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+Project Gutenberg's Russian Life To-day, by Right Rev. Herbert Bury
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Russian Life To-day
+
+Author: Right Rev. Herbert Bury
+
+Release Date: July 31, 2010 [EBook #33303]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RUSSIAN LIFE TO-DAY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Brownfox and the Online Distributed Proofreading
+Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+RUSSIAN LIFE TO-DAY
+
+[Illustration: _His Imperial Majesty the Tsar._]
+
+
+
+
+                          RUSSIAN LIFE
+                            TO-DAY
+
+                            BY THE
+
+                  RIGHT REV. HERBERT BURY, D.D.
+
+             _Bishop for Northern and Central Europe
+                Author of "A Bishop among Bananas"_
+
+
+                    A. R. MOWBRAY & CO. LTD.
+
+          LONDON: 28 Margaret Street, Oxford Circus, W.
+                     OXFORD: 9 High Street
+            MILWAUKEE, U.S.A.: The Young Churchman Co.
+
+
+
+
+_TO MY FELLOW COUNTRYMEN
+AT WORK IN SIBERIA_
+
+
+First impression, March, 1915
+
+New impressions, April, July, December, 1915
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+My first inclination, when the entirely unexpected proposal of the
+Publishers came to me to write this book, was immediately to decline.
+There are so many well-known writers on Russia, whose books are an
+unfailing pleasure and source of information, that it seemed to me to be
+nothing less than presumption to add to their number. But when I was
+assured that there seems to be a great desire just now for a book which,
+as the Publishers expressed it, "should not attempt an elaborate sketch
+of the country, nor any detailed description of its system of government
+and administration, or any exhaustive study of the Russian Church, and
+yet should give the _impressions_ of a sympathetic observer of some of
+the chief aspects of Russian Life which are likely to appeal to an
+English Churchman," I felt that I might venture to attempt it.
+
+It has been given to me to get to understand thoroughly from close and
+intimate knowledge the commercial development of Siberia by our
+countrymen; and yet everywhere, both there and in Russia proper, I have
+to go to every place specially and primarily to give the ministrations
+of religion. It can be permitted to few, if any, to see those two sides
+of the life of a great and growing Empire at the same time. This has
+been my reason, therefore, for undertaking this small effort, and my
+object is to give, as the Publishers expressed it, "personal
+impressions." I hope my readers will accept this book, therefore, as an
+impressionist description of Russian life of to-day, of which it would
+have been quite impossible to keep personal experiences from forming an
+important part. And though I write as an English Churchman, yet I wish
+to speak, and I trust in no narrow spirit, to the whole religious
+public, that I may draw them more closely into intelligent sympathy with
+this great nation which has seemed to come so suddenly, unexpectedly,
+and intimately into our own national life and destiny--and I believe as
+a friend.
+
+HERBERT BURY,
+_Bishop_.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAP.                                                PAGE
+
+   I. RUSSIA'S GREAT SPACES                            1
+
+  II. GENERAL SOCIAL LIFE                             21
+
+ III. THE PEASANTRY                                   46
+
+  IV. THE CLERGY                                      71
+
+   V. RELIGIOUS LIFE AND WORSHIP                      95
+
+  VI. HIS IMPERIAL MAJESTY THE TSAR                  118
+
+ VII. A PATERNAL GOVERNMENT                          139
+
+VIII. THE STEPPES                                    162
+
+  IX. RUSSIA'S PROBLEM                               186
+
+   X. THE ANGLICAN CHURCH IN RUSSIA                  205
+
+  XI. THE JEWS                                       228
+
+ XII. OUR COUNTRYMEN IN THE EMPIRE                   248
+
+INDEX                                                268
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+HIS IMPERIAL MAJESTY THE TSAR             _Frontispiece_
+
+RUSSIA'S GREAT SPACES--WINTER            _facing page_ 4
+
+RUSSIA'S GREAT SPACES--SUMMER               "      "   8
+
+THE KREMLIN                                 "      "  21
+
+THE GATE OF THE REDEEMER, MOSCOW            "      "  29
+
+A WELL-CLAD COACHMAN                        "      "  33
+
+A VILLAGE SCENE                             "      "  46
+
+THE METROPOLITAN OF MOSCOW                  "      "  71
+
+THE CONVENT AT EKATERINBURG, SIBERIA        "      "  78
+
+THE ABBESS MAGDALENA                        "      "  84
+
+THE RUSSIAN PRIEST AT SPASSKY               "      "  90
+
+S. ISAAC'S CATHEDRAL, PETROGRAD             "      "  95
+
+INTERIOR OF A RUSSIAN CHURCH                "      " 102
+
+THE CATHEDRAL AT RIGA                       "      " 112
+
+HER IMPERIAL MAJESTY THE TSARITSA           "      " 118
+
+HIS IMPERIAL HIGHNESS THE TSAREVITCH ALEXEI "      " 125
+
+HER IMPERIAL HIGHNESS THE GRAND DUCHESS
+  ELIZABETH, THE FRIEND OF THE POOR         "      " 139
+
+CHARACTERISTIC GROUP OF RUSSIANS            "      " 144
+
+A GROUP OF RUSSIAN PEASANTS                 "      " 152
+
+CONSECRATION OF BURIAL GROUND IN THE
+  SIBERIAN STEPPES                          "      " 162
+
+OUTSIDE A KIRGHIZ UERTA                     "      " 166
+
+TARANTASS WITH ITS TROIKA FOR THE STEPPES   "      " 170
+
+INSIDE A KIRGHIZ UERTA                      "      " 180
+
+RUSSIAN SERVICE AT THE ATBAZAR MINE         "      " 186
+
+A CLASS OF RUSSIAN STUDENTS WITH TEACHER    "      " 195
+
+THE ENGLISH CHURCH OF S. ANDREW, MOSCOW     "      " 205
+
+THE BISHOP AND RUSSIAN CHAUFFEUR            "      " 216
+
+THE BRITISH COMMUNITY AT ATBAZAR, SIBERIA   "      " 224
+
+THE ARCHBISHOP OF WARSAW                    "      " 228
+
+A POLISH JEW                                "      " 236
+
+CAMELS AT WORK--SUMMER                      "      " 256
+
+CAMELS AT WORK--WINTER                      "      " 262
+
+MAP                                             _at end_
+
+
+
+
+RUSSIAN LIFE TO-DAY
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+RUSSIA'S GREAT SPACES
+
+
+I will begin my opening chapter by explaining how I come to have the joy
+and privilege of travelling far and wide, as I have done, in the great
+Russian Empire. I go there as Assistant Bishop to the Bishop of London,
+holding a commission from him as bishop in charge of Anglican work in
+North and Central Europe.
+
+It may seem strange that Anglican work in that distant land should be
+directly connected with the Diocese of London, but the connection
+between them, and between all the countries of Northern and Central
+Europe, as far as our Church of England work is concerned, is of long
+standing. It dates from the reign of Charles I, and from an Order in
+Council which was passed in 1633, and placed the congregations of the
+Church of England in _all_ foreign countries at that time under the
+jurisdiction of the Bishop of London "as their Diocesan." It may be
+remembered that when the present Bishop of London went to Washington
+some years ago he took with him some interesting documents which he had
+found in the library at Fulham Palace, and which were connected with the
+time when Church work in the United States looked to London for
+superintendence and episcopal leadership. These he handed over to the
+custody of the Episcopal Church of America, knowing how interested that
+Church would be to possess them, and to keep them amongst other
+historical records.
+
+The same rapid progress as that which has attended the American Church
+has been made in the Colonies and other parts of the world. New dioceses
+and provinces have been formed one after another, and in 1842 the
+Diocese of Gibraltar was formed, taking in the congregations of the
+English Church in Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Roumania, and all places
+bordering upon the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. But the other
+countries of Europe, to the north and in the centre, remain still, as
+far as Church work goes, where that old Order in Council placed them, in
+the jurisdiction of the Bishop of London.
+
+It is impossible, of course, that he should attempt to meet this
+responsibility himself and bear the burden of such a diocese as that of
+London, and so the rule has been, since 1825, to issue a commission to
+another bishop, who, while being an assistant, yet has to feel himself
+fully responsible, and in this way spare the Bishop of London as much as
+he possibly can.
+
+It will therefore be understood, as I have said in my few words of
+introduction, that, filling such a position and having such work to
+superintend, and also, for many reasons to be more fully explained in
+succeeding pages, finding the Orthodox Church of Russia very friendly
+towards our own, I shall write throughout with those whom I have termed
+the "religious public" very clearly in my mind and sympathies. At the
+same time I am hoping to interest the general reader also, and therefore
+shall try my utmost to give a comprehensive view of Russian life as it
+will be found to-day by travellers on the one hand if they give
+themselves time and opportunity enough, and by those, on the other, who
+have to go and live and work in Russia.
+
+First impressions are usually interesting to recall. Mine were immediate
+and extraordinarily vivid, and were all associated with thoughts--which
+have gradually become convictions--of Russia's vast potentialities and
+future greatness.
+
+When first I had the honour and pleasure of an audience with the Emperor
+of Russia--I will speak of it at greater length in a later chapter--one
+of the first questions he asked me was:--
+
+"And what has most impressed you, so far, on coming, as a new
+experience, into my country?"
+
+I was not prepared for the question, but answered at once and without
+the least hesitation--for there seemed to come into my mind even as His
+Majesty spoke, the vivid impression I had received--
+
+"Russia's great spaces!"
+
+"Ah, yes!" he said, evidently thinking very deeply; "that is true.
+Russia's _great_ spaces--what a striking impression they must make, for
+the first time!"
+
+[Illustration: _Russia's Great Spaces--Winter._]
+
+I went on to explain that one can see great spaces elsewhere. On the
+ocean when for days together no other vessel is seen; on some of the
+great plains in the other hemisphere; riding across the great Hungarian
+tableland; and even in Central France or in the Landes to the west I
+have felt this sense of space and distance; but Russia's great flat or
+gently undulating expanses have always seemed to me to suggest other
+spaces on beyond them still, and to give an impression of the vast
+and illimitable, such as I have never known elsewhere. It is under this
+impression of vast resources, no doubt, that so many military
+correspondents of our daily papers constantly speak of the Russian
+forces as "inexhaustible." It is the same with other things also. They
+suggest such marvellous possibilities.
+
+This is the impression I would like to give at once in this my opening
+chapter--a sense of spaciousness--power to expand, to develop, to open
+out, to make progress, to advance and grow. It is not the impression the
+word "Russia" usually makes upon people who know little about her inner
+life, and have received their ideas from those who have experienced the
+repressive and restrictive side of her policy and administration. But I
+can only give, and am glad of the opportunity, the results of my own
+experiences and observations; and those are embodied in my reply to the
+Emperor.
+
+When I crossed the Russian frontier for the first time it was with a
+very quaking and apprehensive spirit. All that lay beyond was full of
+the mysterious and unknown, so entirely different, one felt it must be,
+from all one's previous experiences of life! Anything might happen, for
+this was Russia! "Russia" has stood so long with us in this country for
+the repressive and reactionary, for the grim and forbidding and
+restricting, that it will be difficult for many to part with those
+ideas, and I can hardly hope to remove impressions now deeply rooted. I
+can only say, however, that my own prejudices and preconceptions in the
+same direction disappeared, one after another, with astonishing rapidity
+in my first year; and now my spirits rise every time I cross the
+frontier of that great country, and my heart warms to that great people
+as soon as I see their kindly and friendly faces, their interesting and
+picturesque houses, and catch my first sight of their beautiful
+churches, with the fine cupolas above them with their hanging chains,
+painted and gilded domes, and delicate finials glittering in the sun and
+outlined against a sky of blue. Russia to me presents at once a kindly,
+friendly atmosphere, and others feel it also; for I have, just before
+writing these words, laid down a copy of _The Times_ in which Mr.
+Stephen Graham--no one knows the heart and soul of Russia quite as he
+does, I fancy--writing one of his illuminating articles on "Russia's
+Holy War," says "People in Russia are naturally kind. They have become
+even gentler since the war began." Those who enter Russia expecting the
+unfriendly will find, I feel sure, as we have done, exactly the
+opposite--nothing but kindness and courtesy. It will be the same in
+other experiences also if I mistake not.
+
+One of the chief difficulties ordinary travellers or tourists expect to
+encounter, for instance, in Russia is that of language.
+
+"Isn't it extraordinarily difficult to acquire, and to make yourself
+understood?" is an invariable question, and certainly in long journeys
+across country, as from Warsaw up to Riga, and from Libau on the Baltic
+to Moscow, and especially in my Mining Camp Mission in Siberia, I
+expected to have very great difficulties; but, as so often happens, they
+were difficulties in anticipation rather than in reality.
+
+Even off the beaten track in Russia any one who can travel comfortably
+in other European countries can travel equally satisfactorily there.
+Most educated people speak French, and an ever-increasing number--for
+English governesses and nurses are in great request--speak English.
+Great numbers of the working class speak German, the national language,
+of course, of Russia's Baltic provinces, on railway trains as conductors
+and in restaurants as waiters, and at railway stations as porters.
+Indeed, if any one is in the dining-car of a train or in the buffet or
+dining-room of a railway station or other public place, and has the
+courage to stand up and say, "Does any one here speak French?" or "Does
+any one here speak German?" some one ready to help and be friendly will
+invariably come forward.
+
+In my first Siberian Mission, however, I found myself in a real
+difficulty. I had to drive across the Kirghiz Steppes from the railway
+at Petropavlosk, about four days and nights east of Moscow, to the
+Spassky Copper Mine, and the management had sent down a very reliable
+Kirghiz servant of theirs to be my interpreter; but I found that his
+only qualification for the work of interpreting was that, in addition to
+his own Kirghiz tongue, he could speak Russian!
+
+For the inside of a week, travelling day and night, we had to get on as
+best we could together, and arrange all the business of changing horses,
+getting food, and paying expenses, largely by signs. Once only, and then
+in the dead of night when changing horses, did we encounter a
+German-speaking farmer from Courland or Lettland on the Baltic, and a
+great joy it was to him to meet some one who knew those fair parts of
+the Russian Empire where agricultural work brings much more encouraging
+results for the toil bestowed upon it than Siberia, with its terrible
+winter season.
+
+[Illustration: _Russia's Great Spaces--Summer._]
+
+But though to acquire a knowledge of Russian for literary purposes, so
+as to write and compose correctly, must be most difficult, owing to
+the number of letters in the alphabet--forty-six as compared with our
+twenty-six--and the entirely different way from our own in which they
+are written, I do not think it is difficult to acquire a fair knowledge
+of the language in a comparatively short time so as to make one's self
+understood and get along. I find young Englishmen, going to work in
+Russia and beyond the Urals, very quickly come to understand what is
+being said, and to make known their own wishes and requirements; and in
+a couple of years, or sometimes less, they speak quite fluently.
+
+It always seems to me that the Russians pronounce their words with more
+syllabic distinctness than either the French or Germans. And that
+natural kindness and friendliness of the whole people, of which I have
+already written, makes them wish to be understood and to help those with
+whom they are speaking to grasp their meaning. This, of course, makes
+all the difference!
+
+When the question of the great difficulty of the language is raised
+another remark nearly always follows:
+
+"But then the Russians are such great linguists that they easily
+understand!" And it is usually supposed that they "easily learn other
+languages because their own is so difficult," though they encounter no
+more difficulty, probably, than any one else when talking in their own
+tongue in infancy. They are "great linguists" for the same reason as the
+Dutch--and that is because, if they wish to be in educated society or in
+business on any large scale, their own language will only go a very
+short way.
+
+In Russia as in Holland, as I have been told in both countries, an
+educated household will contain a German nurse and an English governess,
+while French will be the rule at table. It used to be a French
+governess, but now the English governess is in great request everywhere
+in Russia and Poland; and, in the great nobles' houses, there is the
+English tutor also--not always for the language, but to impart English
+ideas to the boys of the family. When I was last in Warsaw, an Oxford
+graduate came up at a reception and introduced himself, and told me he
+was with a Polish prince who had astonished him on the first morning
+after his arrival by saying:--
+
+"I have engaged you as a tutor for my two boys, but it will not be
+necessary for you to teach them anything--that is already provided for.
+I want you to be their companion, walk out with them, play games with
+them, and help them to grow up after the manner of English gentlemen."
+
+There is no real difficulty, therefore, with the language, nor is there
+with the money of the country as soon as one realizes the value of the
+rouble, eight of which make nearly a pound, and that it is divided into
+a hundred _kopecks_, pronounced _kopeeks_, two of which are equal to
+about a farthing.
+
+And now to speak of the actual travelling. Everything in the way of
+communication in Russia is on a large scale and in keeping with the
+answer I gave to the Emperor, and which I have placed at the head of
+this chapter. As soon as one passes the frontier, for instance, the
+travellers change into carriages adapted for a broad-gauge railway, and
+are at once in more commodious quarters. There is no land, I suppose,
+where travelling over great distances is so comfortable as in Russia for
+all classes; and it is incredibly cheap, first-class tickets costing
+less than third in our own country, for those using the ordinary post
+train, which every year becomes more comfortable and nearer to the
+standard of the wagon-lit. There are excellent lavatories, kept
+perfectly clean, where one can wash, shave, and almost have a sponge
+bath, for--though without the luxuries of the Trans-Siberian
+express--there is more room.
+
+There is usually a restaurant-car on the long-distance trains--and
+practically all the trains in Russia are for long distances--and, if
+not, there is plenty of time to get food at the stations on the way.
+Conductors will take every care and trouble to get what is necessary,
+and first and second-class compartments are never overcrowded, as far as
+my experience goes. I believe, indeed, that not more than four people
+may be put into a compartment for the night, and, as the cushioned back
+of the seats can be lifted up, all the four travellers can be sure of
+being able to lie down. The first-class compartments on a post train are
+divided into two by folding-doors, and one is allowed to buy a
+_platzcarte_ and so have the whole compartment to one's self. Every
+accommodation too is provided for lying down comfortably in the
+third-class, and the travellers there are always the happiest-looking on
+the train.
+
+Another consideration shown to the public is that the scale of charges
+falls in proportion to the distance to be traversed. The stations are
+specially spacious, particularly along the routes beyond Moscow, where
+emigration continually goes on into the great pastoral lands of Siberia.
+In the summer months the traffic is very great, and it is one of the
+most touching and appealing experiences I can recall to pass through one
+of the great waiting-halls of such a station as Samara, at night, and
+pick one's way amongst the sleeping families of peasants waiting to get
+their connection with another line, and resting in the meantime. Their
+little possessions are all about them, and father and mother and sons
+and daughters lie gathered close up together, pillowing their heads upon
+each other, good-looking, prettily dressed, and fast asleep--as
+attractive a picture as any one could wish to see.
