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words, the entire army perishes in that space of time, at the rate of twenty thousand annually. The mortality is still more frightful when the troops are put in motion upon the miserable roads, which, excepting those between St. Petersburgh, Moscow, and Warsaw, are merely tracks, impassable for nearly eight months of the year, on account of the blinding dust in summer, the melting snows, and the pools and marshes of the other seasons. The Russian army is perhaps the only one in the world which, in modern times, has suffered less by engagements than by disease.

That the Russians are not a military people may also be inferred from the scarcity of native officers of distinction among them. The proportion who have risen to eminence is very small. Most of the present generals of the army are of foreign extraction. Lüders is a Swede, Paskiewitch is a Lithuanian, Miloradowitch belongs to the southern Sclavonians, and many others are of German parentage; while some of the most successful in the Asiatic engagements are Georgians. The most brilliant Russian campaigns have been planned by foreign officers, and executed under their eyes by native generals.

As in all other departments of Russian discipline, the utmost severity is the governing principle of the army. From the moment of his enlistment, the recruit loses his individuality, and becomes only a member. Some regiments are regulated by the height of the person, others by the color of the hair or eyes. The distinguishing characteristics of Russian-shall I call it justice?-are most summarily administered in the army. During a flying visit of the emperor to Sevastopol, a striking instance occurred of the rapidity and decision with which offenses are visited even upon those who are high in rank. No form of trial is necessary; a nod, a word, a whisper, a stroke of the pen, and the command is obeyed. In the customary language, Pikas—it is ordered; and these five letters are sufficient to settle any inquiries which may be raised in Russia. Immediately after the departure of his majesty from Sevastopol, it was discovered that its late governor was employed in the ranks of the private soldiers, habited in their costume, and engaged in their most servile occupations. It was impossible to learn the reason of this terrible reverse; and the reduced governor would

probably have been unable himself to have given the precise offense for which he had been thus disgraced. The universal opinion seemed to be, that the ex-official had neglected some of the bribes so absolutely essential to success in Russia.

So much for the czar, his nobility, and his army.

czar.

The religious question, now attracting so large a share of public attention, can scarcely be judged correctly by one unfamiliar with the relative position of the Church and state in this country. The title of Greek Church is entirely inappropriate to the religious organization existing in Russia, which is without any constitution or platform of government save that which emanates from the will of the The Church is governed, like the army and navy,-in fact, like the entire empire,-by the emperor alone. Its dignitaries are appointed by him, and to him they swear fealty and obedience. His will regulates their most trivial acts, and his consent is necessary for the appointment of vacant benefices. At the Holy Synod he is represented by one of his aides-de-camp, a cavalry officer, who governs the clergy under his master's direction, as he would a detachment of the army. The canonization of a saint, or the punishment of a priest, are all formally announced "by the high imperial pleasure," &c. Religious unity is one of the czar's favorite projects; and the furtherance of this design has been mainly intrusted to the police, who, it is said, succeed better than the missionaries; though the latter set forth on their expeditions with carts loaded with potations suited to the tastes of the unbelievers, among whom they are to labor. As the seal of their conversion, they hang a small cross about the neck, kiss a large one carried by the priest for the purpose, and are immediately baptized. Each convert is then rewarded with a bottle of brandy, a pound of tobacco, and a small sum of money. They are all ready to renew the ceremony when the proceeds of their change of faith has disappeared; and many of them have been through the process several times. In some of the Caucasian districts, the official list of baptisms is larger than the whole number of inhabitants.

The circulation of the Bible was prohibited in 1826, under severe penalties; not even a copy in Hebrew is allowed the

two millions of Jews in the empire. A fellow-countryman of mine, who spent some time in Russia, declares that a peasant who could read the Bible, or should be discovered reading or explaining it to his family, his friends, or his neighbors, would be instantly knouted and sent to Siberia. The catechism for children commands them to love the czar before God; and the Credo commences, "I believe in God in heaven, and the czar on earth." Two-thirds of the Russian ritual is occupied with prayers for the imperial family.

The priesthood is a powerful instrument in the hands of the government for keeping the people in degrading ignorance and superstition; but, above all, for teaching them a wholesome fear of the czar, notwithstanding the reluctance with which it is acknowledged. The English and American missionaries have been producing really wonderful effects upon the Armenian and Greek Churches; the Scriptures have been circulated among them to an almost incredible extent. The result is, that in more than forty towns and villages of Turkey, there are congregations of seceders from the Greek Church. The persecution with which they have been pursued by the ecclesiastics, drew forth the noble firman of the sultan in favor of religious toleration: this the Russian embassador has vainly attempted to contravene by demanding, as one of the ancient rights of the Church, "the right of persecuting."

