GENERAL HISTORY. 



[147 



royal word, they had been greatly 

 disappointed at having- to wait till 

 a protracted p-eriod for the con- 

 tinuation of their privileges. They 

 found themseh es grievously frus- 

 trated in their hopes by the inde- 

 finite line of his Majesty's con- 

 duct, which could not, as in othei' 

 times, have been governed by 

 pending political events. 



This is another example of that 

 reluctance in crowned heads, to 

 admit any diminution of their 

 own authority, wiiichhas so much 

 retarded the expected progress in 

 the formation of free constitutions 

 for the European states. 



Russia. An imperial I^kase was 

 published on January 2d, at St. 

 Petersburgh, which remarkably 

 illustrates the system of reli- 

 gious toleration in the Russian 

 empire, and at the same time ex- 

 hibits the indelible character of 

 the order of Jesuits. This so- 

 ciety, after having been abolished 

 by a i>apal bull, and expelled from 

 all the Roman Catholic states, 

 obtained an asylum in Russia, 

 under the Empress Catharine IE, 

 and was permitted to engage in 

 the education of youth, a task 

 for which its members were re- 

 garded as peeuliaily qualified. 

 Proselytisni being held as tlie 

 highest of all duties by tlic ciiurch 

 of Rome, it has always been pur- 

 .sned with peculiar zeal hy tiie 

 Jesuits, its most devoted .satel- 

 lites ; and the emigrants of that 

 order in Russia could not refrain 

 from exercising the influence they 

 had accpiired in that countiy, in 

 making converts, though tlie laws 

 of Russia strictly prohibit even 

 native, bom and brought up in 

 the establislied Greek religion, 

 from changing it for any other. 



In the w ords of the ukase, " They 

 have turned aside from our wor- 

 ship young people who had been 

 intnisted to them, and some wo- 

 men of weak and inconsiderate 

 minds, and have drawn them to 

 their church." His Majesty's 

 ideas of this conduct are thus ex- 

 pressed : " To induce a man to 

 abjure his faith, the faith of his 

 ancestors — to extinguish in him 

 the love of those who profess the 

 i-ame woi'ship — to render him a 

 stranger to his countiT — to sow 

 discord and animosity in families 

 — to detach the brother from the 

 bi-otiier, the son from the father, 

 ar,d the daughter from the mother 

 — to excite divisions among the 

 children of the same church — is 

 that tiie will of God, and of his 

 divine .Son Jesus Christ our Sa- 

 viour?" The result of his deli- 

 berations are contained in the fol- 

 lowing articles ; That the Ca- 

 tholic church in Russia be again 

 established as it was in the I'eign 

 of tlie Empress Catharine IE, and 

 till the year ES(X»: that all monks 

 of the order of Jesuits he imme- 

 diately banished from Peters- 

 burgh : that they be forbid to 

 enter the two capitals. At the 

 same time, that there might be 

 nn interruption in the Roman 

 Catholic worship, the metropo- 

 litan of that church was ordered 

 to rejilace the Jesuits by other 

 priests then present, until the ar- 

 rival of other Catholic monks 

 who had been sent for, for that 

 purpose. 



A note of the Russian charge 

 d'affaires at Hamburg to the 

 Senate of that city, stating the 

 circumst<ances of tiie misconduct 

 of tlie Jesuits, and the measures 

 taken by the Enij;eror in conse- 



[L 2] quep-^a. 



