overtaken some expressions which formerly were no less dear to pious hearts than these. The use of the language of the Canticles, such as was familiar to St. Bernard and Samuel Rutterford, has become impossible, and even many terms used in St. Paul's Epistles to the Romans and Galatians on predestination and justification are now but very rarely heard in ordinary pulpits. But, whatever betide, it is alike the duty and the hope, whether of those who fondly cling to these forms or words, or of those who think, perhaps too boldly, that they can dispense with them, to keep steadily in view the moral realities, for the sake of which alone (if Christianity be the universal religion) such forms exist, and which will survive the disappearance even of the most venerable ordinances, even of the most sacred phrases.

ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY.

THE ARMIES OF RUSSIA AND AUSTRIA.

A GENERATION ago, a great military problem was fought out at the extremity of Europe. On the one side was an army subject to that single directing will which has always been reputed so potent an element in military success. The world has never seen a more complete embodiment of autocracy than Nicholas. Other despots have been as arbitrary, far more sanguinary, far less conscientious. But in him was seen in its extreme that principle of government which demands that millions of men shall conform in their modes of life, their speech, their hearts and minds, to the notions entertained by a single individual of what is most conducive to the preservation of his authority over them. Seventy millions of men, occupying oneseventh of the world's territorial lands, were subject to this domination. Especially had his paternal care overshadowed the army, which, in an empire like his, where mental effort was systematically discouraged, and physical force studiously developed, constituted the very crown of all things, the expectancy and rose of the fair state.' It was with the army that the autocrat more especially identified himself; its discipline comprised all his notion of government, and his civil administration was merely an extension of his military rule. Living always in cold isolation, and in the incessant practice of this absorbing self-worship, his natural tendency to control others had extended far beyond his own dominions; and when his desire to become the possessor of his neighbour's vineyard was opposed, he prepared for war with the imperturbable calmness of an Olympian god about to chastise petulant mortals. This despotism, in which the progress of civilisation chiefly showed itself in the completeness of the organisation of the autocratic form of government, as distinguished from the capricious and desultory exercise of authority in more barbarous absolutisms, came into collision with the representatives of Western civilisation, with, for result, the absolute prostration of the empire of the Czar. Exhaustion of force in men and material, derangement of agriculture and commerce, and financial ruin from which she began only after many years to recover, and which has never yet been retrieved, marked, for Russia, the close of the Crimean war.

The course of these events was lately set forth in Mr. Martin's

volume, remarkable alike for style, subject, and substance. There was vividly depicted how, under many and grave disadvantages, and once against most extraordinary odds of force, we had met the Russians on their own soil and beaten them. This volume was read, as it deserved to be, by everybody; and it is possible that the sudden change in public opinion and policy which so lately took place was in some measure due to this contemplation of past exploits and their results. It is undeniable that the Crimean war secured peace to Europe, so far as it is involved in the Eastern question, for twenty years and people jumped suddenly to the conclusion that the course which succeeded so well then would succeed again now, when Russia was once more seeking to accelerate the decease of the unlucky sick man. Deeply impressed, and justly, with the sagacity of the Prince Consort, they assumed that what was his opinion in 1854 would be his opinion in our day. They did not, perhaps, sufficiently consider the difference in the conditions. In 1854 Russia crossed the Danube only to be brought to a stand by a small fortress, and to recross and retire from the river in view of the hostile attitude of Austria on her flank. The Czar's pride would not allow him to leave Sebastopol to take care of itself, and he then accepted, as the decisive arena of the struggle, that point of his else invulnerable dominions where the naval powers would meet his forces with most overpowering advantage. Their command of the sea rendered communication with their armies easy and certain, while between the Russian army and its sources of supply were spread vast territories with scanty populations and few roads. Moreover, when we thus met her, we fought in alliance with the military power of the continent which ranked first as such at that time. It is not necessary, now that the nation has been forced by the march of events to consider the situation so anxiously, to set forth how different would be the conditions under which we, if alone, would at present engage in a conflict with Russia, when she has not merely passed the Danube, but dominates Turkey, and when her armies, instead of traversing roadless wastes, are already assembled in districts which are among the richest in the world.

Directly after the close of the Crimean war the present Emperor at once showed a decided departure from his father's policy. This was, in a great measure, inevitable, for autocracy had received a severe shock in the past struggle. Divinities ought not to be worsted in their contests with mortals, and certainly ought not to die of their defeat. Still, the reforms of the new Czar were honourable to him; the emancipation of the serfs, by which forty millions of vassals became freemen, was among the greatest benefits that rulers have conferred on mankind, and if it was confessedly effected because it was manifest that, if such a change did not come from above, it must very soon assume a much more dangerous form in coming from below, still the recognition of the danger, and the prompt and resolute VOL. III.-No. 15.

