THE Pobedonestzeff canard is still waddling about England, and now that the solemn Nineteenth Century has undertaken to stuff it and introduce it to the world at large, it turns out to be quite a fat little thing—most tempting to any appetite. But even good birds should not be overdone. Let it suffice people to know one positive fact: high officials may be dismissed in Russia sometimes for their misunderstood policy, sometimes for their lack of any policy, but they are never put in a corner, like schoolboys, nor “ordered to take a three months’ leave of absence, for writing their apology or explanation.” It is never done, can never be done. It would simply make our people laugh. An amateur adviser may rattle as much as and whatever he likes; he can do so for the benefit of his own public at home, but that kind of stuff always and necessarily falls flat in Russia. But whilst the attention of the English public is drawn to absurd legends, important and most significant facts remain unappreciated and unobserved.

A whole village of 600 souls, in the Slavonian district of Galicia, in spite of all the efforts of the authorities in the opposite direction, who even use serious threats of imprisonment and confiscation of property, has, in the eyes of the world, come over en masse, from the Roman to the Eastern Church. Such is the news which reaches me through the Russian press, and it is confirmed by private letters. Among our people that conversion is regarded with deep interest and sympathy. The six hundred will not stand alone; the movement will grow. Entire villages do not transfer their allegiance from one cult to another without some deep-rooted cause. It is a kind of religious landslip, due to some convulsion below the surface. Ever since the declaration of the dogma of Papal Infallibility we have been waiting for simple-minded, honest children of the misguided Church to come to the primitive Communion which has remained faithful to the teaching of its Founder, as explained by the seven Ecumenical Councils—neither embellished nor curtailed by amateur theologians.

Rome became schismatic in the ninth century, in the days of the Patriarch Photius. She seceded from the Orthodox when she introduced, on her own hook, the Filioque Dogma. She degenerated more and more when the human greed for Temporal Power gradually took possession of her. All the good she has done, and is doing still, to humanity is due to the remainder of the true Christian element, not to Papal Infallibility. Father Damien, in giving up his young life to the Molokai lepers, asserted precisely that element. He might have been a Greek Orthodox or a Protestant, and sacrificed himself in the same way. Sublime compassion and love have been taught by Jesus, not by the Borgias or Hildebrands.

The Infallibility dogma is a logical sequel, no doubt—a perfectly logical reductio ad absurdum. But unsophisticated reason recoils from logical absurdities, and cannot be happy until it comes to truth. Life teaches one to follow patiently the natural development of events when the motive forces are clearly understood. But one is disposed to lose sometimes patience with those whose judgment indulges in quite unexpected jumps and conclusions. Perhaps I may be pardoned for remarking that English people, though they pride themselves upon being practical and logical, occasionally show a great lack both of the practical and logical faculties.

Shall I give an instance? Well, the example is near at hand, The Pall Mall Gazette despatched a Special Commissioner, a Nonconformist of extreme Liberal views, to Rome, to investigate on the very spot the actual part played by the Vatican—a difficult and a very interesting problem, no doubt. But a few, very few, days sufficed for his sending miles of letters, recommending us to fall down on our knees and worship the Holy Father. Yet the same journalist described with comical horror “the persecuting” policy of Mr. Pobedonestzeff in Russia! Who on earth can foresee such sudden transformation scenes? The parts played by the Chief of the Roman Catholic Church and the Procurator of the Russian Holy Synod (the representative of the lay element in our Church) are obviously different. A Nonconformist, being ignorant of the meaning of a Church and the importance of religious traditions, may, from his point of view, consider these two Churches as two “evils.” Still, if he has a particle of common sense, he ought to admit, in simple good faith, that the least “evil” of the two is not the one which reigns at the Vatican.

With the Pope intolerance is the essence of his creed. It is active and aggressive. With the Russian Church the case is quite dissimilar. What to superficial minds appears “intolerance in Russia” is simply self-defence, a protection from alien proselytism, and our Procurator is honestly doing his duty—nothing more and nothing less. A chorus of shrieking minstrels will not stop him. The versatility of our dilettante judges is really too bewildering. It reminds one of Emile de Girardin, who used to boast that “he came out with a fresh idea every day,” and he was as good as his word, for whenever a really original idea failed him, he would boldly contradict that of the preceding day. I think I have already quoted somewhere a traveller’s absurd definition of a lion: “A very cruel animal who defends himself whenever he is attacked.” But an animal, roaming about, seeking to devour somebody when he is not attacked, deserves alone the blame of cruelty: and such is Rome.

