pays the tax, and he himself is more or less exempted from extra trouble, according to the number of sheep-dogs for which that master chooses to pay. His interest in the man who represents him in Parliament is therefore either purely theoretical or, what happens oftener, purely personal. There are country gentlemen everywhere who, though no newspaper may blow the trumpet of their fame, are nevertheless known throughout a wide expanse as good men and true, kind yet just landlords, upright magistrates, and sound economists. Their names are household words; their memory is always associated with some generous deed; they are looked up to and honored in the county. They are generally scions of the old historical families of the land—of those families to which the Scotchman clings with a proud affection, and which have been perpetuated by the very institutions that some coiners of new political creeds find so deleterious to the human race. The shepherd probably turns his mind to some such man of whom nothing but good has ever been recorded, and willingly entrusts to his safe-keeping the interests of himself, his clan, and his country. Judging from the particular to the general, he concludes that, since this candidate has always been a kind master and a good landlord to his own folks, he is likely to be a conscientious law-maker and an earnest protector of the nation's liberties. Questions of detail may fairly be trusted to him; the main thing is [pg 536] that no widow or orphan has ever had any complaint to make of him.

This is the aspect on the voter's side. Let us see what it is on that of the candidate. There is no question here of bill-sticking, of distributing cockades, or of having bands of music and hired groups of partisans in your wake. Canvassing means “posting long distances in dog-carts, seeking relays at widely-separated inns, where the stable establishments are kept on a peace footing, except during the tourist season. In winter the roads are carried across formidable ferries, where, if you bribe the boatman to imprudence, your business being urgent, you are not unlikely to meet the fate of Lord Ullin's daughter.” But this is not all; for when you have braved the floods, and arrive famished and half-frozen at some out-of-the-way hamlet whence the scattered cottages may be gained, there is yet the ordeal of the interviews before you. The Scottish hermit can hardly be expected to forego or shorten such a rare opportunity of contact with the outside world. He will tax your ingenuity with the shrewdest, perhaps politically inconvenient, questions; and never doing anything in a hurry himself, he will resent his visitor's seeming to be pressed for time. No hasty and transparent condescensions will do for him. He will not be satisfied, like the comfortable trader of the towns, with the candidate's kissing his youngest born and promising his eldest son a rocking-horse. Smiles and hand-shakings are cheap gifts; but he wants no gifts, only pledges. He wishes to be met as an intelligent being, a man who, if worth winning, must be worth convincing. He expects a straightforward, if short, explanation of your general opinions; and though the sense of his own dignity as a voter is great, he does not forget that political does not entail social equality. Grave and earnest, he will resent flippancy as an insult to his understanding; and a joke that would win over a dozen votes in a small commercial town will very probably lose you his vote, and his good opinion too.

But there are also other constituents to be called upon. The numerous islands on the east coast of Scotland afford a still larger field for the danger and romance of canvassing. The islanders are very sensitive, and feel terribly hurt at the insinuation that their home lies out of the world. If their votes are necessary, is the courtesy to ask for them superfluous? They lead hazardous, daring lives themselves, and do not understand how any man can shrink from the danger that may be incurred in nearing their rocky island. If he does, what is he worth? they will argue; for the natural man readily judges of his fellow-man's mental qualities by his physical endurance. Then (we quote again the graphic sketch above referred to), “that island canvass means chartering some crank little screw, beating out into the fogs among the swells and the breakers, taking flying shots at low reefs of inhabited rock, enveloped in mists and unprovided with lighthouses. Landing-places are almost as scarce as light-towers, and you may have to bob about under the ‘lee of the land’ in impatient expectation of establishing communications with it. When you do get to shore, you must be hospitably fêted by the minister and the schoolmaster, the doctor and the principal tacksmen, until what with sea-squeamishness and the strong [pg 537] spirits, it becomes simply heroic to preserve the charm of your manners. Moreover, you had better not make your visit at all than cut it uncivilly short. Our friend the shepherd may have made up his mind to support you; but you may rely upon it that he will promise nothing until you have set yourself down for a solemn ‘crack’ with him.” The day of the election itself is a suitable ending to this romantic episode in the life of an ordinary, drudging M.P. When a Highlander sets about a thing, he never gives in before it is accomplished. Honor binds him to redeem a promise, whether made to another or to himself; pride compels him to prove himself superior to circumstances, almost to nature herself; and he doggedly goes on his way, undeterred by any wayside temptation to turn into smoother and pleasanter paths. So the voters “climb over mountains and plod over snow-fields, wade mountain streams, navigate lochs in crank cobles, and cross raging estuaries in rickety, flat-bottomed ferry-boats; so that, should the winds and the weather interfere too seriously with the exercise of the electors' political rights, the polling of a great Highland constituency may possibly have a gloomily dramatic finale.”[122]

