Neither have we by any means an unlimited confidence in the action which might be exercised by the emperors of Russia on the bishops and clergy of their church. While retaining the hope that the czars may understand that it is to their interest to dispossess themselves, in great part at least, of the religious power, and not even despairing of their favoring the reunion of the Russian bishops with Rome, our confidence is not based upon their actions. It is difficult for us to believe that they could be moved by other than political interests; that which we have said, therefore, respecting a return _en masse_ of the Russian people, would consequently here again find its application. Besides, if formerly the word of a czar was that of Russia, and his will the will also of his subjects, it is no longer the same in the present day. When Peter I. accepted the scheme of reunion proposed by the doctors of the Sorbonne of Paris, and consented to have it examined by his bishops (1717); when Paul I. took into consideration the plan suggested by Father Gruber (1800), one might truly have said, Russia promises fair to become Catholic. At this present time, however, an emperor of Russia might probably speak and promise for himself alone. We must add that at a period when changes in popular opinion and sympathies are as frequent as they are sudden, the simple fact that the reunion with Rome had been promoted and favored by a czar might, in certain circumstances, furnish an additional pretext for disavowing it afterwards. But what is it, then, which induces us to hope, which sustains our confidence, and which emboldens us to manifest it openly, though we should seem to be following an utopian idea? In the first place, we have hope in a change which, grace aiding it, the events recently accomplished, and those which are continuing to take place in Europe, will work on the minds of men. Events have their logic, and it imposes itself also upon the nations. The alternative indicated above, and which will force minds to recognize the divinity of the Catholic Church, will become an evident fact, and God will do the rest. We hope because Alexander II. has emancipated the peasantry, and we may be allowed to see in the emancipation of the peasantry the prelude to the emancipation of the Russian Church. We shall return to this point. We hope because the spirit of apostolate, by faith and charity, is now more powerful than ever in the Catholic Church. As soon as the doors of Russia shall be open to her, and she can there freely exercise her action, her priests, her missionaries, her religious orders, her Sisters of Charity, her Little Sisters of the Poor, will present themselves of their own accord. God will do the rest.