The unity of the Greek and Russian Churches is a mere fiction, assumed by the czar for political purposes, and talked of in a tone of blustering arrogance, very well calculated to mislead such as are unacquainted with the details of the question. As long ago as 1667, the Patriarchate of the Church was destroyed in Russia, and the supreme control of all ecclesiastical questions was assumed by the czar, entirely in opposition to the usage of the Byzantine Church, which is still subject to the patriarch, and still preserves the right of self-control and independent action, whatever may be the form of government under which it exists. Even the languages are dissimilar-the true Greek Church uses the Greek tongue, while the Church of the Czar (for this is its correct designation) speaks the Sclavonian, which is a dead language to the nation.

widely dissimilar. Many of the monks in the older Greek monasteries are men of learning and research, while the Russian are scarcely superior to the ignorant and degraded peasantry among whom they live, and by whom they are utterly despised. This fact presents another of the numerous contradictions observable in Russian character. The people are superstitious, even fanatical, in the observance of the most senseless forms and ceremonies; and yet they are entirely destitute of reverence for their ecclesiastics. They attach the utmost importance to the possession of a rude representation of the Saviour, the Virgin, or some of the few saints recognized by the Church; firmly believing, as they are taught, that the vile daubs are painted by the sacred personages caricatured upon them; and yet it is considered ominous of evil, upon leaving a house, to meet one of the priests who derives part of his scanty revenue from the sale and hire of these absurd images. Large contributions are raised from pilgrimages to churches or monasteries, which the people give as a most sacred duty and high privilege. Though the Church is entirely the tool of the government, it receives no emolument from the latter; and with all its means of exacting material aid from the faithful, the clergy are ill-paid, even in the wealthy Churches of the metropolis: so little is the profession regarded by its followers. In some years the Holy (?) Synod reports one-sixth of its clergy as convicted in the courts of justice, many of them for flagrant crimes, depriving them of their office. They are a deplorably vicious body, redeemed from the popular violence only by the sacredness of their office.

Popular education is, as a matter of course, a thing impossible in a nation whose lower stratum is made up of a serf population. The emperor has tried some experiments in the more populous parts of the empire. The districts comprising St. Petersburgh, Kieff, Moscow, and Kazan, contain one hundred and ninety parochial schools, with an attendance of between sixteen and seventeen thousand pupils.

Such are a few retrospective glances over this vast field of dominion. Of the lower classes I have already said enough; let us turn to the Principalities, and the

The character of the priesthood also is land of the Sultan.

The National Magazine.

OCTOBER, 1854.

EDITORIAL NOTES AND GLEANINGS.

Mormons-Correspondents-Preaching for the Times -D. D.'s-Geese, Cats, and Bachelors-SuicidesThe Contraction viz.-Remnant of Popery-Was Queen Elizabeth dark or fair?-Colt in the Caucasus -Effect of Fear-Cost of War-Sauley's Discovery of the Ruins of the Cities of the Plain-Eloquence of Chatham-Channing-Gray's Elegy-A Terrible Wound of the Imagination-Immigration-Longwinded-Macaulay-Noble Minds.

patible with its professional responsibilities and dignity; and, secondly, that it would lead to dangerous theological crudities and heresies. We should have noticed these objections in our article, had we not prolonged it already to too great a length. We are tempted here to refer to them a moment.

No one is more ready than we are to admit the scientific claims of the profession. Philol ogy, psychology, Biblical criticism, ethics-the most profound departments of scientific inquiry -are at its very basis. We would not degrade

it from this dignity. Though the Scriptures nowhere adopt scientific forms, and the apostles and first preachers of Christianity perhaps never used them, and scarcely ever attempted

their legitimacy is as unquestionable as in the natural sciences. Nature and religion are analogous in this respect. Nature presents no scientific formula; the physicist observes the phenomena of the vegetable world, in their lavish confusion, and reduces them to scientific arrangement, forming botany; in the same manner his observations of the mineral world

WE give, in our present Number, a valuable original article on the Mormons, correcting, in important respects, the paper in our June Num-technical definitions of theological subjects, yet ber on the same subject. If the writer's statements, respecting the treatment of the Mormons by their neighbors, in Illinois, are correct, (and he is certainly a good authority,) the public opinion has erred egregiously. We are happy to be the vehicle of better information. Some valuable and new estimates of Mormonism are presented in this communication; the reader will find it well worthy of his attention, not-give rise to mineralogy, of the structure of the withstanding some unnecessary severities which still remain after our endeavors to prune them.

