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all active duties after having become gray in the service of the Union. He is well known throughout the country, but more particularly in Missouri, having filled the office of Provost-Marshal-General of that State in an able, firm, and upright manner. His head quarters were in St. Louis in the year 1865. Colonel Alexander belonged to the old-school class of army officers, and, like many others, was outstripped in the race for rank by junior officers who entered the lists full of ardor and vigor at the outbreak of the civil war. He commanded the Utah Expedition until relieved by General Johnston, when Grant, Sherman, and McClellan were simply lieutenants, and his service extended through a period of forty years. Graduating at the West Point Military Academy, June 30, 1823, he was the next day promoted brevet second-lieutenant of the Sixth Regular Infantry, and on the 25th of December, 1827, was made a full lieutenant. He attained the rank of captain of the Third Infantry, July 7, 1848; was brevetted major, April 18, 1848, for gallant conduct in the battles of Contreras and Churubusco. At the close of the Mexican War he was promoted to be colonel of the Tenth Infantry, after which he served the Government at Santa Fé, New Mexico, and other points. At the beginning of the civil war, Colonel Alexander was stationed at Fort Laramie, and offered his services, and that of his regiment which was much devoted to him, again and again to the Government, but was retained on the frontier on account of his influence with the Indians. In the spring of 1863 he was ordered to St. Louis as Acting Assistant Provost - MarshalGeneral, the business of which office was to superintend the district provost-marshals, to be informed on the condition of the State, execute the draft, arrest deserters, and to superintend the mustering, in and out, of the troops. This duty was usually assigned, in the respective States, to old and tried army officers, and Colonel Alexander's performance of it, in a manner at once able, honest, and faithful, is well attested. After years of unquestionable integrity and devotion to duty, this distinguished soldier was in 1869 placed upon the retired list, having been brevetted a brigadier-general for his services in recruiting the army during the war.

ALEXANDER II, Emperor of Russia, was assassinated by Nihilist conspirators, March 13th, at St. Petersburg. Born April 29, 1818, Alexander Nicolaevitch's prospects of succeeding to the throne seemed the remotest possible. Four years afterward his uncle Constantine in family conclave renounced the succession, and in his seventh year Alexander I Pavlovitch died in the prime of his life, murdered it is supposed, and was succeeded by Nicholas, the third son of Paul I. The infant Alexander, the Czar's eldest son, was now heir-apparent, but, during the thirty years of his father's reign, his life was almost as unimportant as

that of a grand duke in a collateral line, which seemed his destined lot when in the cradle. His earliest training was directed by his mother, Alexandra Feodorevna, a sister of the present German Emperor; but his father soon withdrew him from the care of the mild, refined Czarina, and sought to inculcate in his heir the thoughts and ways of a soldier. The gentle, kindly, easy-going character of the Czarevitch, different from the arbitrary and passionate temper usually characteristic of the Romanoff family, afforded poor material for a military martinet. His tutor, the poet Shukofsky, instilled in him a love of literature and the contemplative science in vogue in Germany. He was endowed with the linguistic talent of his race in a marked degree, and acquired a familiar acquaintance with the principal modern languages. The ceremonial observances, incumbent on the heir to the throne and nominal commander in the army, formed the chief part of his public activity. At the age of sixteen he was declared of age, and appointed Hetman of the Cossacks and Commandant of the Guards. In 1836 and 1837 he traveled through Northern Russia and Siberia, where he procured the alleviation of the hard lot of political exiles. In 1839 and 1840 he visited various countries of Europe. In 1841 he was married to the Princess Maximiliane Maria of Hesse (see MARIA ALEXANDREVNA in "Annual Cyclopædia" for 1880). From this marriage came six sons (the Grand Dukes Nicholas, Alexander, now Alexander III, Vladimir, Alexis, Sergins, and Paul), and Maria, now Duchess of Edinburgh. In the following years he traveled in Southern Russia, the Caucasus, and Armenia. On one of his tours he took part in an expedition against a tribe of Circassian robbers. He held the post of Director of the Military Schools, but the duties were performed by his assistant, General Rostoftsef, who afterward took a prominent part in the emancipation of the serfs. The Czarevitch was president of one of the commissions appointed to inquire into the condition of the serfs, but gave little attention to the investigation, and favored rather the proprietors than the peasantry. Nicholas was disappointed in his son, who was overawed by his father, as was nearly every one who came in contact with that majestic autocrat. "My son Shasha is an old woman," Nicholas once said; "there will be nothing great done in his time." Had he not wisely kept aloof from state affairs, Alexander, from his very different habits of mind, might have given his father a better opinion of his strength of character by coming into unhappy conflict with the "Iron Czar." He is said to have earnestly protested against the advance on Turkey in 1853. The military schemes of Nicholas, to which he had sacrificed all the best interests of the empire, came to naught, and the Emperor died of shame and disappointment after the loss of the Crimean War. Alexander II

mounted the throne of the exhausted empire on March 3, 1855.