+
+There is a great freedom of movement everywhere in Russia, and I do not
+remember having seen the word _verboten_ (the German for "forbidden"),
+or its equivalent, in any part of a Russian or Siberian station. The
+rule of having three bells to announce approaching departure is a most
+excellent one, whether the pause is long or short, the first ringing
+very audibly about five minutes, the second one minute, and the third
+immediately before departure. If travelling long distances, the
+ten-minutes' stop at all large towns gives plenty of opportunity for
+exercise and fresh air, and the absolute certainty of hearing the bells
+gives a perfect sense of security that no one will be left behind. If
+the bell rings twice just as the train enters the station, every one
+knows that the stay will be short, and that it is not worth while
+getting out.
+
+Some of the most resting and refreshing experiences I have ever had have
+been those of travelling day after day for some two or three thousand
+miles in Russia, getting one's correspondence straight, for writing is
+quite easy in those steady and slow-moving express trains, reading up
+reviews and periodicals or making plans for future journeys, looking out
+of the windows in the early morning or late evening, all varied by meals
+in the _coupe_ or at a station, seeing all kinds of interesting people
+in strange costumes, and many attractive incidents at places where one
+alights for a walk and exercise.
+
+More interesting than the railways, however, are the rivers. How large
+these are, and how important a part they have filled in the past, before
+the days of railways, and still play in the commerce and life of the
+people, will be seen at once by a glance at the map at the end of the
+book. None of them, however, though one gets a real affection for the
+Neva after sledging over it in the winter and sailing upon it in the
+summer, attracts and indeed fascinates, as the Volga never fails to do.
+It is magnificent in size, and is the largest in Europe, 2,305 miles in
+length, three times as long as the Rhine. Many of us know what the
+Rhine is to the Germans. Treitschke, as we have been reminded in one of
+the most widely read of modern books, when leaving Bonn, wrote to a
+friend, "To-morrow I shall see the Rhine for the last time. The memory
+of that noble river will keep my heart pure, and save me from sad and
+evil thoughts throughout all the days of my life."
+
+I have always understood the strong appeal to the historic, and even the
+poetic, sense which the Rhine puts forth, but I never understood the
+sense of the ideal which a river might convey until I saw, approached,
+and crossed the Volga.
+
+It was a May evening, three years ago, as we drew near and then passed
+along its right bank before crossing. It was of the loveliest colour of
+rich and living brown, like that of a healthy human skin, carrying life
+and burdens of every description upon its ample bosom, fostering all
+kinds of enterprise and activity on its shores, and flowing on with
+stately dignity, as if it would not be hurried from its calm
+consciousness of its own strength and significance for those nine
+provinces through which it passes on its way to the Caspian. I felt its
+spell at once, and, as I crossed the great bridge over which the
+Trans-Siberian line is carried--an exquisite piece of engineering a mile
+and a quarter in length--I knew that I should always feel a curious
+sense of personality in connection with that glorious river. I think
+Merriman, in one of his novels, speaks of associating a sense of
+consciousness with the Volga; and that is just what I have felt each
+time of crossing over its bounteous-looking, calm, and steady flow. It
+seems to live and know.
+
+The third and last "difficulty" which I will speak of in this opening
+chapter, and which is no difficulty at all, is the passport. Every one
+in Russia must possess one; and, if travelling and intending to spend
+one or two nights in a place, it must be sent to the proper official and
+be duly stamped. It must be _vised_ by the Russian ambassador, or
+minister, at the place from which one starts before entering Russia;
+and, which is even more important, it must be _vised_ by the right
+official at some important town or place of government, and stamped with
+the necessary permission, before one is able to _leave_ Russia.
+
+It is natural to feel at the frontier, when entering the country, "I
+hope it is all right," as the passport is handed to the customs officer,
+and, with just a little approach to anxious uncertainty, after all one
+has heard and read; but it is almost impossible to avoid real anxiety
+that it will be found correct and in order as it is presented at the
+frontier when _leaving_, as the difficulties of being kept back there,
+so far away from the great cities, would be far greater than those of
+being refused _admission_ from some technicality that could probably be
+put right by a telegram to and from England.
+
+"But surely the passport must prevent you from feeling that sense of
+freedom that you have spoken of more than once--surely _that_ must give
+a sense of repression and suspicion and being watched and having an eye
+kept on your doings," my reader will be thinking, and perhaps many other
+people have the same feeling. It is, however, exactly the opposite with
+me, for my passport in Russia and Siberia is a great stand-by, and gives
+me a great sense of being always able to establish my own identity.
+
+There can be little doubt that the passport was established from the
+first in the interests of the community, for it is entirely in their own
+interests that people should possess them. No one who is honest in
+purpose can have any difficulty in procuring one or be brought to any
+trouble through it. The necessity of frequently producing them, in
+moving from place to place, is always in the interests of the traveller
+in a vast empire like Russia. It has given me a great feeling of
+confidence in launching out, as has been necessary now and then, into
+the unknown, to feel "They will be able to trace me all along by the
+entries made in official registers, as the passport has been stamped."
+If any one disappeared in Russia the police would be able to trace his
+movements to very near the place of disappearance.
+
+It is a great help in getting letters also to have a passport, for we
+are just as anxious as the officials can be that our letters should not
+go to the wrong people; and in travelling in out-of-the-way places it is
+simply invaluable in getting the help, advice, and recognition that
+sometimes are so very necessary. Even the passport, therefore, helps to
+deepen the sense of security and freedom with which one launches out
+into Russian travel, anxious to gain all that it has to give in
+information and stimulating experience.
+
+It will be remembered, however, that I speak always not as a resident,
+but as a traveller; and there is just this difference--_indeed, it is a
+vast difference_--between my own opportunities and those of an ordinary
+traveller. Travelling as the bishop for the English Church work in
+Russia, in every place our clergy and residents have only been too happy
+to speak of their own experiences and impressions, some of them lifelong
+and all-important. When travelling in Siberia, and the guest from time
+to time of managers of the great mines, I go out with them day after day
+and get long conversations with them, their wives, and members of the
+staff. I hear all about early struggles, hopes and fears, difficulties
+and triumphs extending over many years. The conditions of life and
+characteristics of the people in vast tracts of country are described to
+me by those who know them well. No one but a bishop travelling through
+the country would have the same information so freely volunteered to
+him. And it is this which has led me to feel that I might, without undue
+presumption, write for ordinary readers about the life of a country in
+which I have not, as yet, spent a great many years.
+
+It _is_ a great country, as all we who know it feel, and "It doth not
+yet appear what it shall be." If some of us are right in thinking of the
+Russians as a great race with a vast country of tremendous resources;
+who can in any way picture the great and wonderful possibilities of
+their future? It will be my task to try and show how little opportunity
+they have had as yet of getting their share of modern civilization, how
+imperfectly, as yet, the ethical side of their religion has been
+imparted to them; and still, in spite of all this and of other defects
+of their social and religious life, how much they have accomplished in
+the way of real achievement.
+
+I fail to see how any one can help feeling the greatest
+interest--hopeful and expectant--about their future, or feel anything
+else but the great thankfulness that I feel myself, that we and they as
+peoples have been brought so intimately together by circumstances which
+few could have foreseen only a very few years ago, but which have come
+about not only, as some would say, in the course of Providence, but in a
+very true sense, as I trust our and their national histories shall show
+in time to come, "According to the good hand of our GOD upon us."
+
+[Illustration: _The Kremlin._]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+GENERAL SOCIAL LIFE
+
+
+The whole life of the Russian people reminds those who visit them
+continually and in every possible way that they are in a religious
+country; for everywhere there is the _ikon_, or sacred religious
+picture. There are other ways, especially the columns of the newspapers
+full of notices of private and public ministrations and pathetic
+requests for prayers for the departed, of bringing religion continually
+before the public mind, but the _ikon_ is most in evidence. It is a
+picture in one sense, for it is a representation either of our LORD or
+of the Holy Virgin or of some well-known saint; but the garments are in
+relief, often composed of one of the precious metals and ornamented in
+some cases with jewels; and thus it is quite different from other sacred
+pictures. It is the first characteristic evidence of "Russia" to meet
+one's eyes on entering, and the last to be seen as one leaves, any
+public place.
+
+"A great picture of the Virgin and Child hangs in the custom-house at
+Wirballen," writes Mr. Rothay Reynolds at the beginning of _My Russian
+Year_, "with a little lamp flickering before it."
+
+"The foreigner, who was a few minutes before on the German side of the
+frontier and stands on Russian soil for the first time, looks at the
+shrine with curiosity. Porters are hurrying in with luggage, and
+travellers are chattering in half a dozen languages. An official at a
+desk in the middle of the great hall is examining passports. A man is
+protesting that he did not know that playing-cards were contraband; a
+woman is radiant, for the dirty lining she has sewn in a new Paris hat
+has deceived the inquisitors. Everybody is in a hurry to be through with
+the business, and free to lunch in the adjoining restaurant before going
+on to St. Petersburg. It is a strange home for the majestic Virgin of
+the Byzantine picture.
+
+"Here, at the threshold of the empire, Russia placards--S. Paul's vivid
+Greek gives me the word--her faith before the eyes of all comers. In the
+bustle of a custom-house, charged with fretfulness and impatience and
+meanness, Russia sets forth her belief in a life beyond the grave and
+her conviction that the ideals presented by the picture are the noblest
+known to mankind."
+
+Nowhere as in Russia is one reminded so constantly, in what we should
+consider most unlikely places, that we are in a Christian country. In
+the streets and at railway stations, in baths, hotels, post offices,
+shops, and warehouses, in the different rooms of factories and
+workshops, in private houses, rich and poor alike, in government houses,
+and even in places of evil resort which I will not specify, as well as
+in prisons, indeed in _every_ public place there is the _ikon_--most
+frequently representing the Holy Mother and Child--and its lamp burning
+before it.
+
+In later chapters I will write more at length upon religion and worship,
+but I must give the reader _at once_, if a stranger to Russia, something
+of the impression which the ubiquity of the _ikon_ makes upon those who
+go there for the first time. It is _always_ to be seen. And though I
+will try and describe what it directly represents in the shape of Church
+life later, yet from the very first I must write, as it were, with the
+_ikon_ before me. I must see with my mind's eye the Holy Mother clasping
+the Divine Child to her bosom, with a few flowers and a twinkling little
+light before them, all the time I write, whether it is of things secular
+or sacred, grave or gay, national or international, or I shall give out
+but little of the spirit which I feel I have breathed deeply into my
+life in that wonderful country, and certainly shall not be able to help
+any reader who has not been there as yet to understand why it should be
+spoken of as "Holy Russia."
+
+That which the _ikon_ stands for, therefore, must be the spirit of every
+chapter I write, or I shall give my readers no true picture of Russian
+life.
+
+Fortunately for those who want further particulars than such a book as
+this can give them--and it will fail in its purpose if it does not make
+many readers _wish_ to have them--there has been a very excellent
+_Baedeker's Guide to Russia_ published last year, which is a wonderfully
+complete work considering the vast empire with which it has to deal. I
+will therefore attempt nothing at all in the way of statistics or
+descriptions such as a guide-book gives, or such as will be found in the
+excellent books to which I shall often refer. If I can take my readers
+with me in thought as I travel about Russia and Siberia, and can give
+them some of the information which has been given so freely to me, and
+can convey to them some portion of the impressions made upon me when far
+away from the beaten track, and above all can lead them to give their
+sympathies freely and generously to the people of the land and to our
+own countrymen so hospitably welcomed amongst them, and so generously
+treated, I shall be more than repaid for my work, and shall ask nothing
+better.
+
+In Russia there are two forms of government, clearly and strenuously at
+work, and wide asunder in their character, the autocratic and the
+democratic. It is impossible to do much more than mention these two
+tremendous forces, which are so strongly forming the character, and
+determining the destinies for a long time to come, of a great people.
+
+Since 1905 the Russian Empire has had constitutional government under
+the form of an Imperial Council or First Chamber, the Imperial Duma or
+Second Chamber, with the Emperor, advised by a small council of
+ministers, still an autocratic sovereign. The Emperor can overrule any
+legislation, and probably would if advised by a unanimous council; but
+it must be evident to most people if they think a little, that even now
+he would be very reluctant to do this except in some very grave crisis
+of the national life, and that in time to come he will never dream of
+such interference. Constitutional government in Russia has really begun,
+and when one considers the past it is clear that great progress has been
+made in the direction of constitutional freedom since it was granted in
+1905. The reconstitution of the Polish nation, the stirring amongst
+the Finns, the rising hopes of the Jews, the national aspirations of
+Mongolia more and more fully expressed, the general "moving upon the
+face of the waters" of the Spirit which makes a free people, cannot but
+rivet the attention of those interested in social and national life upon
+Russia at this time, when the autocratic government of long standing is
+passing, so simply and so naturally, it would seem, into the
+constitutional.
+
+Since the emancipation of the serfs there has been a steady growth of
+the democratic, almost communal, spirit in all the peasant villages of
+Russia, and though their powers have been somewhat curtailed since 1889
+they are self-governing and very responsible communities. Some of the
+best and most interesting Russian stories, therefore, deal with
+incidents and experiences in village life; and it is the great fact that
+Sir Donald Mackenzie Wallace, whose book upon Russia is one of the most
+complete character, went and shut himself out from the rest of the world
+at the little village of Ivanofka, in the province of Novgorod, and
+there drank in the spirit of the language and of the national life, that
+makes his compendious work a real classic for those who want truly to
+understand Russian life and nationality.
+
+There are two distinct social and constitutional forces at work,
+therefore, and not working slowly and deliberately, as so often in the
+past, but with great rapidity--the autocratic seeking to realize its
+responsibilities and to fulfil them, and the democratic feeling that its
+ideals are coming nearer to being realized every day.
+
+There is consequently no country so absorbingly interesting to the
+constitutionalist at this time as Russia. Nothing can be more
+stimulating, to those who want to read the signs of the times, than to
+know that revolutionaries, such as M. Bourtzeff,[1] who had left their
+country in despair to plan and plot, have now returned, without
+troubling whether they would be pardoned or punished, full of expectant
+hope for their country's constitutional future. Perhaps cautious people
+will hope that progress may be slow, but the great thing is to be able
+to say, "It moves."
+
+Every city and great town in Russia has something specially
+characteristic about it, and of course they are, as yet, very few in
+number. Catherine the Great, as is well known, thought cities and towns
+could be created, though she found out her mistake, and Russia still
+remains a land of villages rather than of towns, but the great towns
+which do exist have usually very distinctive features.
+
+Petrograd, for instance, though, as Peter intended it should be,
+essentially modern, has its very special features in its domed churches
+and the magnificence of its wide river with the great palaces upon its
+banks and bordering upon its quays. The fortress of S. Peter and S.
+Paul, on the opposite side, "home of political prisoners and dead
+Tsars," when the sun is setting, is never to be forgotten, and enters at
+once upon the field of vision as one thinks of Peter's capital.
+
+Then Moscow! How well I remember Bishop Creighton's enthusiasm whenever
+he spoke of Moscow. Though his face might be calm and its expression
+grave before, only let Moscow be mentioned and it would light up at
+once, as with sparkling eyes he would exclaim:--
+
+"Moscow!--oh, you must see Moscow: nothing in the world is like it. You
+_must_ see it."
+
+But it is really the Kremlin which makes Moscow unique, with an
+intangible influence and sense of association connected with it that no
+one can describe, as one thinks of its historic past and of Napoleon!
+The Kremlin! I had read and heard descriptions of it from time to time,
+but was in no way prepared for that vast area of palaces, churches,
+treasuries, great houses, and barracks, enclosed by glorious walls and
+towers and entered by impressive gateways, over which one gazed with
+wondering eyes when seen first under the blue sky and brilliant winter
+sun.
+
+[Illustration: _The Gate of the Redeemer, Moscow._]
+
+It is no use attempting to describe it; but Moscow is the Kremlin, and
+to _feel_ the Kremlin is to _know_ Moscow.
+
+Upon entering the Spassky Gate, or Gate of the Redeemer, every hat has
+to be removed in honour of the _ikon_ of the Saviour which is placed
+above it. The picture was placed there, by the Tsar Alexis, in 1647, to
+be regarded as the "palladium of the Kremlin," and the order was given
+then that hats should be removed when passing through. The law is
+rigorously enforced still, and though it is sometimes a trial--I had
+frostbite in consequence when I last went through a year ago--yet the
+act is almost an instinctive one when entering or leaving the Kremlin.
+
+Warsaw, again--for no one in this generation can dissociate it from
+Russia and call it Polish only--with its glorious position on the
+Vistula in the midst of its great plain, though not so ancient and
+inspiring as Cracow, in Galicia, is full of moving appeal to the
+national and historic sense for those who visit it for the first time,
+and especially, as in my own case, when entering the empire by that
+route. I have seen Warsaw in spring, summer, and winter, and always felt
+its charm; and I have not felt more deeply moved for a long time than
+by the Emperor's proclamation that he intended the Poles once more to be
+a nation and--there can be but little doubt about it--with Warsaw as its
+capital.
+
+Riga also, the great shipping-port on the Baltic, which I have entered
+by sea and by land, and when coming in by sea have had the pleasure of
+seeing our beautiful English church on the shore with its graceful spire
+standing out conspicuously, yet blending in with other towers and
+pinnacles. How very characteristic of the Baltic and attractive the city
+is, with its blending of the Teuton and Slav populations! But how
+essentially Russian it is in all its leading features, while different
+from all other Russian cities! It is so wherever one goes both on this
+and on the other side of the Urals. There always seems to be something
+specially characteristic in these great centres of population; and they
+all seem as if, unlike other towns, they had each their own interesting
+story to tell for those who have ears to hear.
+
+Town or city life in Russia is not very representative of the true life
+of the country and its people, though it undoubtedly exerts a widespread
+influence upon their general social life; for Russia's vast population
+is not gathered together in either towns or cities, but in hamlets and
+villages. Sir Donald Mackenzie Wallace tells us that when he wrote his
+first book on Russia, in 1877, there were only eleven towns with a
+population of over 50,000 in European Russia, and that, in 1905, they
+had only increased to thirty-four. The increase of the future will no
+doubt be more rapid when the war is over.
+
+The great cities will probably, as practically all the cities of Europe
+have done of late years, follow the lead of Paris under Baron Hausmann
+in the character of their imposing blocks of houses and wide boulevards,
+and one capital will be much the same as any other in Europe in its
+general appearance and social life.
+
+Russian cities, however, even the capital, though ever becoming more
+cosmopolitan, still possess their many distinctive and interesting
+features, costumes, and customs, and are most picturesque and
+interesting, of course, during the long winter. It gives one a shock
+almost to go for the first time to Warsaw or Petrograd--at Moscow there
+is always the Kremlin--in the middle of the summer. There is little to
+distinguish them then, apart from the ever-glorious beauty of the
+churches, from Buda-Pest or Vienna.
+
+But in the winter! Then it is everywhere still characteristic Russia.
