The "three Unclean Spirits like Frogs" having brought affairs to the divinely predetermined belligerent issue, it will not be unprofitable to my readers to lay before them the proximate religious aspect of the Eastern Question. This I am happy in being able to do by the reproduction of an article from an ably conducted journal published in London, though edited by men who have not the remotest conception of the ultimate solution of existing complications preparing for the world by the present angelic administration of human affairs, familiarly styled "the providence of God." Of the two superstitions, Greek and Mohammedan, the latter is certainly the less objectionable. But, as the time approaches for judgment upon Popery of both kinds, "because their wickedness is great," it becomes necessary to give its Greek form a present triumph over the Arabian Crescent. The greater evil will temporarily subdue the less, that both may present themselves for retribution in "the Valley of Decision." But before that awful consummation, Europe must bow the neck to "the God of the Russians"—the Head of the Serpent’s Seed; and drink to the dregs the chalice of abominations he shall present; a tolerable conception of which may be formed from the details set forth in the article below.

EDITOR HERALD.

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If civilisation has been scared by atrocities committed in the name of liberty, it cannot be denied that crimes as flagrant and iniquities as enormous have been disguised in the sacred vestments of religion. No church, no sect, can claim immunity from this charge of having perverted the most solemn objects of reverence and worship to the service of violence and wrong. "Orthodoxy," or in other words adherence to the creed which the strongest has the power to enforce, has been the fruitful parent of war and violence, international and intestine, in every form, and under every pretext.

But not to enlarge upon a text so familiar as this, let us proceed to inquire into the religious aspect of the Eastern question, or, as we should rather call it now, the Russian question. It is a matter of history that the chief object of Prince Menschikoff’s mission was to demand the Protectorate of the Christians of the Greek Church resident in the Turkish dominions, and, by implication, the protectorate of all the Christians in Turkey, excepting those of the Latin Church, who look to France and Austria for protection. We have repeatedly shown the absolute incompatibility with the independence of the Porte as a Sovereign Power of such a preposterous assumption. But from the very outset of these protracted negotiations, from the moment when Prince Menschikoff was escorted to his embassy by a fanatical mob as the bearer of these overweening demands, aggravated by the contempt of all diplomatic decencies displayed by the ambassador, the dispute between the Sultan and the Czar was ostentatiously paraded at St. Petersburg as the battle of the Crescent and the Cross. The invasion of the territories of an ally in contempt of treaties, the infraction of the public law of Europe, was the act of a new crusader going forth to fight for the "orthodox faith." We know that at St. Petersburg there was a religious procession, a proclamation to the people, directly appealing to the passions of a race who are taught to believe that Nicholas is the holy apostle of God, if not, by some mysterious incarnation, God himself. We know that in the Principalities the arrival of the invading army was hailed by Te Deums in the Greek churches, and we read this week that by imperial ukase a new church is to be erected at Ismail to commemorate the passage of the Russian armies. We hear, moreover, that the Czar has assumed a new title of ominous and awful import; he now calls himself the "God-Fearing," and his sons, as if to distinguish themselves from other and less religious royal families, are to be styled, in addition to their other titles, "Believers in God." All these assumptions of titles, these proclamations, these processions, these Te Deums, are evidence enough that in the eyes of the Muscovite party represented by Prince Menschikoff, and to which Nicholas, notwithstanding his German associations, is fatally attached, and of which M. de Nesselrode is the diplomatic instrument, this Turkish question is a Holy War. Christian Europe is expected to sympathise with the Cross upheld by Nicholas against the standard of the Prophet. Christian Europe is to speak and think of the Moslem as savages and pagans, but of the Cossack hordes as Christians and believers. Let us be permitted, then, to consult authentic and independent testimony as to that Church, as it is at home, which the Czar champions abroad. Let us examine the right and title of Nicholas to the office of Defender of the Faith and Champion of the Cross. We shall then perhaps be better able, in a religious point of view, to appreciate the importance of ousting the Turk from Constantinople, and giving the keys of the Dardanelles to the Czar.