The spread of education in Russia had as its concomitant an extension of liberal ideas. The impressionable religious character of the Russian mind causes a reform movement in Russia to rapidly break out of the bounds of the timely and the practicable. Relieved from the repressive tyranny and the military code of the reign of Nicholas, Young Russia indulged in dreams of social regeneration which were too bright to be realized. The new Czar was in thorough sympathy with the progressive spirit of the time. The reforms which he instituted in the earlier part of his reign seemned in the minds of the enthusiastic revolutionists, who formed three quarters of. the educated people of Russia, to open an era of liberty and enlightenment which was to place Russia in the van of all the nations. Alexander was not carried away with the extravagant enthusiasm which was rife; but, while proceeding with caution, he showed himself disposed to follow to the farthest practicable extent the path of social and political reform. On the 3d of March, 1863, he accomplished by his fiat one of the most gigantic and far-reaching revolutionary events of all history-the emancipation of the Russian serfs. This was the one popular reform of his reign which he never sought to modify or recall. As he was revered in his life-time by the liberated peasantry as the Czar Emancipator, so he will live in history by the same title as one of the most illustrious of his line. Besides the great act of his reign, he instituted internal reforms of great importance. To strike of the shackles of thought, to open the press for the free expression of opinion, and to rid the universities of the drill-masters who subjected professors and students to the discipline of the barracks and exercised a ruthless and ignorant censorship over the studies, was one of the earliest acts of the reforming Czar, and one of the first to be revoked. The system of education was in many particulars improved. The army and navy were reorganized. Trade and industry were specially encouraged. New commercial routes were opened. A revision of the laws was taken in hand. A judicial system on the French model was instituted, the penal code was framed, and the methods of civil and criminal procedure were greatly simplified. A new system of municipal administration was introduced. Limited rights of local selfgovernment and taxation were accorded to districts and provinces, to be exercised by elective assemblies. It was hoped and expected that Alexander would end by conferring a constitution upon Russia, and confide to the people the control of the national destinies. Suddenly the Czar stopped short in his progressive course, reintroduced the harshest of the repressive regulations which he had abolished, and devoted the rest of his life in vainly striving to lay the spirit which he had himself invoked.

The courage with which he persisted in the reactionary policy, offending the most intelligent section of the people, and standing in hourly danger of assassination, was equal to that with which he had faced the wrath of the aristocracy in abolishing serfage. He probably made up his mind tardily that the autocratic principle was essential to the unity and happiness of Russia, and that he had imperiled it and must rescue it at all hazards. The heterogeneous races in Europe and Asia, standing on very different planes of civilization, could hardly be made the recipients of equal rights of representation in a constitutional state without swamping the culture of the very classes who were clamoring for a constitution. Then the idea of the autocracy is so bound up with the religious sentiments of the mass of the people that Alexander II probably recoiled from the responsibility of subjecting their faith and morals to the strain they would have to undergo upon his abdicating his traditional authority, and breaking off his paternal relations to his people.

He

Prudence and benevolence were the leading traits of Alexander's character. Without being endowed with profound sagacity, he sought conscientiously to make up his own mind in every juncture, and in every course which he chose was carried by circumstances farther than he foresaw. He had far-sighted men to advise him, but, instead of implicitly trusting to their genius, he followed in great matters his independent judgment, from a sense of duty rather than from self-confidence. was never carried away with enthusiasm, nor over-hopeful of grand results, but was easily influenced by popular sentiment, which he gave way to as far as his cautious nature would admit. In the emancipation of the serfs his heart was thoroughly enlisted, and he acted in advance of public opinion; in everything else he followed hesitatingly, and always feeling his way. The power of Russia was rapidly extended in Asia during the whole of Alexander's reign. In 1860 a favorable treaty was struck with China, by which Manchooria was secured. In Central Asia one khanate after the other was put through the gradual process which ends in absorption into the Muscovite dominion. In Europe, Russia was silent for many years. She was not "sulking, but recruiting," Gortchakoff declared. In 1863 the Polish rebellion might have been successful but for the aid of Prussia. Then Prince Gortchakoff informed the Western powers that Russia would listen to no intercessions on behalf of the "kingdom of Poland." During the Franco-German War the keen diplomat improved the situation and repudiated the stipulation in the Treaty of Paris forbidding Russia to maintain a naval armament in the Black Sea, on the ground that treaties are only binding so long as both parties are agreed! This cool declaration placed Russia again in her traditional attitude. But for the events of

