the
Russians cling with patriotic affection to their Church, and identify
its progress and prosperity with the increase of their empire. As it is
an exclusively national institution, every war may become a war of
religion, and it is the attachment to the Church which creates the
longing and the claim to possess the city from which it came. From the
Church the empire derives its tendency to expand, and the Czar the hopes
of that universal dominion which was promised to him by the Synod of
Moscow in 1619, and for which a prayer was then appointed. The
schismatical clergy of Eastern Europe are the channel of Russian
influence, the pioneers of Russian aggression. The political dependence
of the Church corresponds to its political influence; subserviency is
the condition of the power it possesses. The certificate of Easter
confession and communion is required for every civil act, and is
consequently an object of traffic. In like manner, the confessor is
bound to betray to the police all the secrets of confession which affect
the interest of the Government. In this deplorable state of corruption,
servitude, and decay within, and of threatening hostility to Christian
civilisation abroad, the Russian Church pays the penalty of its
Byzantine descent.

The Established Church and the sects in England furnish few
opportunities of treating points which would be new to our readers.
Perhaps the most suggestive portion is the description of the effects of
Protestantism on the character and condition of the people. The plunder
and oppression of the poor has everywhere followed the plunder of the
Church, which was the guardian and refuge of the poor. The charity of
the Catholic clergy aimed not merely at relieving, but at preventing
poverty. It was their object not only to give alms, but to give to the
lower orders the means of obtaining a livelihood. The Reformation at
once checked alms-giving; so that, Selden says, in places where twenty
pounds a year had been distributed formerly, not a handful of meal was
given away in his time, for the wedded clergy could not afford it. The
confiscation of the lands where thousands had tilled the soil under the
shadow of the monastery or the Church, was followed by a new system of
cultivation, which deprived the peasants of their homes. The sheep, men
said, were the cause of all the woe; and whole towns were pulled down to
make room for them. The prelates of the sixteenth century lament the
declin