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.