which it was the prelude the Chancellor was not responsible. He, as well as the Finance Minister, and other members of the Cabinet, earnestly tried to dissuade the Czar from his attitude to the Slav agitation which led to the Turkish War. The Emperor had no sympathy with the Panslavistic cause. Between him and the Philoslav party there were only mutual distrust and repulsion. But he refused to check the belligerent proceedings of the Slavonic Benevolent Society and the Moscow Slavonic Society, or to forbid his officers to volunteer in the Servian War, because his sympathies were with the Turkish Christians, and he could not in his conscience disapprove the intense popular feeling of the time. The traditional duty of the Czar to protect the Orthodox Christians of Turkey was present in his mind, not the desire of founding a Panslavic empire or of forcing the Eastern question and conquering the Bosporus. He was drawn into the war without anticipating it. The speech which he made at Moscow, in which he declared that, if Europe would not secure a better position for the oppressed Slavs, Russia would act alone, he expected would serve as a menace which would be sufficient to bring Turkey to her reason. He was with the army until after the capture of Plevna, visiting the hospitals frequently and winning the hearts of the soldiers by the sincere sympathy and kindness which he showed for the sick and wounded. The grief which he felt for the misery caused by the war was recognized by the people. He was called the "Martyr" and the "Guardian Angel." Yet he refused to listen to advisers who urged the conclusion of peace before the Turkish power was broken.

The first attempt on the Czar's life was in 1866. The following year he was assaulted with murderous intent in the Bois de Boulogne at Paris. After the conclusion of the Berlin Treaty, the flames of Nihilism burst out all over Russia. It became evident that every branch of the public service, every social circle, even the higher ranks of officials, the first families of the aristocracy, and probably the imperial family itself, contained agents and friends of the revolution. A mania for desperate conspiracy seemed to rage. Heterogeneous disaffected elements sought to attain their various objects through a political cataclysm; but the authors and perpetrators of the revolutionary deeds were the Russian socialists, the most daring and resolute political conspirators of any age. Every arrest and condemnation for political crime was a provocation for acts more flagrant and defiant. In 1879 the Emperor knew that his death was compassed by the Nihilistic committee in St. Petersburg, the central source of terrorism. The Czarina died in 1879. The relations of the Czar to the Princess Dolgorouky, his determination to marry her morganatically, and the vehement opposition of his children, were the cause of additional unhappiness at the time when he felt

that the sword of Nihilism was suspended over his head. He did not shrink from the task of trying to extirpate the dangerous growth. The measures taken are described in the last two volumes of the "Annual Cyclopædia." In April, 1879, the school-master Solovieff fired four times at the Czar in the palace garden at St. Petersburg. In November the dynamite mine was exploded on the Moscow Railroad, which, owing to a change in the programme, destroyed the baggage-train instead of the carriage in which the Emperor was traveling. In February, 1880, explosives fired in the cellar of the Winter Palace would have destroyed the Czar and his guests while at dinner, had he not by a rare chance been a few minutes late. Melikoff's administration of the extraordinary powers confided to him seemed to be successful in unearthing the Nihilist conspirators and checking their activity. There was a prospect that a man of his liberal ideas and popular sympathies might eventually find out a remedy for the disorder more effective than mere repressive violence. But the murder of the Czar altered the situation. The plot was laid this time so that the Emperor could hardly escape and his assassin must surely be captured. Four conspirators were posted along the street through which the Czar was driving home from a review. Each had ready to cast a small bomb of certain and terrible explosive power. Confederates in the throng gave the signal. The second petard proved fatal. The particulars of the plot and the disclosures of the trial of the conspirators are recounted in the article RUSSIA.

ANGLICAN CHURCHES. The clerical list of the Church of England for 1880 contains twenty-six thousand names, showing a gain of about six thousand clergymen since 1859. More than six thousand clergymen are not in pastoral work.

According to the report of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners for England, four thousand seven hundred benefices were augmented and endowed by them between 1840 and 1880. The increase in the incomes of benefices, from the augmentations and endowments made by the commissioners or through their instrumentality, amounted on October 31, 1880, to about £756,500 per annum, representing the income from a capital sum of about £23,000,000.