+The sledges, for instance, with their _troikas_! They are the same
+carriages or _droschkes_ as in summer, but with runners instead of
+wheels. Horses are harnessed in the same way in both seasons, and even
+the coachmen seem to wear exactly the same dress all the year round,
+edged with fur like their caps, though the padding inside the coat
+_must_ be less in summer, one would think. The sledges of nobles and
+other wealthy people, used in the winter only, are painted and decorated
+most attractively. To drive out on a winter night, under a sky brilliant
+with stars, the air extraordinarily keen, bracing, and stimulating, the
+bells tinkling from the high and graceful yoke which rises from the
+central horse of the three, wrapped in furs, and with no sounds but the
+bells and the crack of whips and the subdued crunching of the snow, is
+to taste one of the joys of life, and feel to the full, with happiness
+in the feeling, "This is Russia!"
+
+[Illustration: _A Well-clad Coachman._]
+
+The coachmen pad up their robes of blue to an enormous extent, so that
+they seem to bulge out over their seat. It is said to be a custom dating
+from Catherine's days and from her requirements that there should be at
+least twelve inches of good stuff between her coachman's skin and her
+nose! But the present reason for the custom, which prevails, as far as I
+know, in no other country, is that there is an objection to a thin
+coachman. When I was speaking of the absurdity of these grotesque
+padded-out figures to a lady whom I had taken into dinner one night in
+Moscow, she at once said:--
+
+"Well, I must say I like my coachman to look comfortable and well fed, I
+should hate a thin one."
+
+Dickens's fat boy in Pickwick must commend himself to Russia, for they
+love Dickens and read him in translation and the original all through
+the empire, as just what a driver ought to be. I should think coachmen
+in Russia, however, _ought_ to be fat without any padding-up, for they
+are all merry and good-tempered, their blue eyes and pleasant faces
+under their furry caps giving the impression of perfect health. They sit
+on their boxes all day without any violent exercise, and probably have
+good and abundant food, and above all they sleep. However long you keep
+your coachman, even in the depth of winter, he does not mind, for he
+invariably seems to go to sleep while waiting, and to have an absolutely
+unlimited capacity for gentle and peaceful slumber. I am not at all sure
+whether my driver on the steppes has not usually been asleep even when
+we have been going at full speed, the centre horse trotting swiftly, the
+other two, according to custom, at the gallop.
+
+The _dvornik_ is another institution in town life. He is an indoor
+servant in great houses, usually about the front hall, to open the door
+for those who go out, ready for all sorts of odd things; or he may be a
+head out-of-doors servant; or he may give general help for three or four
+or more smaller establishments; but he has to be there, and cannot be
+dismissed, for he is _ex officio_ a member of the police and has to make
+his report from time to time. It must give a little sense of espionage,
+but still, as with the passport, it is only the evil-minded or
+evil-living who need to be afraid of the _dvornik's_ report, and it must
+be remembered also that the Russian Government has long had cause to
+dread the revolutionary spirit, and has had to fight for its very life
+against it.
+
+This is the darker side of life in Russia; and as far as my experience
+goes it is the only dark side, for it must be evident that a designing
+_dvornik_ may do untold harm, and specially--as I have known to be the
+case--in official and diplomatic establishments. The custom opens out
+possibilities of blackmail also, and one can only hope that it will pass
+away in what so many of us feel are to be for Russia the better days to
+come.
+
+Russians are very hospitable, not only lavish in its exercise where
+ample means allow, but naturally and by custom thoroughly and truly
+ready, even in the homes of the very poor, to welcome the coming guest.
+
+This is brought out in every book one reads of Russia, but by no one
+more touchingly than by Mr. Stephen Graham in his _Tramp's Sketches_,
+when he journeyed constantly amongst the very poor and found them always
+ready to "share their crusts." Sir Donald Mackenzie Wallace says the
+same about the wealthier classes: "Of all the foreign countries in which
+I have travelled Russia certainly bears off the palm in the matter of
+hospitality."
+
+An interesting feature of a Russian meal, luncheon, or dinner, is its
+preliminary, the _zakouska_. It probably dates from the time when guests
+came from long distances, as they do still in the country, and would be
+hungry upon their arrival, and yet would have to wait until all the
+guests had come. It would be, and indeed in some houses to which I have
+been is still, understood, that if you were asked for a certain time the
+dinner would follow in the course of an hour or two; and so the "snack"
+was provided, and laid out upon the sideboard. The great dinners or
+banquets in London are "7 for 7-30," to give time for guests to
+assemble.
+
+The _zakouska_, however, remains the custom still at every meal, and
+consists of caviare sandwiches, _pate de foie gras_, and various kinds
+of deliciously cured fish. Strangers to the country, not understanding
+this particular custom, for it is provided in the drawing-room,
+ante-room, or in the dining-room itself, sometimes enjoy it so much and
+partake so freely, that they feel unequal to the meal which follows, and
+then have the pain of seeing their host and hostess quite mortified and
+hurt by their not doing full justice to the good things provided. I
+remember being entertained at supper in Libau by the good consul and his
+family, at the St. Petersburg Hotel, when the _zakouska_ provided was so
+abundant and attractive that we all decided that we could not go beyond
+it to anything more substantial.
+
+Another special and characteristic feature of Russian life, and one
+which it seems impossible to transplant to another country, for many of
+my friends have tried it, is the _samovar_ or large urn with a central
+flue for burning or smouldering charcoal. The _samovar_ is always near
+at hand, and ready to be brought in at short notice to furnish what one
+can only call the national beverage of tea. The steaming urn is a very
+cheerful object in the room, and when tea is made and guests are served,
+the teapot is placed on the top of the central flue and everything is
+kept bubbling hot. On the steppes I used to boil my eggs in the space
+between the flue and the outside cover, though this was not held to be
+good for the tea. Tea is provided and enjoyed everywhere in Russia,
+drunk very hot, rather weak and almost always with sugar, though _not_
+with lemon except in great houses and hotels. "Slices of lemon," to my
+amazement I was told, as I travelled off the track of railways and
+sometimes on, "are an English custom!"
+
+Tea is always taken in tumblers set in a little metal frame with a
+handle. On the trains for the poorest passengers there is often hot
+water, and always at stations on the way; and emigrants, as they travel,
+may be said to do so teapot in hand. It is China tea and light in
+colour, and, as the custom amongst the poorer classes is to put only a
+moderate quantity of tea into the _tchinak_ or teapot, to begin with,
+and to fill up with hot water as they go on drinking for an indefinite
+time, it must be very weak indeed at the end. Not even at the start is
+it strong, or what some public schoolboys call "beefy." At the end it
+can hardly have even a flavour of tea about it, though they go on
+drinking it quite contentedly. Across the Urals and amongst the Kirghiz
+I found the custom was not to put sugar in the tea but in the mouth, and
+drink the tea through it, and just above the Persian frontier jam was
+taken in the same way, to flavour and sweeten the tea in the act of
+drinking.
+
+Russian houses, in the great cities, are much the same as in other
+capitals, though perhaps rather more spacious and richly furnished. The
+rooms for entertainment and daily use open out of each other, of course,
+and the beautiful stoves of porcelain have not, as yet, given way to
+central heating. Double windows in all the rooms are the rule all
+through the long winter, with a small pane let in for ventilation; and
+thus a cosy and comfortable sense of warmth is experienced everywhere
+whilst indoors, which renders it, strange as it may seem, unnecessary to
+wear, as in our own country, warm winter under-garments. Comfortably
+warm by night or day, without extra clothing or extra blankets whilst
+indoors, and wrapped in thick warm furs when out of doors, the winter is
+not as trying in Russia as in more temperate countries. One takes a cold
+bath, indeed, in that country with more enjoyment than anywhere else,
+for, though the water gives an almost electric shock with its icy sting,
+yet, as soon as one steps out into the warm air of the bath-room and
+takes up the warm towels, the immediate reaction brings at once a glow
+of pure enjoyment. There is every comfort in a Russian house, especially
+in the winter.
+
+The country house, or _datcha_, is a necessity for those who have to
+live in Russia all the year round, as the cities and great towns are
+very hot and dusty, and often full of mosquitoes in the two or three
+months of summer, which is quite tropical in its character.
+
+Thus there are the two extremes, an Arctic winter and a tropical summer.
+
+The country houses are entirely summer residences, with great verandahs
+and balconies and other facilities for life in the open, and are often
+placed amongst pine-woods or by the sea. Some of my friends use their
+_datchas_ in winter also; and it is interesting to see how balconies and
+verandahs which in summer are filled with carpets, furniture, and
+plants, and are quite open on every side to meet the needs of the family
+and its guests all through the day in the open air, in winter are closed
+in by double windows fitted in on every side, and thus are made into
+additional and altogether different rooms.
+
+The homes of the Russian nobility are very richly and artistically
+appointed in every particular. I stayed with friends a couple of years
+ago who had taken such an establishment for the summer; and furniture,
+pictures, china, arrangements and decorations of rooms all gave striking
+testimony to the wealth and cultivated tastes of the absent family.
+Even beyond the Urals, at the Kyshtim Mine, when first I visited it and
+was the guest of the managing director, I was amazed at the sumptuous
+character of his abode built by the former owners of the mine.
+
+It is a vast building approached by a great courtyard and in the Greek
+style of architecture, with towers in different places giving it a
+fortress-like appearance in the distance. The rooms are extraordinarily
+large and numerous, and here and there are bits of Venetian furniture,
+old paintings, and rich carpets. On going straight through the great
+salon, which one enters from the outer door and into the open air on the
+other side, one is again under a great portico with Greek pillars,
+capitals, and frieze, looking out over a large sheet of water towards
+hills and forests. I could not help saying to myself in amazement the
+first time I went there, "And this is Siberia!"
+
+I am not at all sure that social life upon European lines will not
+develop more rapidly in Siberia than in European Russia. Even now I do
+not know any railway station in Russia proper that can compare with that
+of Ekaterinburg, just where Siberia really begins, in all its
+arrangements for the travelling public and especially in the equipment
+of its restaurant and dining-rooms, where every comfort in the way of
+good food and good service is provided for the traveller, and French and
+German are freely spoken.
+
+It is impossible to write on the general social life without mentioning,
+though one cannot do more, certain recent events which must have a
+tremendous influence upon Russia's future, socially as well as
+nationally. There is, for instance, the Emperor's proclamation against
+the _vodka_ monopoly hitherto enjoyed by the government, which prohibits
+State _vodka_ selling for ever. The effect upon the public life of the
+great cities has been astonishing already. No one could have believed
+that the "stroke of a pen," so to speak, could have wrought such a
+change in the habits of a people. It remains to be seen, of course, how
+long the change will last; but, though Acts of Parliament cannot make
+people sober, it is a grand step in the right direction to decide that
+they shall not make them drunk, as the encouragement given by the State
+to the sale of _vodka_ must certainly have done.
+
+Could any other modern government have made a sacrifice such as Russia
+has made in giving up the expectation of nearly L100,000,000 of revenue
+for the social well-being of her people? Truly she deals with "large
+spaces!"
+
+Moreover, the _vodka_ proclamation comes in the natural course of
+things, and can have been but very little hurried by the war; for things
+were already moving in that direction. Last year but one--1913--a scheme
+of "local option" was introduced into the empire; and, in every commune
+within its boundaries, I am assured, men and women alike having the vote
+for the purpose, the inhabitants were allowed to decide for themselves
+whether they would allow _vodka_ to be sold in their villages and towns.
+It was recognized that if the men enjoyed getting drunk the wives and
+mothers were the sufferers, and so they were allowed to vote.
+
+The whole country, therefore, before the war broke out, was prepared to
+face a great issue. And the general war cry, "We've a greater foe to
+fight than the Germans!" shows how they faced it, and gives them that
+ideal which should enable them to go far. They are out for a holy war,
+and far-reaching influences are clearly at work which will profoundly
+and permanently affect the whole social conditions and well-being of the
+people.
+
+Then there is the proclamation concerning the resuscitation of Poland.
+This also does not come at all as an overwhelming surprise to many of
+us, as it has been fairly well known that the Emperor, and some at
+least of his principal advisers, have for some time had ever-increasing
+constitutional, even democratic, sympathies. It has been more and more
+felt of late that what is called Russification, as practised towards the
+Finns, would go no further; and indeed, as far as they were concerned,
+would be reversed. No thoughtful person who has marked the trend of
+events since 1908 could doubt the direction in which higher and
+responsible Russian thought was moving. But who can possibly foresee the
+far-reaching effect of raising up a great Polish nation once more and
+recognizing the Roman Catholic Church as the Church of that part of the
+empire, with Russians and Poles, Orthodox and Roman Catholic living
+together in amity and international unity?
+
+"I have just been staying," writes Mr. Stephen Graham in the _Times_ for
+October 29, 1914, "in the fine old city of Wilna, a city of courtly
+Poles, the home of many of the old noble families of Poland. It is now
+thronged with Russian officers and soldiers. Along the main street is an
+incessant procession of troops, and as you look down you see vistas of
+bayonet-spikes waving like reeds in a wind. As you lie in bed at night
+you listen to the tramp, tramp, tramp of soldiers. Or you look out of
+the window and see wagons and guns passing for twenty minutes on end,
+or you see prancing over the cobbles and the mud the Cossacks of the
+Don, of the Volga, of Seven Rivers. In the days of the revolutionary
+outburst the Poles bit their lips in hate at the sight of the Russian
+soldiers, they cursed under their breath, darted out with revolvers,
+shot, and aimed bombs. To-day they smile, tears run down their cheeks;
+they even cheer. Whoever would have thought to see the day when the
+Poles would cheer the Russian troops marching through the streets of
+their own cities? The Russians are forgiven!"
+
+No one who has known Russia and Poland before the war could read this
+description without deep emotion.
+
+"A very touching spectacle," he continues, "may be seen every day just
+now at the Sacred Gate of Wilna. Above the gateway is a chapel with
+wide-open doors showing a richly-gilded and flower-decked image of the
+Virgin. At one side stands a row of leaden organ-pipes, at the other
+stands a priest. Music is wafted through the air with incense and the
+sound of prayers. Down below in the narrow, muddy roadway kneel many
+poor men and women with prayer-books in their hands. They are Poles. But
+through the gateway come incessantly, all day and all night, Russian
+troops going to the front. And every soldier or officer as he comes
+lifts his hat and passes through the praying throng uncovered. This is
+beautiful. Let Russia always be so in the presence of the Mother of
+Poland."
+
+It is impossible to read of that scene also, and recall at the same time
+past relations of the two Churches here mentioned, without dreaming
+dreams and seeing visions of social unity such as has never yet been
+known, both for Russia and all other countries to which she has so nobly
+and unselfishly given a social lead and invitation to follow on.
+
+     Note from p. 27, "M. Bourtzeff."--There was a notice in the
+     _Times_ of February 4th last as follows: "A Reuter telegram
+     from Petrograd of yesterday's date states that M. Bourtzeff has
+     been sentenced to deportation to Siberia." I have never been
+     able, however, to obtain any confirmation of this from Russian
+     officials in this country, nor do the Russian Embassy know
+     anything about it. I hope it will prove that a sentence was
+     passed _pro forma_, and that the Emperor, as in Miss Malecska's
+     case, at once remitted the sentence, or that M. Bourtzeff was
+     merely requested to live in Siberia for the present rather than
+     in Russia, and I personally should think that no great
+     hardship. I feel that we must await further particulars before
+     being able to form correct impressions of this important case.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] See end of this chapter, p. 45.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE PEASANTRY
+
+
+It would be much more satisfactory to one's self to try and write a
+_book_ about the peasantry of Russia, rather than attempt to say all
+that one wants to say in a single chapter, for there could hardly be any
+more interesting and promising people in the world than the peasant folk
+of Russia. The future of the empire depends upon the development and
+improvement of its agricultural population, as they form three-fourths,
+according to the last census of three years ago, of its grand total of
+over 171,000,000 souls. Russia thus leads in the white races in the
+matter of population, and possesses that splendid asset, which Goldsmith
+feels to be vital to a nation's advance and with which nothing else can
+compare when lost:--
+
+    "Princes and lords may flourish, or may fade;
+    A breath can make them as a breath has made;
+    But a bold peasantry, their country's pride,
+    When once destroyed can never be supplied."
+
+It is upon coming to write even briefly and in an impressionist kind of
+way upon a class which forms the huge majority of Russia's population
+that the vastness of her empire and the different conditions under which
+her people live begin to be in some small degree apparent. It is no
+wonder that thoroughly well-informed and experienced writers, who have
+lived long and travelled far in the country and who are evidently quite
+to be trusted, should yet write so differently.
+
+[Illustration: _A Village Scene._]
+
+One will write as if the Russian peasant was only a degree better in his
+intelligence than the animals which share his filthy hovel, and no less
+brutish in temperament and nature. Fearsome pictures are drawn in some
+books I have read of the almost impossible conditions and indescribable
+filth in which men, women, and children, fowls, pigs, horses, cattle,
+and dogs herd together in a stifling atmosphere and sickening stench,
+where to enter is out of the question unless one is to be covered with
+vermin and contract some illness. All this may be true to the writer's
+own experiences, and he can only write and describe things as he has
+found them; but I too will do the same.
+
+It is worth while to remember from the first that the lives of the
+peasant population of Russia must be as different in summer and winter
+as tropical heat is from arctic cold. In the winter all _must_ crowd in
+together when the household is poor if life has to be preserved and
+defended against that appalling cold, when the one condition of the
+survival is warmth, or even heat. All outdoor occupation ceases, of
+course, with the one exception, it may be, of cutting, stacking, and
+carting wood. A peasant population, with a not very advanced
+civilization as yet, and little education--only twenty per cent. of the
+whole population can read and write--must, like the animal world,
+hibernate, come as it were to a standstill, rest physically and
+mentally, and prepare for the unremitting activities of the summer.
+
+I remember once when staying in an inn at the top of an Alpine pass
+being impressed with the extraordinary energy and vivacity of the head
+waitress. She was simply untiring, always in good spirits, always at
+hand when wanted, unfailing in her attentions; however late a guest was
+up she was moving cheerfully about, however early one was down she was
+down before him helping to get things ready. When I was leaving I said
+to her, "I've been wondering when you get your rest?"
+
+She smiled brightly, and said cheerfully, "In the winter, sir."
+
+That's when the Russian peasant gets his rest also, and with the spring
+he begins his energetic life of farming and agriculture, of carting and
+labour. The long days are busy and all too short, the brief nights are
+hardly more than an interval. The whole land is full of movement, the
+air is full of song and music, the holidays marked by game and dance.
+Nothing could be more unlike the bitter cold and gloom of Russia's long
+and terrible winter than the glow, brilliance, joy, and never-ceasing
+activities of her amazingly rich and life-giving summer. Her peasantry
+must present the same contrasts in homes and seeming temperaments, and
+two writers may therefore be widely asunder in their descriptions, and
+yet both write truthfully of the things they have seen and known at
+different times of the year.
