Prince Ferdinand of Bulgaria seems to have carried his Coburg
indifference in matters of religion just one step too far. He first baptised his son Boris according to the Greek rite, then he professed his own willingness to join the Greek Church, and, finally, be proposed that the Bulgarian Church should be reconciled to that of Russia. The Bulgarians. welcomed the baby's " conversion" with enthusiasm, and were willing the Prince should profess any creed he pleased, but the reconciliation of their Church with the Russian was too much for their endurance. They considered it equivalent to an extinction of their nationality, and conveyed their opinion to the Prince in such terms that Ferdinand, who has just accepted a Marshal's baton in the Turkish Army, wisely postponed his project. He has now gone to Moscow to attend the coronation of the Czar as a vassal Prince, and will doubtless be most warmly received both by the Court and by the Church. His subjects, however, have become suddenly suspicions, and he may possibly find that the instinctive human distrust of a man who denies his faith for the sake of promotion has been fatal to all his hopes of founding a dynasty. One successful renegade lives in history,. Henry IV. of France, but he is the only one.
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