It will be seen that the Russian Greek Church, as it is at present constituted, of which the Czar is the Sovereign Lord and Pope, was wrenched from the Patriarchate by force of bribery and persecution; that it was finally and completely secularised and subdued to its actual helplessness by Peter the Great, who took more credit to himself for enslaving and debasing the religion of the State than for all his other mighty acts of organization; that ever since his day the Russian Greek Church has been a degraded slave of pollution, idolatry, corruption, covetousness, debauchery; its priests drunken and ignorant hypocrites, its formularies a blasphemous adulteration, its convents brothels, its Holy Synod a packed committee of priests bought and drilled by an aide-de-camp, its solemn rites a pretext for robbery, its daily life and practice a brutal Fetishism, its God the Czar. This is the Church to which we are invited to look as the Crusader of the nineteenth century, as the sworn exterminator of Paganism, as the avenger of the Cross.

In Turkey, where the "infidel" still reigns, we shall find the Christian population in the enjoyment of far other rights and privileges than Protestants enjoy in Spain or Italy, or Catholics in Russia; nay, as we have seen, than the Greek Christian Church itself in Russia. Are we to exchange the Crescent for the Cross, in order that instead of "God is God, and Mahomet is his Prophet," the conquerors of Constantinople may shout, "God is God, and Nicholas is his Prophet;" or rather, "Nicholas is God, and Menschikoff is his Prophet!" we conclude these introductory remarks with a caution to enthusiasts against an unconditional acceptance of that Greek Empire notion which we described to our readers some weeks since, and which has found so bold and able an advocacy in England. We do not say that a Christian Empire at Constantinople may not be on the scroll of distant eventualities; perhaps a Greek Christian Empire; perhaps a Christian Federation; but we cannot forget that a Christian Greek Empire is the romance, of all others, which peculiarly flatters Russian diplomatists. It was a Christian Greek Empire that Russia thought of when she fought for the independence of Hellas, and assisted France and England at Navarino, in blowing up the fleets of "our oldest ally." It is a Christian Greek Emperor that Russian soldiers are taught to fight for, and Russian gold to bring into the intellectual currency of Europe.

We now invite the attention of our readers to the following extracts from a work on the Russian Question, by a French gentleman who has passed many years in that country on diplomatic and consular appointments. Let us remark how he, an eyewitness and an experienced observer on the spot, describes the Russian Greek Church: —

A RUSSIAN EMPEROR’S RESPECT FOR THE CHURCH.

The Emperor Alexander, in the course of a progress through the interior of his empire, was induced by a fit of devotion to enter a church in a village. He was received by the priest with the usual ceremonial, with the exception, however, of the benediction, the priest not venturing to hold out his hand for the imperial kiss. "Hold out your hand then," said the Emperor in a low voice; but the priest, more frightened than ever, would not budge. Then Alexander burst in a rage. "Will you hold your hand out or not, you idiot?" The priest obeyed trembling.

SIMONY IN THE GREEK CHURCH.

To the fixed stipend which the priests receive from the landlords they add casual fees and impositions; and it is in these that their cupidity has full swing. Since Peter the Great, the tariff of the Church has not been reformed; and as the prescriptions of that emperor have become, through the change in the value of money, totally inapplicable, the priests have no other standard by which to regulate their salaries than their own arbitrary caprices. Simony is with them a daily practice. They sell the sacraments. A priest has been known to refuse to carry extreme unction to a dying person whose family objected to pay what the priest demanded. The seigneur interfered, and with great difficulty succeeded in arranging the dispute between the two parties.

THE CONVENTS.

Let us enter the convents. It is into them that any spark of life yet remaining to the phantom of the Russian Greek Church has fled. Men of science and virtue are to be found within their walls; but as these men never step beyond the threshold of their cells, their science and virtue are of no profit but to themselves and a few monastics who live under the same roof.