While we are on the subject of Scotland, we may mention the various occasions on which national gatherings draw together thousands of picturesquely-clad men and women. The games are the most characteristic of these meetings. They take place in various places, mostly during the months of August and September. They are generally held under the patronage and supervision of some great family of the neighborhood. Something of old clan feeling is revived. The men often march in in bodies, preceded by their pipers, and wearing their individual tartan, with distinctive badges. The villages for fifty miles around send their group of representatives and their athletes and champions in the games. Vehicles of primitive build with rough, wiry little ponies bring in their load of farmers and petty freeholders. The country-houses and shooting-boxes fill with guests from England; and in the neighborhood of Balmoral, to which we more particularly allude, there is of course the additional attraction of royal countenance and patronage. The queen and the royal family sometimes become the guests of their subjects on these occasions, and an almost German simplicity reigns for a few days among those to whom etiquette must be so sore a chain. The princes wear the Highland dress, and the queen (that is, before her widowhood) something of tartan in her plain toilet. The national sports, such as throwing the hammer, lifting heavy weights and supporting them on the outstretched hand, etc., require both strength and dexterity, and the champions who contend in these games are generally “professionals.” Sometimes, however, some village athlete ambitiously enters the lists against the trained champions, and occasionally bears off a prize. A competition of pipers is often a feature of the day, and these worthies make a brave appearance in their velvet jackets covered with a breast-plate of medals, severally won in various contests. The shrill, clarion-like tones of the bagpipes are not agreeable to the untrained ear, but to the Highlanders, whose national associations are proudly entwined [pg 538] with this wild, primitive music of the hills, they are naturally sweeter than the most sublime strains of the old masters. No one, even though not Highland-bred, can listen to the pipes, playing a pibroch among the echoes of the mountains, without feeling that the soul of the people is in it; that the spirits of “the Flood and the Fell” which Walter Scott so graphically introduces in his Lay of the Last Minstrel might have used just such tones for their fateful, wailing speech; and no one having more than common ties binding him to Scottish traditions and Scottish homes can think of the wild dirges or stirring war-calls of the pipes without sympathy and loving regret. Not quite so inspiring, however, is this music when the piper marches round a small dining-room, and plays the distinctive tune of the host's clan to the guests assembled over their wine and dessert. The narrow space makes the music harsh and grating, just as a confined room takes from the Tyrolese jodel all its romance, and turns the sounds into the caricature of a loud roulade. The games often last for three days, and a sort of encampment springs up by magic to supply the deficiencies of the crowded inns of the neighborhood. At the end of that time there is a ball given at one of the principal country-seats, and a torch-light dance for the people. The queen and the royal family accompany their host and hostess, and are content with a hasty dinner, served with a delightful relaxation from etiquette; for this is their holiday from political anxieties and social duties, and the more informal this assembly, the better it pleases them. The ball-room is not very large, and its simple decorations are in keeping with the character of the feast and the style of the lodge or cottage in which it is given. There are flowers in abundance, flags and evergreen garlands, Highland badges and emblems, and stags' heads with branching antlers—the trophies of the host's skill in stalking the red deer. Outside the house is a wide space, destined for the torch-light dance. Great iron holders and pans lifted on rude tripods contain the torches and the resinous fluid which, when set on fire, burns steadily for many hours. To and fro flit the kilted Highlanders, with their jewelled dirks or daggers, and their hairy sporrans decorated with silver plates the size of large coins. The champions of the games are there, the rival pipers, the mountain shepherds, the gillies or game-keepers, all the household servants and those of the guests; the women wearing tartan ribbons of different clans, and Scotch flowers, blue-bell, heather or bog-myrtle, in their caps or bodices. The pipes strike up the music of the sword-dance; a noted dancer comes forward, and lays two naked swords of ordinary length on the ground, crossing them at right angles. Within the four narrow spaces between the points of this cross he then begins a series of marvellous steps, leaping high in the air, shuffling, crossing his feet, and invariably alighting in the right spot, within a few inches of the swords, always in these four interstices, but never touching nor even grazing the blades. If he were to touch one ever so lightly, and but for an instant, his reputation would be gone. Another succeeds him, and so on, till all the famous dancers have exhibited their skill. No novice appears; they take care never to dance in public till they are [pg 539] perfect in this feat. Scotch reels for the most part take up the rest of the night, and are danced by four people, two men and two women, the former standing back to back, and their partners opposite. Various figures follow each other, the figure eight being the most frequent. This is managed by the four dancers locking arms and giving a swing round, then passing on to the next person; arms are locked again, and another turn given, and so on till the four have changed places, and in doing so have described the figure eight. Of course, in this dance, it is the men who show to most advantage, as they perform a series of regular steps, snapping their fingers meanwhile, and, as soon as they get excited and enter into the spirit of the national dance, uttering a peculiar sort of cry. The women mostly walk and jump through their evolutions. The less characteristic dancing in the ball-room, but in which reels are also mingled with quadrille and waltz, ceases about two o'clock in the morning, and the musicians are at liberty to join the fun outside. The Highlanders sometimes take possession of the deserted ball-room, and continue their own revels there till daybreak, when the torches flicker out and the spell is broken. Another national dance is the strathspey, which we never had the good fortune to see performed.

In winter curling is the favorite game; it is played on the ice with heavy round stones, about eight or nine inches in diameter, and three to three and a half inches thick. These stones are neither rolled nor thrown at the line and mark, but propelled, by the strength of wrist of the player, along the surface of the ice, and aimed to displace the stones already set up by the opposite side. Whichever side, at the end of the game, has most stones near the line which serves as a mark, is declared by the umpire to be the winner. Miniature curling-boards are very common in Scotch country-houses, with stones two or three inches in diameter; it is an amusing game on a rainy day, and, though so small, no little skill is required to guide these stones aright.

The same house to which we have taken the reader to be present at the torch-light dance is a very pretty specimen of Scotch hunting-lodges. Built at various times, it consists of several cottages, once detached, but now irregularly connected by picturesque galleries, verandas, and staircases. One part has much the appearance of a Swiss châlet; another that of a river-side villa on the Thames, with its glass doors opening on to a lawn, and its rustic porch smothered in climbing roses. Though so straggling, it is a very comfortable house. Nothing is wanting—billiard-room, smoking-room, boudoir, and innumerable pigeonholes for guests—a charming house for persons of sporting tastes; the halls carpeted with deer-skins, and the walls hung with antlers, bearing each the date of the death of the stag to which they belonged; equally charming to the delicate London beauty wearied with her social triumphs, for here she finds the thousand elegances of a rococo drawing-room, the luxurious arm-chairs, the rare china, the velvet screen hung with miniatures, and little gilt brackets, each supporting a tiny cup or a porcelain shepherdess—in a word, every pretty refinement of the latest fashion. The neighborhood is famous for stalking—that is, following the red deer through moor and forest alone, with your rifle and your slight bag containing [pg 540] some biscuits and a pocket-flask. You may have to trudge over miles and miles of heather, watching every turn of the breeze, lest it betray your whereabouts to your beautiful victim; making immense détours to reach him from some convenient cover; creeping along on all fours, or even flat on the ground; often taking a long, cold bath in the mountain burn (stream), wading through it, or waiting in it, so as not to let him scent your trail. If for no other reason, this sport is superior to any because it demands solitude; though it is hard to discover why one should not be privileged to take a twelve hours' walk or saunter without the pretext of the rifle slung at one's back, and also without incurring the charge of eccentricity. A forest in Scotland is treeless; the term is applied to a wide expanse of mountain, covered knee-deep with heather, and perhaps here and there with a few stunted bushes or clumps of graceful birches. Here the red deer feeds in herds, and you sometimes come across six or seven of these “monarchs of the glen.” The sportsman, however, seldom pursues or kills more than one in a day. A moor is much the same in appearance as a forest, but that term is reserved for those tracts of heather-land where the grouse and the black-cock abide. These are often rented to Englishmen, the forests seldom; so that the Southron, if he have a taste for deer-stalking, generally depends for his chance of indulging it on the hospitality of some Scottish friend.

