engaged might consume upon it the earnings of half a century.

That policy which Russia adopted for the purpose of cherishing her own industry, and to render available her own great and varied resources-a system which England denounces as barbarous and injurious to her prosperity-is the best possible proof of political wisdom, showing that Russian statesmen have discovered the only method by which their country can attain unto a true civilization. She has been reproached with being simply a semi-barbarous military despotism, having neither commerce, nor manufactures, nor literature-as contributing nothing to the general stock of wealth or knowledge-as producing little, originating nothing, and worthy of no respect, except such as may be given to the strength of her armies. Then when she adopts a course whose object is to create a wealth and power of another description, a greatness based on the more ennobling pursuits of a higher civilization, she is accused of barbarous exclusiveness and savage ignorance, because she is not converted to the free-trade philosophy of England.

Simply as a producer of raw materials, no country, however productive its soil may be, can reach the highest stages of civilization. The intellectual stimulus and culture are wanting, by which alone true national greatness can be created. Without commerce or manufactures, Russia would be a nation of agriculturists, miners, fur-hunters, and soldiers. Such a nation would consume all the earnings of its industry upon food and those coarse, cheap goods which manufacturing nations can supply with the greatest possible advantage to themselves, and with all the profit derived from machinery.

It would be the unequal contest between unskilled manual labor on the one hand, and the power of capital, skill, machinery, and steam on the other, resulting inevitably in a low state of civilization, dependence, and poverty for Russia-in wealth and power for those who might supply her wants. There would be for her no basis on which to

rear the highest forms of civilization, and she would re main equally without the means of independence or defense. It has been long perceived by the Russian government, that, without an extended commerce, the idea of holding a first position among nations must be abandoned, but no profitable foreign commerce could be maintained without a manufacturing system of her own. The materials for almost every variety of manufacture were known to abound within her own territory, not excepting exhaustless deposits of the precious metals, and a net-work of navigable rivers and lakes offered, throughout all her vast dominions, the means of easy transport; and it was resolved, therefore, to create, maintain, and perfect, if possible, a system of home manufactures, which should not only render her, in a measure, independent of foreign production, but which should also open to her a participation in the commerce of the East.

But how could this be accomplished without that "barbarous tariff," which has drawn forth such loud complaints from England. The manufactures of Great Britain are more effectually protected, by far, than those of Russia can be for a quarter of a century, by all the fostering care of the government. The capital and skill of England have fenced round her interests more strongly than a tariff of prohibition. Her policy aims steadily at a complete protection of every branch of her own industry, and from this course she has never deviated for a single moment. Her free-trade means simply freedom for all nations to sell to her their raw material to the extent of her wants, and freedom to purchase from her all manufactured articles in return. She throws no branch of her trade open until she is certain that she can defy all competition.

The only possible course then open to Russia was to grant such a protection to her infant manufactures as should shelter them from a ruinous competition from abroad. But it is said that, by this course, the cost of her manufactured articles is far greater than it would be if she should procure them from England and the west

of Europe, and thus the tax upon her imports is laid really upon the consumers at home. But is not this an entirely inadequate view of the whole subject? It is necessary to observe the general result upon the nation at large; it is necessary to compare the Russia of to-day with the empire one hundred years ago; or, we may observe only the change which has been wrought in a quarter of a century by the influence of this very system which freetrade condemns. If it be conceded, for argument's sake, that the tax imposed upon foreign goods has been paid by the inhabitants of Russia, has there been rendered to them and the country at large no equivalent for this money?

A new life has been infused into all parts of the empire, an increased activity marks every department of society; roads have been opened, canals have been dug, railroads have been constructed, steamboats have been placed on rivers; factories have been built, villages have sprung up, and local markets have been opened for the productions of the soil. The establishment of one principal manufacture has called into existence a host of dependent but connected branches, and countless new modes of industry, and new sources of wealth, have been discovered by the inhabitants. By such means new desires spring up, new wants are created, and ingenuity seeks the method of supply. Thus mind is stimulated to effort, the intellectual power of the country is increased and guided to profitable action.

Capital accumulates, and is expended upon the refining arts of life; a higher taste is cultivated in architecture, dress, and furniture; a love for the beautiful is created, the fine arts are cherished, and a literature appears. These are the processes by which civilization advances toward perfection; upon such a career Russia has entered, and the aspect which she has presented in the terrible conflict that tested her powers, is proof conclusive of the efficacy of that system in creating the elements of national strength, while the extent of her present eastern commerce reveals the rapid progress she is making. If a mighty system of national industry, which lays its quickening

hand upon the multitudinous resources of the land, creating wealth and sending it through the empire by ten thousand new channels, can be produced simply by the tax on imports, certainly it is a most profitable expenditure for the nation, yielding dollars in return for cents invested.

Nothing, however, is clearer than that the active competition of the home-workers speedily brings down the cost of the domestic article to the price at which the foreign goods could be purchased if the trade were free to the foreign rival; and the protection granted to the manufacturer, instead of becoming a tax upon industry, provides new and more profitable employment to labor, multiplies the comforts of the industrial classes-who are, in consequence, better fed, better clothed and educated— while the general awakening and stimulus of thought leads, in the end, to mechanical invention, discoveries in science and art, and the higher creations of genius.

The rapid advance of the Northern State, and the new career upon which she has entered, have awakened the jealousy of England, and aroused her fears; and, lest her own commercial supremacy should be endangered, she sends forth fleets and armies to extinguish, if possible, this new light of civilization which is dawning upon the world; and in order to protect, in this manner, her own monied interests, she is willing that millions of lives should be sacrificed, and that the Papal despotism should, through France, be re-established in Europe. But it will prove an abortive effort. Sclavonic civilization has become a mighty fact-its march is eastward, and the Euxine and the Hellespont must yet be the center of its life.

CHAPTER XXIX.

THE RUSSIAN CHURCH.

IN a religious point of view, the contest in the East lay between the Russian Church on the one hand, and the Roman Catholic on the other. The two leading powers in the conflict head these two great divisions of nominal, if not real Christianity. Protestantism, as a religious interest, did not enter into the war.

England armed for national aggrandizement, or, to speak with greater precision, to prevent what she deemed the undue expansion of a rival power, which might lessen her comparative importance, and perhaps diminish her actual strength. She did not wage war to establish the Protestant religion in the East, much less the American type of Protestantism. If she gains her commercial ends, she will rest content. The character of the Russian Church then becomes an exceedingly interesting subject of inquiry.

Without understanding the nature of that religion which is the faith of fifty millions of Russians, we can form no correct judgment upon the influence which Russia would exert upon Turkey and the East should she gain the ascendancy there. If the world is called upon to choose between the Papacy and the Russian Church as a ruler of the East, we ought to understand the distinctive features of each. As has been already remarked, the Russian Church, though adopting the Greek rite, and constituting