Such among them as leave the cloister to assume the dignity of bishop or archbishop, forfeit by that step their independence, and are nothing more than decorative pontiffs, with whom, no doubt, the Czar is fond of adorning his throne, but whose mitre he would mercilessly break if ever it covered a head which had the audacity to think for itself. We know to what a pitch of servility the profession of a courtier was carried by that old Metropolitan of St. Petersburg, under whom was consummated the act which united the Greek Catholics established in the empire to the Russian Orthodox Church. An unparalleled scandal was that transaction, and well does it illustrate the very human fashion in which religious matters are treated in Russia. After having in vain exhausted every description of violence against the unfortunate dissidents, even to the brutality of a licentious soldiery; after having imposed upon the catechism fabricated by schismatics—sermons fabricated by schismatics; after having condemned to punishments, ridiculous as disgraceful, those of their pastors who rejected these impious classifications—after having, in a word, heaped upon them every excess of persecution, the Imperial Government resolved upon what it deemed peremptory measures. It replaced the priests of the Greek Catholic Church, whom it had ejected from their parishes, by Russian priests, and declared by ukase that, as the flock could not belong to another faith than that of their pastor, the union of the two Churches was henceforth an accomplished fact. So true is it that the Russian Church is nothing but a form. It is true that it would have been difficult, even for the general of cavalry who presides over the Holy Synod, to find any other means of conversion. When Protestant subjects of the Czar are asked whether they would change their religion, and be baptised in the orthodox faith, their reply is, "What! do you think a man changes his religion to descend in the scale?"

To return to the convents. If those inhabited by men are, to a certain degree, entitled to respect for the science and virtue they contain, those which serve as a refuge for women are generally remarkable only for the ignorance and debauchery they conceal. Many and strange facts have been recounted about these convents, and I might add many still more strange, which defy contradiction. But why enlarge upon a subject so disgusting? The respect we owe to the reader commands a reserve which we will not break. Let the "orthodox" nuns sleep in their shroud of infamy; others may stir the mud which we refuse to touch.

ORTHODOXY NOT MORALITY.

Where goes that moujik?—where goes that shopkeeper?—where goes that employé, who, as they pause before a church, turn suddenly round, sprinkle themselves with a few signs of the cross, bend their backs, and murmur mechanically three or four syllables of a prayer? One goes to his bureau to rob the State; another to his counter to defraud his customers; another to a wine-shop to get drunk. In fact, there is no connection between the orthodox Church and virtue. It is mere gymnastics.

Do you believe, for instance, that all those saints in frames, who invariably adorn the Russian houses, sanctify the abode, and the masters thereof? Why, these saints are found even in brothels. True, that the faces of the saints are veiled.

Happy indeed are those saints if they don’t incur the displeasure of those who invoke them. I have known a St. Nicholas, who was implored by a thief to assist his enterprise, and responded faintly to his appeal, mercilessly whipped. Once some monks discovered in the vaults of a monastery an old dried corpse. It was canonised. Then came miracles, gifts, and offerings to the pious recluses. Soon after there was a terrible drought. The distressed peasantry rushed in crowds to the monastery to beg for rain, trying at the same time, to tempt a miracle by presents which the priests could appreciate. The rain came not. Then these peasants were furious at having been tricked. During the night they scaled the walls of the monastery, broke into the church, and after dragging the saint from his shrine, stripped him of his finery, and smashed him.

Saints of this kind are not rare in Russia. Formerly they were discovered almost daily: it was a speculation. Lately, the Emperor Nicholas has shown himself less facile in granting canonisation. When he was recently applied to on behalf of an old scrag of a corpse discovered at Kasan, which, it was averred by those who pleaded its cause, was fully as deserving of the honour of saintship as any of its predecessors; "Well, then, you may make this one a saint," said the Emperor; "but let it be the last."

IDOLATRY.

The images, which the Russians multiply to such an excess in their churches, and in the interior of their houses, are painted upon canvas or upon wood. Never any statues or reliefs. The Russian Church proscribes them as heterodox. All the Church permits is to cover the most precious images with gold and silver tinsel, so cut as to leave only the head and the arms exposed. There are few nobles, and still fewer tradesmen, who have not one of these luxurious images suspended at one of the angles of their drawing-rooms, or of their bedrooms. In the isbas, or huts of the peasantry, the place of honour is under the little chapel which the family images adorn: it is in that corner that respectable persons and distinguished visitors are seated. The moujiks are seriously angry if you do not understand this peculiar compliment, and still more if you do not make the first bow to their saint. Such is the general usage in Russian houses. The bogs (images) take precedence of all. This does not prevent many transactions in their presence which are hazardous enough to Christian perfection. These orthodox bogs are so indulgent!

THE "PRINCIPLE" OF RUSSIAN POLITICS.

