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 fellowcountrymen; 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.

And to-morrow?

This to-morrow, now drawing near, will still more clearly reveal what the czars have made of ortho

*During the last few years endeavors have been made to raise the status of the Russian clergy, and although it remains fundamentally the same, the government has given proof of no less good will than intelligence in its endeavors. In fact, terrible reprisals are in store for the upper classes whenever the people shall have lost all faith.

doxy 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 Catholi country, where the clergy, strong in the support of the laws, livet 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 is 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

And in the first place, if it is just to acknowledge that, in some provinces of the countries we have just ramed, 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 te 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 cessary to carry on the worship; and with scarcely any exceptions, especially in the country, no parish as 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,

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 comriunions, 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 supersti tions 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

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 tl. other hand, the" orthodox "churc possesses an authority which de cides upon them in the sense lea favorable to natural inclinations. It is only some few forms of Pro estantism that impose any partic lar mode of worship; whereas t orthodox communion does not this point allow freedom of cho: to its members. Protestantism.. banished expiatory works; the o thodox church requires prolong fasts and abstinences. Protestant ism sends us to God for the hunble confession of our sins, but t` orthodox church commands ta they should be confessed to a priest in order to obtain, by this painti act of humiliation, the pardon God. If Protestantism points t Jesus Christ as our model, it nevertheless circumscribes the sphere i which we are allowed to imitat him; while the orthodox chur fixes no limit to the imitation of divine Example. Virginity, por ty, and obedience are for Protesiantism that which the cross was: the Gentiles-" foolishness"; but the orthodox church recognizes in them the counsels of perfection bequeathed by Christ himself t those who desire most closely to resemble him.

We will not pursue the paralk. further.