Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1863-09-16
W oRCE S T E r
WEDNESDAY, sErr, 20, 1863,


nourishing Oriental luxury and vice amid
northern snows,--this riddle of the nations,
whose solution is preparing for the civiliza-
ton of to-day,-was born a horrible monster,
an incubus, growing with the nations growth,
and strengthening with its strength, lying upon
it hand to hand, foot to foot, mouth to mouth,
offspring Of fear and weakness, of greed and
DISTINGUISHING out the nations life, dragging
it down to ever lower depths of barbarism in
spite of its efforts to ascend, in spite of the
stout arms and indomtable wills that dragged
it up, and held it God-ward and lght-ward. 1t
was the Russian serf-system, How the peo-
pie ever endured the first encroachments on
their liberties the first steps in this foul
wrong, is a mystery and wonder. 1t can
only be explained by the feeling of religious
devotion toward the Gar that ruled every
heart, SO that each act of his toward them
was as the act of God himself. This all-per
Vading feeding of reverence is most strikingy
shown as we turn to the monstrous reign of
Ivan the Terrible!; on that page of history it
is written in letters of blood and fire. This
man mas well been called the Nero of the
North, for his unutterable crimes, his ingenu-
ity of wickedness pass belief. Yet he was
called ''God of the Russians" and the people
received from him wounds, blows, the most
degrading treatment, not merely with resigna-
ton, but with alteration. The Gar was den-
tilted with God in the Russian mind, and
when Ivan threatened to abdicate his abused
power, all the people FASTENED to offer him
their heads, ''they struck with them the dust
at his feet, hoping to move him by their la
mentations, and bring him back by their pray
ers," for they said, in terror, "WIthout him
who can preserve the purity of relgion-who
can save millions of souls from eternal perdi-
tion?'
With this feeling of worship IN the minds of
the people for their Priest and Gar, it is easy
to see how encroachments on the sacredness
of personal liberty even were submitted to,
and accepted from God. And so it came
about that a weak or a wicked car, pushed
by powerful, INSCRIPTIONS mobiles, driven on
by his own lust and greed-step-fathe of his
people, prophet Of his relgon,-yield-
ed somewhat, and bound the chains of slavery
ever more lnexorably on the tortured limbs
of his patient, trusting, adoring children; and
so it happened that through successive acts of
injustice, in successive reigns, the serf system
doomed into the bitter flower of slavery, and
poisoned the land.
But it did not grow up unrebuked, or unre-
sisted. The cry Of Privilege! PRIVILEGED"
from naughty Russian lords murked the air
with curses as in other lands but there were
czars, who were indeed autocrats of all the
Russias, and who trampled privilege beneath
their feet, and saved the people, hidden be-
meath the shield OF an iron despotism from
their more cruel and selfish oppressors. The
Emperor Alexander made stand against thu
sIn, anu broke some links Of the chain from
of his children's limbs, but that whirlwind Of
war, on which Napoleon rode as god, rushed
over Europe, and the burning of Moscow and
the battle of Leipsic turned his thoughts away
from his great purpose for season. But that
tragedy passed, and bound upon his ocean
rock, its hera was eating his own heart out.
Then the car swore 10y the cross that serf-
dom should perish, but the whirlwind of OPP
position that his word reused, found him
weak he was too timid to cut the knot his
trembling fingers were powerless TO unite,
and so the inspired Now is the day of saliva
ton slipped away into an indefinite future,
and discouraged and sick at heart, Alexander
sunk into his tomb.
Then came Gar Nicholas to wrestle with
the mighty wrong; but the spectre OF the
ul
his shoulder and soaring him from giving it
the final trip, which would inevitably have
overthrow it. The memory of that rain of
little red liberty-caps that fell one night all
over the streets of Paris, and was followed up
by redder rain of blood and the dull ''thud,'
''thud' OF the guiotine, frightened him. He
had been confronted at the commencement
OF his reign, by fierce instruction. In the
immense square, or rather plain, of ST. Isaac
he had met his people, and sad ''Good day,
my children" according to the custom
OF the czars, and they had cursed him.
That insurrection was queled with grape shot,
and buried under the thick ice of the
Neva, and Nicholas had said to the empress,
on the evening of that day, 'What a begin
ming of a reign!" but ever after the thought
OF his own possible ''sans- culottes" and of his
own ''quarter st. Antonio" terrified him, and
he feared to make the French Revolution A dread
reality in his own empire. But still he work
ed nobly, battling with his own preiudices and
terrors, in spite Of his fear of innovation. his
doubt whether his throne itself would not be
swept away, should his hand open the flood
gates for the flowing tide. He loved his
peasant children and they loved him, but the
Crimean war killed him, and there was an
end. And what an end How those poor
serfs adored him! His sons wrapped him in
his shroud of cloth of gold, and lowered him
into the tomb amid chanting, and roll of can
non, and flare OF torches, amid the reverence
Of princes and ambassadors, with the pomp of
stately ritual. But there was a far more
touching tribute than this. Thousands and
thousands eff poor serfs, from distant serf.
hnts, had toed YEARLY to the capital, and
stood massed around the Winter Palace to see
''their Father" laid to his final rest They
knew HIM as their protector from their own
er's greed they knew that he desired their