ter of the Greeks has been occasioned, in great measure, by the doctrines and practice of their religion. The Greek Church has animated the Muscovite peasant, and inspired him with hopes and ideas, which, however humble, are still better than none at all; but the faith, and the forms, and the strange ecclesiastical literature which act so advantageously upon the mere clay of the Russian serf, seem to hang like lead upon the ethereal spirit of the Greek. Never, in any part of the world, have I seen religious performances so painful to witness as those of the Greeks. The horror, however, with which one shudders at their worship is attributable, in some measure, to the mere effect of costume. In all the Ottoman dominions, and very frequently too, in the Kingdom of Otho, the Greeks wear turbans, or other head-dresses, and shave their heads, leaving only a rat's-tail at the crown of the head; they of course keep themselves covered within doors, as well as abroad, and never remove their head-gear, merely on account of being in a church: but when the Greek stops to worship at his proper shrine, then, and then only, he always uncovers; and as you see him thus with shaven skull, and savage tail pending from his crown, kissing a thing of wood and glass, and cringing with base prostrations, and apparent terror, before a miserable picture, you see superstition in a shape, which, outwardly at least, looks sadly abject and repulsive. **** **** **** **** The fasts, too, of the Greek Church, produce an ill effect upon the character of the people, for they are carried to such an extent, as to bring about a bonâ fide mortification of the flesh; the febrile irritation of the frame operating in conjunction with the depression of spirits occasioned by abstinence, will so far answer