This neighborhood is full of romantic glens and hollows where mountain streams gurgle through narrow channels of rock, where tiny waterfalls splash under bridges mossy with old age, and where real forests of pine and birch and rowan, or mountain ash, make a variegated network across the blue horizon. In one little gorge tradition says that a hunted partisan of Charles Edward took refuge after the fatal battle of Culloden, in 1745, and lived there concealed for several weeks. The particular place where he hid was under a projecting ledge or table of rock, overhanging the brown, foaming waters of the mimic torrent, which, though not large in volume, might yet have strength enough to dash you in pieces, if you fell into the narrow bed bristling with sharp, rocky points and irregular boulders, round which the water boils and hisses, as if chafing at its imprisonment. The rocks incline their jagged sides so far forward over the stream as almost to meet in an arch above it, and the chasm can be easily, almost safely, leaped. Indeed, the rift is invisible from the road, which passes within a few yards of it. Its sides are fringed with heather, and are undistinguishable, except when one is standing close upon them.

The North of England, with its mountains and its lakes, its solitary tarns (pools or smaller lakes) and its becks, has a family likeness to Scotch scenery. Its people, too, are akin to the Lowland Scotch in their taciturnity, their hardy, physical nature, and their language; yet to those who know both well the difference is very perceptible. In olden times Lancashire and Yorkshire, lying to the west of the Lake country, were emphatically the land of the church, one vast net-work of beautiful abbeys with their immense possessions. Even after the Reformation these two counties remained the stronghold of Catholicity, and to this day they contain more Catholics (exclusive of the large modern [pg 541] towns and their population) than any other part of England. The favorite sport of Lancashire is otter-hunting.

A certain breed of hounds, having very long bodies and short legs, is kept for the purpose; the streams abound in otters, and the hunt is very exciting. The gentlemen wear preternaturally thick boots, covering even the thighs, as they often have to wade in after the otter, whose teeth are so sharp that they can take off a hound's leg at one bite. These animals dive dexterously under the banks, and generally lead the hunt a pretty chase; but, never having seen this sport ourselves, it is difficult to describe it graphically. The dialect of this part of the country is almost as much a language as Provençal; the people have their own literature, and one of their poets (a humorous one) has been styled, par excellence, the “Lancashire Poet.” Lancashire people are desperately clannish, quite despise the southern English, and obstinately adhere to their own customs, as something immeasurably more dignified than the finical fashions of the Southron. The gentlemen all talk the dialect when speaking with their farmers, game-keepers, or servants, and speak it with genuine gusto too. A Lancashire kitchen is a heart-warming sight; it is emphatically the room of a farm, an inn, or any middle-class dwelling. The fire blazes in the depths of a cavernous chimney, with settles on each side, on which two men can sit abreast, while from the low roof hang endless strings of fine onions and dozens of hams and flitches of bacon. At another part of the ceiling is fixed an immense rack, over which hangs the oatmeal cake in large sheets, of which any one is at liberty to break off a piece for his supper unrebuked and without question of repayment. Hospitality is a cardinal virtue here, but it is not that voluble, fussy hospitality which worries its recipient and makes him feel the obligation; you are welcome to go in and sit down, eat and drink, warm and dry yourself at the hearth, and go out again, without being assailed by impertinent questions or bored by long domestic revelations. A Lancashire host respects your mind while he refreshes your body, and silently makes you at home. Those kitchens of the north are the very type of comfort, with their vast corner-cupboards, their cleanliness—you might literally eat off the brick floors; they are always paved with brick—their long oat-cake racks and tempting meat, all home-cured, hung from the ceiling. The temptation may be too great for you some night, if you happen to return to your lodgings, very hungry, at the late hour of twelve—that is dissipation in Lancashire—for you may wander in, and see no harm in hunting in the cupboard for eggs and flour, and in slicing off whatever will conveniently detach itself from a hanging flitch, in order to flavor some appetizing sauce of which you possess the secret. Perhaps the midnight raid ends fatally, and you stumble over the pots and pans, or find the embers hardly hot enough to cook the sauce, or give it up at last in despair, with a ridiculous foreboding of what the landlady will say to-morrow morning when she contemplates the ragged appearance of the best flitch! Let us hope that you will honestly own your delinquencies, and not affirm that “it must have been the mice, ma'am!” It will be the easier as [pg 542] you happen to know the house well, and its inmates long ago agreed to overlook your little eccentricities with regard to sauces!

Among the principal country festivities which draw large parties to the neighboring houses in many parts of England, are the local cattle-shows. The breeding of cattle is a topic of almost as universal interest in England as fox-hunting, especially among country gentlemen. The secret of this apparent interest lies rather in the intense pride with which they naturally regard everything connected with their homes, than in downright personal liking for fat oxen and prize pigs. Not even the farmers who exhibit the cattle can outmatch the ladies of the neighborhood in their solicitude for the honor of the county, and, besides this, the gentlemen themselves sometimes enter the lists, and exhibit some choice specimen, thus giving their households special reasons for pride and anxiety. Most of the houses fill with guests for the occasion, and, despite the lateness of the season (the shows are generally late in the autumn, the one to which we refer taking place in November), the weather is usually propitious. Let us take a peep in at the window of yonder large Tudor house, with its cedars, sentinel-like, guarding the approaches to the hall-door, and an old gabled, ivied ruin overlooking the gay mosaic of the parterre. There is plenty of water here—ponds where huge old beeches droop over the banks and moor-fowl swish through the rushes on the margin, and ponds fringed with late roses, and lifting up in their midst islands with rustic arbors and a wilderness of creeping plants. Within the house is the usual amount of family portraits and antique carved furniture, with a more than ordinary display of hot-house flowers. A little earlier in the season you would find in the drawing-room two immense marble vases, in each of which blossoms a queenly azalea, snowy or ruddy, as the case may be. On the tables lie islands of moss, relieving and framing three or four star-shaped, blood-red cactus-blooms. Round the high chimney-piece, where a wood-fire burns merrily (a luxury in England), is assembled a family party, neither stiff nor yet free, and picturesque, if nothing else; for the girls are dressed in the square-cut bodices and pale-hued, brocaded overskirts of a more picturesque age. Perhaps they are discussing art matters or weaving personal romances.... No, for here, as elsewhere, you cannot take the bit in your mouth; it is the only penalty of decorous country life in old England. They are talking of to-morrow's agricultural fair, the annual cattle show, which takes place in the country town. There is a large party in the house for it; it is the event of the week. Most country ladies pretend to be, and some are, poultry fanciers; so there is an additional department allotted to the prize poultry. The carriages draw up in a wide field near the tents and sheds, where a view of the race-course can be had. The men circulate among the cattle; the “judges” sit in a tribune provided for them. It is difficult to get up any enthusiasm about this kind of thing, but the adjuncts are quite as enjoyable as are most outdoor pleasures that you cannot enjoy alone. The last day of the fair closes with a dinner, when the prize beasts and their owners are commented upon and the general political situation discussed. One of the farmers is a born orator; at [pg 543] least he delights in the sound of his own flowery periods. He quotes Shakespeare and Tennyson, and feels sure he has made a hit. As all professions are represented, there is room for all kinds of toasts, and under the veil of sociability the opportunities for speaking home-truths are not neglected. Around the hall are galleries that serve for spectators, both male and female, and from this point many a ludicrous incident is revealed to you that escapes the “grave and reverend seigniors” below. This is what a spectator once saw: The dinner takes place once a year, and it is impossible to have nothing but trained waiters. Many of the gentlemen on this occasion brought their own servants with them; but even this was not sufficient, and the supplementary waiters were “legion.” The dinner was not as orderly as it might be. There was a great deal of hurrying and skurrying, orders angrily given and awkwardly executed, wine liberally spilt before reaching its destination, etc. Suddenly some one gave an order from the far end of the hall, and an unlucky bumpkin, eager to show his agility, made a dart forward, but came to an abrupt stand-still in the middle of a lake of soup that spread warm and moist about his feet. In his haste he had stepped into the soup-tureen, which another waiter, in clumsy hurry, had momentarily deposited in this conspicuous place. The braying of the band, whose conductor was naturally not a little exhilarated by the copious “refreshment” distributed during the day, drowned these “asides”; but we cannot help thinking that the position of a spectator, alive to these incidents behind the scenes, was preferable to that of the unhappy actors and speakers, nailed for four or five hours to the table, and condemned to drink the execrable wine usually furnished on such occasions.