The eighty-second annual meeting of the Church Missionary Society was held in London, May 3d, the Earl of Chichester presiding. The total receipts for the year had been £207,508, of which £189,685 were applicable to the general expenditure, the rest having come in special contributions. Besides the European missionaries, 110 native clergy and 1,720 lay teachers were employed in the missions, and 1,000 schools were attached to them. The report stated that between three and four thousand well-instructed adult converts were baptized each year through the society's labors. The missions in India absorbed one half the mis

sionaries of the society, and nearly half of its foreign expenditure. The native churches in West Africa were gaining strength and taking upon themselves more and more the responsibilities of pastoral and missionary work. The spiritual and philanthropic work of the Freretown mission, in East Africa, had been carried on with unceasing energy. Reports were also made of the mission at Uganda, of the missions at Jerusalem, Jaffa, Gaza, Nablus, and the Hauran, in Palestine, of stations in Persia, and the other older and extensive missions of the society.

The one hundred and eightieth annual meeting of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts was held May 12th, the Archbishop of Canterbury presiding. The income of the society during 1880 had been £138,288, against £131,674 in 1879. Five hundred and eighty-six ministers had been employed during the year: 157 in Asia, 121 in Africa, 54 in Australia and the Pacific, 253 in America and the West Indies, and one in Europe. There were also in connection with the society 1,242 catechists and lay teachers, mostly natives in heathen countries, and about 250 students in colleges abroad, who were in training for the work of the ministry in the lands of their birth.

The Convocation of Canterbury met for the dispatch of business, February 8th. The archbishop presented to the Upper House the subject of the addresses which had been sent to him for and against greater liberty in ritual. A resolution was passed in the Upper House requesting the archbishop to take steps with a view to obtaining from the crown a letter of business committing to convocation the work of providing for a fuller representation of the parochial clergy in the Lower House; the Lower House, however, declined to concur in this action. A resolution was passed in the Upper House approving of the scope of the bill which had been introduced into the House of Commons by Mr. E. Stanhope, to give effect to the recommendations of the Royal Commission on the sale and exchange of benefices. A report having been presented from the Lower House on the recommendations of a committee which had been appointed "on the relations of church and state," suggesting that greater authority should be given to convocation, the Upper House requested the archbishop to move for a royal commission to consider the subjects of clerical discipline and of courts of first instance and of appeal in ecclesiastical causes. An articulus cleri was adopted by the Lower House and sent up to the Upper House, asking that body, in view of the uncertainties that were thought to surround some recent interpretations of ecclesiastical law, and of the peculiar character of the parishes and the congregations placed in similar religious circumstances, to discountenance as much as possible legal proceedings in such matters. In making this request, the resolution said:

The Lower House feels that this forbearance must be conditioned by limitations.

The Upper House adopted a resolution declaring that

Litigation in matters of ritual is to be deprecated and deplored, and if possible to be avoided. This House also declares that authority to settle differences in such matters is inherent in the episcopal office, as witpreface of the Book of Common Prayer; and while nessed by ancient practice, and as referred to in the this House entertains the hope that the clergy, as in duty bound, will, in conjunction with the laity, support the legitimate authority, it also expresses its confidence that this authority will be exercised by the bishops of this province in their respective dioceses, with the earnest endeavor to compose such differences without litigation, and at the same time to maintain order, decency, purity of doctrine, and edification in Divine worship.

The convocation met again May 17th. The committee which had been appointed in 1870 for the revision of the authorized version of the Holy Scriptures reported that the revision of the New Testament had been completed, and presented the volume containing the same. The Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol spoke upon the character and extent of the labors of the committee, after which thanks were recorded to those members of the body who were not appointed by convocation. A resolution was adopted in the Upper House for the appointment of a joint committee of both Houses, to inquire into the remedies provided by law for neglect of duty by the clergy. The special attention of the parliamentary committee was asked by the Lower House for the Charity Trusts Bill. A resolution was adopted as an articulus cleri deprecating any further relaxation of the oath of allegiance required from persons seeking admission into Parliament. The Bishop of Llandaff stated that a committee had been appointed by the Welsh bishops and clergy to consider the expediency of undertaking a revised version of the New Testament in the Welsh language.

The convocation met again July 19th. The alleged neglect of baptism, and a proposition for the constitution of a Board of Missions, were discussed in the Upper House, and projects for giving religious instruction to seamen, and for securing the simultaneous bringing forward of church questions in church conferences and synods, in the Lower House. The Bishops of Lincoln, Exeter, and Truro were requested to consider what measures could with propriety be taken to secure the release of the Rev. S. F. Green, who was in prison for contumacy in resisting an order of the court, commanding him to desist from certain practices in ritual which had been declared unlawful.