We are for “hands off” all round. We keep our hands off English Christians, and we insist on reciprocity. If we sent to England our Eastern Orthodox missionaries, whose object would be to vilify her religious doctrines, and proselytize the children as well as the poor classes—by bribery and cajoling—then England might insist upon our welcoming Lord Radstock and his disciples. We leave you alone. It is therefore only fair that you should not invade our country with your home-made apostles. There is quite a peculiar feature about Rome. She pours her propaganda into every land, though she flatly objects to allow any one to proselytize a Catholic population: there is no reciprocity with Rome, and there can never be. Rome has not improved much since she burned John Huss and glorified the massacre of St. Bartholomew. The recent brutal insult levelled at the great Slav reformer by the Roman Catholic members of the Bohemian Diet proves that the leopard has not changed his spots. Can anybody be innocent enough to suppose that at this very moment a single heretic church in Rome would be tolerated if the Pope were not a “prisoner in the Vatican”? 

When we talk of that curse of humanity which was founded in the thirteenth century, which was allowed to live more than five hundred years running—the Inquisition, Roman Catholics assure us that it belongs to the past, and that in the olden times Protestants were also guilty of persecution. But the difference is that whilst the others have progressed, Rome stands still where she did, when the rack and the stake were her favourite weapons. The spirit of the Inquisition has not died out. Anathematized Italy put up a monument this year to commemorate Giordano Bruno—burned alive by the order of the “Holy Office” three centuries ago. Being neither a Pythagorean nor a Pantheist, I am not a holder of Bruno’s views in any shape or form; but still it is difficult for anybody having a particle of feeling not to shudder in thinking of all the tortures he endured for his convictions. The present Pope has published from every pulpit his views upon the martyr-philosopher, but he had not even a syllable to say of compassion, he made not even the slightest attempt to regret the fierce cruelty which accompanied Brunos death. Anathema and curses are freely used where pity and prayers would be more appropriate. The Roman Catholic Church, if she had the chance, would be only too happy to restore the horrors of the Inquisition in their present form.

People who are deceived by her smooth-spoken words should study history— a study, by-the-by, which is persistently refused in Roman Catholic schools where the great Protestant protest is hushed up by every possible means. They would learn, for instance, that in 1863 the Roman Catholic clergy in our Poland not only excused, but often suggested the horrors committed upon Russian soldiers. And in doing so, they were quite in harmony with the practice of the Inquisition! The Evangelical Alliance, which surely cannot be suspected of partiality towards Russia, advanced as her greatest grievance against us—the mere expulsion from our country of those who refused to conform themselves to Russian laws. Read what the same Alliance says about the method used by Romish Catholic Austria at this very moment, against her own subjects:—

About the middle of last year Mr. Freytag, at Trantenau, received an order from the Governor of Bohemia forbidding him any longer to hold family worship in his house, at which “invited guests” were present. The actual and probable results of this decision are vividly portrayed by our correspondent at Prague, who says: “Every day I expose myself to fine by allowing an English family, spending a short time at my house, to attend my family worship, because they belong to the Church of England and not to my church. I should also be compelled to say to my servant, a member of the Moravian Church, ‘Leave the room while we have family prayers, as you do not belong to the same confession, and an intolerant Ministry in liberal Austria shuts the door in your face.’” The Free Reformed Church has five regular congregations and twenty-seven out-stations; and if the recent decision is to be carried into effect, there will be in many places in the Austrian Empire a distinct reaction against religious freedom. Our correspondent also mentions the following remarkable fact, which will be deemed almost incredible by English readers:— “Another recent insult which has been perpetrated (not once, but twice) is this—persons leaving the Roman Catholic Church to join us have actually been ordered by the political authorities to submit to a medical examination if, forsooth, they were in their right minds.

Against such cruelties a serious reaction is sure to break out. This is a question of time, as well as of logic. But that impartial onlookers, even English Protestants, should fail to see the cruel hand of the Pope, and that they should even go further, and be almost ready to kiss it themselves, is a phenomenon which is as deplorable as it is amazing.

О. K.

Claridge’s Hotel, Brook-street, November 6.