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its honour and glory as a great State, nor from the glory of
its rulers, but only turns it from a false, still pagan, and mis-
taken path to the true and rightful path, which alone leads
to the eternal goal. This is why the author of the book On
the Foundations of Church Jurisdiction would have judged
correctly if, in seeking and laying down those foundations,
he bad looked upon them as a temporary compromise in-
evitable in our sinful and imperfect days. But as soon as the
author ventures to declare that the foundations which he
predicates now, part of which Father Iosif just enumerated,
are the permanent, essential, and eternal foundations, he is
going directly against the Church and its sacred and eternal
vocation. That is the gist of my article.’
‘That is, in brief,’ Father Paissy began again, laying stress
on each word, ‘according to certain theories only too clear-
ly formulated in the nineteenth century, the Church ought
to be transformed into the State, as though this would be
an advance from a lower to a higher form, so as to disap-
pear into it, making way for science, for the spirit of the age,
and civilisation. And if the Church resists and is unwill-
ing, some corner will be set apart for her in the State, and
even that under control and this will be so everywhere in all
modern European countries. But Russian hopes and con-
ceptions demand not that the Church should pass as from a
lower into a higher type into the State, but, on the contrary,
that the State should end by being worthy to become only
the Church and nothing else. So be it! So be it!’
‘Well, I confess you’ve reassured me somewhat,’ Miusov
said smiling, again crossing his legs. ‘So far as I understand,