is for him the central person in the world's history. Christ never made
concessions to evil. But His Church to-day is making compromises with all
kinds of evil. The official Church is publishing diplomatic Notes and
promoting the publishing of books. That is all. The Church is afraid of
suffering, although "there are even to-day enough occasions for the Church
to suffer." "Prelates wear the purple which symbolises martyrdom: But who
on earth has heard lately of the martyrdom of a Cardinal?" Mickiewicz
bitterly complains that the "high clergy deserted the way of the Cross.
They never would suffer. In order to escape suffering they fled as refugees
to books, theology and doctrines. But _la force ne vient que de la
douleur_." "The lower clergy, the Russian as the Polish, conserved the
depot of faith intact," but still they are in a darkness of prejudice and
vice. It is remarkable how large a view of the Christian Church had
Mickiewicz. He did not care only for the Roman Church. He called the
Russian Orthodox and the Polish Roman Church by one name--"the Church of
the North." He cared about Christ's Church, and he believed steadfastly in
her Messianic _rôle_ in the world. "The men of conventions must be
defeated," he said. The pride of the high clergy and the fear of suffering
must disappear. "The first need for a modern man is to be inspired and
elevated, _de s'allumer et de s'élever_." The Church is the only bearer of
inspiration and elevation; not the official Church, but the Messianic
Church of "men of suffering, intuition and action," i.e., the primitive
Church of Christ, which Sienkiewicz so magnificently described and for
which Jan Huss so heroically fought.


THE SOUTHERN SLAV REVOLUTION.


In the beginning of the sixteenth century, a preacher of the Gospel in