beliefs into accordance with his scientific knowledge, the Russian Church may seem to resemble an antediluvian petrifaction, or a cumbrous line-of-battle ship that has been long stranded-"stuck on a bank, and beaten by the flood." It must be confessed, however, that the serene inactivity for which she is distinguished has had very valuable practical consequences. The Russian clergy have neither that haughty, aggressive intolerance which characterises their Roman Catholic brethren, nor that narrow-minded, bitter, uncharitable, sectarian spirit which is too often to be found among Protestants. They allow not only to heretics, but also to members of their own communion, the most complete intellectual freedom, and never think of anathematising any one for his scientific or unscientific opinions. All that they demand is that those who have been born within the pale of Orthodoxy should show the Church a certain nominal allegiance; and in this matter of allegiance they are by no means very exacting. So long as a member refrains from openly attacking the Church and from passing over to another confession, he may entirely neglect all religious ordinances and publicly profess scientific theories logically inconsistent with any kind of religious belief, without the slightest danger of incurring ecclesiastical censure. Until recently, it is true, all Orthodox Russians were obliged to communicate once a year, under pain of incurring various disagreeable consequences of a temporal nature; but this obligation proceeded in reality from the civil government, and the priests, in so far as they insisted on

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its fulfilment, were actuated by pecuniary rather than religious considerations. In short, if the Russian clergy has done little for the advancement of science and enlightenment, it has at least done nothing to suppress them; and that is, I fear, more than we can say of certain other priesthoods.

This apathetic tolerance may be partly explained by the national character, but it is at the same time to some extent due to the peculiar relations between Church and State. The Government vigilantly protects the Church from attack, and at the same time prevents her from attacking her enemies. Hence Hence religious questions are never discussed in the press, and the ecclesiastical literature is all historical, homiletic, or devotional. The authorities allow public oral discussions to be held during Lent in the Kremlin of Moscow, between members of the State Church and Old Ritualists; but these debates are not theological in our sense of the term. They turn exclusively on details of Church History, and on the minutiae of ceremonial observance. The disputants discuss, for instance, the proper position of the fingers in making the sign of the cross, and found their arguments, not on Scripture, but on the ancient Icons, the decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, and the writings of the Greek Fathers.

Of late years there has been a good deal of vague talk about a possible union of the Russian and Anglican Churches. What the promoters of this scheme desire I do not profess to understand, but I wish to make one. remark on the subject. If by "union" is meant simply

union in the bonds of brotherly love, there can be, of course, no objection to any amount of such pia desideria; but if anything more real and practical is intended, I may warn simple-minded, well-meaning people that the project is an absurdity. It is much to be regretted that the bold spirits who conceive such projects, and the fluent orators who discourse upon them, do not take a little trouble to acquaint themselves with facts. If they devoted a few weeks to a calm, conscientious study of the past history and present condition of the Eastern Church in its various sections, they would come to understand that a union of the Russian and Anglican Churches would be as difficult of realisation and is as undesirable as a union of the Russian Council of State and the British House of Commons.*

I suppose that the more serious partisans of the union scheme mean union with the Eastern Orthodox, and not with the Russian, Church. To them the above remarks are not addressed. Their scheme is in my opinion unrealisable and undesirable, but it contains nothing absurd.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE CRIMEAN WAR AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.

The Great Fair at Nizhni-The Crimea-Sebastopol-The Emperor Nicholas and his System-The Men with Aspirations and the Apathetically Contented -National Humiliation-Popular Discontent and the Manuscript Literature -Death of Nicholas-Alexander II.-New Spirit-Reform Enthusiasm Change in the Periodical Literature--The Kólokol-The ConservativesThe Tchinóvniks-First Specific Proposals-Joint-Stock Companies-The Serf Question comes to the front.

IN Russia, as in America, the traveller is always crossquestioned by new acquaintances as to what he thinks of the country, and when he has given his opinions on this point with more or less reservation, he is almost sure to be asked whether he has seen the great Fair of Nizhni-Novgorod and the south coast of the Crimea. If he cannot answer this question in the affirmative, he will be assured that he cannot form any adequate conception of the ethnographical variety and beautiful scenery which Russia contains.

During the first two years of my sojourn in Russia I was frequently compelled to make the humiliating confession that I had seen neither Nizhni* nor the Crimea, but in the course of the third year I succeeded in wiping out this stain on my character as a traveller. I went to the great fair-and was disappointed. All the descrip

Nizhni (ie., Lower) Novgorod, situated on the Volga, was originally a Colony of Great Novgorod, which I have already described. In the word Nizhni, as elsewhere, I have used zh to represent the sound of the French j.

tions of it which I have read are much too highly coloured. "The motley crowd of Orientals, representing every country of the East," is not visible to the naked eye of a prosaic observer. A few Georgians, Persians, and Bokhariots may be seen sitting in their booths or strolling about, but they are neither very picturesque nor very interesting in any way. There is a "Chinese Row," where tea is sold, and where the roofs of the booths show traces of the influence of pagoda architecture, but I found there no children of the Celestial Empire. As to the various kinds of merchandise, they may all be seen to much better advantage in the shops and bazaars of Moscow. Altogether I should advise the traveller not to go very far out of his way to visit this great annual gathering, which is commonly spoken of by Russians-especially by those of them who have never seen it as if it were one of the seven wonders of the world.

With the Crimea, on the contrary, I was not at all disappointed. The south coast is of its kind one of the most beautiful bits of scenery in Europe. The traveller's opinion of it will depend, however, a good deal on the direction from which he comes. If he comes from the North, and has just undergone the tedium and monotony of a long journey over the bare Steppe, Crimean scenery will seem to him magnificent and grandiose; but if he comes direct from the Caucasus, it will probably seem to him diminutive and insignificant. In either case the tourist may-especially if he has a taste for archæology -spend a few weeks very pleasantly in the mountainous