With this we will close this somewhat lengthy sketch of some of the incidents of rural life in the old mother-country—a subject so dear to Washington Irving, so attractive to Longfellow, and so heart-stirring to many who, on this side of the Atlantic, have not yet lost in the turmoil of business or the hurry of politics the fond, poetic remembrance of the land of their forefathers. It is a restful picture; the soul grows young again in the contemplation of that healthy, even placid home-life, diversified by so many local interests, and disturbed by so few dangerous excitements. In such an atmosphere it is no wonder if scholars, poets, and gentlemen develop quietly, as the fruit ripens on the sunny garden wall; nor is it strange to find these men, so accomplished and so learned, filling the unobtrusive and secluded walks of life, as well as the councils of the nation, the cabinet, the bar, and the Parliament. Happy is the nation that attains to a green old age; happy the country that keeps all that is poetic in the past, without relinquishing the practical and the useful in the present. It is a good thing to be able to look back proudly on a long line of doughty forefathers, but better still to be able to look forward as proudly to a goodly line of worthy descendants.

The Future Of The Russian Church.

By The Rev. Cæsarius Tondini, Barnabite.

I.

“How much happier is Russia than are many Catholic countries!”

It is thus that a German author, of the Baltic provinces, a Protestant, and a subject of the czar, broke in upon the concert of complaints on the condition of the Russians to which we had for a long period been habituated. It is true that Augustus Wilhelm Hupel wrote towards the close of the last century; but the state of things which drew from him this cry of admiration continues even at this present time. Let us add that a considerable number of writers, especially Protestants, share the sentiments of Hupel; in fact, a certain government not long ago ranged itself on the side of this author's opinions, and undertook to procure for its subjects, whether they would or not, the same happiness as that which the Russian people enjoy. This fact is a more than sufficient inducement for us conscientiously to study the cause of this happiness—a study to which the following pages will be devoted.

Happily, the writer of the Baltic provinces expresses himself with remarkable precision. “The monarch,” says Hupel, in speaking of the synod which governs the Russian Church—“the monarch himself selects the members of this ecclesiastical tribunal, and can also summarily dismiss those who do not please him. It follows, therefore, that the members of the synod entirely depend upon the will of the czar. Not only can they do nothing of which he does not approve, but, by virtue of this arrangement, it is the czar himself who is the real head of the church of his empire. Of what lofty wisdom, then, is not this institution a proof! How much happier is Russia than are many Catholic countries!”[123] It is evident, therefore, that the object of admiration and envy is the concentration of civil and religious power in the sovereign's hands; the synod of St. Petersburg being the institution which secures and perpetuates the concentration of this double power.

The czar to whom Russia is indebted for the synod is Peter I., surnamed the Great (1689-1725), than whom few sovereigns have been the object of more enthusiastic admiration. The things which he undertook and in which he succeeded, for promoting the civilization of Russia, are truly surprising, his laws being, in our opinion, the most splendid monument he has created in his own memory. Frequently, in glancing through the Complete Collection of the Laws of the Russian Empire,[124] while taking into account the number, the variety, and extent of the subjects embraced by the genius of Peter, the circumstances under which he had to work, and the thankless elements which he [pg 545] contrived to manage, we have experienced sincere admiration; but, side by side with his great qualities, in what ignoble and monstrous vices did he not indulge! If we were to quote certain judgments passed by his contemporaries, it would be easy to understand the disgust with which the History of Peter the Great, by Voltaire, fills every sincere and virtuous man. Great qualities do not excuse great vices, especially in the case of Peter, who on many occasions proved by his conduct that he was capable of self-restraint, had he only chosen to exercise it. This czar, whose leading characteristics were a spirit of determination and an energetic will, can neither be excused for his debauches nor his cruelties. The reforms originated by him naturally bear the impress of the despotic character of their author. In the present day it is openly said, even in Russia, that Peter acted, “as if there were no possible limits to his power, setting himself determinedly to gain his end, without in the least troubling himself about the nature of the means.”[125] We may add that the religious convictions of the czar were, to say the least, an enigma. And this is the man who gave to the Russian Church the organization which she retains to this day.

Unhappily for the people, when a man rises from among them and accomplishes unheard-of undertakings, the prestige of his name eclipses the light in which justice would regard his actions. If flattery erects to him its altars, and if religious or political passions find it to their interest to exalt him, this man, though in his grave, continues no less to exercise a powerful influence; and all his qualities, even his bad ones, receive a species of consecration. A century and a half have elapsed since the death of Peter the Great, and yet it may be said with truth that he still rules Russia. It is no common thing to find a series of sovereigns, all of whom draw their inspiration from the same idea; and yet all the czars, with the single exception of Peter II., who only reigned three years (1727-1730), perpetuated, with regard to the Russian Church, the idea of the originator of the synod.

