"The subjects of the Church, having suffered many, and frequently tyrannical, grievances, which the frequent change of masters very considerably increased, towards the end of the reign of the empress Elizabeth, rose in actual rebellion; and at my accession to the throne there were more than a hundred thousand men in arms. This occasioned me, in 1762, to execute the project of changing entirely the administration of the property of the clergy, and to settle on them fixed revenues. Arsenius, bishop of Rostow, strenuously opposed this, urged on by some of his brother clergy, who did not feel it perfectly convenient to put themselves forward by name. He sent in two memorials, in which he attempted to establish the absurd principle of two powers. He had made the like attempt before, in the time of the empress Elizabeth, when he had been simply enjoined silence; but his insolence and folly redoubling, he was now tried by the metropolitan of Novgorod and the whole synod, condemned as a fanatic, found guilty of attempts contrary to the orthodox faith, as well as to the supreme power, deprived of his dignity and priesthood, and delivered over to the secular arm. I acted leniently towards him; and after reducing him to the situation of a monk, extended his punishment no farther." Such are the very words of the empress; and the inference from the whole case is that she well knows both how to support the Church and how to restrain it; that she respects humanity as well as religion; that she protects the laborer as well as the priest; and that all orders in the state ought both to admire and bless her. I shall hope to be excused for the further indiscretion of transcribing here a passage contained in another of her letters, written on November 28, 1765: "Toleration is established among us; it constitutes a law of the state; persecution is prohibited. We have indeed fanatics who, as they are not persecuted by others, burn themselves; but if those of other countries also did the same, no great harm could result; the world, in consequence of such a system, would have been more tranquil, and Calas would not have been racked to death." Do not imagine that she writes in this style from a feeling of transient and vain enthusiasm, contradicted afterwards in her practice, nor even from a laudable desire of obtaining throughout Europe the suffrages and applause of those who think, and teach others the way to think. She lays down these principles as the basis of her government. She wrote with her own hand, in the "Council of Legislations," the following words, which should be engraved on the gates of every city in the world: "In a great empire, extending its sway over as many different nations as there are different creeds among mankind, the most pernicious fault would be intolerance."