The Convocation of York met April 26th and 27th. A motion was offered by the Bishop of Manchester to the effect that, in view of the doubtfulness attaching to the interpretation of the rubric relating to ornaments of the church and of ministers, as it now stands, and of the frequent litigation that has ensued, the rubric should be expunged, to establish a clear and

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The Archbishop of Canterbury moved in the House of Lords, March 7th, the resolution which had been approved by the Convocation of Canterbury, for the appointment of a royal commission to inquire into the constitution and working of the ecclesiastical courts as created or modified under the Reformation Statutes of the 24th and 25th of King Henry VIII, and any subsequent acts, and the resolution was adopted without a division.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, with the advice and consent of the bishops of both provinces, published a letter in September in answer to a memorial which had been presented to the convocation in May, concerning what further steps could be taken toward grappling with infidelity and indifference to religion, and particularly suggesting the extension, with some modifications, of the plan for employing lay agents in directly spiritual work which had already been partially introduced in a few dioceses. After reviewing what had been accomplished so far by the employment of lay agents, the archbishop recommended that in every diocese laymen should offer themselves to the parochial clergy for the distinct work of readers; that the clergy should widely make known their desire to receive the co-operation of such laymen; and that when suitable men had come forward and been approved, they should receive a formal commission from the bishop, solemnized by an appropriate religious service. Such lay readers, the archbishop advised, should occupy a definite office, distinct alike from that of the ordinary lay helpers, and from that of women engaged in similar work.

The annual conference and annual meeting of the Society for the Liberation of Religion from State Patronage and Control were held May 11th. Mr. H. R. Ellington presided. The executive committee, in its report, congratulated the friends of the society on the revival of public interest in domestic questions, which would be certain to prove advantageous to the cause of disestablishment. Three quarters of a million copies of publications had been circulated, and about three hundred and fifty meetings had been held, during the year. Some advantage had been and would be taken of the interest shown by the farmers in the question of tithes. The passage of the Burials Act and its successful working were referred to in congratulatory terms. Resolutions were adopted

in respect to the death of Mr. Miall, the founder and chief promoter of the society, and a resolution was passed to the effect that-

While the Council will gladly support measures which will put an end to the traffic in church livings in the Church of England, it feels bound to oppose proposals which provide for the perpetuation of the traffic under whatever conditions, believing that the corrupt and illegal practices disclosed before the Royal Commissioners will not cease until the right to appoint to benefices ceases to be treated as property capable of being sold or bequeathed. And the Council cellor should have brought in the Augmentation of expresses great surprise that the present Lord ChanBenefices Act Amendment Bill, which aims at increasing the value of crown livings for the express purpose of making them salable, and of thereby converting public into private patronage.

At a private conference of persons interested in the work of the Church Defense Association held March 28th, the Archbishop of Canterbury presiding, a resolution was passed declaring

That in view of the strenuous and persistent efforts now being made to prejudice the public mind against the national Church, it is indispensable that a corresponding effort be made on the part of all who are attached to her, without distinction of religious or political party, to take such steps as may be needful for putting distinctly before the country the truth as regards the work, history, and position of the Church of England.

Efforts to add to the funds of the association were also resolved upon, in pursuance of which the Archbishop of Canterbury shortly afterward addressed a letter to the clergy directing their attention to the objects and operations of the Liberation Society, and the necessity of giving increased support to measures for counteracting them.

The twenty-first annual Church Congress was held at Newcastle-on-Tyne, beginning October 4th. The Bishop of Durham presided. The question of ritual was discussed under the topic of "The Limits within which Variations of Ritual may be permitted," by the Dean of Durham, Archdeacon Bardsley, Earl Nelson, the Dean of Chester, the Rev. Berdmore Compton, and the Rev. P. G. Medd. The question of "the Ecclesiastical Courts; the Principles on which they should be constituted, and the Methods by which their Decisions can be made more effectual," was considered by the Hon. and Rev. W. H. Fremantle, Dr. H. Cowie (Chancellor of the diocese), the Hon. C. L. Wood, Sir W. Worseley, and others. Other subjects which engaged the attention of the Congress were: "The Relation of the Church of England to Churches in Communion with her in (a) Scotland, (b) Ireland, (c) America and the Colonies"; "The Duty of the Church in Respect to the Prevalence of Secularism and Spiritualism"į. "The Organization and Development of Lay Work in Connection with the Church, that of Men and that of Women"; "The Connection between Church and State, what we gain by it and what we lose by it"; "The Adaptation of the Parochial System and of Public Worship to the Require

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