Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 1.djvu/103

 BETWEEN THE CZAR AND THE SULTAN. 61 man could look with approval upon the scheme of chap. a lucrative crusade. The Emperor Alexander the L_ First, when he declared that for the time he was trying to withstand the ambition of his people, acknowledged that he was 'the only Russian ' who resisted the views of his subjects upon < Turkey.' * The Czar was the head of the Church. It was not without raising scruples in the minds of the pious that his predecessors had been able to at- tain ecclesiastical authority ; but this shadow of doubt upon the title of the lay Pontiff made it all the more needful for him to take care that his zeal should he above reproach. It is true that the great body of the Muscovite people were sim- ple and docile, not partaking in cares of Govern- ment, and that, even among the most powerful Nobles, there were none who would be unwilling to leave the choice of time and of measures to the chief of the State ;t but still the religious mind of the vast empire would have been dan- gerously shocked if the priests had been forced to know that the Czar failed to share the pious desire of his people; and the minds of men ac- customed to bend their thoughts to the aggran- disement of the nation would be overclouded and chilled if they saw that the Emperor was growing forgetful of their favourite cause. But the prospect of what would follow upon t This now, in 1876, under the Emperor Alexander, can no longer be said.
 * Quoted by Sir H. Seymour, 'Eastern Tapers,' part v. p. 11.