Converts to the Russian church are baptized by immersion, and, once received in its bosom, they continue members until death do them part.  What I have said of the church in Siberia will apply throughout all Russia.  The government is far more tolerant in the matter of religion than that of any Roman Catholic country in Europe, and might reprove Great Britain pretty sharply for its religious tyrannies in unhappy Ireland.  Every one in Russia can worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience, provided he does not shock the moral sense of civilization in so doing.  Every respectable form of Christian worship enjoys full liberty, and so does every respectable form of paganism and anti-Christianity.  The Greek faith is the acknowledged religion of the government, and the priests, by virtue of their partly official character, naturally wield considerable power.  The abuse or undue employment of that power is not (theoretically) permitted, however much the church may manifest its zeal.  Every effort is made to convert unbelievers, but no man is forced to accept the Greek faith.

Traveling through Russia one may see many forms of worship.  He will find the altars of Shamanism, the temples of Bhudha, the mosques of Islam, and the synagogues of Israel.  On one single avenue of the Russian capital he will pass in succession the churches of the Greek, the Catholic, the Armenian, the Lutheran, and the Episcopal faith.  He will be told that among the native Russians there are nearly fifty sects of greater or less importance.  There are some advantages in belonging to the church of state, just as in England, but they are not essential.  I am acquainted with officers in the military, naval, and civil service of the government who are not, and never have been, members of the Greek church.  I never heard any intimation that their religion had been the least bar to their progress.

The Pope, in his encyclical of October, 1867, complains of the conduct of the Russian government toward the Catholics in Poland.  No doubt Alexander has played the mischief with the Pope’s faithful in that quarter, but not on account of their religion.  In Warsaw a Russian officer, a Pole by birth, told me of the misfortunes that had fallen upon the Catholic monastery and college in that city.  “We found in the insurrection,” said the officer, “that the monks were engaged in making knives, daggers, cartridges, and other weapons.  The priests were the active men of the rebellion, and did more than any other class to urge it forward, and here is a specimen of iron-mongery from the hands of the monks.  We found two hundred of these in the college recently suppressed.  Many more were distributed and used.”

As he spoke he opened a drawer and showed me a short dagger fitting into a small handle.  The point of the blade had been dipped in poison, and was carefully wrapped in paper.  The instrument was used by sticking it into somebody in a crowd, and allowing it to remain.  Death was pretty certain from a very slight scratch of this weapon.