The Russian clergy, as they recite the Nicene Creed in the communion, embrace each other with a fraternal kiss, in order to remind themselves and the congregation that the orthodox faith is never to be disjoined from apostolical charity. Is there a hope that this noble thought may be more adequately represented in their ecclesiastical development than it has been in ours? Will Russia exhibit to the world the sight of a Church and people understanding, receiving, fostering the progress of new ideas, foreign learning, free inquiry, not as the destruction, but as the fulfillment, of religious belief and devotion? Will the Churches of the West find that, in the greatest national Church now existing in the world, there is still a principle of life at work, at once more steadfast, more liberal, and more pacific than has hitherto been produced either by the uniformity of Rome or the sects of Protestantism?

"On the answer to these questions will depend the future history, not only of the Russian Church and Empire, but of Eastern Christendom, and, in a considerable measure, of Western Christendom also. The last word of Peter, struggling between life and death, was, as has been already described, Hereafter. What more awful sense the word may have expressed to him, we know not. Yet it is not beneath the solemnity of that hour to imagine that even then his thoughts leaped forward into the unknown future of his beloved Russia. And to us, however curious its past history, a far deeper interest is bound up in that one word, which we may, without fear, transfer from the expiring Emperor to the Empire and the Church which he had renewed- HEREAFTER.'”

CHAPTER XXX.

THE RUSSIAN CHURCH MAY RECOVER THE EAST.

THE observations which have been made upon the Roman Catholic and Russian Churches will naturally suggest the inquiry, what would be the character of the religious influence which Russia would exert upon the East should her power be established there? Before attempting a direct reply to this question, there are some preliminary considerations which deserve attention.

Americans are yet in a position to weigh candidly the character and claims of Russia, and they can not fail to perceive that if she were fitted, in a religious point of view, to give Christianity to the regions around and to the east of the Hellespont, the Euxine, and the Caspian, then, in other respects, she is better prepared for this mission than any nation of Europe; and, unless some great change should occur in European politics, America is the only nation that could co-operate with her in that work.

In the religious aspect of this question it can not be denied that Russia has, beyond comparison, a larger interest in the population of the East than any other power, and that she wields over them already an influence greatly surpassing that of any other nation. Twelve millions of Greek Christians in Turkey sympathize with her in her faith and general policy, and regard her as their head. The population of Greece is similarly situated, though, from position, largely under European control.

Russia has stretched the lines of her attachments to the foot of the Caucasus, and fastens them upon a Christian population there. She has commercial relations and polit ical influence through all Persia and even beyond, in China and Northern Asia in general. Her facilities for spreading a Christian civilization through all these vast regions are greater already than those of all the earth besides. She is the only power of earth that can, by expansion, incorporate these territories under one government. They would become merely colonial dependencies of France and England, not integral parts of their home governments. Not so with Russia.

These provinces, if annexed to her dominions, would become incorporated with her, a part of herself, as the Louisiana Purchase and Texas are now integral parts of the United States. Those countries, now ruled by a few millions of Turkish masters, treating the Christian population as a degraded caste, would then be as much a part of Russia as the provinces around Moscow, and one social, political, and religious structure would be extended over the whole. There are, as has been said, twelve millions of Greek Christians in Turkey, and only one million of Roman Catholics.

Allowing both Churches to be on an equal footing in purity and spiritual life, (which they are not), which is, then, in the most favorable position for spreading Christianity in the East? France, with her one million of Catholics, and twelve millions of Greeks, who hate and would oppose her; or Russia, with twelve millions to sympathize with and assist her? This, of course, is upon the supposition that they could be spiritually prepared to spread the Gospel of Christ. The Oriental character of the Russian nation, and the religious affinities which connect her with the Christian population of the East, designate her as the proper agent for recovering that now-wasted land, and making it once more what it was during the best days of the Eastern Empire. That the breaches are to be restored, the old highways rebuilt, and prosperity

and the Gospel once more revisit Western Asia to the expulsion of Mohammedanism and its wasting misrule, the student of prophesy can scarcely doubt; but opinions differ widely as to the agencies which God will probably employ in producing the glorious result.

American Christians have fondly hoped that this work has been committed to the American, or at least to Protestant missions. Doubtless they have accomplished much. What has been thus done in the heroic spirit of selfsacrifice and Christian enterprise will not be swept entirely away, whatever changes may occur, and whoever may rule at Constantinople.

Still, in any event that now seems possible, Protestantism must enter the East as a protected and not as a ruling element, because French or Russian influence will predominate, and between these two, as controlling powers, the choice of the world must lie.

If, therefore, some power should hold the East that would tolerate the presence and efforts of Protestant Christians, it is the utmost that could be expected while political affairs remain unchanged. We know that the Roman Catholic Church knows nothing of toleration, and from France and the Pope there is absolutely nothing to hope. If, therefore, Protestant efforts are to be tolerated at all in these regions hereafter, it must be through the friendship of Russia, while by her the main religious influence will be exerted, whether it be good or evil.

It has been already shown that the Russian Church has yet a living germ-has a little strength. The distinctive errors of the Papacy do not attach to her. She is not what most Protestants believe the Papal Church to be an apostate and anti-Christian body. On the other hand, she is far from being what she should be. Her spiritual life and power are overborne and well-nigh smothered by idle or superstitious ceremonies; there is a lack of apprehension of spiritual truth, and ceremony is in great degree substituted for the religion of the heart. But let it be supposed that England, instead of sending against her fleets and armies,

instead of joining a Papal crusade, had striven to maintain the friendly spirit which existed in the time of Alexander, when even the government co-operated with the British Bible Society, might we not have seen, ere this, a spiritual revolution begun in Russia?

Might there not have been an arousing of that Eastern Church by a contact with the life of Protestantism, and a casting aside of dead forms to assume the garments of a living holiness? A tract publication and distribution is even now going on quite actively in Russia; and these tracts, and the books published and circulated, are of a character to elevate the tone of piety, and quicken and strengthen the spiritual life. There seems to be no bar to the introduction of Protestant Christian literature of this description, for it is said that the censorship of the government is exercised in a candid and liberal spirit in regard to this religious effort. Who shall say that important changes might not thus have been wrought ere this in Russia?

Could she not thus have been enlightened, liberalized, advanced in civilization, and prepared, by the reception of a new life herself, to spread the Gospel of Jesus throughout the East? Such a Christian intercourse might have led to a harmonious and righteous settlement of those questions which have since plunged Europe into a terrible conflict, whose results were evil only. And if England, by her policy, has lost this opportunity of doing good to a sister state, and of conferring a precious boon on Europe and the East, why should not America endeavor to cultivate with her a friendly alliance; and, as the foremost Protestant nation of earth, strive to infuse, by the help of God, a new life and a new spirit into that mighty people of the North? Then, should Russia succeed in establishing herself in Turkey, the American Churches may help to prepare her to Christianize the East, and share with her the labor and the honor of the work. Invectives of the most bitter kind were heaped upon Nicholas because of the proposition which he made to England. Would