+
+To me the Russian peasant is, as to others who have known him at his
+best, an amiable, attractive, intelligent, thoroughly good-natured and
+altogether lovable creature. It is quite true that he can do, has done,
+and may again do some perfectly appalling things, but it has been when
+thoroughly worked up, as one of a crowd, and when every one else has
+lost his head. Terrible things which were not allowed to be known in
+Europe outside their frontiers, and now will probably never be known,
+were done during the revolution of seven years ago. But the Russian
+peasants are like children, as yet, and any one who knows and loves
+children knows perfectly well also what they are capable of, if they
+have any spirit in them, when thoroughly worked up, and when they too
+have for the time being lost their head and feel capable of almost
+anything that will hurt and pain and annoy. The peasants are in this, as
+in many other things, like children.
+
+As soon as the statistics of the Russian peasantry come to be examined a
+startling fact comes to light. More than half their number--582 out of
+every 1,000--die before they are five years old. This means, as in the
+more inclement parts of our own country, that those who survive are a
+hardy race, strong and virile. The mortality is greatest amongst male
+children--over 600 out of every 1,000--and those, therefore, who do live
+are strong enough for anything and of amazing vitality, as we have seen
+in the present war.
+
+Not only are they vigorous and strong in physique, however, but there is
+nothing lacking in their intelligence, or Russia would not have the
+charm and fascination she possesses. Probably no country in the world,
+unless it be still agricultural France, can compare with Russia in the
+character of its peasant industries or their importance as part of the
+national revenue and resources. Probably the people will be stimulated
+to greater industry in this direction by the removal of the _vodka_
+temptation, and both cease to feel the desire for it and get something
+in its place. Just as a man I once knew who was led to give up drink and
+gambling at the same time, when wondering how he could possibly live
+without them, had to change his house and remove to another with a
+garden. There in gardening work he found his compensation, and at the
+same time added to the resources of his household. Thus may it be in
+Russia.[2]
+
+The list of the Russian peasant industries is a long and interesting
+one, but I won't take up time in enumerating them, as they can be found
+in the _Russian Year Book_, or probably in most encyclopaedias. I may
+perhaps mention a few which have especially interested and attracted me,
+and will no doubt be brought before our own people in the Russian shops
+and exhibitions which are almost certain to be opened before long, and
+it must be remembered that I am speaking of peasant productions only.
+
+There is the beautiful "drawn thread" work, lace-like in character, that
+all my friends say is unlike anything to be found in our own country,
+the making of which is promoted by the Princess Tenisheva and other
+Russian ladies, as well as embroidered and worked linen of all
+descriptions. Toys, and particularly large ornamental wooden spoons, of
+all kinds are made in great quantities by village folk, and painted
+boxes such as the Japanese make, but with Russian scenes upon them, in
+delightful shades of colour, and with rich and brilliant lacquer inside
+and out. Then there are hand-woven laces of different varieties, and,
+above all, the Orenburg shawls, exquisitely dainty and so fine that the
+largest of them will go through a wedding-ring, and yet warmer than
+Shetland wool. These also are hand-woven, and come from the province of
+Orenburg, just beyond the Urals.
+
+Ironwork, again, is a speciality in Siberia, where they are said to be
+the best iron-workers in the world, though a friend of mine to whom I
+mentioned this, when I was showing him some perfectly wonderful and
+artistic specimens which had been given to me when I first went to
+Siberia, said, "That's because they have the best iron in the world."
+The stone or gem-cutting industry is an important one. Furs, from sheep
+and wolf-skins up to bears, as well as those of foxes, sables, elk, and
+reindeer, and other animals, are perfectly dressed by the peasants for
+their own use, as well as for sale. I have some exquisite work in
+coloured silks upon hand-woven cloth which had never been out of the
+tents where they were made till given to me, and above all I cherish a
+silver box which had been made in a Kirghese _uerta_ or tent, far away
+upon the steppes, and was given to me when I had had services there
+after my long drive in the _tarantass_. It would hold about a hundred
+cigarettes, and was given to me for that purpose, is oblong in shape,
+with a lid of sloping sides, and is made from silver roubles hammered
+out and ornamented with that beautiful damascening that is said to be a
+lost art except for the peasants of the steppes. It is such a beautiful
+bit of workmanship that any one looking at it would think it had come
+out of a Bond Street silversmith's, until he turned it over and saw that
+the bottom is a plain piece of iron, rough and unornamented. Let no one
+think the Russian peasant unintelligent or unskilful or wanting in
+dexterity or resource. The wonder to me is that, with the few advantages
+and opportunities he has had, he is so capable, intelligent, and quick
+to learn as he is. And what is important for us to remember is that he
+loves to learn from an Englishman.
+
+Then, again, we are told that he is brutish in temperament and of low
+ideals, and never seems to rise above his squalid surroundings. I don't
+agree that his surroundings _are_ squalid. Simple they are, without a
+doubt, as the Canadian shack of three brothers I know is simple, and has
+nothing in it but beds and tables and chairs, their boxes and
+saddle-trees, etc., and all is bed and work, but it is not squalid. They
+have been brought up in a good and refined home, and yet find nothing
+incongruous in their present abode amongst the pine-woods.
+
+That's what a Russian peasant's home is also, simple and yet attractive.
+It is built of logs, the interstices well plastered up with moss and
+clay to keep out all cold air, cool in summer and warm in winter by
+reason of the thickness of these outer walls; and it usually has an
+inner entrance or small room, before the large and chief living-room.
+There will be two or more small square windows in the latter, an _ikon_
+in a corner with a lamp before it and a shelf for flowers below--every
+one on entering looks towards it, bowing reverently and making the sign
+of the Cross--a very large stove of bricks, whitewashed, upon the top of
+which rests a wide shelf, carried along the wall as far as is necessary
+for the whole family to be able to find sleeping-space upon it. There
+will also be a long wooden bench, a great table, a few wooden stools,
+and a great cupboard, and, nearly always, cheap coloured pictures of the
+Emperor and Empress, whose portraits are to be found in all shops, inns,
+post offices, and places of public resort.
+
+These are the simple surroundings described and made familiar to us by
+all writers of Russian stories of which peasants form a part, and all
+over the empire they are found just as Tolstoi, Dostoviesky, Turgenieff,
+and others bring them before us in their interesting tales. Take for
+example Tolstoi's _Where Love is there God is also_, _Master and Man_,
+and other parables and tales. When Martin Avdeitch is looking out from
+his small abode through his one small window upon the passers-by as
+simply as man could do, and yet with shrewd and discerning eyes, he is
+ready for the old pilgrim who comes into his life just at the right
+moment, and shows him the way to God.
+
+Or take Nikita in _Master and Man_, in the same volume. In some ways he
+is extraordinarily simple, and does not appear to know how shamefully he
+is being exploited by his avaricious and grasping master. We are told in
+the story that he _does_ know even though he goes on as if he didn't,
+and does his duty by him as if he were the best of masters, just as he
+does by an unfaithful and unfeeling wife. It would be difficult to
+imagine a peasant one would more love to know and understand than
+Nikita, strong, capable, affectionate, and shrewd, as he comes running
+before us in the story, to harness the horse for his master, the only
+man on the place that day not drunk, talking to the little brown cob
+which noses him affectionately, and in the end making a tremendous
+struggle for his own and his master's life, and winning through himself.
+Thus he goes on steadily as long as he lives, with no other thought but
+that of duty, until he lies down beneath the _ikon_, and, with the wax
+candle in his hand just as he had always wished, passes away at peace
+with every living creature and with GOD.
+
+There are no peasants like the Russians, or who think as they do. They
+are young, one feels, and "The thoughts of youth are long, long
+thoughts," and that is just what those who know them best find out.
+
+A friend of mine told this story the other day at a meeting, at which we
+both had to speak, and I am sure it will bear repetition. A _moujik_, or
+peasant, was driving a German commercial traveller across the open
+country, and in the course of their conversation together his companion
+said to him:--
+
+"Your countrymen are nothing but a lot of idolaters. You worship those
+_ikons_ of yours, and bow down to them as the heathen do," and so on.
+The _moujik_ was very indignant, and grumbled out his disapproval of all
+this.
+
+"Worship our _ikons_ indeed! We don't." And as they went driving on he
+suddenly drew up, and, pointing to a tree, demanded of the astonished
+traveller:--
+
+"Do you mean to say that I would worship that tree?"
+
+"No, no. Of course not! Drive on."
+
+With a very disapproving grunt he drove on, and when they reached their
+destination, where there was a painter at work upon an outside door, the
+_moujik_, pointing to the paint-pot beside it, again demanded of the
+traveller:--
+
+"Would you say I could worship that paint?"
+
+"No, certainly not! You could not be so silly."
+
+"But yet you say I worship an _ikon_, which is only painted wood, and
+can't see that I only use it to help me to worship GOD."
+
+Let the reader reflect upon the way in which that peasant had been
+thinking over the charge made against him of idolatry, thinking what
+idolatry really was, and how far he felt himself from it. Let him try
+and imagine how one of our own agricultural labourers would think over
+such a subject if he were entering into conversation with us as he was
+digging in our garden, or driving us in a farmer's cart to a country
+station. I am writing this chapter in a quiet part of the country, and I
+can't conceive of any of the labouring people here even approaching that
+line of thought upon which the mind of that _moujik_ began at once to
+move, though slowly enough no doubt, when he was told he was little
+better than a worshipper of idols.
+
+I read the other day in a book on Russia that the peasantry are very
+dirty in person, and never wash; but again it must be borne in mind, as
+another remarkably well-informed and sympathetic writer[3] says also:
+"When people generalize about the intense misery of Russian peasants and
+the squalor in which they live they should remember that Russia is a
+large country, that it possesses a North and a South, an East and a
+West, and that what is true about one place is quite untrue about
+another." I shall be quite prepared, therefore, to be told by people who
+know Russia far better than I can ever hope to do, that their experience
+has been altogether different from my own, and I shall not dream of
+questioning or doubting the truth of what they say as far as their own
+experience goes.
+
+In this vast area of which we are thinking there must indeed be great
+varieties of experience and conditions of life, and it is not contrary
+to what one might expect to find much nearer home, that the people of
+one village may be clean in their habits and those of another quite the
+reverse. But from all I have seen, heard, and read the Russian labouring
+and peasant class have a great desire to be clean. Nor is this a new
+thing at all in the national life. It is nearly forty years ago since
+Sir Donald Mackenzie Wallace told us, in the first edition of his work,
+of the important part taken by the weekly vapour-bath in the life of the
+Russian peasantry, and described "the public bath possessed by many
+villages." How many villages of our own, even now, have a public bath?
+And how many of our own peasantry dream of having what is a perfectly
+ordinary and weekly habit of the Russians--the bath in his own house?
+
+My Russian and Siberian friends tell me how they have always to arrange
+for their domestic servants to get a good bath, before they change for
+Sunday, every Saturday afternoon and evening. Mr. Rothay Reynolds says
+the same: "My friend took me to see his bath-house. Russians are
+exceedingly clean. In villages one may see a row of twenty cottages,
+and, thirty yards from them, a row of twenty bath-houses. The one the
+peasant showed me was a hut with a stove intended to heat the great
+stones placed above it. On bath nights the stove is lit, and when the
+stones are hot a bucket of water is thrown on them, so that the place is
+filled with steam. The bather lies on a bench in the suffocating
+atmosphere, soaps himself, and ends his ablutions with ice-cold water.
+In town and country it is held to be a religious duty to take a
+steam-bath once a week. Servants ask if they can go out for a couple of
+hours to visit one of the great baths in the cities. They go away with
+clean linen bound up in a handkerchief, and return shining with
+cleanliness. Admission to the cheapest part of a steam-bath is usually a
+penny farthing, but in the great towns there are luxurious
+establishments frequented by the rich."
+
+There is another custom connected with the bath which testifies to the
+hardy character of the Russian _moujik_. They often rush straight out of
+the almost suffocatingly hot bath which they have been taking _inside_
+the huge earthenware oven that they all possess and, naked and steaming,
+roll themselves contentedly and luxuriously in the snow. This, as a
+writer has well said, "aptly illustrates a common Russian proverb which
+says that what is health to the Russian is death to the German"--a
+proverb which has had striking illustration again and again this very
+winter. Probably some of my readers saw the account of the arrival at
+the Russian front, soon after war began, of the bath-train which was so
+completely furnished and arranged that two thousand men could have a
+clean bath during the day or twelve thousand in the course of the week.
+No doubt others have followed since then.
+
+The bath to the Russian has a certain religious significance also, as in
+Moslem countries; "and no good orthodox peasant," I have read, "would
+dare to enter a church after being soiled with certain kinds of
+pollution without cleansing himself physically and morally by means of
+the bath." "Cleanliness is next to godliness" is not a bad motto for any
+people, and possibly Russians will like to know that we have an order of
+knighthood which dates from 1398, and is named "The Most Honourable
+Order of the Bath," and mentioned regularly in the services at
+Westminster Abbey.
+
+A great sense of initiative and personal responsibility, as well as
+corporate spirit at the same time, is clearly given early in life to the
+peasant mind in Russia, for nowhere, I fancy, in the world, except in
+countries where primitive ideas and customs still obtain, is there the
+same standard of village life and self-government. There are two kinds
+of communities. First, there is the village community with its Assembly
+or _Mir_, under the presidency of the _Staroshta_, who is elected by the
+village. He presides over the Assembly, which regulates the whole life
+of the village, distributes the land of the commune, decides how and
+when the working of the land has to be done; and it is specially
+interesting to know that in this most remarkable and exceptional village
+government of the _Mir_ all women who permanently and temporarily are
+heads of houses are expected to attend its meetings and to vote--no one
+ever dreams of questioning their right to do so.
+
+In addition to the village assembly and chief elder there is also the
+"Cantonal" Assembly, consisting of several village communities together,
+meeting also under the presidency of a chief elder. All this is, of
+course, a development of family life where exactly the same ideas of
+corporate duty in its members, and responsibilities in its head, are
+held.
+
+It is evident that Russia has a great future if this view of
+self-government is gradually carried upwards. The right beginning in
+constitutional government, surely, is in the family, for there we find
+the social unit. A state is not a collection or aggregate of
+individuals, but of families, and all history shows us that the
+greatness or insignificance of a country has always been determined by
+the condition of its homes and the character of its family life. If from
+the family, village, and commune Russian constitutionalists work slowly
+and carefully upwards, giving freedom to make opinions and convictions
+felt in the votes, just as responsibility is understood and met in the
+home, until one comes to the head of it all in "The Little Father"; and
+if he really rules--or administers rather, for no true father rules
+only--just as any good father would do, Russia the autocratic and
+despotic, associated in the minds of so many with arbitrary law in the
+interests of a few, enforced by the knout and prison-chain, may yet give
+the world a high standard of what the government of a free and
+self-respecting people ought to be.
+
+I should doubt if any peasantry in the world live so simply and frugally
+or, as they say in the North of England, "thrive so well on it," as the
+Russians. The men are of huge stature, and their wives are strong,
+comely, and wholesome-looking also. Their boys and girls are sturdy,
+vigorous, and full of life; and yet how bare the table looks at the
+daily meal, how frugal the fare and small the quantity! It has been the
+greatest joy to me to have Russian boys and girls, in out-of-the-way
+places, to share my sandwiches or tongue or other tinned meats, when
+stopping at a rest-house, and see their eyes shine at the unexpected and
+unusual treat.
+
+Black rye-bread and cabbage-soup form the staple food of a peasant
+family, while meat of any kind is rarely seen. The many and rigorous
+fasts of the Church make very little difference to the quality of the
+food, but only to its quantity. The thanks given by guests to their host
+and hostess, _Spasibo za kleb za sol_, "Thanks for bread and salt," tell
+their own story of a bare and simple diet. Many of us have read in _The
+Russian Pilgrims to Jerusalem_ of the sacks of black and hard crusts the
+peasants take with them, which quite content them.
+
+What a tremendous difference it must have made this winter in the
+Russian food transport from the base to the front, to know that, if a
+serious breakdown took place, or a hurried march was ordered with which
+it was difficult for them to keep up, and the worst came to the worst,
+the men would have their crusts. It has been said in years gone by, and
+may be true still in many places, that the Russian peasant's ideas of
+Paradise is a life in which he would have enough black bread to eat.
+
+This bare subsistence and monotonous diet, perhaps, is responsible for the
+break-out from time to time when the attraction of _vodka_ is too strong
+to be resisted in a life in which there are no counter-attractions.
+Counter-attractions there ought to be for a being who is created not for
+work alone, but for that recreation which, as its very name betokens, his
+whole nature needs if he is to do his best work. "There is a time to work
+and a time to play," says the proverb writer; and if we hold that in
+school life "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy," we can hardly
+wonder that, the world over, those for whom work is provided and play
+refused will seek, as they have ever done, to make up for its absence by
+the exhilaration of stimulating and intoxicating drinks. It is when
+writing upon the drunkenness to be seen at every Russian village holiday
+that one whom I have often quoted in this book,[4] truly says, "As a whole
+a village fete in Russia is a saddening spectacle. It affords a new
+proof--where, alas! no proof was required--that we northern nations who
+know so well how to work have not yet learnt the art of amusing
+ourselves."
+
+As an instance of the real and natural friendliness and essential good
+nature of the Russian, I may say that even when drunk I have never seen
+or heard of men quarrelling. They do not gradually begin to dispute and
+recriminate and come to blows or draw the knife, as some of the more
+hot-blooded people of the South do, when wine excites or spirits cheer
+them. They seem to become more and more affectionate until they begin to
+kiss each other, and may be seen thus embracing and rolling over and
+over together like terriers in the snow. If wine unlooses the tongue,
+and brings out what is usually hidden away beneath the surface, it
+evidently brings out nothing very evil from the inner life of the
+Russian peasant.
+
+In time to come, if all's well, Russia is to be opened up to the
+traveller, and everywhere the British tourists will be welcomed, and
+even though the beaten track of the railway may never be left there will
+be abundant opportunities for observing the habits and customs of the
+people. A modern writer who, apparently, in passing through Siberia
+never went far from the railway, though he probably stayed for some time
+at different places on the way, and sat in third and fourth-class
+carriages even if he did not actually travel in them, managed to see a
+great deal of peasant life. The railway train is open from end to end,
+and a great deal may be learnt thus about the people while merely
+passing through. There are also the long waits at the stations where
+there are invariably interesting groups of the most romantic and
+picturesque character--the women vivacious and full of conversation,
+while the men stand more stolidly by, always making one long to speak
+and understand their language and to know more about them.
+
+There is a story of Mr. Maurice Baring's which illustrates what I have
+already said of the way in which the Russian peasant mind begins to move
+freely, independently, and responsibly upon lines undreamed of by those
+who may be addressing him, and shows how far he is from receiving merely
+conventional and stereotyped impressions, but is always ready to think
+for himself. Mr. Baring considers it an instance of his common sense.
