We have not leisure, Gentlemen, to extend our study to all parts of the globe, and besides, there are countries with regard to which information would fail me.  Therefore I say nothing of Holland, where we should have, as I know, distressing facts to record.  The silence imposed on Spain upon the subjects which we are discussing would render the study of that country a difficult one.  I am wanting in data regarding America.  Let us conclude our survey by a few words about Russia.

If we are warranted in making general assertions in speaking of that immense empire, we may say that the Russian people, taken as a whole, is good and pious, badly instructed, and often the victim of ignorance or of superstition, but disposed to open its heart to elevated and pure influences.  The clergy is ignorant, though with honorable and even brilliant exceptions.  It is too much cut off from general society, and consigned to a sort of caste, of which it would be most desirable to break down the barriers, in order to allow the influence of the representatives of religion to extend itself more freely.  The young nobles, and the university students in general, are, in too large a proportion, imbued with irreligious principles.  Various atheistical writings, those of Feuerbach amongst others, have been translated into Russian, printed abroad, and furtively introduced into the empire.  M. Herzen, a well-known writer, has published, under the pseudonyme of Iscander, a work full of talent, but in which come plainly into view the worst tendencies of our time.[86] In his eyes, life is itself its own end and cause.  Faith in God is the portion of the ignorant crowd, and atheism, like all the high truths of science, like the differential calculus and the laws of physics, is the exclusive possession of the philosophical few.  When Robespierre declared atheism aristocratic, he was right in this sense, for atheism is above the reach of the vulgar; but when he concluded that atheism was false, he made a great mistake.  This error, which led him to establish the worship of the Supreme Being, was one of the causes of his fall.  When he began to follow in the wake of the conservatives, as a necessary consequence he would lose his power.[87] The writings of Iscander have exerted a veritable influence in Russia.  M. Herzen appears to have lost much of his repute, by the exaggerated and outrageous course he has taken in politics; but it is to be feared that the traces of his action are not altogether effaced.

The Russian Empire has been for a long time, in the eyes of the West, only an immense garrison; but now for some years past it has been taking rank among the number of intellectual powers, and nowhere in Europe is the ascending march of civilization displaying itself by signs so striking.  The summons to liberty of so many millions of men, which has just been accomplished by the generous initiative of the ruling power, and with the consent of the nation, testifies that that