k, etc. I cannot condemn a man because he is a Catholic, because I
have everywhere, and in every religious community, found both patriots
and traitors to their country, to their origin, to principle, and to
their religion. But this I must say, that of whatever denomination or
sect be the minister or priest, he has a right to be a faithful son to
his fatherland and race. It happened that in Poland the Catholic priest
stood opposed to the Rossian pope. If the latter can be a Rossian
patriot, why should a like sentiment render guilty a Polish priest? This
animosity in certain circles proceeds from a partiality to the
Rosso-Greek Church, which, some years ago, during the visit of the
emperor Nicholas to England, certain ignorant or du. By way of
parenthesis, we may add that the Rosso-Greek Church separated long ago
from the Eastern Greek Church, preserving, however, all its outward
forms. Peter I. abolished the patriarchate, introduced his own classes
and reforms, and made himself head of the church. He gave the name of
synod to a permanent council, nominated, appointed, dismissed,
controlled, rewarded, and punished by himself, according to his own
judgment, passion, or will. The Graeco-Rossian Church is kept under the
same discipline as the army, and an offending pope is sent, with the
rank of private, to some remote regiment.

The author of the letter from Paris somewhat contradictorily asserts
that the women, being superior in Poland, govern the men, but are
themselves governed entirely by the priests. This scarcely tallies with
strict logic; but, for the sake of truth and of a just respect for our
mothers, who taught us to love our country and freedom, who gave us
strength in exile, and faith through persecution, and who instructed us
how to think, and inspired us with those noble sentiments, seemingly
denied to the mothers of the 'fashionable civilization' (of St.
Petersburg), among whom there is not one lady writer--we will thank this
writer for the refutation offered by him to an impudent slander,
emanating from a contributor to _Chambers' Magazine_, of January last.
We repeat that we thank him for his just tribute to Polish women,
however inimical he may be to the Polish cause, and however much he may
depreciate our sex. Yet it seems strange that, while accusing Polish
women of being entirely under the control of the priests, and hence to
have been chiefly instrumental in fomenting the last insurrection, the
author