+The reader may also have his own ideas of what it illustrates, but the
+story is this:--
+
+"A Socialist arrived in a village to convert the inhabitants to
+Socialism. He wanted to prove that all men were equal, and that the
+government authorities had no right to their authority. Consequently he
+thought he would begin by disproving the existence of GOD, because if
+he proved that there was no GOD it would naturally follow that there
+should be no Emperor and no policemen. So he took a holy _ikon_ and
+said, 'There is no GOD, and I will prove it immediately. I will spit
+upon this _ikon_ and break it to bits, and if there is a GOD He will
+send fire from heaven and kill me, and if there is no GOD nothing will
+happen to me at all.' Then he took the _ikon_ and spat upon it and broke
+it to bits, and said to the peasants, 'You see GOD has not killed me.'
+'No,' said the peasants, 'GOD has not killed you, but we will'; and they
+killed him."
+
+It is not difficult to imagine that closing scene, knowing Russia. There
+would be no excitement, but all would be quickly and effectually done.
+
+The same writer draws our attention to Turgenieff's wonderfully
+appealing sketches of country life, though not many of his works have
+been translated for English readers as yet. He alludes especially in an
+essay of last year on "The Fascination of Russia" to his description of
+the summer night, when on the plain the children tell each other bogey
+stories; or the description of that July evening, when out of the
+twilight from a long way off a voice is heard calling, "Antropk-a-a-a!"
+and Antropka answers, "Wha-a-a-at?" and far away out of the immensity
+comes the answering voice, "Come home, because daddy wants to whip you!"
+
+Perhaps the reader may _feel_ nothing as he reads, but all who know and
+love Russia, and are stirred by thoughts of its life and people will
+feel that it was abundantly worth while to write down such a simple
+incident. They will understand and feel that stirring within, which
+Russia never fails to achieve again and again for those who have once
+lived and moved amongst her peasantry, and come under her strange spell
+and felt her charm.
+
+Gogol, the greatest of Russian humorists, has a passage in one of his
+books, where, in exile, he cries out to his country to reveal the secret
+of her fascination:--
+
+"'What is the mysterious and inscrutable power which lies hidden in
+you?'" he exclaims. "'Why does your aching and melancholy song echo
+unceasingly in one's ears? Russia, what do you want of me? What is there
+between you and me?' This question has often been repeated not only by
+Russians in exile, but by others who have merely lived in Russia.
+
+"There are none of those spots where nature, art, time, and history have
+combined to catch the heart with a charm in which beauty, association,
+and even decay are indistinguishably mingled; where art has added the
+picturesque to the beauty of nature; and where time has made magic the
+handiwork of art; and where history has peopled the spot with countless
+phantoms, and cast over everything the strangeness and glamour of her
+spell.
+
+"Such places you will find in France and in England, all over Italy, in
+Spain and in Greece, but not in Russia.
+
+"A country of long winters and fierce summers, of rolling plains,
+uninterrupted by mountains and unvariegated by valleys.
+
+"And yet the charm is there. It is a fact which is felt by quantities of
+people of different nationalities and races; and it is difficult if you
+live in Russia to escape it; and once you have felt it you will never be
+free from it. The aching melancholy song which, Gogol says, wanders from
+sea to sea throughout the length and breadth of the land, will for ever
+echo in your heart and haunt the recesses of your memory."[5]
+
+[Illustration: _The Metropolitan of Moscow._]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[2] Just as I go to press Mr. Lloyd George has told the House of Commons
+that productivity is already increased 30 per cent. in Russia.
+
+[3] The Hon. Maurice Baring.
+
+[4] Wallace, _Russia_, vol. i, p. 129.
+
+[5] _Russian Review_ for February, 1914.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE CLERGY
+
+
+The Russian Church is a daughter of the Byzantine Church--the youngest
+daughter--and only dates from the close of the tenth century, when monks
+came to Kieff from Constantinople during the reign of Vladimir. There
+would be little "preaching of the Cross of CHRIST," I should fancy, as
+the great means of conversion for that great mass of servile population.
+We are told, indeed, that Vladimir gave the word and they were baptized
+by hundreds at a time in the River Dnieper, and that no opposition was
+offered to the new religion as the old Nature worship had only very
+lightly held them, and had no definite priesthood.
+
+The new religion, however, soon acquired a very strong hold upon the
+people of all classes, and the power and influence of the Church grew
+just as the State gained ever-new importance; the power of the Patriarch
+increasing as that of the Tsar increased, until in a comparatively short
+time the Orthodox Church stood alone, and owned no Eastern supremacy on
+the one hand, nor yielded to the approaches of the Roman Papacy on the
+other. By the end of the sixteenth century the other Eastern Patriarchs
+recognized and accepted the Patriarchate of Moscow as being an
+independent one, and fifth of the Patriarchates of the East.
+
+This absolute independence only lasted about a hundred years, and the
+masterful Peter the Great laid his hands upon the Church as upon other
+parts of the national life, for he certainly had little cause to love
+the clergy, and appointed no successor to the Patriarch of Moscow when
+he died in 1700. It was very interesting to hear, from the Procurator of
+the Holy Synod himself, M. Sabloff, when I first went to Petrograd, what
+great importance Peter attached to this office when he constituted the
+Holy Synod in 1721 to take the place of the Patriarchate.
+
+"He used to say," he mused, looking down upon the ground, "that the
+Procurator of the Holy Synod was the _oculus imperatoris_ (the Emperor's
+right hand, literally 'the Emperor's eye')," and as he said so one could
+not but remember how his predecessor, M. Pobonodonietzeff had upheld
+that tradition, and, next to the Emperor, had himself been the most
+prominent and autocratic figure in the whole empire.
+
+The Procurator, however, is not the President of the Holy Synod, as the
+Metropolitan of Petrograd fills that office, but he is present as the
+Emperor's representative, and though all the other members of the Synod
+are the highest ecclesiastical dignitaries of the Russian Church, yet as
+they are summoned by the Emperor, and his special lay representative is
+there always to represent and state his opinion and wishes, the Emperor
+himself must have an infinitely greater influence than our own
+sovereigns possess, though theoretically they fill the same office of
+"Defender of the Faith." He is described in one of the fundamental laws
+as "the supreme defender and preserver of the dogmas of the dominant
+faith," while immediately afterwards it is added "the autocratic power
+acts in the ecclesiastical administration of the most Holy Governing
+Synod created by it." The Emperor must have unlimited power, typified by
+his crowning himself at his coronation, in ecclesiastical
+administration, and the bishops and other clergy, who are intensely
+loyal, would probably not wish it otherwise; but he could not affect or
+change, even by a hair's breadth, any of the doctrines of the Church nor
+one of the ceremonies of its Liturgy.
+
+Should the reader wish to know more about Church and State in Russia he
+will find a most admirable chapter (XIX) with that heading in Sir
+Donald M. Wallace's book. Interesting and important as the position of
+the Russian Church--in many ways so like our own--is for us to-day, it
+is only possible now to glance briefly at its constitution.
+
+The clergy are divided into two classes, the black and the white, the
+black being the monastic and the white the secular and married clergy.
+All the patriarchs or archbishops, bishops, abbots, and higher
+dignitaries are taken from the ranks of the celibate and monastic clergy
+and have attained a high standard of education. All the parochial
+clergy, on the other hand, are educated in seminaries, or training
+colleges, but only those who show special ability go on to the academy,
+an institution which occupies the same position for the clergy as the
+university fills in civil education. They do not reach a very high
+standard as a rule, and before being appointed to a parish must be
+married. No unmarried priest can be in charge of a parish, and should he
+become a widower he must resign his parish, and either enter a monastery
+or retire into private life; but, in either case, he must not marry
+again.
+
+Many years ago (1890) there appeared an interesting story of Russian
+life in the chief Russian literary magazine, and it was translated for
+the "Pseudonym Library" in a cheap form under the title of _A Russian
+Priest_.[6] It is still to be obtained, and it is most refreshing to
+read again this brief story of a brilliant young seminarist going on to
+the academy and attaining such distinctions, that he might have aspired
+to any high office in the Church, yet impelled by his ideals, and full
+of the CHRIST-like spirit, choosing the lowest grade of humble and
+village life, and "touching bottom," so as to speak, in his Church's
+work. As far as I can judge it describes still quite faithfully and
+clearly the relations of clergy and people in Russian villages and
+hamlets.
+
+Let me now, however, speak briefly of some of the clergy I have met,
+taking such as I consider fairly representative of the different
+classes. I have felt myself that I have learnt a great deal more about
+the spirit and aims of the Russian Church, and what we may regard as its
+present and future attitude to ourselves, from knowing its clergy and
+devout laity than ever I could have hoped to do by reading books about
+them, or from lectures, addresses, or letters written by them.
+
+I will speak first of the Archbishop of Warsaw, who received me at
+Petrograd on my first visit, in place of the Metropolitan Antonius who
+had sent a very brotherly message of welcome from his sick-room, where
+shortly afterwards he died. The Archbishop Nicolai--Russians speak of
+their bishops and archbishops in this way, using the Christian name and
+not that of the See--is a most imposing and fatherly figure, and
+received me attired, just as his portrait shows him, wearing a very
+rich-looking satin robe, decorated with orders, and with a large cross
+of magnificent diamonds in the centre of his black cap or mitre. He had
+been in the United States, in charge of the Russian work there, and also
+in England, and spoke a little English, but it was so little that I was
+glad to have Mr. Feild, a churchwarden of the English Church, who has
+lived in Russia all his life, to be my interpreter.
+
+His Grace was full of interest, sympathetic and intelligent, in all that
+I could tell him about our own Church at home, in Russia, and on the
+Continent generally, very keen to know of my impressions, and of my
+reception by the Procurator of the Holy Synod, and by the official at
+the Ministry of the Interior, who is responsible for religious
+administration. I shall have to speak later of the status of our
+Anglican Church in Russia, and so here I will only say that it led me to
+speak of the work of our Anglican Chaplain (the Rev. H. C. Zimmerman)
+at Warsaw, whereupon the archbishop said at once, "Ask him to come and
+see me when I am at Warsaw three months from now." I did so, and Mr.
+Zimmerman wrote to tell me afterwards that he had had the kindest
+reception, with quite a long conversation, had been presented with
+souvenirs, and dismissed with a blessing, his Grace saying to him as he
+left:--
+
+"Now, regard me as your bishop, when your own is not here, and come to
+me whenever you are in need of advice or information."
+
+The archbishop loves to think of his pleasant recollections of England
+and its Church life.
+
+"Ah," he said, "your English Sunday! How beautiful it is to walk along
+Piccadilly on Sunday morning, with all the shops closed, and no one in
+the streets except quiet-looking people, all on their way to Church!"
+
+London _is_ very different in that respect on Sunday mornings, whatever
+it is later in the day, from every capital in the world. All is quiet,
+and Church and worship are in the air. Then the archbishop told me of
+his going to S. Paul's Cathedral, sitting in the congregation, and
+enjoying it all, until it had gradually come home to him during the
+Second Lesson that something was being read from one of the Gospels. On
+finding by inquiry that this was so, he rose at once to his feet, and
+looked with amazement upon the people _sitting_ all round him while the
+Holy Gospel was being read. I'm afraid my telling him that we always
+stand for it in the Liturgy only added to his surprise, for he murmured
+to himself in a puzzled way, "Why in one place and not in another?"
+
+Dear old man, he presented me with his portrait, here given, and all his
+published works, and hoped, as I do, that it would not be long before I
+went to see him again.
+
+When at length the Metropolitan Antonius, after a long illness, passed
+away, he was succeeded by the Archbishop of Moscow who, in his turn, was
+succeeded by Archbishop Macarius, and it is of the last-named that I
+will next give briefly my experience. It was on January 10, 1914,
+according to our calendar, and on December 28, 1913, according to the
+Russian, when I had the feeling of being in two years at the same time,
+and of spending the same Christmas first in London and then in Russia,
+that he received me in his palace at Moscow. Palace it certainly is in
+the character and spaciousness of its rooms, but the furniture is what
+we should consider, in our own country, simple and rather conventional.
+The salon, or drawing-room, was very large, with the usual polished
+floor and rugs laid upon it. At one side two rows of chairs, facing each
+other, stood out from the wall, against which a sofa was placed, and in
+front of that a table. It was exactly the same at the Archiepiscopal
+Palace at Riga, where I had been a few months before, and the same
+procedure was followed on both occasions.
+
+[Illustration: _The Convent at Ekaterinburg, Siberia._]
+
+First the archbishop warmly embraced me, kissing me on either cheek and
+then upon the lips, and then courteously waved me to the seat of honour
+upon the sofa. At Riga when the archbishop took his seat upon the sofa
+he indicated the place beside him which I did not notice, and took the
+chair. But just as I was about to sit down, Madame Alexaieff, who had
+most kindly come to interpret, said hurriedly and in rather a shocked
+tone, "Take the seat beside him, he wishes it," and, remembering the
+etiquette of the sofa as observed still by old-fashioned people in
+Germany, I did as I was told.
+
+At Moscow, however, I was more observant, and when the archbishop
+courteously waved his hand to the sofa I bowed to him and at once sat
+down, but only to find that he himself took a chair next me and left me
+alone in the place of dignity. It was quite in keeping with his whole
+bearing and conversation throughout, for he is evidently one of the most
+humble and unassuming of men. Yet he has covered himself with
+distinction in the course of his long life spent chiefly far away in the
+Altai country in Siberia, below Omsk, engaged in work of a missionary
+character. No one is more respected in the whole of Russia. He is just
+as shown in the portrait he gave me, slight and not tall, and his whole
+face lights up with keen interest as he talks and enforces his words
+with appropriate gestures. He was very caustic upon the subject of the
+non-attendance at church of educated and wealthy people in a certain
+place, which perhaps it will be kinder not to mention.
+
+"No," he said, "they are never to be seen at any service, however
+important and solemn it may be. There are none there but the same common
+people who are always crowding into their churches. At least," he added
+more deliberately, "if the others are there, they adopt the common
+people's dress for the occasion!"
+
+His expression and gesture as he said this were inimitable and
+indescribable, and the little touch of humour made one's heart warm
+towards him. He was much interested in hearing anything I could tell
+him of our own Church, and delighted, in a wistful sort of way, to hear
+the many details I gave him of its progress, especially in the extension
+of its missionary activities and ever-deepening interest in social
+questions and economic problems, as they affect the labouring classes
+and the very poor. His eyes sparkled as he too spoke of the poor, and
+told me what I should hear from the Grand Duchess Elizabeth, whom I was
+to see that afternoon, about the work to which she has given her life
+since the assassination of her husband, the Grand Duke Serge.
+
+Like all his brethren of the episcopate he was greatly interested in
+anything I could tell him of the Archbishop of Canterbury and of his
+views and hopes about our own and the Russian Churches, and the
+Christian Church as a whole. He looked thoughtfully down as I spoke to
+him about unity and inter-communion under special circumstances, and
+said rather sadly:--
+
+"How one would love more unity! But how much ground there is to be
+covered, how many difficulties to be cleared away before that can come!"
+
+I smiled a little, at which he looked at me questioningly, and so I
+said:--
+
+"I smiled because I thought of the brotherly and loving way in which
+you have received me to-day, and in which you are speaking so much and
+so freely of what is in your heart, and if these kind and friendly
+relations go on increasing between our Churches it will be progress such
+as He must love to see Who said 'By this shall all men know that ye are
+My disciples if ye have love one to another.' That will be progress of
+the best kind, and, even if it is slow, I for one shall greatly rejoice
+that we are moving at all in the right direction. Let us only keep
+moving, and we shall arrive in time."
+
+We talked on about my own experiences the year before just to the south
+of where he had lived so long, and when I told him that I hoped this
+year to go to the Altai, his own actual country, he looked as though he
+envied me the journey. After embracing me again he accompanied me into
+the ante-room, where a poor peasant woman was waiting to see him with an
+_ikon_ to be blessed. There was a great pile of quite cheap _ikons_ for
+the poor, towards which he waved his hand and said, "And I have all
+these to bless also."
+
+As I left I could only murmur to myself, "The dear old saint." He made
+me feel some sense of being back at Troas or Miletum or Ephesus, or
+coming out from the presence of Barnabas or Silas or St. Paul. It was
+truly apostolic!
+
+Of course the interpreter makes a tremendous difference, but again, as
+at Petrograd and Riga, I had an excellent friend and helper in Mr.
+Birse, one of the churchwardens of our church in Moscow, who had spoken
+Russian all his life. I may add also that, as in Mr. Feild's case at
+Petrograd, he enjoyed the interview as much as I did, and would probably
+catch little subtleties of expression and self-revelation that would be
+lost to me by the hurried kind of interpretation that was necessary.
+
+The next great dignitary I will try and describe, though I know I cannot
+possibly do justice to the dignity and nobility of character evident in
+all she says and does, is the Abbess Magdalena of the great Convent at
+Ekaterinburg in Siberia. The Convent is a most imposing group of
+buildings, stretching along an extended front, with cupolas, spires, and
+pinnacles, and is much frequented by pilgrims from far and near who come
+to pray in its chapel before a famous _ikon_. The Abbess and all her
+nuns wear the same kind of black dress, with cap and veil, quite black
+and unredeemed by any trace of white linen or cambric. The first thing
+that impressed me, even before I entered the gate, was the beauty of
+their singing. The choir were practising for a service on the Emperor's
+name-day on the morrow, and their hymn was the most beautiful thing I
+had ever heard from women's voices. It seemed to me that all the four
+parts were there. The bass certainly was, and I was told that the nuns
+with deep voices submitted them to careful training until they were able
+to reach very low notes indeed. There was, of course, no accompanying
+music, the conductor just waving her open hand to and fro to beat time,
+and the precision and crispness of the whole hymn were wonderful.
+
+The chapel is a fine building beautifully painted by the nuns
+themselves, and its services are conducted by a priest and deacon. The
+deacon is a special feature in the ranks of the Russian clergy, and is
+responsible for all the choral parts of the services, apart from the
+actual priest's part in the Liturgy of course, and is chosen for the
+beauty of his voice. If a young man has a very fine voice and is
+wondering what use he shall make of it, he sees nothing at all
+unbecoming or incongruous in saying that he has not made up his mind yet
+whether he shall choose the Church or the stage.
+
+[Illustration: _The Abbess Magdalena._]
+
+When I was being introduced to the Ekaterinburg deacon, my friend and
+interpreter whispered to me, "He gave up the opera to come here."
+I thought, in my ignorance, that he had left the world for religion, and
+full of sympathetic interest said:--
+
+"Ask him if he has ever regretted it!" and was rather disconcerted when
+he said in an off-hand way:--
+
+"Oh! well of course I missed things at first, but I'm gradually getting
+used to it."
+
+The Abbess confided to us that sometimes from the way he offered the
+incense she thought he must be thinking he was on the stage still.
+
+He was a remarkably good-looking man with a wonderfully rich voice, and
+as none of the clergy ever cut hair or beard after Ordination, and his
+was just getting full, he looked a most picturesque and interesting
+figure. I should like to meet him again, and put the same question, in
+the hope of a somewhat more encouraging answer.
