Men have often blamed that harsh junction of opposites observable in the sudden and artificial civilization of Russia; that is to say, the contrast which there exists between the highest intellectual luxury, and the most exquisite and fashionable refinement in thought and manners among the higher classes, at the court and in the capital, and the very low grade of civilization, the state of utter or at least semi-barbarism, to which so large a portion of the population are reduced. But no very prejudicial effects have resulted to society in Russia, from this conjunction of elements, and from the obstacles which so many vast masses have opposed to the progress of civilization; and even that hurry and precipitancy in the career of enlightenment, which was the great fault of almost all other European countries, was by this means avoided, or rather prevented by the very nature of things. The only thing here to be apprehended and guarded against was this, that in copying the civilization of Europe, Russia should not introduce along with it those negative and destructive principles--those maxims of liberalism and irreligion which were almost exclusively prevalent in European literature and science during the eighteenth century; in a word that Protestantism, (in the wide and comprehensive signification of that term,) should not become too predominant in the public mind. The first ground-work of the modern civilization of Russia, as laid down by Peter the Great, was of a thoroughly practical nature, directed in part to objects of commercial utility, after the manner of the Dutch and English. The moral corruption occasioned by the French philosophy introduced under Catherine II., was confined to a small circle; and in the course of succeeding times, this philosophy came to be considered as an exotic element of destruction, which so far from being adequate to the exigencies of the age, struck at the very root of society. In a more recent period, liberal and Revolutionary theories of government, copied from constitutional countries, may at most have led to a criminal enterprise; but have not exercised any the least permanent influence on the bulk of the nation. But the great and essential point for this European and Asiatic Empire,--the seat of a progressive enlightenment,--as well as for the rest of Europe, is still this--that this enlightenment, which is the basis on which this empire is founded, should never take an irreligious course, but should ever maintain a decidedly religious character. And in this respect more than any other, a generous monarch[19] who became great in the school of adversity, must be considered as the second founder of Russian greatness, because he has stamped on this empire a strong, permanent religious impress. I do not allude here of course to any fanatic measure of coercion, but to the moral influence of religion--to its firm establishment as the general principle of European government in the present times.