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year only hit their target at the rate of about twenty-five per cent., so that the British ship would receive but four shots from her enemy. Meanwhile, scarcely a missile of ours would fail to strike the Russian; and, unless we much mistake the powers of British seamen, before the spurry general of the St. George had recovered from the effect produced on him by the explosion of a dozen Moorsom's shells, he would receive a second broadside which would at once afford him facilities for studying the theory of the sinking of three-deckers, and the flag-ship would not only cease to be 'the conqueror,' but would at once be removed from the Navy List. These details, no theoretical conclusions, but the result of simple arithmetical facts, show that the value of such sailing line-of-battle ships as the St. George is, as against the vessels of the Allied fleets, absolutely nil."

What he says about the Russian sailors confirms the universal report.

"The Russian Czars have built and equipped ships of war, and sent forth fleets from harbours which they have persuaded the world to call impregnable, and yet their navy remains a phantom without a history and without a glory. Other difficulties may yield to the ambition of powerful monarchs, but the moral unfitness and apathy of a whole nation cannot be overcome by the exertion of a will, however strong and however absolute. The dislike of the Russian people to the sea service is as great and as openly manifested as in the days when Peter was the only

good sailor in his dominions, and the most brilliant naval successes would fail to excite their curiosity, much less to rouse their enthusiasm. The officers of a Russian fleet expect no sympathy in victory or defeat, and they disbelieve in the utility of the institution to which they belong; while the sailors, hating an amphibious life, sigh for the very miseries of a serf's existence, and tremble lest they should be ordered into battle and annihilation. Russian sailors cannot look for encouragement to the past; the memory of the galley fleets which used in old times to ravage the shores of the Euxine, of the fire-ships of Tchesme, of Sinope itself, are not present to the crews who skulk behind the walls of Sebastopol. Even our own invincible sailors would be demoralised by continuous inaction and submission to constant insult. The name of Nelson would cease to animate a fleet which lay snugly in Portsmouth harbour, while the enemy fired guns of defiance from the anchorage of Spithead."

But the reader will be considerably perplexed by the tables of gunnery practice here given, because, as they are Russian tables, they cannot be supposed to have understated their success. On reading the tables, we were forcibly reminded of that gentleman who was complimented on having "displayed such very fine talents for missing." Here is the first:

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"The targets fired at were 25 feet long by 15 feet high, and painted, like the side of a frigate. A target was moored opposite every ship, at a distance of 800 yards."

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CHAP. VI.

STATE OF RELIGION IN RUSSIA.

THE history of any country at any period must be incomplete that does not give at least a slight sketch. of the state of national religion.

Perhaps of all Christian Churches that of the Russo-Greek is the most superstitious. Its ordinances were founded on those professed by the Byzantine Eastern Church when it separated from the Roman Catholic; the chief doctrinal difference between the two being that the former believes that the Holy Ghost proceeded from the Father alone, and not, as the Roman Catholic and Protestant Churches believe, equally from the Father and the Son. Thus, the equality of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost is put in question.

About the year 1588, the Russo-Greek Church separated from the Byzantine, and the right of appointing a separate patriarch for the Russian Church alone was purchased by the Czar Feodor for the money wherewith the Grecian patriarch attained that

eminence.

In the time of Peter the Great the patriarchate was first permitted to fall into abeyance by his allowing that office to remain unfilled up during 20 years; and then, in its place, a sacred council was formed, of which the Czar was ever to be the head. And from that time forward the existing Czar has been the real patriarch of the Russian Church.

Next in rank to the Czar in the Russian Church come the three metropolitans of - 1. Kieff; 2. St. Petersburg; 3. Moscow. Below them are archbishops and bishops, and the different grades of inferior clergy. These last are divided into the "white" and "black" clergy, or the pastoral and cloistered respectively. Neither of these are allowed to marry. Both kinds are stated to live in extreme poverty, and to be dreadfully addicted to intemperance. They are said to be ignorant, dirty, superstitious, and dishonest, and to be despised rather than esteemed by people of all classes. This is naturally the result of a priesthood who are merely engaged in the performance of the vain ceremonials of a superstitious religion, and who never attempt to inculcate piety or even mere morality on the people. The performance of mass is conducted with even more ceremonies than in the Roman Catholic Churches, and all the other ceremonials are per

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