+
+The Abbess, as well as managing and inspiring her sisters, superintends
+a really remarkable work. Her revenue is a very large one, and she gives
+a portion of it to the Bishop of Ekaterinburg for the work of his
+diocese--he is a young and energetic prelate whom I greatly liked when I
+knew him later--and out of the remainder she supports an Orphanage for
+six hundred girls in the Convent. The remarkable thing, however, about
+her management is its essentially practical, sensible, and considerate
+character. The girls do not wear a uniform, but can consult and improve
+their own taste in dress. They are carefully studied individually, and,
+while all are educated in school in the same way, special preparation is
+given for different callings in life according to the inclination and
+aptitude shown by the girls. Many, of course, prefer domestic service as
+being simpler and perhaps more in keeping with what they have known
+before coming there; but the more enterprising and competent can be, and
+are, taught all sorts of things which these very modern nuns do with
+such great ability themselves. They play, sing, do all sorts of "white
+work" for Russian and French purchasers, and are well up in modern
+photography. They carve, paint, make _ikons_, illuminate pictures, and
+do wonderful embroidery. There is a wide choice, therefore, for the
+girls under their charge, and they avail themselves of it to the full.
+Just before I was there a girl with a wonderful voice, after having been
+trained, had been launched, at the age of twenty-six, upon her career as
+a member of the Russian Imperial Opera.
+
+I described this very modern work as carried out by the nuns of a very
+ancient convent, on my return, to the Archbishop of Canterbury, who
+remarked significantly, as I daresay many of my readers will, "And
+_that_ is in Siberia!"
+
+From Abbess let me pass to Abbot, but to a very different community. At
+Tiumen, the farthest point I reached in North Siberia, and where I had
+been to give services to a family living alone there, and from Scotland
+originally, I went out in the afternoon to see an old church outside the
+town where there had formerly been a fairly large monastery. It is very
+small and humble now, I am sure, from the few we saw there, and their
+neglected appearance as they went about their work in old and well-worn
+habits. The church was locked, but one of their number fetched the keys
+and showed us over the church, explaining their oldest _ikons_. As we
+walked towards the gate and our little carriage, he was full of
+curiosity about ourselves and our Church, and at last, as he questioned
+me rather closely, my friend could keep it in no longer, and
+explained:--
+
+"He's a bishop, an English bishop, and he has come from London to give
+us lonely folk a service!"
+
+The effect was extraordinary.
+
+"An English bishop! Do you say it? Only to think of it! And I in my
+dirty clothes like any common labourer! And I am the Abbot! I beg of
+you! Oh! yes, I must insist. Do not deny me. Enter my humble house, and
+let me feel, even if you only take a seat upon a chair for a moment,
+that I have entertained you!"
+
+Such hospitable intent was not to be withstood, and willingly enough we
+went with him into his small and, as he said, very humble abode, feeling
+how very touching and appealing it all was. We entered, our host saying
+cheerfully, "Be good enough to walk on," and found ourselves in a very
+bare and cheerless-looking parlour with stiff chairs, with black
+horsehair seats, round the walls, and a bare table in the centre, upon
+which stood a conventional and faded little basket of wax-flowers and
+fruit under a glass shade. On looking round we saw the good Abbot had
+disappeared, so we sat down and looked about us, hoping he had not gone
+off to order food; but in an incredibly short time, as if he had been a
+"lightning-change artist," he was back again. And what a transformation!
+The dirty and faded brown cassock was gone, and a flowing rich black
+robe had taken its place, a black mitre with dependent veil was upon his
+head, a magnificent chain and cross hung from his neck, and,
+thoroughly satisfied with his change, he looked as though he were
+saying "Now we meet upon equal terms!" His boyish delight was good to
+see as he said:--
+
+"Now let me welcome you and greet you!" and he kissed me as other
+bishops had done.
+
+These embraces are no light ordeal, as the good clergy never shave or
+cut their hair, and are very heavily bearded. But what of that, if one
+can feel as I did that day, when driving off and waving our adieux, that
+one had been breathing apostolic air, and had been very near in the
+spirit to "Peter and John"?
+
+It only remains to give my experience of a typical parish priest, and
+then I shall feel that the Russian clergy have been fairly described.
+
+Upon my arrival at the Spassky Mine, during my first journey in Siberia,
+in the very heart of the Kirghese Steppes, the manager told me what had
+passed between himself and the parish priest, kept there by his company
+to minister to the labourers in the smelting works. These were all
+Russians, though the labourers in the mine itself were chiefly Kirghese
+and Mohammedans.
+
+"You will be interested to hear that our bishop is coming to see us," he
+had said by way of beginning.
+
+"Your bishop! Where from and what for?"
+
+"He is coming across the steppes, and from London, to give us services."
+
+"You don't mean to say so!" was the startled exclamation. "I never heard
+of such a thing! Your bishop, all the way from London, driving night and
+day for five days across the steppes, to give you twenty English folk
+your services! Why, our bishop is only two or three days down the river
+at Omsk, but we could not expect him to come here for us."
+
+"Well, you see," observed my friend, "our English Church does not forget
+her children, even if they are scattered far and wide. And we shall be
+glad to see him and receive Holy Communion and have sermons from him
+about our faith and highest duties."
+
+After a moment's silence the priest looked up suddenly and said:--
+
+"I wonder if your bishop will come to our service on Sunday and join
+with us in worship? If he will address us how glad we shall be to hear
+him!"
+
+"He will certainly come, and, what is more, we will all come with him,
+and we will all be at divine service together for once. Suppose we have
+our Celebration at 7.30, and you arrange yours for 8.30 instead of 8.15,
+and we will all come over together? We shall fill our little room,
+and can't invite others; but we will all accompany the bishop to the
+church."
+
+[Illustration: _The Russian Priest at Spassky._]
+
+Next day (Sunday), after our Communion--all the staff received it--we
+went over, I in my robes, to the church, and were received by the
+wardens, the choir leading off with a hymn as we entered. The wardens at
+once conducted me behind the screen where the priest stood before the
+altar in his vestments, with a boy server on either side beautifully
+vested, the one in gold and the other in silver tissue.
+
+After bowing to me gravely and reverently, he began the service. Nothing
+is _seen_ of it by the congregation, and they hear only the voice of the
+priest, and are told from the other side of the screen what is passing
+within. The Russian Liturgy is full of traditional ceremonies, and
+rather bewildering, I should think, to an English Churchman; but there
+is no question as to the great reverence which distinguishes it. The
+priest confided to his manager afterwards how nervous he felt at
+celebrating with a bishop at his side, and how anxious he felt to make
+no mistake. He did not show it, however, and was as reverent and
+absorbed as any priest ought to be when back again in thought and word
+and deed in the Upper Room, where, on the same night on which He was
+betrayed, our LORD left us the memorial of His Passion and the
+Sacrament of His love and grace.
+
+It was touching also to see the little servers struggling between
+curiosity and the claims of the service, but the latter triumphed; and
+not till they had taken off their little vestments and stood forth in
+their ordinary clothes did they permit themselves a good look at their
+strange visitor, and show themselves ready to have a word or two from
+him.
+
+The priest, when he had taken an extra little service which some old men
+had asked for, came over to the manager's house and told me of his work,
+asked questions, and received little gifts, and told me how inspiring it
+was to all the Russians to know that their English staff were religious,
+as well as clever and able men, and glad to have their services when
+they could.
+
+In one way this priest was not typical, for he was paid his stipend by
+the company, and not dependent upon his people. In all ordinary parishes
+this is not the case. The parish priest receives a nominal stipend from
+public sources, but depends upon his people for the rest. They give
+small contributions on their name days--a very substantial sum is
+received on S. John's Day, as a favourite Russian name is Ivan, or
+John--when the priest comes to bless their house or workshop, or for a
+marriage, christening, or funeral, or to give the Sacrament in illness.
+There is often, usually, indeed, bargaining on all these occasions. A
+portion of their fruits and crops is claimed. All sorts of contributions
+are made throughout the year, and, except in town parishes where able
+clergy have large incomes, given ungrudgingly by their people, the
+priest and his wife are always trying to get as much as they can for
+their services, and the people, who are very poor, to give as little.
+
+This cannot lead to good relations between clergy and people, and, as
+the clergy in the country seldom if ever preach, there is no personal
+teaching to bring them together. Officially, therefore, it is true to
+say that the Russians value and reverence the ministry of their parish
+clergy, while, personally, they do not feel any great interest in them
+or their families, nor see any reason why they should. And certainly, as
+a rule--the fault of the system no doubt--they do not love them.
+
+Let me now describe the service which I have mentioned upon a previous
+page, conducted after the Liturgy was over and the people had been
+dismissed. The priest told me four old men had asked to have a few
+special prayers and a reading from the Gospels, and I stayed to share
+it. The prayers were said, petition and response, by all five standing
+before the screen, after which the four old men, with rough and rugged
+faces, shaggy hair, and wide flowing beards, closed up together, and, as
+they stood back to back, the priest placed the beautifully-bound copy of
+the Gospels upon their heads and began to read. The rough faces seemed
+at once to change their whole expression: their blue eyes sparkled, and
+there appeared that light upon every countenance which "never was on sea
+or land," or anywhere else except upon the face of one who is in
+communion with God. My thoughts went back to the story of Moses as he
+came down from Sinai, and veiled his face as he spoke to the people,
+lest they should find there that which they could neither bear to see or
+understand. One's thoughts are always going back to scriptural scenes
+and descriptions when amongst the Russian peasantry.
+
+[Illustration: _S. Isaac's Cathedral, Petrograd._]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[6] Published by T. Fisher Unwin, Paternoster Square.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+RELIGIOUS LIFE AND WORSHIP
+
+
+It is well sometimes to define our terms and phrases, and it is
+absolutely necessary in this case. What is it that we mean when we speak
+of the religious life of a people, Christian and non-Christian alike?
+Our soldiers have been fighting shoulder to shoulder with Hindoos and
+Mohammedans, whose British commander, on the eve of their first battle,
+addressed them in words which ought to be long remembered by those who
+are working and praying for the hastening of GOD's kingdom, appealing to
+their faith, and reminding them that prayers were ascending from Mosque
+and from Temple to the GOD of all, on their behalf.
+
+The Hindoos and Moslems have their religious life as well as ourselves.
+And it behoves us of the Christian Church, especially when such stirring
+words can be addressed to two Eastern peoples, so widely different in
+their creeds, to remind them that their prayers are going up to the same
+"GOD of all," to look very earnestly and sympathetically at the
+religious life and worship of all the different Churches which make up
+the "Mystical Body of CHRIST and the blessed company of all faithful
+people."
+
+It is along that way and that alone--the affectionate, respectful, and
+sympathetic interest in the religious life and worship of those who
+differ from us and those not in communion with us, that unity lies, and
+I feel sure there is no other. The religious life of a man, or people,
+is his life as it is influenced by the creed he professes and the
+worship he offers.
+
+We are not thinking at the moment of a moral life, for a moral life is
+led by many who, as they would express it, "make no religious
+profession." It is open to us to question whether they are not more
+influenced than they are aware by the religion of those about them,
+which is in the very air they breathe, for there is such an influence as
+"religious atmosphere"; or we may think also that they have more
+religion than they suspect; but they themselves would disclaim all this.
+Some live, as John Stuart Mill lived, frankly without religion, yet
+leading a blameless and irreproachable moral life. Then as a contrast
+there are the lives of religious people leaving as far as moral values
+are concerned much to be desired, and probably, in many cases, most of
+all by themselves.
+
+Religious life, however, is creed and worship translated into daily life
+and expression, effort and achievement; and accepting that definition I
+unhesitatingly claim for the Russian people that they are one of the
+most religious peoples in the world. Their religion is the desire and
+effort to know GOD. "This is life eternal, to know GOD, and JESUS CHRIST
+Whom He has sent." The Russian has not been fully taught as yet the
+ethical and moral side of this knowing GOD, though he is ready for it,
+but only its mystical side. He seeks the knowledge of GOD, quite simply,
+as a spiritual experience.
+
+It will always be found that when races have received civilization and
+Christianity suddenly, as the Russians have done, while they astonish
+and charm by their spiritual fervour and deep earnestness, they
+disappoint by their want of consistency in moral life. But spiritual
+fervour and great earnestness arising out of a real need for GOD and a
+deep sense of His meeting that need "fulfilling minds and granting
+hearts' desires," and a real sense of communion with the Great Eternal
+in CHRIST in beautiful and uplifting worship, afford the best of all
+foundations for building up moral conduct permanently and well.
+
+To the Russian, as to the ancient Hebrew, moral law will only lastingly
+and effectually appeal when prefaced by "GOD hath said." His religion is
+GOD; the knowledge of the Most High as revealed in CHRIST. And he is one
+of the most consistently religious persons in the world, for he must
+have his religion everywhere, and, just as the Hebrew felt it must be,
+"when talking with his children, when sitting in his house, when walking
+by the way, when going to lie down, and when rising up, written upon the
+posts of his house, and on the gates." The mystical or spiritual
+temperaments of the two peoples are much the same. Russians have a
+passion for GOD. They never want to be away from the sense and
+consciousness of His presence. Only when they have gained some sense of
+this spiritual endowment of the Russian race will my readers be able to
+see where their religious life corresponds with our own, and where it
+widely diverges from it. We have spoken of this war as a righteous war;
+the Russians as a religious one! They have brought their religion into
+it as they have never done into any war before. A Russian officer, for
+instance, gave a very picturesque account of the great battle of the
+Vistula last October, and ended with these words: "My company was the
+first to cross the river, which seemed to boil from the bursting of the
+shells. Afterwards nine companies rushed the enemy's position. A priest
+with long, streaming hair, and holding high a cross amid a hail of
+bullets, stood blessing the soldiers as they ran past." That is the true
+Russian, his religion everywhere and in everything. There is nothing in
+life, throughout the year, however secular it may seem to us to be,
+which does not have that blessing by the priest. The war has had it from
+first to last. All through mobilization, in the families from which the
+bread-winner was to go, there would be special little private services
+such as I have described in my last chapter. On the day when the
+conscripts were to depart from the village there would be the Liturgy in
+church, with all who could be present, and others outside. There would
+be, it has been described for us, the solemn reading of the Holy Gospel
+in the open-air, the book resting upon a living lectern; and as they
+rode away the last thing the departing men would see, as with those nine
+companies on the Vistula, would be the cross lifted high by a priest,
+with his long hair streaming over his shoulders, or out upon the wind.
+
+It would be just the same all through the long journeys: the sacred
+_ikons_ were carried, the priest marched steadily along, or sat in the
+railway carriages with the soldiers, and always with his cross. The
+soldiers of course saluted their priests as they saluted their officers,
+and for a time it was a little puzzling to decide how this salute should
+be suitably returned in such a war as this. For a priest to raise his
+hand to his cap did not seem to belong to his sacred office, and so it
+was decided he should touch his cross instead. Quite apart from the
+regular and official services, the priest would be always fulfilling his
+part in bringing God home to his countrymen, until the very end when he
+stood blessing them, as we have been told, as they rushed past him to
+attack, many of them to return no more. There is something very
+inspiring in the thought that the last earthly object many of them saw
+as they rushed on to death was the Cross of Him Who had robbed death of
+all its terrors, and brought Immortality to light.
+
+One of my great reasons for looking to the Orthodox Church of Russia to
+give us our first opportunity, in seeking to promote the larger unity of
+Christendom, is, as I had occasion to say at a large public meeting in
+London last year, that, like ourselves, they wish to have the New
+Testament sense of the presence of CHRIST. I cannot use any other phrase
+to express my meaning. It is to me the whole spirit of their worship,
+not only at the Holy Communion, where one would expect it, but at all
+the other services as well. Litanies form a very important part of their
+worship, and as one hears that softly repeated "LORD, have mercy"
+(_Gospodi pomilui_) again and again from the choir, it is as if they
+were all conscious of speaking straight to their LORD with the feeling
+that He is there Himself to grant their prayer. No other refrain that I
+have ever heard has the same appealing note of real and moving faith.
+
+I have attended the "all-night service" at S. Isaac's, in Petrograd, on
+Saturdays at 6 p.m. It lasts two hours in cathedrals and churches, but
+all night in monasteries and convents, and some of us going to S.
+Isaac's for the first time would almost wish that it could be "all
+night" there also. The glorious richness of the men's voices, their deep
+rolling basses and sweet tenors, the silvery trebles of the boys--there
+is no organ or other accompaniment--when heard as a new experience makes
+one involuntarily think to one's self "I have never heard prayer and
+praise expressed like this before." Whether one is behind the screen,
+where I was conducted at once, or standing with the choir before
+it--there are no seats in a Russian church--noting their picturesque
+uniforms like those of officers, and their profound reverence, or moving
+amongst the congregation, and looking towards the screen, the same
+impression is given everywhere and by every one, "We are praising Thee,
+O GOD, we acknowledge Thee to be the LORD. Thou art the King of Glory, O
+CHRIST."
+
+[Illustration: _Interior of a Russian Church._]
+
+The screen separates the sacrarium from the body of the church, and is a
+carved partition painted and gilded, and in the cathedrals and great
+churches, is covered with silver and gold _ikons_, often richly
+jewelled, and with numerous lamps and tapers burning before them. At
+each side of this screen is a narrow door through which people seem to
+pass at will, to and fro, for there is a great feeling of freedom in a
+Russian church, and every one does just what he feels led to do. No
+ladies, however, may ever pass behind. In its centre are folding doors
+which are only used for ceremonial purposes, and are called "The Royal
+Gates." In the Liturgy it is a moment of deep solemnity when they are
+opened wide, and the priest passes through carrying the bread and wine
+for consecration. This is "The Great Entrance." At the evening service
+on Saturday night also there is an entrance, when the deacon
+carries the Gospels through, before which the gates stand open wide for
+a little while, and the congregation may look straight through.
+Immediately within stands the altar, a perfectly plain, square structure
+with nothing at all upon it but a large copy of the Four Gospels, and
+behind it is the seven-branched candlestick. It has an extraordinary
+effect upon the worshipper who has only just come to Russia when the
+Royal Gates are thrown open thus, and, with incense filling the air, the
+seven lamps on the great candlestick come into view. It is for a moment
+as if one was back in the days of Zacharias and Elisabeth, waiting for
+him to come forth through the gates to bless us, as he did on that
+memorable occasion after the announcement of the birth of S. John the
+Baptist. It is, however, only for a moment that the Temple fills the
+mind, for on looking up the representation of our LORD is there in the
+great window above, where He seems to look down upon us in love and
+blessing, and "The same yesterday, to-day, and for ever," seems to have
+new and blessed significance.
+
+Russian worship to me is just dominated by the very presence of CHRIST.
+All the meretricious surroundings, the lights and glittering and
+jewelled _ikons_ have not the least power to diminish the joyous,
+thankful sense of it. He is in the midst of us "gathered together in His
+Name." Every one seems to feel it, every one seeks to realize it. They
+are there for that! That is why the beautiful voices keep singing
+"_Gospodi pomilui_" or "LORD, be merciful to us." We feel it is real
+worship, and I can only hope that many of my readers who have not had
+the joy of it in that special way may yet have the opportunity afforded
+them. There are Russian churches, of course, in England, and I have
+happily and helpfully worshipped in the Russian church in Paris at 6
+p.m. on Saturdays; but Russian worship can only be truly known and fully
+shared in Russia.