CORRESPONDENTS will please bear in mind that we go to press at least a month before our date; communications, therefore, must sometimes remain on hand for weeks before they can be inserted, and even after this delay, some articles must be still longer postponed, if we would not have too many of the same or similar kind inserted at once. We must plead an old maxim of the highest authority: "Let patience have its perfect work."

In our article on President Wayland's views of the Preaching for the Times, reference is made to the usefulness of lay ecclesiastical laborers in Ireland, and to proposals for something of the kind in England. The day after we had written that article, the New-York Tribune contained a letter from England, in which occurs the following passage:—

"Meantime the bishops--it is nearly time-have begun to see the necessity for adapting the services of the Church and her agencies to the condition and wants of the population. A report has been presented to Convocation, and which is to be, by the queen's permission, laid before parliament, recommending the shortening of some of the Church services, and the employ ment of agency to meet the wants of the population, especially in the densely peopled manufacturing towns. The Roman Catholic Church has an endless and unlimited set of agencies, male and female, for carrying religious instruction and ministrations, which the clergy cannot overtake, to the homes of the people; and the Anglican clergy begin to think it full time that they had something of the same sort. In Ireland, there is much of this agency-missionaries, Scripturereaders, and catechists; but their labors are directed to the Roman Catholics. This, of course, the priests do not like-warn the people against them from the altars, and they are often insulted and ill-treated by fellows who rejoice in the opportunity, though they are often made to pay for it by the law. But in England, there is a wide field, and a legitimate one, the judicious cultivation of which might be productive of the happiest

social and moral results."

The chief objections, so far as we have observed them, against Dr. Wayland's views, are that such an employment of uncultivated laymen in the labors of the ministry would be incom

earth to geology, &c. The revelations of Scripture, designed for popular use and assuming no technical forms or terms, nevertheless, like the works of their great Author, in nature, admit of scientific classification and discussion. Scientific theology is then legitimate; we not only admit it-we contend for it. But does the fact imply that only professional or trained men are competent for the labors of the ministry? As well might you contend that botanists are alone fitted for the labors of agriculture. The scientific farmer has, doubtless, advantages over his uneducated neighbor, and it would be well if all agriculturists were trained to the highest learning of their business. But not for ages, if ever, will the world get its bread by hands of such skill. It would starve were all others to be excluded from the art. Now we affirm that the ministerial office is analogous, and that while learned ability should ever be sustained in it, even to the utmost, the aggregate of its labors and also of its results must be in the hands of practical, unlearned workmen, and that this fact need not detract from the dignity which scholarship and genius may give the profession. We think it will rather enhance their estimation by giving them a more distinct relative importance.

There are professions which are so essentially scientific, or at least technical, as not to admit of this accommodation. The law is such; no man, not educated to it, could successfully manage its cases we do not say, however, that this is not the fault of the law itself. Medicine may be placed in the same category. But it is obviously otherwise with religion-religion, which, like agriculture, as in the above illustration, has a practical range so extensive, so popular, so distinguished from its philosophical basis.

As to the second objection, both theory and practice are against it-theory, at least as we hold in this country, and, as the tendency of the age implies, in all countries. The doctrine of the safety, nay of the superior safety of the popular judgment, is fundamental in the civilization of the age. We popularize legislation,

the arts, literature, everything—and everything gains by the fact. Public interests are safer, left to the popular judgment; literature and the arts fare the better for being left to the genius and patronage of the people. He that would gainsay the fact must renounce the characteristic idea of the times.

And how do the facts of the case qualify the theory? Is it not found that the Church is both most stable and most powerful where its labors and responsibilities are most popular? Take the two denominations which have most largely adopted a popular ministry—that is, a lay ministry-in this country, the Baptists and Methodists. We venture the assertion, that no others in the land are at this moment more consolidated and more vigorous. Methodism, from its Arminianism, has been liable, in the estimation of its religious neighbors, to Socinian results. But it has stood more than a hundred years, with a ministry almost entirely untrained (at least by the usual process) and rife with popular elements, and yet has scarcely had an instance of serious aberration from its theological orthodoxy. No cotemporary religious body has more rigidly and yet spontaneously maintained its theological rectitude. This, to be sure, will not be to its credit, in the estimation of "liberalists" and "progressionists;" but it is not the less to the purpose of our argument.

We contend then for Dr. Wayland's views of the subject, despite the comments of some of our esteemed cotemporaries. Those views are sound theoretically, and, as we have shown, they are indispensable practically. It is our sober judgment that Protestant Christianity cannot sustain its coming conflicts the conflicts, as Dr. Wayland says, of the next generation-without an improvement in this respect, amounting to a revolution, and with such an improvement it will probably decide, in the next generation, the religious destiny of the world.

