Again: Will Russia much longer have the czars?
These doubts are not chimerical.
In the first place, it appears to us unlikely that the czars should be able to continue indefinitely to refuse liberty of conscience. Already, at this present time, the Russian authorities shut their eyes to many infractions of the laws relating to the different religious communions; the ever-increasing and multiplied relations of Russia with other countries, and of her people with foreigners, and foreigners with Russians, might easily create serious embarrassments, and even give rise to political complications, if there were a desire to apply the religious laws in all their rigor.
Nevertheless, it seems to us equally difficult to imagine that Russia should, at one bound, arrive at declaring the civil law to be atheistical, and to repel all solidarity between material interests and the religious interests of the people. During some time Russia will probably offer to us the same spectacle as in England, the classic land of religious license, where every one, except the sovereign, is free to believe what he [pg 811] pleases, and where at the same time convenances and multiplied interests keep the official church standing. But the Anglican Church has a far different past and far other memories—above all, a very different literature—from the Russian Church. In continuing this comparison the reader will find an explanation of the vitality shown by the state-church of England, and at the same time the motives which do not allow us to predict for that of Russia either able defenders or even a lingering death.
If, then, the Russians ought not to labor directly to overthrow the religious autocracy of the czars, seeing that, in present circumstances, the overthrow of this autocracy might be the cause of still greater disasters than those of the past, they nevertheless ought not to fold their arms and contemplate with indifference the probability that this overthrow may be brought about at no distant period by the mere force of circumstances.
There remains the other doubt: Will Russia much longer have the czars?
This doubt, considering the epoch in which we live, scarcely needs to be justified. What sovereign is there who can promise himself that he shall end his days upon the throne? One alone—the Pope, because even in a dungeon he is obeyed just as if he were upon a throne.
Let Russians who have at heart the interests of their faith boldly face this second doubt and the fears to which it gives rise. Never, perhaps, could history offer us a more remarkable spectacle than that of an orthodox church, and a perfect automaton; to-day receiving speech, movement, and action from an orthodox emperor, and to-morrow receiving them from the head of a Protestant government, perhaps a Jew, perhaps an atheist. In fact, the organization of a church reckoning nearly fifty millions of adherents cannot be changed in twenty-four hours, especially if this organization is identified with the state to the degree of confusing herself with the latter. What will then become of the Synod we do not know, but neither do we know whether the new government will readily consent to lose the profit of so powerful an instrumentum regni as the church organized by the czars.
In presence of these eventualities, which, on account of the rapid march of modern revolutions, are far from improbable, and may take place any day, is there anything the Russians can do in order to save orthodoxy? There is one thing, and, we believe, one only. We will say what that is, though we greatly doubt whether it will be accepted; too many prejudices, too many objections, will oppose themselves to it; everything else will be tried, rather than have recourse to it; a great confidence especially will be placed in the triumph of the panslavist idea; but each new attempt will but prove this one plan to be the only efficacious one, and the ill-success of all the others will gradually lead minds to ally themselves to it. In the alternative of accepting this, or else of letting orthodoxy perish, Russians sincerely attached to their faith will not indefinitely hesitate. Besides, a Providence watches over states and peoples; in that Providence we place our trust, and it will not be in vain.
If, calling things by their names, we were to say plainly that this only way is the reunion of the Russian with the Catholic Church, a Russian who might do us the honor to peruse these pages would perhaps throw down the book, and, however well disposed he might be, would see nothing more in it than vain and dangerous imaginations. This alarm, however, [pg 812] would prove, more than anything else, the exceeding power of the words. We will endeavor to express the same idea in another manner; and, without flattering ourselves that we shall gain acceptance for it, we hope at least to obtain for it serious examination.