+
+This "New Testament sense of the presence of CHRIST," as I have called
+it, is no doubt promoted by the extraordinary veneration given to the
+Gospels, both in their external and internal form. There is an intense
+feeling of close personal attention as the deacon carries them through
+the Royal Gates. They are always beautifully bound, rimmed and clasped
+with gold or silver, and often sparkling with diamonds and other
+precious stones. A beautifully bound copy--in ordinary churches the
+best they have--rests upon the altar, in its very centre, with a silken
+covering, and when the priest comes to celebrate he first kisses it, and
+then, lifting it up and setting it upon end, and laying the corporal
+where it has rested, with the chalice and paten upon it, proceeds to the
+Liturgy. The consecration takes place on that part of the altar where
+the Gospels have lain before, and where they will again be laid when the
+service is over.
+
+The four evangelists always appear painted upon the Royal Gates,
+together with a representation of the Annunciation, our LORD, and the
+Holy Virgin, on either side. This is never departed from. In every
+church which follows traditional lines there are the four huge pillars
+holding up the whole structure--typifying the four evangelists again.
+Upon the roof they are set forth in the four cupolas, which are always
+there at the corners, while a fifth rising above them typifies our LORD
+over and above and dominating, yet supported by, them. Then there is
+nothing in the ordinary services to compare with the reading of the Holy
+Gospel to the people, nor is any special or private ministration
+complete without reading some portion of these, the most important parts
+of the sacred Scriptures.
+
+It is easy to see, therefore, how it comes about that the Russian sense
+of the living CHRIST is essentially that which is realized by His
+Apostles and described in the New Testament.
+
+Last year no less than three writers, as different from each other as
+they could well be, writing of visits paid to the Holy Land--Mr. Robert
+Hichens, the novelist, in _The Holy Land_, Sir Frederick Treves, the
+well-known and eminent surgeon, in _The Land that is Desolate_, and Mr.
+Stephen Graham, in _With the Russian Pilgrims to Jerusalem_--all alike
+show us that no one had made the same impression upon them as the
+Russians who had come to realize their LORD in the very place where He
+had lived our human life. They all so clearly felt that those
+simple-minded folk, as they followed traditions and visited one place
+after another from Bethlehem to Calvary, and wept where He had wept, and
+prayed where He had prayed, looked over the places and the waters upon
+which His eyes had rested, crossed themselves reverently again and again
+where He had suffered, and sung _Te Deum_ and _Alleluia_ where He had
+risen, were looking not at the things which are seen, but at the things
+which are not seen, believing with all the strength of their great and
+simple hearts that "the things which are seen are temporal, while the
+things which are not seen are eternal."
+
+To the devout Russian the so-called good things of this life are
+unsubstantial and swiftly passing experiences, while the great and only
+realities worth thinking about seriously are those spiritual experiences
+of the Apostles as they went in and out with CHRIST and companied with
+Him, which are now described in the Gospels that we may have the same
+"even to the end of the ages." If Russia gives, as we pray she may, a
+lead to Christendom in the direction of unity, she will have a
+wonderfully uplifting and apostolic contribution to offer to the common
+stock of our Christian heritage.
+
+And yet with all this wealth of very real spiritual experience there
+goes also a sad deficiency of moral conduct. "But that vitiates it all,"
+some of my readers may exclaim. No; it does not. We, with our very
+different temperament, have come to substitute morality for religion and
+the ethical for the spiritual, whereas for the "whole man," as even
+Ecclesiastes tells us, _both_ are necessary. Morality is not religion at
+all while the spiritual faculties are absolutely quiescent and the soul
+knows no need of GOD nor cries out for Him. A deep sense of the
+spiritual and a longing and effort to attain touch with the eternal is
+religion, although an imperfect morality impairs and cripples the
+adequate witness, the full unfettered enjoyment of it. And, as another
+writer has lately done in the political sphere, I would plead for the
+Russians that "they did not get a fair start."
+
+I have already described the rough-and-ready way in which they were
+converted to Christianity, never having anything like our opportunities
+of instruction from the first. I have never heard a Russian sermon! The
+vast majority of the clergy have never been trained to preach, and would
+not be able to do so if they tried. The people are not taught at all in
+church, except by what is read to them in Scripture, or what they read
+for themselves. Let Englishmen give them "fair play" all round, both in
+political and constitutional, and also in moral deficiencies; and let us
+remember that it was to a body of real and earnest Christians--"saints"
+and "faithful," he himself calls them--that S. Paul found it necessary
+to write and caution against "the lusts of the flesh, foolish talking
+and unseemly jesting, covetousness and uncleanness, lying and stealing."
+If it was necessary to write those fifth and sixth chapters of the
+Ephesians to a body of Christian believers of whose sincerity an
+Apostle had no doubt, we may well have hopeful patience with a great
+body of our fellow Christians whose want of consistency in conduct
+provokes such ready criticism. It is well known how a mystical people
+like the West Indians (I have described it at length in a former book,
+_A Bishop among Bananas_, in chap. v) resent being accused of theft when
+helping themselves to "GOD'S gifts," as they call them, in the shape of
+fruit and fowls, when they would not dream of taking money, clothing, or
+other material things, or would consider themselves thieves if they did.
+And so it interested me to learn the other day that the Russian peasant
+views thefts of the same kind of things in much the same way, drawing in
+his mind a distinction between that which GOD gives for all and that
+which man produces for himself. It is imperfect reasoning, we know, as
+there is no real distinction between what a man produces by cultivation
+and what he manufactures; but we can understand an untrained and rather
+childlike mind making such a distinction.
+
+The devout Russian peasantry in this stage often seem to illustrate our
+LORD'S words concerning things revealed to "babes" which even the "wise
+and prudent" seem to miss. Sir Donald M. Wallace again tells the story
+in _Our Russian Ally_ which he told in his _Russia_--it will bear
+constant repetition--as an instance of real spiritual insight in a
+simple and untrained mind. "I remember once asking a common labourer,"
+he says, "what he thought of the Mussulman Tartars among whom he
+happened to be living; and his reply, given with evident sincerity,
+was--'Not a bad sort of people.' 'And what about their religion?' I
+inquired. 'Not at all a bad sort of faith--you see they received it like
+the colour of their skins, from GOD.'" He assumed, of course, in his
+simple piety, that whatever comes from GOD must be good. It necessitated
+a very special spiritual experience and real vision before a Christian
+Apostle could say the same thing, "Of a truth I perceive that GOD is no
+respecter of persons"; but that common labourer in this little incident
+had taken in the same wide outlook, in a perfectly normal way, from his
+ordinary surroundings and the religious influences which make up such an
+important portion of his life.
+
+The lesson is learnt early. I was, one morning, in an elementary school
+in Siberia, just before the work of the day began, to speak to the
+children. They opened with prayer, but how different from prayers in our
+own schools! The master and teachers did nothing except pray with the
+rest. At a sign that all was ready a boy of twelve stepped out and took
+his place before the _ikon_ in its corner, and then bowing with that
+inimitable grace which belongs alone to the Russian when at prayer, and
+making the sign of the Cross, he gravely led the simple prayers of the
+whole school, all singing softly and reverently in unison. It was all
+inexpressibly touching and appealing, and to be treasured up with those
+other things of which one says, "I shall never forget."
+
+The sign of the Cross is always made very slowly and solemnly, quite
+differently from other Churches, and from right to left upon the breast,
+and it is always accompanied by a slow and reverent bowing of the head,
+and is repeated usually three times. It is the special sign during the
+public services that a worshipper is just then feeling his or her own
+part in it. People do not use this devotion at set times during service,
+but just when they wish, and as the spirit moves them. I have been in
+the S. Isaac's choir when all the men and boys were singing a hymn, and
+suddenly a man near me would stop, bow, and cross himself devoutly, and
+then resume his hymn. No one would take the least notice, but all would
+go on singing as before. Then a choir-boy, after a moment or two, would
+do the same, his companions continuing to sing till their turn of being
+moved within came also. I have seen soldiers in the ranks do just the
+same when bareheaded at an outdoor service. There is so much spontaneity
+and elasticity and liberty in Russian worship. They do just as they feel
+"led by the Spirit" to do.
+
+[Illustration: _The Cathedral at Riga._]
+
+One of the most interesting experiences I had last year was attending on
+the Feast of the Epiphany--the appointed day for that and similar
+services--the blessing of the Neva. The ceremony takes place just
+outside the Winter Palace at Petrograd. Diplomatists and other visitors
+who wish to look on, stand within at the windows, but I much preferred
+to be outside, even though it was bitterly cold and we had to be
+bareheaded. There was a magnificent and bewildering gathering of Russian
+ecclesiastics, gorgeously vested. Priceless _ikons_ were carried, and
+beautiful banners of rich embroideries, the whole effect being strangely
+Eastern in character. A few only could enter the small _kiosk_ on the
+river's bank where the water, brought in a silver basin, was blessed.
+But the thrilling thing that day was the glorious singing, chant and
+refrain, which so richly filled the air, stirring the very depths of
+one's being, and the innumerable rows of deeply attentive soldiers in
+their long grey coats, whose frequent bowings and devout crossings
+all through the ranks showed that, though they were there officially,
+they were there to worship also. The Emperor walked from the palace
+amongst others and returned to it, bareheaded like any common soldier,
+with a perfectly plain overcoat like the rest, and nothing whatever to
+distinguish him from the crowd. He was unattended and moved quite freely
+with the rest, and could not be recognized except by a few of us
+standing near the door, who were already familiar with his appearance.
+There was but little cheering in consequence, though he acknowledged it
+in that modest and unaffected way which always distinguishes him. It was
+then that I saw the Grand Duke Nicholas for the first time, the
+generalissimo in the war, a magnificent man. He had certain
+announcements to make, or directions to give, and his grand voice rang
+out on the clear air so that every one could hear. "A real leader of men
+that," one felt instinctively without dreaming how soon one would have
+cause to remember the thought, under tragically altered circumstances.
+
+We cannot possibly attach too much importance to the fact, admitted on
+all sides and in the most unexpected quarters, that this great race,
+coming so very closely into our lives, uniting their destiny in some
+measure with our own, is above all others a distinctly religious people.
+Russia, as must be ever becoming more and more evident, is to be our
+ally in a way hitherto entirely unknown to our race and nation.
+Thoughtful observers have seen it coming for some time, and are not
+taken at all by surprise, but the idea is still new and not altogether
+welcome to many. There is no doubt at all about it in my own mind, and I
+shall return to it more fully in a later chapter, that while we shall
+still remain the friends of France and act the part of true "friends in
+need" should occasion again arise, and look with a friendly eye upon
+other nationalities, and even--how much I hope it--make up our quarrel
+with Prussia and the German peoples she has influenced against us, yet
+with Russia our relations are already altogether different, and our two
+empires are rapidly beginning to realize that they are coming together
+in an entirely different relationship, to knit up true and enduring ties
+of brotherly unity with each other, not for selfish purposes at all, but
+for a great work together for civilization and for GOD. We Anglo-Saxons
+are a deeply religious people at heart, though with our temperamental
+reticence and reserve we speak least about the things of which we feel
+the most. The Russians are also a sincerely religious people, and they,
+on the other hand, bring out most readily, spontaneously, and naturally,
+the things which mean most to them. We are unlike each other in
+temperament, yet absolutely like each other in our view of the deep
+things of GOD. Thus complementary to one another, we have a real
+intelligible hope of a lasting friendship. We should have no hope at all
+of any such tie between ourselves and them if they did not share our
+serious view of human life and responsibility, and base that view upon a
+firm belief in GOD. We should feel at heart that we had no real
+confidence in their stability, grit, and powers of staying and lasting
+out.
+
+Surely the one thing that has come out during the war is the supreme
+importance of _morale_. Napoleon went so far, I have seen it stated, as
+to say it counted for an army, in proportion to its numbers, as three to
+one. I remember too how the military correspondent of the _Times_, in
+one of his most interesting articles on the Balkan War, when it was
+drawing to a close, explained the disastrous defeat of the Turkish army
+by the gradual loss of _morale_ they had sustained by the decay of
+religion amongst them under the regime of the Young Turks. Prayers had
+been largely given up by the troops, who no longer had the ministrations
+of their spiritual leaders, and _morale_ had gone in consequence. Then
+had come disaster. He contrasted with all this the tremendous fervour of
+the Balkan League, and described a picture he had recently seen in a
+French illustrated paper. Two French officers were shown looking at a
+Bulgarian regiment on their knees, their priest praying for them and
+blessing them before they went into action. "What would one of our
+generals get," said one of the French officers to his friend, "if he
+ordered such a thing as that?" "He would get the victory," quietly said
+the other.
+
+I am expecting great things from Russia, and for us through Russia, for
+civilization and for GOD, and what I have written is being ever more and
+more widely felt by others also, and even expressed in daily papers,
+where at one time we should not have expected such a thing to be thought
+of in the midst of a great war. "That Russia is one of the most truly
+religious countries in the world is proved by the crowds which filled
+and overflowed in all the churches yesterday when thanksgiving services
+were held in celebration of the victory, _nor is it possible to doubt
+the sincerity and devotion_ of the worshippers. The firm belief in the
+divine ruling of the world is to be found among _all classes_."[7]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[7] _The Daily Mail_ correspondent at Petrograd, November 12, 1914.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+HIS IMPERIAL MAJESTY THE TSAR
+
+
+One interesting figure has held the attention of the Continent of Europe
+for many long years, appealing to the imagination and baffling
+comprehension, but will never fill the same place again. Another,
+however, is coming forward very possibly in his stead, without any wish
+or intention of his own, and that other is the Emperor of Russia. He
+will do so, I believe, just as the German Emperor has done, because
+history affords him the opportunity, and because, like the Kaiser, he
+too is a man who cherishes thoughts of great purposes for his people and
+ideals for himself.
+
+It affords me the greatest pleasure to write about the Emperor--he is
+not usually spoken of in Russian society as the Tsar--for I shall always
+feel most deeply grateful to him for his great personal kindness at my
+first audience with him, and the great encouragement he gave me at the
+very beginning of my work abroad.
+
+[Illustration: _Her Imperial Majesty the Tsaritsa._]
+
+I have already explained the quaking spirit in which I crossed the
+frontier. It so happened that Russia was the first country I visited
+when appointed to take charge of the jurisdiction, and, as to so many
+others, there was something forbidding to me in the very name of Russia.
+I knew at that time also that my visitations would bring me, as they
+have done, into contact with other sovereigns, and with great personages
+in other countries, and here at St. Petersburg I was to begin with the
+most unknown and, as one thought of his vast empire, most overwhelming
+of them all. And then--but let me describe an audience at the palace at
+Tsarskoe Selo, for it will probably interest many a reader, and also
+explain how very different from a somewhat perturbed anticipation was
+the pleasurable reality. I have taken care to satisfy myself beforehand
+that I shall not be transgressing any of the rules of court etiquette,
+nor be guilty of any breach of confidence in so doing.
+
+Audiences abroad are always arranged through the British Embassy or
+Legation. Court dress is worn in Russia, even though the reception
+itself is perfectly informal, but, as court dress for a bishop consists
+in being robed as for Easter services, in red chimere, etc., there was
+no difficulty in providing it even for one who has to carry everything
+in a couple of bags, and for months at a time.
+
+Tsarskoe Selo--"The Tsar's village," the words mean--is a little over
+half an hour by rail from Petrograd, and I was instructed to start from
+the Imperial Station in Petrograd, and there walked over rich carpets,
+through saluting soldiers, to the imperial train, most beautifully and
+comfortably arranged with smoking, writing, and reading compartments.
+Upon arrival at Tsarskoe Selo imperial carriages are always waiting for
+those expected, with coachman and footman on the box, wearing bright
+scarlet cloaks edged with white fur and very smart cocked hats of red
+and gold.
+
+It was a typical Russian wintry day with a tremendous blizzard blowing,
+and blinding snow falling. Sentries were stationed at intervals through
+the streets of the village, saluting all the imperial carriages as they
+went by, although no occupant could be seen; and having passed through
+it we entered the park and soon drew up at the door of the small palace
+where the Emperor always resides, and which, white itself, looked that
+day like a fairy palace rising up amid the snow.
+
+Nothing could be more strikingly different from that white world
+without, however, than the warmth and richness of colour within. On
+every side there were brilliant and unfamiliar liveries and dazzlingly
+rich uniforms. An official, of huge physique, wearing several medals,
+with a broad gold band round his head, from which, on its right side,
+stuck out a curious bunch of dark feathers, in velvet and lace dress,
+and with breeches and silk stockings--there was no one the least like
+him in the crowd of attendants--at once came forward and led me away to
+a dressing-room in which to leave my furs and change into my robes. He
+then conducted me through one beautiful room after another, each one
+richly furnished and adorned with beautiful china, paintings, _ikons_,
+trophies, and presents from different parts of the empire, until at
+length we reached a small room where a number of officers in brilliant
+uniforms were seated and evidently in attendance.
+
+One of them, the Conte de Grabbe, at once came forward and welcomed me,
+chatting pleasantly until a servant, very quietly attired like an
+English butler, came out from a room opposite and, holding the door
+open, signified that I was to enter.
+
+There was no introduction or announcement of any kind, and, as I
+entered, the Emperor was already standing there to meet me, smiling
+pleasantly and encouragingly, with extended hand.
+
+"It is very kind in your Imperial Majesty," I said, "to allow me to come
+and see you in this informal way."
+
+"It is very kind in you to come and see us, bishop," he replied, so
+cheerily and unaffectedly, that away went every bit of diffidence and
+sense of constraint, and, to my great relief and gratitude, I found
+myself talking as naturally as to an intimate friend. I say "gratitude"
+because, being put so entirely at ease, able to say all that it was in
+my mind to say, and ask anything that it was in my mind to wish to know,
+enabled me to get a clear idea of the Emperor's attractive personality,
+and even, as he spoke quite freely, of some at least of the opinions and
+principles which must rule his conduct and shape his policy and
+government.
+
+"He gives you confidence," a diplomatist who had had many official
+audiences with him said to me one day, and that exactly describes the
+effect he produces. He talked freely of all things before the public
+mind just then--of the approaching Coronation of King George, for whom
+he expressed a more than cousinly regard and respect; of domestic duties
+and family life as the ideals which shape the destinies of races; of
+the Russian Church, particularly asking if its dignitaries had welcomed
+me; of our English Church; of travelling; of my own impressions of
+Russia and other things. It was quite astonishing afterwards to recall
+the ground we had covered in that interview. And before I left he
+inquired:--
+
+"When will you be coming to Russia again, bishop?"
+
+"Next year, sir," I said; "for I believe I am to go to Siberia."
+
+"Siberia! How interesting! I've never yet been to Siberia. Then you'll
+come and tell us all about it when you return, won't you?"
