HKB
122 London: Longman & Co. 1854.
123 The title of this curious production is, “An Appeal on the Eastern Question to the Senatus Academicus of the Royal College of Edinburgh. By a Russian, Quondam Civis Bibliothecæ Edinensis.” Edinburgh: Thomas C. Jack, 92 Princes Street. London: Hamilton, Adams, & Co. 1854.
124 Letter xxxvi., at the end.
126 “Custine’s Russia,” letter xxxvi. The same opinion is expressed by Baron Haxthausen, whom I have quoted above, and who says, “The sons of the papas and other young men acquire in the seminaries and ecclesiastical academies a certain degree of theological learning, after which they indue the monacal dress, and are inscribed on the rolls of some convent, without however remaining in it. They enter the offices of bishops and archbishops to perform their personal as well as clerical service. Their position becomes then exactly the same as that of the military aides-de-camp of the Generals, and of the civil ones of ministers, and it is from amongst them that bishops, archimandrites, abbots, &c., are chosen. It is a career like every other service in Russia. Several of these ecclesiastics may have chosen their calling from a real devotion; the most part of them are, however, driven into it by an immeasurable ambition, selfishness, speculation, and vanity, the curse of the upper classes of Russia.”—(Studien über Russland, vol. i., p. 89.) It must be remarked that all the dignities of the Greek church are reserved for the monastic or regular clergy, whilst the secular (who cannot take orders without being married) do not rise above the station of a parish priest. This last-named function, which gives no prospects of promotion, is generally left to such theological students as are not fit for any thing better, and, with some few honourable exceptions, they are generally an ignorant and drunken set, treated with very little respect by the upper classes. The following anecdote, characteristic of the moral and intellectual condition of that class of the Russian clergy, was related to the author by a friend who had resided for some time in Russia. A landowner of the government of Kazan, Mr Bakhmetieff, who was very fond of the pleasures of the table in the old style, was in the habit of inviting to his revels the priests of the neighbourhood. Once, when his clerical guests had got so drunk as to lose all consciousness, their host, who was less overpowered by the effect of drink, determined to play them a practical joke, by daubing their beards with melted wax. The distress of these poor fellows, on awaking from their sleep, at this strange unction of their beards, was very great, because it was impossible to get rid of the wax without greatly injuring that hirsute appendage, upon which so much of their personal respectability rests. They became the laughing-stock of their congregations, and the story made a great noise over all the country.
127 The Greek Church admits no carved images, as being prohibited by the second commandment.
128 They have considerably more, as will be shown presently.
129 Every altar in a Roman Catholic church must contain some relic.
130 It is said to have been made of pasteboard.
131 There are, besides the five water pots mentioned by Calvin, thirteen others, at St Nicolo of the Lido at Venice, at Moscow, at Bologne, at Tongres, at Cologne, at Beauvaia, at the abbey of Port Royal at Paris, and at Orleans, though the Gospel mentions but six. The materials of which they are made are very dissimilar to each other, and so are their respective measures, whilst those mentioned in the Gospel seem to have been all of the same size.
132 There are, besides these, thirteen more, unknown probably to Calvin; but it would be too tedious to enumerate where they may be seen.