That the czars, however, should have made it their rule to walk in the footsteps of Peter, and that in their ukases they should recall his memory with enthusiastic eulogies, it is easy to conceive; and also that Protestants, especially those of Germany, should never weary in their praises of his religious reforms; these praises being, in the first place, the payment of a debt of gratitude to the czar, and, in the second, an homage rendered to the Protestant side of the reforms themselves. But the most painful part of the matter is that Peter and his successors should have found, in that very church which they were oppressing, not only docile instruments of their will, but also the warmest encouragements to prosecute their work. Theophanes Prokopovitch, Bishop of Pskoff, of whom we will speak further, wrote treatises to prove that “the czars have received from on high the power to govern the church; only it is not permitted that they should officiate in it.”[126] [pg 546] Plato Levchin, Metropolitan of Moscow, while he was still tutor to the Czarowitz Paul, afterwards Paul I., prepared for his use a catechism which has been held in great esteem by Protestants. In the epistle dedicatory he thus addresses his pupil: “I bear in mind a saying of your highness—saying worthy of eternal remembrance. We were one day reading this passage in the Gospel: Take heed that you say not among yourselves: We have Abraham for our father (S. Matt. iii. 9); when, upon my remarking that the Jews vainly gloried in having Abraham for their father, whose faith and works they failed to imitate, your highness deigned to reply: ‘And I also should glory in vain that I descend from the great Peter, did I not intend to imitate his works.’ That these and other similarly excellent dispositions of your highness may increase with your years, behold this is what the church of God, prostrate before the altar, supplicates, and will never cease to supplicate, of the divine mercy, from the profoundest depths of her heart.”[127]

There is nothing surprising in the fact that lessons such as these, explained and developed in the body of the catechism, should have borne their fruit. The pupil of Plato, having become czar, was the first who introduced into official edicts the title of Head of the Church[128] for himself and his successors, and more emphatically than perhaps any one of the others he established as a principle the supremacy of the czar over the church.[129]

We forbear to quote other examples. If it be true that nations never stop short at a theory, the same thing is true also of sovereigns; and, when Nicholas I. acted as every one knows he did act, he was but carrying out the doctrine accepted and taught in the Russian Church. As for the people, it would have been indeed surprising had they not shared in the doctrine of the church, and still more so had they attempted any opposition to it. In fact, as might be supposed, there was no lack of writers who set themselves to make the people appreciate the advantages of every description which they enjoyed under the religious autocracy of the czars.

This state of things could not, however, last indefinitely; and it was the Emperor Nicholas himself who, by some of his measures, contributed to hasten its end. At the commencement of his reign it was desired to exclude the foreign element from teaching, and to substitute for it the national only. Professors were lacking; and, to form these, the government thought it well to send out young men at its own expense to learn in the German universities that which they would subsequently have to teach the Russians. Besides, for many years past Russia has entered into active and frequent relations with the rest of Europe; the regulations which bound Russians, if not to the glebe, at least to the soil of their country, have been relaxed; travelling has been facilitated; travellers have been able with less difficulty to penetrate into the country, and its own inhabitants to go abroad and observe what is passing in the rest of the world.

And what has resulted from all this? Many things; and, first of all, the following: “The future propagators of learning and civilization,” says the Père Gagarin, in a remarkable pamphlet,[130] “were sent to Berlin, where they lost no time in becoming fervent disciples of the Hegelian ideas. It was in vain that serious warnings reached St. Petersburg of the fatal direction these young men were pursuing. For reasons which perhaps some future day may explain the warnings were wholly unheeded; and in a short time the chairs of the principal universities were filled by these dangerous enthusiasts, whose newly-imported ideas made rapid progress. School-masters, professors, journalists, the writers who had been formed in the universities, successively became the apostles of the doctrines which they had adopted. Neither censures, nor the watchfulness of the custom-house, nor the active surveillance of an ubiquitous and anxious police, availed to put a stop to the propagation of revolutionary notions, protected as they were by eccentric formulas, unintelligible to all who were not in the secret of the sect. It was not until 1848 that the eyes of the government began to be opened; but it had no efficacious remedy at hand. It multiplied regulations, of which the object was to hinder the diffusion of modern science and ideas; but was destitute of salutary principles to offer as a substitute for the unhealthy teaching of which it now recognized the dangers. The system of national education, which had so miserably failed, had been based upon ‘orthodoxy,’ autocracy, and nationality, and was now resulting in the triumph of German ideas, in the atheism of Feuerbach, and in radicalism and communism of the most unbridled description.”

That we may not unjustly charge the Emperor Nicholas with being solely responsible for these results, it must also be said that other Russians, who had at any rate travelled at their own expense, and foreigners who had come to settle in Russia, assisted in propagating the same doctrines. If books are not printed without some reasonable hope that they will be read, and if the number of publications in which certain ideas are particularly developed proves the favor with which they are received, it would be only too easy to make a statistical statement of alarming significance, showing the favor with which the most revolutionary doctrines are received by the Russians. Books printed in the Russian language are evidently addressed to Russians only, this language not having hitherto acquired a place in that part of education which is called the study of modern languages; and we can prove the existence of numerous publications in the Russian language, appearing some in London, some in Berlin, some at Leipsic, some at Geneva, and elsewhere also, in which the most communistic doctrines find their apology. Amongst others we may notice the publication at Zurich of a periodical review entitled V'pered! (Forward!), which wars against all belief in the supernatural and against every kind of authority. It matters little that the writings of which we speak themselves penetrate with difficulty into Russia; it is not to be supposed that the fact of having, when abroad, read this review or anything similar closes to Russians [pg 548] the return to their country. The book remains outside; but its teaching enters with them.

Let us now return to the consideration of the Russian Church. The radical ideas of which we have been speaking are plainly incompatible with the religious autocracy of the czars; and nevertheless Russia offers us the spectacle of men imbued with these ideas, and even manifesting them openly without, who suddenly recover their orthodoxy as soon as they recross the frontier of their country.

Under pain of deserving the reproach of cowardly hypocrisy, these Russians cannot support the existing state of things, liberty of conscience being too intimately allied with their principles. The reader will judge whether it is not wholly immoral that men who have ceased to believe in anything should, in order to escape legal consequences, present themselves in the “orthodox” churches for confession and communion!... Now, as far as we are aware, none of the pains and penalties against those who, being born of “orthodox” parents, fail to practise the state religion, or to fulfil their duty of annual confession and communion, have hitherto been abolished; still less are the penalties abolished to which all are liable who propagate doctrines contrary to those of the official church.

