"Do you not see every day, in your own country, the encroaching action of the See of Rome? And here I cannot refrain from exclaiming, how strange it is to see every day converts in crowds passing from the Protestant to the Roman faith, and not pausing for a moment to reflect if they have not a smaller space to cross, and a safer haven to come to in the bosom of the Græco-Catholic Church, the same as that of Rome, minus the anti-apostolic double procession of the Holy Ghost, minus an infallible pope, minus the sale of indulgences, and last, though not least, minus the arbitrary exclusion of the blood of Christ from the holy communion given to laymen! Is it not strange, that on the moment of abjuring your reformations, you should fly into the arms of a church which _has_ introduced reformations of its own, and not appeal to that one church which professes with evident truth to have admitted no changes at all, and kept intact the purity of her tradition? But, again, this is no theological disquisition. Witnessing, however, as I said above, in your own kingdom, the daily increasing influence of the Roman See, you can surely understand how legitimately jealous we must be of the same influence extending within the precincts of our sheepfold. And, therefore, not only is our faith to be preserved unmolested, but the saving deed is to be done by _us_, and not through the agency of English and French ambassadors or fleets, to be achieved in the name of the faith we profess in common with our Greek brethren, and by no means stipulated in the name of universal freedom of thought. I think I have said enough to prove the vital and cordial interest which Russia cannot but take in the cause of her own church, and of those who profess it in Turkey, and the paramount necessity she is under of making that cause her own."--(P. 12, _et seq._)
If the Russian author is so anxious to convert the British Protestants to the Græco-Russian, or, as he calls her, "Græco-Catholic" Church, he may translate her controversial works into English, and build places of worship where image-kissing, prostration, incense, and holy water, may be exhibited for the edification of the British heretics, _ad libitum_. Nobody will interfere with their ceremonies, not even with their preachings against Protestantism, because its disciples in Great Britain are satisfied with defending their religion by spiritual weapons, and do not resort to material arms, except in repressing either public or private acts of violence. As regards the dogmatic pre-eminence of his church over that of Rome,--her rejection of the "_anti-apostolic double procession of the Holy Ghost_,"--which has been, I think, retained by the English Church, &c., I leave this subject to the decision of theologians, but shall only observe that the worship of images, relics, and other pagan practices, which I have described in this chapter, do not prove much in favour of the _purity of her tradition_. I would also ask whether it is in accordance with this tradition that the Russian clergy, notwithstanding all their claims to apostolic succession, are governed by the Czar, who sometimes delegates for this purpose a colonel of hussars,(125) which office, I believe, was never known, even in the most militant of churches? It has been, indeed, well said by the Marquis de Custine, that the Russian clergy are but an army wearing regimentals somewhat different from the dress of the regular troops of the empire. The papas and their bishops are under the direction of the emperor, a regiment of clerks, and that is all.(126) It is in order to extend the advantages of this military organization to the Christians of Turkey that Russia, according to the opinion of our author, "_is __ under the paramount necessity of making their cause her own_." All that I say is, that she felt the same necessity of making the cause of the Greeks and Protestants of Poland _her own_, and that she ended by making the same thing with their country.