SAINT SOPHIA AND THE RUSSIANS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5372, 15 June 1878, Page 1 (Supplement)

SAINT SOPHIA AND THE RUSSIANS.

The mosque of Saint Sophia is the goal of the pilgrimage of every Russian who enters the gates of Stamboul; for there is certainly no edifice in the Orient,. and indeed none in all Europe,, which, is regarded by the Russians with such interest, not from an artistic, but from a sentimental point of view. There is scarcely • a Russian soldier who has not in at least a vague way an idea that Constantinople was a Christian city, and that there is a great Christian church there where the Cross is dishonored and insulted. Now the. Czar represents to the peasant the embodiment of all that is good, great, and superior ; and his , idea of the Czar, however indefinable, has a positive foundation. 'He knows that the Czar exists, perhaps he has seen him, or some one of his acquaintances .has had' the privilege of looking from afar upon this august personage. The Cross, the symbol of the faith, is, together with the Czar, the sum total of everything worth living for and serving. The exaltation of the honor Of the Czar and the glorification of the Cross are the sum total of his patriotism.. One great element in the military discipline consists in keeping constantly before the soldier this twin conception of Czar and* Church. The hymn at every meal, the daily, prayers, the Sunday services, and the universal" practice of making the sign of the Cross before the day’s march, before eatingi before a battle, before, in fact, every ,> act of his life—all this is so interwoven with the existence of a soldier that he is literally a Crusader. ‘ What more glorious termination of his crusade could ho imagine, then, than the entrance to the far-off city, of the Sultan, and the restoration of the Cross and the altars of Christain faith to their earlier sanctuaries. , This is the . natural and universal desire of the soldier, and perhaps it is partly on account of his idea that the war is not consistently concluded that he has not been averse to a continuation of hostilities, for ; it must bo said that the possibility of a renewal of the war, even against other Powers, has always been received by the troops with momentary satisfaction, and they would have continued their work with enthusiasm, although it must be understood that every man of them would he only too glad to put his foot in his native village. The officers showed a brief and ephemeral enthusiasm in favor of the war with England first, because they had every confidence in the result; second, because any change would be welcome in the life of forced inaction and complete quiet after the sudden stop of the machinery of war.