DOCTORS OF DIVINITY.-The Chevalier Bunsen, though a civilian and a diplomat, is a Doctor of Divinity. The well-known Dr. Kitto is a layman, though the leading writer in sacred literature now in England. The celebrated theologian, Michaelis, was a lay D. D. Laymen are not excluded from divinity professorships at Cambridge, England. D. D. is given in Germany to laymen: Dr. Kitto obtained his there. The example may not be unworthy of attention in this country. If followed here, it would tend to restore the title to its legitimate use, as it is not probable that laymen would receive it without a legitimate title to it.

GEESE, CATS, AND BACHELORS.-The following paragraph is published in the regular report of the late proceedings of the Connecticut Legislature:

"Bill to tax geese, cats, and bachelors, taken up. Mr. Harrison was opposed to the provision taxing bachelors. There was a tax laid already upon the goose, and any man who had lived twenty-five years without being married, could be taxed under that section. The bill was indefinitely postponed."

An unusual and alarming number of suicides are reported in France, many of them resulting from the most trivial causes. Among the most distressing have been those of a young lady of

singular beauty, and of excellent family, who, in consequence of the unhappiness caused by the preference of her father and step-mother to her half-sister, drowned herself in the Seine; and of a Prussian officer, who, being seized with deafness which medical skill failed to remove, blew out his brains in a box at the opera. Among the working classes, this frightful mania has increased, within a short period, to a terrible amount, and the public journals are daily filled with the accounts of these melancholy events occurring principally among young persons, sometimes almost children, of both sexes; love disappointments, reverses of fortune, family quarrels, sometimes merely an apparently causeless discouragement and disgust of life, all lead to these catastrophes; and drowning, suffocation, and the pistol are resorted to as the cure for evils which a moderate amount of religious feeling and common fortitude would lighten and render endurable, if not dispel.

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The contraction viz. is a curious instance of the universality of arbitrary signs. There are few people now who do not readily comprehend the meaning of that useful particle; a certain publican excepted, who, being furnished with a list of the requirements of a festival in which the word appeared, apologized for the omission of one of the items enumerated; he informed the company that he had inquired throughout the town for some viz., but he had not been able to procure it. He was, however, readily excused for his inability to do so. Vi 3. being a corruption of videlicet, the termination sign 3 was never intended to represent the letter "z," but simply a mark or sign of abbreviation. It is now always written and expressed as a "z," and will doubtless continue to be so. This is one of many arbitrary modes of expression, the use of which is known to many, and few desire to know how they became invented.

66

REMNANT OF POPERY.-A descendant of the Wesleyan family is at present "confessor" to the royal household of England. D'Israeli, in his Commentaries on the Life and Reign of Charles I., describing the difficulties which Elizabeth and James had to contend with in relation to their Catholic subjects, says :

"So obscure, so cautious, and so undetermined were the first steps to withdraw from the ancient Papistical customs, that Elizabeth would not forgive a bishop for marrying; and auricular confession, however condemned as a point of Popery, was still adhered to by many. Bishop Andrews would loiter in the aisles of St. Paul's to afford his spiritual comfort to the unburtheners of their conscience."

And he then adds this note :

"This last remains of Popery may still be traced among us; for, since the days of our Eighth Henry, the place of confessor to the royal household has never been abolished."

A correspondent of the London Notes and Queries asks-"Is the office still in existence? and if so, who holds it, and by whom is the confessor appointed? Of course, I do not suppose that our queen maintains a Roman Catholic confessor; but is the office still retained in the same manner as that of the Abbot of Westminster, referred to in one of Cardinal Wiseman's Pastorals ?"

To these queries the editor of the Notes and Queries replies:

"The office is connected with the chapel royal, St. James's, and is at present held by Dr. Charles Wesley, who is also sub-dean. The appointment is by the Dean of the Chapel Royal, the Bishop of London. The confessor (sometimes called chaplain) officiates at the early morning prayers, so punctually attended by the late Duke of Wellington."

WAS QUEEN ELIZABETH DARK OR FAIR?-An English periodical put this question some time ago to the curious in historical matters. A correspondent, in reply, quotes the following picture of the celebrated queen from a rare old book, Sir John Hayward's Annals of the First Four Years of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth :

"Shee was a lady upon whom nature had bestowed, and well placed, many of her fayrest favors: of stature meane, slender, streight, and amiably composed; of

such state in her carriage, as every motion of her seemed to beare majesty; her haire was inclined to pale yellow, her foreheade large and faire, and seemeing seat for princely grace; her eyes lively and sweete, but short-sighted; her nose somewhat rising in the middest. The whole compasse of her countenance somewhat long, but yet of admirable beauty; not so much in that which is termed the flower of youth, as in a most delightful compositione of majesty and modesty in equall mixture. Her vertues

were such as might suffice to make an Ethiopian beautifull: which, the more man knows and understands, the more he shall love and admire. Shee was of divine witt, as well for depth of judgment, as for quick conceite and speedy expeditione; of eloquence, as sweet in the utterance, soe ready and easy to come to the utterance; of wonderful knowledge, both in learning and affayres; skilfull not only in Latine and Greeke, but alsoe in divers foraigne languages."