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measures taken to obviate it, seemed to indicate a period in which enlightened policy should at last disperse the gloom which had so long overshadowed Russia. And surely there is no land in Europe in which a powerful and good ruler might find such a field for beneficence as the empire of the Czar. In preparing the people for a mode of government more in harmony with the times, in developing the resources of the country, in rendering the administration of the government honest and efficient, in diffusing education, in encouraging science, literature, and art among a people whose contributions to these have been but few,-here was an opportunity for earning a nation's gratitude and a world's applause, such as might charm the most ambitious, and such as the emancipator of the serfs might be expected to grasp. And it would be unjust to deny that his efforts were at first made in that direction; that the creation of railways (one of the bugbears of Nicholas) was by him carried even to an imprudent extent, and that education was largely encouraged.

But to devote one's self to benefit mankind, is to tread, as John Howard's monument in St. Paul's pithily tells us, 'an open but unfrequented path to immortality;' at any rate the Czar's steps soon took a very different direction. With that unhappy craze which prevails for asserting national predominance in arms with a view to unforeseen or illusory advantage, Russia is no less deeply afflicted than her neighbours. None can have less excuse for yielding to it, for while she has so much more urgent need to make other use of her not overflowing revenues, she is more than any other power secure against attack. But the increasing magnitude of the Prussian army filled the Czar with envy; and scarcely had the vast successes of the German forces, at the outset of the campaign in France, showed the astonishing efficacy of the system which sent them forth, than Alexander set himself to imitate it. In November 1870 the principle of general liability to military service was introduced by imperial ukase. It had been rendered possible by the emancipation of the serfs; for to have adopted such a measure while serfdom existed, would have been to interfere with the interests and privileges of all the wealthy proprietors. The Minister of War was instructed to draft a law of recruiting suitable to the state of the country, and to frame a scheme for increasing the army in time of war by the formation of reserves. It was the opinion of the War Minister that a levy of twenty-five per cent. of the young men of twenty years old would be sufficient to complete the field army to a war establishment, and at the same time to form strong reserves. And it was apparently the intention of the Government to raise the strength of the army in from seven to ten years (that is from 1877 to 1880) to 2,000,000 trained soldiers.

To an Englishman, accustomed to consider the recruiting conditions of our own army, the difficulty of increasing the number of

those willing to enlist in it, and the cost at which we maintain it, there seems something overwhelming, and almost incredible, in such enormous hosts as those under which the nations of the Continent groan. At one time it was the fashion of objectors to the cost of our own more modest forces to contrast the dearness of our troops with the cheapness of foreign armies. But the fact has, since then, come to be generally recognised that, though troops raised by general conscription seem cheap as an item in the Budget, they are extravagantly dear to the people. To withdraw systematically so great a proportion of the youngest and strongest and healthiest of the population from agriculture, the workshop, and the desk, is a tax the weight of which has never been realised, even in thought, in this country. It is well known that one of the prices which France paid for the greatness of Napoleon was the permanent reduction of the stature of her people. This represents in a striking form only one of the grave consequences of sending forth huge armies; yet it may be said of the great military powers of the Continent, at this particular stage of their civilisation, that the main end of the existence of each would seem to be, to bring a couple of million of soldiers into the field.

That nations can be found to submit to be thus hampered by their armaments, like knights sweating and stifling within their armour in an earlier time, is, I believe, mainly due to that demand for cession of territory from France to Germany, and for a vast fine in the shape of a war indemnity, with which their great conflict closed, while the other Powers seemed to regard without disapproval a measure which perpetuated causes of war. The result to France is that she is silently and resolutely preparing to recover her lost provinces, steadily holding aloof from all courses of action which might hinder her in seeking this end; and, for Germany, that she is hampered in her policy at every great crisis by the knowledge that a watchful, revengeful, powerful enemy is biding her time. It is probable that popular opinion in other countries gives much less than its due weight to this fact, when it watches with such almost servile solicitude the oracular utterances of Prince Bismarck. The fruit of the example set by Germany is now seen in the impudent demand which Russia makes on ruined and prostrate Turkey for the 'war indemnity' which forms one of the most threatening dangers of the treaty of San Stefano, and which seems to assert in its most outrageous form the principle that the winner in these national suits, no matter whether an Antonio or a Shylock, shall always assess his own damages. Meanwhile France continues to arm, Germany cannot disarm, and all who choose to assume that they may quarrel, or be quarrelled with, by either, follow suit.

There is one feature in the case which is not without hope for the future. If the people of any of these countries could decide whether they would continue to furnish these annual contingents of their