Russia has no principle. Two things only are sacred in their eyes—Interest and Force: the one which points out the end, the other how to attain it. Be what you will, if in this double point of view Russia perceives in you the opportunity of an effective concurrence, she will be your ally.

THE RUSSIAN GREEK CHURCH.

What is the Russian Greek Church? It is the Roman Catholic Church reduced to a state of petrifaction.

THE RELIGIOUS ELEMENT IN THE EASTERN QUESTION.

In spite of the repeated ultimatums of Prince Menschikoff—in spite of the notes and circulars of M. de Nesselrode—in spite even of the manifesto of the Emperor Nicholas—no one seems as yet to appreciate at its true value the role which Russia seeks to make the religious element play in the Eastern question. This role, in a word, is purely nominal; it serves as a pretext, it cannot be a principle. But has this not always been the case. Without the Dardanelles, Russia has not the key of her house. That mot of the Emperor Alexander resumes the whole question. Russia wants Constantinople.

MENSCHIKOFF THE MISSIONARY.

Go now to St. Petersburg. What a magnificent outburst of enthusiasm you find there! But do you not believe that these Russians of polite society, (de salon,) the only human beings who think in Russia, are very anxiously interested in the fate of the rayas? (Greek Christians in the Ottoman dominions.) Ah! They know better than anybody else the sort of immunities those poor wretches would have to enjoy if they ever passed from under the sceptre of the Sultan to the sceptre of the Czar. Imagine, then, how they laugh at the efforts which European diplomacy is making, or at least was lately making, to transform Prince Menschikoff into an evangelical missionary!

NICHOLAS "NOW AND THEN."

In the midst of this general excitement, what is the attitude of the Emperor Nicholas? It is sombre and mysterious, no doubt, but it yields to the torrent nevertheless. Did he not himself let loose the floodgates? Nicholas must not be regarded as the man he was, say twenty years ago. At that period, having just vanquished a revolution which well-nigh cost him his throne, he was absorbed by the anxieties of the internal administration of the Empire. He had not only to re-establish his authority, but to surround it with those institutions and elements of strength which confer at once power and prestige. He had hardly sketched out this mighty task, when Poland rose in insurrection. Nicholas determined to reduce Poland, and with that object he deemed it polite to exterminate it by degrees. This required time. Then he resumes his labour of organization and influence. Long years were given him to develop his projects substantially. Next came the revolution of February to give him an opportunity of putting his work to the test. While all was tottering around him, Russia remained firm. Nicholas, afraid of his own safety and of his system, assumed the character and the office of the invincible protector of the rights of the discomfited kings. The kings believed him. Austria threw herself in his arms. For a moment the Muscovite Czar was regarded as the corner-stone of social order, as the arbiter of the world. This moment passed by. Peace was restored to Europe. Nicholas retired. And it was then that, in his secret meditations, he felt himself devoured by a bitter grudge. Catherine II was fond, as she used to say, of "fishing in troubled waters." Nicholas had had an opportunity of indulging largely in the same tastes. He was annoyed to find the thrones in safety again, and the peoples quiet. Besides, his intervention in Hungary appeared to be less fruitful in results than he had anticipated. He felt that the scandalous mal-versations committed by the officers of his army, in the face of a foreign power; the innumerable corpses with which his army, by its disgraceful condition, had strewed the roads and infected the encampments—he understood that all these horrors would be so many flashes of light to expose to Europe the secret weakness of his empire; and that he would run the risk of appearing to the rest of the world rather as the conserver of mischief than the energetic organiser of public order. Nicholas, moreover, knew well that obligations imposed are apt to degenerate into an involuntary yoke, and one which, soon or late, the obliged makes no scruple of shaking off, as Prince Schwarzenburg expressed it, by a supreme ingratitude.

THE RUSSIAN EMIGRATION.

Nothing, in truth, can be more curious and instructive than what is now going on on the banks of the Neva. The very ministerial bureaux scarcely dissemble the movement. As for other people in the city and about the court, it is a rivalry which shall betray the mystery first. They dream of nothing but Byzantium and the enchanted shores of the Bosphorus. "Are you going to the country soon?" "No, I am waiting; but, for Heaven’s sake, I hope it will soon be settled." One hears of schemes of emigration en masse. Even the merchants and bankers are ready to ship their counting-houses and be off. —The Leader.

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