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COLT IN THE CAUCASUS.-An Eastern traveler tells a good story of Colt's pistol. In Daghestan, a young Lesghian chief, being severely wounded during one of the frequent razzias of the Russians, took refuge on a ruined salki, in order to apply bandages to his wounds. While thus employed, he was discovered by a party of twelve dismounted dragoons, who immediately gave chase on his taking flight. Being fleet of foot, for a short while he outran them, during which time, such of them as had their carbines loaded, fired at him ineffectually. Having crossed one of the flexible bridges, common in that country, and which was over a rapid tortent at the foot of a mountain, the fugitive, finding himself unable to proceed much farther, and having time to put his arms in order, stood at bay under a projecting rock. With yells of delight, and uplifted sabres, the Russians approached the bridge. The foremost nearing him cried, "Yield, dog!" "Not while I have twelve lives at my girdle," cried the undaunted mountaineer. The Russians in the rear laughed loudly at the boast; but he in advance fell dead, pierced through and through by a bullet, nearly at the feet of the Lesghian. The second soldier stumbled over his dead comrade, and, as he rose, received a shot which caused him to fall severely wounded. The next, seeing the same weapon, which had twice been discharged, still pointed, rushed on; but to the surprise of the Russians, a third shot was fired at him: untouched, however, he was about to cut down the Lesghian, when a fourth discharge scattered his brains on the rocky parapet, and his lifeless body tumbled in the torrent beneath. Three of the Russians had now fallen. "What demon pistol is this,

that speaks so often?" cried the survivors to each other. The Lesghian stood firm, merely folding his pelisse of sheep-skin round his left arm ready to receive a blow, a precaution not unneeded, since now two Russians abreast were on the point of assailing him. Certain of their prey, these advanced more cautiously than their predecessors. This time two deliberate shots brought them down right and left; each fell pierced near the region of the heart. The remaining soldiers were amazed. The Lesghian, faint with loss of blood, and feeling his strength fast ebbing, now drew forth another pistol, a movement unobserved by the enemy, and rapidly fired three shots at the group of Russians, some fifty yards distant at the other end of the bridge. Owing to his light being now dim, only one shot took effect, wounding one of the dragoons in the shoulder. "Let us fly," they cried; "it is the Evil Spirit of the mountains-he would kill our whole army." Accordingly, they precipitately filed, just as the Lesghian sank down exhausted at the foot of the rock. At a distance they ventured to look back. "It hath vanished in the mist," cried the superstitious Muscovites. The Lesghian chief was succored by some of his own people, and ere long recovered from his hurt, as did the wounded Russian. At his bridal feast, some four months after, the pistols, which were a pair of Colt's revolvers, and were a gift from an American traveler, Captain K—, to the youthful hero of the Caucasus, were handed round amid the general benedictions of the party. The bride is said even to have kissed them, saying, "Ah! me Dehemit, were all the brave Circassians armed like thee, there would not be so many tearful maidens and bereaved widows in Daghestan."

EFFECT OF FEAR.-Boachet, a French author, of the sixteenth century, states that the physicians at Montpelier, which was then a great school of medicine, had every year two criminals, the one living the other dead, delivered to them for dissection. He relates that on one occasion they tried what effect the mere expectation of death would produce upon a subject in perfect health, and in order to this experiment they told the gentleman (for such was his rank) who was placed at their discretion, that as the easiest mode of taking away his life, they would employ the means which Seneca had chosen for himself, and would therefore open his veins in warm water. Accordingly they covered his face, pinched his feet, without lancing them, and set them in a foot-bath, and then spoke to each other as if they saw that the blood was flowing freely, and life departing with it. The man remained motionless; and when, after a while, they uncovered his face, they found him dead.

COST OF WAR.-The Government of Great Britain spent in the last four years of the war with France the following sums:-In 1812, $517,107,690; in 1813, $604,763,285; in 1814, $584,219,445; in 1815, 582,455, 255. The expenditure during the war, from 1803 to 1815 inclusive, was $5,798,646, 280. This expenditure would have sufficed to supply all England with schools, churches,

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