The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1898-05-15

been so thoroughly dominated by a fanat-
ieal sacerdotalism as 1t is at this day. I
saw evidence everywhere of the truth of
THIS proposition. No keynote of any new
song of liberation has yet been struck by
the prevailing party. A lady of rank re-
lated to me how in her own large circle
of acquQintances, a number of fine young
gentlemen had ardently embraced the mo-
nastic profession. The religious feeling is
nowhere on earth al this hour so energet-
icallY alive as in Russia. If you move
among the people you feel an all-pervading
sense OF religion in the atmosphere. You
can never move many yards from the
shadow Of a church, and between the
countless churches and shrines on the
pavement, with candles burning and ICONS
Illuminated, before which, one after an
other, the people crowding along on bust
ness or pleasure stop by hundreds for ado
ration. Religion mixes itself up with all
affairs, commercial. social, military, po-
litical and domestic. The modern Russian
is the playthng of the priest, while he is
the abject slave of the Car. Fiery pa
triotism and blind priestcraft make the
''moujik'' what he is.
During the late reign the amalgamation
in the bureaucracy, which so uniquely
locks church and state together, was in
tensified PobiedOnotseff is In Russia ex
actly what Wolsey was in England, and
what Richelieu and Mazarin were in
France AS the procurator of the holy
synod he reduced Alexander III to pup
pet in church hands.
Just at this point we may glance at the
reason which so few people seem to take
adequately into account, why Russia has
remained so quiescent over the history of
the Turkish atrocities in Armenia. There
is no such thing in the nation as public
opinion in the ordinary political sense but
in no country is there such a powerful
public opinion in the religious sense. The
heart of Russia palpitated with popular
fury when the sufferings of the Bulgarians
were made known. All middle-aged Eng
lishmen can remember also how, during
the SerVian instruction, Russians swarm
ed as private adventurers over the Dan
ube.
Why then, do the people and govern
ment remain. callous to the agonies of
the Armenians? Simply because, while
Servia and Bulgaria are orthodox, Arme-
Man Christianity is not in affinity with
the Greek Church. Had Armenia modified
her religion into harmony with the eccle-
siasticism of the Russo-Greek Church,
Turkey would not have been permitted to
perpetrate any other massacre after that
at Sassoon. And, as the differences are
not in any sense radical or vital, IL is la
mentable that some reunion was not long
ago effected. There are more sects la
Russia than anywhere in Europe, but they
are underground sects, not pronouncing
their shibboleths publicly and not disturb
ing the magnificent Erastian unity of the
mighty empire. And, moreover, Russian
sectism Is ascrlbed to the inevitable honey
combing of society with surreptitious lib
eral IDEAS. Among one hundred and ten
millions of people there must necessarily
be ramincations of opinion; but the main
current of orthodoxy sweeps resistlessly
on
The chief symbol of Russian religion is
the universal icon, that unique sacred pic
ture which is everywhere in evidence. Ar
tistically the icon is unlike anything IA
miliar in other lands. 1t is a picture con-
tanning no painting whatever except the
face and hands. These are painted either
rudely or with fair skill or exquisiteiy,
as the case may be. The rest OF the icon
is all in raised metal work-brass, nickel,
silver or gold. A Russian cannot under.
stand a world in which icons are not pro-
fusely displayed in all quarters. They
represent the Virgin and Child, or st.
Nicholas, or st. Serglus. or the Redeemer.
or any sacred character sufficiently IA
nous TO deserve homage. In every church
there is, IL possible, at least one costly