rimage, take part in a religious
procession, or enter a Catholic Church, were shot down like the wild game
of the forests, by the fanatical myrmidons of the Tsar. In January, 1874,
the people of Rudno were forced to abandon their dwellings and take refuge
in the woods. At Chmalowski, several united Greeks, of whom three were
women, were flogged to death by Cossack troops. At Pratulin, in the
district of Janow, when a number of people assembled in a cemetery, were
guarding the door of the church against apostate priests, a German
colonel, who commanded three companies of Cossacks, ordered his troops to
fire. Nine of the people fell dead on the spot. A great many more were
mortally wounded. Of these four died within the day. "Thus does the Tsar
punish rebels," said the savage colonel to the mayors of the neighboring
villages, whom he had forced to witness the execution. At Drylow, five men
were slain on the same day, and in the same cruel way as at Pratulin. So
recently as August, 1870, a body of peasants, returning from a pilgrimage,
were attacked by Russian soldiers. They defended themselves bravely, as
best they could, with no better weapons than their walking canes. Six of
the troops fell, and thirty, one of whom was an officer, were wounded.
Reinforcements coming to the aid of the military, the peasants were
defeated, and a great number of them killed and wounded. Among the latter
were many women, and seven children. Two hundred arrests were made, the
next and following days. The prisoners were at first immured in the
Citadel of Warsaw. It is not probable that they will ever be allowed to
visit their kindred or their native villages.

Pius IX., being partially informed of such cruelties, which it was utterly
beyond his power to prevent, wrote to the United Greek Archbishop of
Lemberg, Sembratovicz, conjuring him to send to the sorely persecuted
people all the help in his power, both spiritual and material. He
declared, at the same time, by the Bull, "_omnem sollicitudinem_" dated
13th May, 1874, that the Liturgies proper to the Eastern Churches, and
particularly that of the United Greeks, which was settled by the Council
of Tamose, in 1720, were always held in high esteem by the Holy See, and
ought to be carefully preserved. Hearing that a Bull which concerned them
had arrived from Rome, the Ruthenian peasants sent secretly to Lemberg, in
order to procure it. Their envoys entering Galicia without passports,
incurred t