But the Russian atheists and rationalists of every shade of opinion are not the only persons who have a supreme interest in requiring, together with liberty of conscience, the abolition of the penalties to which they would be liable if the same rigor were observed towards them as towards those Russians who have become Catholics. For the czars, not satisfied with calling themselves and with being the head of the “orthodox” church, have also arrogated to themselves the right of direction with regard to all the religious sects of the empire.

When Paul I. declared that “the supreme authority, confided to the autocrat by God, extends also over the ecclesiastical state, and that the clergy are bound to obey the czar as the head chosen by God himself in all things, religious as well as civil,”[131] he was not addressing himself to the “orthodox” but to the Catholic subjects of the empire. It is in employing similar language, and by virtue of the same general principle, that the czars have defined the position of Protestants, Armenians, Jews, and Mahometans. However accommodating one may suppose the Russian subjects belonging to these different religions to be, we cannot understand why, at least in heart, they do not protest against the strange pretension that in religious matters they are bound to obey the “orthodox” czars. Neither can we suppose that, if they hold their errors in good faith, and believe themselves in possession of “religious truth,” they do not experience some desire to communicate their treasure to others, and do not suffer in obeying the articles of the penal code which forbid their so doing.[132] What can be, upon this subject, the sentiments of the ten millions of Russians belonging to the various sects formed in the bosom of the Russian Church itself, their name itself indicates; they are called collectively Raskolniks—that is to say, schismatics. Thus we need not say what must be the [pg 549] thoughts and desires of the Catholic subjects of the czar. There remain only the “orthodox”; but it is they who form the majority of the Russian subjects. It would be too much to expect to find in them the partisans of a more extended liberty of conscience than that which is permitted by the Code. “The dominant religion of the empire,” says the Code, “is the orthodox. Liberty of worship is awarded not only to the members of other Christian confessions, but also to Jews, Mahometans, and pagans.... The dominant church alone has the right to make proselytes.”[133] We will not stop to consider the motives which induce the “orthodox” Russians to oppose themselves to a more extended liberty of conscience,[134] but will rather proceed to examine whether, apart from what we have here said, it be not urgent, even in the interests of orthodoxy itself, that some changes should be introduced into the present organization of the Russian Church. We may be able to show that, by a singular disposition of Providence, the interests of the orthodox faith are intimately allied to those of the Catholic Church in Russia.

II.

If we are to believe Russian theologians, the Russian Church, with its czar, realizes in a certain measure the ideal of a church sustained by a powerful sovereign, which to many persons is the most desirable state of things possible. We may call to mind the saying of the Count de Maistre on the Holy Roman Empire, which was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire; in fact, the testimony of history leaves us in doubt as to whether this institution has served more to protect or to afflict the Catholic Church. Prosperity or reverses, it is true, alike turn to the advantage of those dear to God; but scarcely will any one take upon himself to maintain that, because reverses are useful to the church, they must be purposely procured for her. And therefore, whatever may be, for a longer or shorter time, the probable advantages of this institution, it is best, if we mistake not, to leave its revival to the providence of God. But if such is the teaching of history with regard to an emperor, guardian of the faith and protector of the Catholic Church, history condemns with a far more powerful eloquence the strange protection with which the czars have overshadowed their communion. In the Spiritual Regulation may be seen the passage in which Peter the Great is designated the “guardian of orthodoxy and of all things relating to good order in the holy church.”[135] The successors of Peter continued to declare themselves invested with the same mission, and this passage of the Spiritual Regulation was also inserted in the Russian Code.[136]

To be the guardian of orthodoxy, and of all which concerns good order in the holy church, is in fact the first duty of a Christian monarch. We will examine briefly the manner [pg 550] in which the czars have acquitted themselves of this duty.

Any reader who, without being repelled by the subject and form of the Spiritual Regulation, would impose upon himself the trouble of perusing them, text and notes, to the end, would have no difficulty in understanding with what good reason Protestants can and must look upon Peter as one of themselves. The Protestant tendencies of the Spiritual Regulation are evident. The reader will also observe the precautions, all in favor of the Protestants, there taken for the preaching of the divine Word. The priests, the monks, and the bishops of the Orthodox Church, treated as they were by Peter, were made to appear simply contemptible. In the same way, the favor publicly shown by him to the Protestants of Germany, the importance he accorded to them, and the boundless confidence he placed in their co-operation with him for the civilization of Russia, and finally the ridicule he cast upon holy things in his infamous orgies—all this can hardly be reconciled with the idea of the fulfilment of his first duty as a Christian prince.

In the notes to the Spiritual Regulation we may also perceive, in more places than one, the manner in which Catherine II. understood and exercised her mission as Head of the Greek Church; for thus she entitled herself in writing to Voltaire. No sincerely orthodox Russian could read the correspondence of Catherine with Voltaire without blushing. If Protestants may fairly claim Peter I. as their own, unbelievers have a full right to do the same with regard to Catherine, and glory in it, as in fact they do. In various passages of these letters (which we have perused) she ridicules not only the ceremonies but also the sacraments of her church. If to this we add the favor shown by her to the infidel philosophers of the Encyclopédie, the free access which their productions found at St. Petersburg, the atmosphere of impiety with which she surrounded herself, and the state of her own morals, so plainly indicative of an unbelieving soul, our estimate will not appear exaggerated. It would in truth have been miraculous if, under such tutelage, orthodoxy could have retained its hold upon the minds of those who knew how to read, write, and think; and thus the unbelief that prevails among the higher classes in Russia is the heritage of Catherine II. If, on the other hand, she showed herself zealous for the maintenance of faith among the lower orders, it was because she predicted the same results from their unbelief as she did from any desire they might evince for knowledge. “It is not for Russians,” she wrote to the Governor of Moscow, “that I am founding schools; it is for Europe, where we must not lose ground in public opinion. From the day that our peasants shall have a desire for instruction, neither you nor I will remain in our places.”

Under the successors of Catherine II. Russian orthodoxy underwent various phases, according to the degree of orthodoxy professed by the czars and the vicissitudes of their interior and exterior policy. Paul I. was so convinced that he was the real head of the church that he one day proposed to say Mass.[137] On the other hand, it is [pg 551] certain that he contemplated the reunion of the Russian with the Catholic Church.[138] This monarch, however, was incapable of commanding respect, or of helping a return to the faith, either by his intelligence or his moral qualities; and thus incredulity continued its ravages in Russia.

