he true ruling faith transmitted from antiquity in Russia,
and a foreign religion introduced.' So wrote Catherine II., 'the
greatest of the queens, and of the ----,' the friend of Voltaire, the
greatest lady-freethinker of her age. But she wrote still
farther:--'Secondly, the honour of Russia as a state, which has been
brought to the highest pinnacle of her victorious arms with the loss of
so much blood, is actually trodden under foot through the
newly-concluded peace _with her bitterest enemy_.' And who is this
bitterest enemy of the orthodox Russia? The King of Prussia, Frederick
II.! Yes, the King of Prussia was once declared to be the bitterest
enemy of orthodox Russia; and nothing stands in the way but at some
future time he may again be declared to be so, just as at the decree of
the incorporation of the provinces of Preutzen and Posen. The
politicians of St. Petersburgh know that the Russian people, living on
in animal dulness, are susceptible of no other intellectual impression
except a religious one; and so without reflection, the cross is torn
from the high altar, and used as a military signal. Religion was
employed as a pretext, in order to lead the unhappy Poles step by step
into ruin; and Russia was just so employed in Turkey, when the
'heathen' undertook to disturb her in her Christian work. Rise up,
therefore, orthodox nation, and fight for the true Christian faith!

"We know not whether such a manifesto is sufficient to lead the
Russians willingly, like a devoutly believing flock, in the name of
Jesus Christ to the battle-field; and to perish in a war projected for
a worldly purpose, to obtain the inheritance of the 'sick man.' But we
do know that the manifesto will make no one believe throughout
civilised Europe in Russia's holy views. Nations which have learned to
think cannot help immediately perceiving the contradiction which
prevails in this manifesto. First of all the struggle is represented as
religious, and immediately after as political. 'England and France' it
says, 'make war on Russia, in order to deprive her of a part of her
territory.' The only logical connexion between the two modes of
statement consists in the words--'their object is to cause our
fatherland to descend from the powerful position to which the hand of
the Almighty has raised it.' And thereupon