In the life of Alexander I. a period is distinguishable in which the czar had an evident leaning towards Protestantism; and his historians do not fail to remark the influence obtained over him by the Protestant, Mme. de Krudener. If we are not mistaken, those who so actively busied themselves in founding a Bible society in Russia had no intention of favoring orthodoxy.

It was also under the reign of the same czar that appeared the first edition (1823) of the catechism of Mgr. Philaret, destined to take the place of that by Mgr. Plato, then used for religious instruction in the schools. Now, in 1823 Mgr. Philaret was far from being so orthodox in his writings as he subsequently became; and the first edition of his catechism differs materially from the later ones. “The Emperor Alexander,” writes an author well deserving of confidence, “was an orthodox Christian, not in the sense of his church, but in that of the rigorous conformity of his belief to the fundamental doctrine of all Christian churches; which is the redemption of mankind by the death of Jesus Christ, by means of faith.”[139] What a stone to cast at a czar, the guardian of orthodoxy! Notwithstanding all this, Alexander, towards the close of his life, must have had continuous relations with Pope Pius VII.; some affirm even that he died a Catholic.[140]

As we have seen, it was at the commencement of the reign of the Emperor Nicholas that, at the expense of the government, the Russian youth were sent for education to the University of Berlin. Then came the formidable revulsion of orthodoxy, which, announced by the revision of the catechism of Mgr. Philaret, manifested itself by the sanguinary “conversions” in Lithuania, in 1839. The tidings were received in Europe by a general cry of indignation; and the remembrance has not yet faded away.[141] By a strange coincidence Nicholas, to whom is due the glory of having completed the gigantic undertaking vainly attempted by all [pg 552] his predecessors, of the codification of all the Russian laws, had desired that in the Code the following article should be inserted: “The dominant church alone possesses the right of leading those who do not belong to her to embrace her faith. This faith, however, is produced by divine grace in the soul, by instruction, by gentleness, and especially by good examples. Therefore is it that the dominant church does not allow herself to make use of any coercive means, how small soever, to convert to orthodoxy those who follow other confessions and other beliefs, and, after the example and the preaching of the apostles, she in no wise threatens those who will not be converted from their belief to hers.” All this is to be found in the Russian Code of 1832, of 1842, and of 1857, and continues to have the force of law at this present time![142] We will say nothing here of the reign of the present emperor, but will merely observe that the powerful reaction which took place almost immediately after the death of Nicholas, and which compelled the government to enter upon the way of reforms, was the inevitable consequence of that emperor's conduct. It is only just that the historians of Alexander II., in passing judgment upon his hesitations and self-contradictions in religious affairs, should bear in mind the difficulty of the part bequeathed to him by Nicholas.

But neither the ten millions of Raskolniks which Russia can count at this day, nor yet the numerous unbelievers and rationalists of every shade which she contains, protest as eloquently against the protection afforded by the czars to orthodoxy and the church as the impotence to which the czars have reduced that church itself for exercising any influence over the enlightened classes. All who have written upon Russia agree in acknowledging and deploring the degradation of the orthodox clergy.[143]

Lest we should trust ourselves, with regard to a point so delicate for us, to any exaggerated or inexact accounts, we have been careful to be guided in our statements by writers offering every security, not only for competence and impartiality, but also for their sympathy with the orthodox clergy. The author of La Tolérance et le schisme Religieux en Russie, known under the name of Schédo-Ferroti, appears to us to unite all these qualities in a high degree. “Having,” he writes, “in the capacity of an old engineering officer, traversed Russia in all directions, taking, on foot and with the circumferentor in my hand, journeys of four and five hundred kilometres; and travelling in this way for the space of six months at a time, stopping at every village which I happened to find on my way, I habitually addressed myself to the priest for any information I desired to obtain, and, early taking into consideration the moral and political importance of these men, I set myself to study them with particular attention.... I do not exaggerate in saying that I have made the acquaintance of many more than two hundred Russian priests. I may say that I met with [pg 553] specimens of all the varieties, from the young priest but yesterday arrived in the parish to the old man bowed down beneath a load of moral and physical sufferings; from the priest of the regiment to the ascetic fanatic; from the ex-professor of the seminary, nominated to the cure of some rich church in the capital, where he parades his rhetoric and complacently displays his erudition, to the humble village priest scarcely able to decipher his Breviary.”[144]

This is enough, as to the competence of M. Schédo-Ferroti; and with regard to his impartiality on the point we are considering, it appears in every page, as will be proved by our quotations. For the rest, the author is a Protestant, and argues warmly in favor of religious liberty for every worship and for every sect.

With regard to his sympathy for the orthodox clergy, it would be difficult to find a more devoted advocate. “It is,” he writes, “with satisfaction that I can say that I always found better than I had expected, better than I had any right to expect, considering the situation and the social position in which he found himself, the man whom I had set myself to study.”[145]

Let us add, moreover, that M. Schédo-Ferroti is by no means tender towards the Catholic clergy, over whom, according to him, the orthodox Russian clergy have the advantage in not being “tainted with hypocrisy.”[146] This is an additional reason for our choice of this author.

We will now see what he says respecting the social influence of the Russian “popes,” quoting only a few lines: “Oppressed and disregarded by his superiors, the pope loses three-fourths of his means of action, for he sees himself cast off by the upper class, tolerated by the middle class, and turned into ridicule by the common people.... Judging from appearances, and noticing that everywhere, even in the receptions given by dignitaries of the church, the pope occupies the lowest place, the masses have contracted the habit of never assigning him any other.”[147]

Such are the Russian clergy who are in contact with the people—the clergy whose office it is to instruct the Russians in orthodoxy, and to maintain them in it. Now, this was not by any means the social position of the clergy when Peter I. instituted the synod. On the contrary, the Spiritual Regulation shows us this czar, alarmed at the excessive influence which the clergy at that time possessed, painting in sombre colors the dangers resulting therefrom to the country, and finding therein his best pretext for establishing the synod. It is the institutions of the czars which have created for the clergy the melancholy situation in which they find themselves at the present day, which have deprived them of all moral influence, and have reduced them to be “cast off by the higher orders, scarcely tolerated by the middle classes, and turned into ridicule by the common people.” That which retains these classes, notwithstanding the contempt in which they hold their popes, in an outward profession of orthodoxy, is the Penal Code. Can it be believed [pg 554] that, without the injunctions enforced by this Code, the people would confess to priests whom they so utterly despise?

To resume: There are historical facts still living in the memory of the Russian people which show them their czars making small account, personally, of orthodoxy, at the very time when, by laws of great severity, they compel its observance by the people. They see the higher ranks sceptical or unbelieving, revolutionary ideas in favor with a great number of their fellow-countrymen; the Raskolniks, who in the time of Peter the Great were scarcely sufficient to form themselves into sects, now so powerful by their numbers and their political importance that they have already forced the government and the synod into making some considerable concessions; they see the clergy reduced, thanks to the institutions of Peter, which have been continued and completed by his successors, to mere agents of the police, tools in the hands of power, and forming a caste so despised that rarely is a pope admitted further than the antechamber of any house belonging to a member of the upper classes, and powerless to exercise any influence whatever, even upon the lower orders; this is a true portrait of the Russian Church of to-day—the Russian Church such as the czars have made it.[148]

And to-morrow?

This to-morrow, now drawing near, will still more clearly reveal what the czars have made of orthodoxy and of the church of which they call themselves the guardians. The day must soon come when, by the intrinsic force of things, the regulations of which we have been speaking will disappear from the Russian Code, and when nothing will force the Russians any longer to keep up any relations with a clergy whom they scorn, nor to practise the religion of which they are the teachers and representatives. That will be the day to which Catherine II. looked forward with so much dread—the day when the Russian people will “know how to read and write, and will feel a desire for instruction.” What will happen then in Russia has been shown to us, on a small scale, in what has taken place before our eyes in more than one Catholic country, where the clergy, strong in the support of the laws, lived without anxiety about the future, until political revolutions, coming suddenly to change the relations between church and state, placed them without any preparation face to face with unbelief. We say, however, on a small scale, for if the Catholic clergy could not foresee the first outbreak of unbelief, they required but a little space of time in which to moderate or check its progress. Neither in Spain nor Italy can unbelief boast of having greatly diminished the number of Catholics; one might say rather that the new legislation has but served to open an easy way out to those who were such only in name, and has thus delivered the church from them. Information obtained from undoubtedly authentic sources proves that the churches are no less filled by the faithful, and the sacraments no less frequented, than before. This is a state of things, which it will be difficult to find in [pg 555] Russia; and we will mention the reason why.

And in the first place, if it is just to acknowledge that, in some provinces of the countries we have just named, abuses may have crept in among the clergy, still they were neither so serious nor so general as people have been pleased to represent them. Their principal source was to be found in the too great number of ecclesiastics, of whom some had entered holy orders without a true vocation. But, precisely by reason of the large number of priests, there are very many good ones to be found, and enough of these to suffice amply for the needs of the faithful. Their virtues, which contrast with the manner of life habitual to the apostles of irreligion, thus formed a first entrenchment against unbelief.

Will it be the same in Russia?

We are far from wishing to disparage the Russian clergy. Their defects neither destroy nor excuse any which may be met with among Catholic priests; we will even admit that the great majority of the Russian popes lead exemplary lives. But is it known what is the gain to unbelief, in Russia, from even a very small minority of bad popes? In Russia each parish has only just so many priests as are absolutely necessary to carry on the worship; and with scarcely any exceptions, especially in the country, no parish has more than one priest. If, then, this priest lose the faith, unbelief will have free course in his parish. The reader would here perhaps remind us of the monks, who are still numerous in Russia, and ask whether these could not come to the assistance of the secular clergy. Any Russian would smile, were such a question put to him; but we will confine ourselves to remarking, in the first place, that the monks who have received holy orders (hiero-moines) are very rare, and, secondly, that never would any Russian parish desire the intervention of a monk. Stations, retreats, spiritual exercises, general communions, all these expressions do not, so far as we know, possess even any equivalents in the Russian language to this day, unless, indeed, in the Catholic books in that tongue which the government of St. Petersburg has recently caused to be printed, in order, it might seem, that more prayers might ascend to heaven in the Russian language, and fewer in Polish. In any case, the interference of monks in the management of parishes would be a far bolder innovation even than the “correction” of the liturgical books, which gained for Russia the ten millions of sectaries she can reckon at the present day. And this comparison reminds us that on the self-same day whereon orthodoxy shall lose the support of the Penal Code, the Russian popes will not only have to defend it against unbelief, but also against the various Russian sects, some of which surpass in their diabolical superstitions and abominable mysteries all that has been related of the Gnostics and Manicheans. And, moreover, it must not be forgotten that the Russian popes, however exemplary they may be, and however full of zeal for orthodoxy, are married priests. Thus one quality is wanting to them, of which the prestige is far from being superfluous.

We will not ask how it happens that the Russian clergy, if truly virtuous, are “cast off by the higher classes, barely tolerated by the middle class, and turned into ridicule by the lower orders of the people,” when goodness and virtue [pg 556] rarely, if ever, fail to give their possessor an ascendency, especially over the masses, which is independent of either rank or learning. At the same time, we do not intend to place any reliance on the statements we find in Russian writings on this subject; the falsehoods and exaggerations which are so frequent, even in Catholic countries, with regard to priests, make it a duty to receive with mistrust the accusations of the Russians against their clergy. But, we repeat, the Russian clergy who are in contact with the people are married, and this fact deprives them of a quality which is far from being unnecessary.

Here we may perhaps be reminded of the Protestant ministers, especially the Anglican, “so respectable,” we are assured, “so surrounded with confidence and esteem, and at the same time a married clergy.”

We have made it our rule to avoid all recrimination, and therefore accept on trust all that we are told of the excellence of the Protestant ministers; but we ask, in our turn, how is it possible to establish a parallel between their mission and that of the “orthodox” clergy? Protestantism, of whatever form, recognizes no other judge than individual reason, on many questions touching upon morals, while, on the other hand, the “orthodox” church possesses an authority which decides upon them in the sense least favorable to natural inclinations. It is only some few forms of Protestantism that impose any particular mode of worship; whereas the orthodox communion does not on this point allow freedom of choice to its members. Protestantism has banished expiatory works; the orthodox church requires prolonged fasts and abstinences. Protestantism sends us to God for the humble confession of our sins, but the orthodox church commands that they should be confessed to a priest, in order to obtain, by this painful act of humiliation, the pardon of God. If Protestantism points to Jesus Christ as our model, it nevertheless circumscribes the sphere in which we are allowed to imitate him; while the orthodox church fixes no limit to the imitation of our divine Example. Virginity, poverty, and obedience are for Protestantism that which the cross was to the Gentiles—“foolishness”; but the orthodox church recognizes in them the counsels of perfection bequeathed by Christ himself to those who desire most closely to resemble him.

We will not pursue the parallel further.

To Be Continued.