+
+"I shall be much honoured, sir." And praying God's blessing upon himself
+and the imperial family, for which he thanked me as simply and modestly
+as any other layman would have done, I withdrew, feeling that it had
+been one of the most helpful and memorable interviews I had ever had.
+
+I have been often asked if the Emperor is not very much like our King,
+and it is a somewhat difficult question to answer. As he stood there
+that morning, in a simple pale blue uniform, well set up and looking
+extraordinarily young and boyish, and smilingly happy--so entirely
+different from one's expectations--it did not occur to me to see any
+such likeness, but an old courtier said to me, in speaking after
+luncheon of "the resemblance which is so much talked of"--
+
+"There is no resemblance to be noticed when their two Majesties are
+together, nor would there be any striking likeness seen between their
+portraits in colours, but in photographs or anything that is black and
+white, just bringing out light and shade, then the similarity is most
+remarkable, you might easily mistake one for the other."
+
+This puts one's own impressions very clearly. There is a well-known
+photograph, circulated as a postcard in Germany, and from a German
+negative, of which I have a copy, in which the two Emperors are shown in
+conversation on the imperial yacht. Any one seeing it in English hands
+would certainly think that it was our King and the Kaiser, and be quite
+astonished at learning it was not.
+
+The Emperor received me the first time in a very comfortable but simply
+furnished study, and the last time, when, in accordance with his
+invitation, I went to tell him about my two missions to Siberia, in his
+billiard-room fitted up as a study or library, and in which he led me to
+the kind of window-seat which we know so well in English country houses,
+looking out upon the park. Afterwards luncheon was served for me in
+the _Grand Palais_ of the Great Catherine, a most magnificent and
+immense palace a little distance away, full of interesting souvenirs of
+Russia's past.
+
+[Illustration: _His Imperial Highness the Tsarevitch Alexei._]
+
+It is well known how many and different rumours have been circulated
+during the last two years about the heir to the throne, and it seems
+rather a pity that the simple truth has not been announced and made
+fully known from the first, for I am assured on the best authority in
+Petrograd, that the Tsarevitch suffers from a skin affection not
+unknown, unfortunately, to members of our royal family, which, as he is
+a very high-spirited boy, difficult to watch and caution, has in moments
+of exuberance and violent exertion caused him to receive injuries which
+for a time have been disabling.
+
+When last at Tsarskoe Selo, before taking my leave I took out some
+puzzles from my pocket, made of wood and steel, quite inexpensive, as I
+thought it likely they would be most welcome because most unfamiliar,
+and handing them to the Emperor, said:--
+
+"I have brought the Tsarevitch a present, sir, and I bring it out with
+much hesitation, for it is a very simple one, and I know he must have
+had many beautiful and costly gifts this Christmas."
+
+"Not at all," he said; "we bring him up very simply, and he loves
+puzzles. He and I used up all we could get, especially those jig-saw
+puzzles, while he was ill. These, I see, are new."
+
+"I hope," I said, "that he is now better?"
+
+"Yes," he said, "he is; he's quite well now--quite well," he repeated
+with emphasis.
+
+The Emperor speaks English perfectly, fluently, and with ease, and I
+have been told that it is the language most generally, if not always,
+used in the ordinary daily life of the imperial family.
+
+I have taken up some time in giving these personal impressions, but I
+think it is quite worth while to do so just now as the Emperor was so
+particularly gracious and kind, and thus enabled me to form some idea of
+what he is, just as a man and a father in his own home; and that I know
+will appeal to my own countrymen when wondering what is likely to be his
+policy and aim as a ruler of a vast empire.
+
+A man can only _do_ what he _is_, whether he be in the highest or the
+lowest positions in the world; and he always brings out, sooner or
+later, what he is at heart. It must therefore be a very great source of
+confidence to us all just now, when we believe that the providence of
+GOD has brought the British and the Russian Empires together, not for
+temporary, but for enduring objects, to know, as I feel we may consider
+that we do know, that the Emperor of all the Russias is a man we can all
+respect and trust, precisely as we respect and trust our own
+Sovereign--as one whose ideals are those of domestic duty and family
+life on the one hand, and the real interests and well-being of the
+labouring and toiling millions of his people on the other.
+
+A somewhat scandalous book was written last year which I won't mention
+by name, lest curiosity should lead those who have not read it to do so,
+which gave a most unfavourable impression of the Emperor and the
+imperial family. It was not, however, written by an Englishman; and,
+without questioning in any way the writer's _bona fides_, I am bound to
+say, and very confidently and energetically, that I have never yet met
+one of my own countrymen who has had to do with the Emperor of Russia,
+financially, diplomatically, or in audience, who has not expressed
+himself to me about him in the same appreciative terms as I have here
+used myself.
+
+Take, for instance, what Sir Donald Mackenzie Wallace has written only a
+few months ago.[8] "The antiquated idea that Tsars are always heartless
+tyrants who devote much of their time in sending troublesome subjects
+to Siberia, is now happily pretty well exploded, but the average
+Englishman is still reluctant to admit that an avowedly autocratic
+government may be, in certain circumstances, a useful institution. There
+is no doubt, however, that in the gigantic work of raising Russia to her
+present level of civilization, the Tsars have played a most important
+part. As for the present Tsar, he has followed, in a humane spirit, the
+best traditions of his ancestors. Any one who has had opportunities of
+studying closely his character and aims, and who knows the difficulties
+with which he has had to contend, can hardly fail to regard him with
+sympathy and admiration. Among the qualities which would commend him to
+Englishmen are his scrupulous honesty and genuine truthfulness. Of
+these--were I not restrained by fear of committing a breach of
+confidence--I might give some interesting illustrations.
+
+"As a ruler, Nicholas II habitually takes a keen, sympathetic interest
+in the material and moral progress of his country; and is ever ready to
+listen attentively and patiently to those who are presumably competent
+to offer sound advice on the subject. At the same time he is very
+prudent in action; and this happy combination of zeal and caution, which
+distinguishes him from his too impetuous countrymen, has been signally
+displayed in recent years. During the revolutionary agitation which
+followed close on the disastrous Japanese War, when the impetuous
+would-be reformers wished to overturn the whole existing fabric of
+administration, and the timid counsellors recommended vigorous
+retrograde measures, he wisely steered a middle course, which has
+resulted in the creation of a moderate form of parliamentary
+institutions."
+
+I am not alone, therefore, in the very favourable impression I have
+formed of the Russian Emperor as a man whom the best of my own
+countrymen may respect as one like-minded with themselves in his views
+of life and conduct, and his own countrymen thoroughly trust as a
+constitutional ruler who, though determined, as he will be advised by
+his most trusted counsellors, to go cautiously, yet is convinced that a
+good government's one and chief concern is the well-being of those who
+are governed, and especially of those who form the lowest class in its
+social scale.
+
+Like Sir Donald Wallace, I too could give instances of the Emperor's
+straightforward and generous action which show the essential
+right-mindedness of his nature in a very striking way, if it were
+possible to do so without breach of confidence. Especially was this the
+case in a particular instance of which I know, when it was a question of
+putting his own interests, and even dignity, in a very secondary
+position. It was one, indeed, in which no great ruler could be expected
+or asked to do so, but when he learnt himself what was involved he at
+once did so subordinate his own interests, and has earned in consequence
+the lasting gratitude of all concerned, and their entire and loyal
+confidence.
+
+The Russian people are intensely loyal, and, as the overwhelming
+majority are of the peasant class, their loyalty is of that simple,
+fervid, and trusting character which is seen in their family and village
+life. They do not speak of the "Emperor" so much as of "The Little
+Father," and that is how they feel towards him. He is the father of his
+people and they are his children. If there is anything they object to in
+legislation it is always put down to officialdom, just as our own
+Colonies, before the days when they began to "think imperially," used to
+vent all their displeasure upon "Downing Street" when unwelcome
+legislation took place, and never upon Queen Victoria (or her
+government), for whom they had the greatest respect and affection. The
+Russian peasant too murmurs loudly at times against the governors and
+their subordinates when he is requested to do something that he does
+not like, but with a solacing reflection to himself that "The Little
+Father would put everything right if he only knew."
+
+There is disaffection and serious disloyalty in other quarters, and I
+shall try my best to describe it and what may very possibly be some of
+its causes, in my chapter on "Russia's Problem," but the dangerous
+disaffection, probably already beginning to pass away, is confined to a
+few of the largest towns, and does not in any way affect the
+overwhelming majority of the Emperor's subjects, who are entirely
+devoted to him and patriotically loyal.
+
+This ought to be remembered also when we are thinking over future
+relations between our own people and theirs. The Russians are not a
+downtrodden and oppressed people struggling to throw off the yoke of a
+harsh and despotic rule, but are contented, loyal, and law-abiding. They
+do not, however, show their loyalty by any outward expressions such as
+the "All Highest," and others with which we have been made familiar in
+the addresses and letters of Germans of high rank, office, and birth,
+during the war. No such terms exist or are thought of amongst the
+subjects of the Emperor of Russia. The word Tsar occurs, I believe, in
+the National Anthem, and Tsaritsa is used occasionally, while there is
+no such word as Tsarina in the language. But neither Tsar, Emperor,
+Tsaritsa, or Empress are used, I am told, amongst the ordinary people.
+They speak of "_Gosudar_" and "_Gosudarina_" which mean Lord and Lady,
+or Sir and Madame, and in such general use are these terms, I believe,
+that a man writing a business letter to a tradesman would begin
+"Gracious Gosudar." The Tsarevitch Alexis is spoken of amongst the
+people by a word in perfectly common use, which is no more than the
+ordinary word for "heir." Loyalty and great respect, it would seem, are
+quite consistent with great familiarity of thought and expression.
+
+The Emperor is probably spoken of more frequently as Nicolai
+Alexandrovitch--"Nicholas, son of Alexander"--than by any other title,
+and I feel sure that the Grand Duke Nicholas, Commander-in-Chief, and
+his doings at head-quarters, have been spoken of all over Russian plains
+and Siberian steppes this winter as familiarly and as proudly as of some
+one who had gone from their own village. "Ah! Nicolai Nicolaievitch!
+What a man he is! How well he has fought this war! How proud we are of
+him!" etc., etc. I was told lately of a touching incident which
+occurred at a great service in Russia (the translation of the remains of
+a great saint) at which the Grand Duchess Serge was present, and, when
+she arrived, had gone quietly up to a gallery pew, arranged for her and
+other great ladies. Soon afterwards an old peasant woman, to whom she
+had once shown a kindness, arrived, and at once began to inquire:--
+
+"Has Elizabeth come yet?"--the Grand Duchess's Christian name--"I want
+Elizabeth. She told me when next I came where she was to be sure and ask
+for her. Where's Elizabeth?"
+
+The Grand Duchess in her exalted gallery caught something of what was
+going on, and, hearing her own name, at once came down.
+
+"Here I am, little mother!" And then with "Dear Elizabeth!" the old
+woman threw her arms about her neck and began her story.
+
+Such a thing is only possible in Russia, and yet it is the one country
+in the world where we have always been led to think that between the
+highest and the lowest there is that "great gulf fixed," which if not
+bridged over in this life by sympathy and love, has little hope of being
+passed in the world to come.
+
+Rank and position and high office if worthily filled need no buttressing
+up. Least of all need those who hold them give themselves airs. Their
+office is enough in itself; and last year, when I had a large party of
+German youths to take about London, and by the kindness of those
+concerned took them to see one or two great places where they were most
+courteously and graciously received--they were the sons of working men
+in Frankfurt--I was more than pleased to hear one of them say to his
+friend, "I notice that in England the higher the rank the less the
+pretence." So it is in Russia. The more exalted the position the more
+unaffected and simple the one who fills it!
+
+The Grand Duchess Elizabeth, daughter of our own Princess Alice, is
+probably the best known and the best loved woman in all Moscow, indeed
+in all Russia, and hereafter will, in all probability, have "Saint"
+prefixed to her name. Many do not hesitate to use it even now. Her sad
+experiences appealed most powerfully to the people's sympathies when she
+was so tragically widowed a few years ago. Her husband, the Grand Duke
+Serge, Governor of Moscow, had become extremely unpopular with certain
+classes, and it was well known that his life was in danger; but he knew
+no fear, and drove out constantly in an open carriage in which the Grand
+Duchess insisted upon accompanying him. It is said that at length a
+letter was written to him advising him to leave her behind if he valued
+her life, and adding significantly, "We have no quarrel with her, nor
+anything against her." She was, therefore, from that time left at home,
+his secretary asking to be allowed to go in her place. Again the same
+kind of letter was received, and he too was left behind; and the Grand
+Duke, who was no coward, determined to go alone. And then, on the first
+morning he did so, and not far from his own door, the fatal bomb was
+thrown, and did its work so effectually that there was nothing left to
+be seen! He was literally "blown to atoms." Every one in Moscow is said
+to have heard the terrific explosion, and knew at once. "They have him
+at last!" The Grand Duchess heard also and rushed immediately to the
+scene. It may be questioned whether any other woman has ever had such an
+ordeal as that to face! She had just seen her husband drive away from
+his home, and in a few moments there was nothing left! I believe a
+finger with his signet ring was subsequently found, but that was all.
+
+Moscow, which had always respected and admired her, at once gave her
+whole-hearted sympathy, which soon became a deep and true affection as
+they learnt that she had determined to give her whole life and income to
+their poor.
+
+She founded the first order which has been introduced into Russia for
+women's work amongst the sick and poor. When I was last in Moscow, she
+explained to me its character, and it seemed to me to be a blend of the
+Tertiaries of S. Francis and the deaconesses of the primitive church,
+though the latter is the model she has wished to follow. She told me she
+had ninety-six sisters in the order now, and that whilst some sick were
+brought into their own wards many were visited in their own homes. It is
+this visiting work that she hopes most to develop as time goes on. She
+is, of course, by Baptism and Confirmation a member of our own Church,
+and is full of interest and sympathy towards it, and usually attends the
+Abbey service when in London, though she joined the Orthodox Church of
+Russia during her married life. This, she told me, was without any
+influence being brought to bear upon her, and entirely from conviction
+that it was best for her own religious life in her adopted country.
+
+She wore the simple and grey habit of her order, and it was difficult to
+realize that she was a princess of the blood, and sister-in-law to the
+Emperor himself, as she spoke so simply and humbly about her work, and
+what she hoped still with the blessing of GOD to do. She does not cut
+herself off, however, from life's ordinary relationships, for when later
+at Tsarskoe Selo, I told the Emperor that I had been able to see her and
+hear about her work, he said, "She is coming to spend a fortnight with
+us this very afternoon."
+
+That is what one meets everywhere in Russia, the unconventional and the
+natural. The superior of a new order, which is an entirely fresh
+departure, would be expected in any other country to give up everything
+else in the way of social and family relationships. But in Russia, if a
+perfectly natural thing like a visit to near relations suggests itself
+as desirable the visit is duly paid.
+
+It is so always! The splendid and the simple, high rank and humble birth
+seem to find themselves close together, the rich and the poor unite so
+easily in a common interest. "A gorgeous imperial procession was passing
+through the palace hall," writes one who saw it at Tsarskoe Selo as a
+specially grand function, "and two or three maid-servants appeared at
+the head of a little staircase to look on, wearing print dresses. No one
+told them to go away."[9] No one would think of it.
+
+The Emperor loves the simple folk he governs, and showed it plainly
+when in the earlier part of his reign he moved freely amongst them,
+standing next to peasants and workmen in Moscow, when he stepped into a
+church to pray. And after he returned from our own country, from the
+marriage of King George, I read the other day, "somebody asked him what
+had impressed him most. 'The crowd outside Buckingham Palace waiting to
+see Queen Victoria drive out,' he said. 'There they waited, hour after
+hour, and at last a little black carriage came out of the palace-gates.
+Very few of the people in the crowd could see the Queen, but they knew
+that she was there, and they went away satisfied. One day it will be
+like that in Russia.'" And the writer adds: "I do not think the
+Emperor's prophecy is likely to be realized in his lifetime; but a day
+will come when his subjects will forget the mistakes that have been made
+in his name, and recognize that they owe to him great reforms." I fancy
+in subsequent editions, for his book well deserves to have them, he will
+alter those words into "I feel sure that he will live to see it, and not
+have long to wait."
+
+[Illustration: _Her Imperial Highness the Grand Duchess Elizabeth--The
+Friend of the Poor._]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[8] _Our New Ally._
+
+[9] Rothay Reynolds, _My Russian Year_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+A PATERNAL GOVERNMENT
+
+
+Two years ago, when I was in conversation with one of our leading
+diplomatists, who has a very intimate knowledge of the Russian people,
+their Emperor and governing classes, I asked him, "Do you not think that
+the Russian government is the most paternal in its aim and character of
+all the governments in Europe?"
+
+"Of course I do," he replied; and rather excitedly added, "But when I
+even hint at such a view of Russian methods to our own countrymen here
+at home they regard me as if I had taken leave of my senses, and look at
+me with an incredulous and pitying eye."
+
+It is no wonder that this should be so when our own people still, for
+the most part, look upon Russia as the land of the knout and banishment,
+with an oppressive and despotic government which on the least suspicion
+seizes upon unoffending victims and consigns them to Siberia and the
+mines, where, chained together, they drag out their lingering existence
+in unfamiliar and degrading toil. No words are wasted, it is believed,
+upon the weak and ineffective, but the lash comes stingingly down upon
+their shoulders. Harsh legislation is the rule, it is thought, and if
+perchance people rise up in masses against it, as they do from time to
+time, the dreaded Cossack sweeps through the streets, and, at terrible
+cost to human life, clears them. Again and again I find this is the
+prevailing idea of Russia, as I am asked if I am not afraid to travel
+there; and something like it, I have candidly admitted, was my own
+impression before I went there and saw things for myself. But nothing
+could be more unlike the actual reality.
+
+The relations of the governing and governed in Russia are really
+paternal on the one hand and filial on the other, and I hope that I may
+be able to induce my readers to believe that is true of the greater part
+of the whole population.
+
+In the first place, the knout is long since gone. No such thing exists
+now, except as a curiosity, in the whole of Russia, nor has it been used
+officially since the days of the present Emperor's _great grandfather_!
+
+Next there are the convicts. It is now twenty-five years since Mr. Harry
+de Windt, the well-known traveller, disproved the lurid accounts which
+had been given a short time before of the horrors of Siberian prisons.
+In his book of 1903 he says, "I have always maintained that were I
+sentenced to a term of penal servitude I would infinitely prefer to
+serve it in (some parts of) Siberia than in England." When he puts these
+words in brackets he is thinking, of course, of the severity of climate
+and distance from frequented routes, and not of the treatment of the
+prisoners. He tells at length--space does not permit me to quote freely
+as I would like to do--how even criminal convicts are well cared for;
+and that even the murderers and murderesses amongst them, for there is
+no capital punishment in Russia, are lodged in wards which are clean and
+well warmed; that there is a comfortable infirmary connected with a
+prison, and even a home close at hand, supported by private
+subscription, for children of the prisoners.
+
+Mr. Foster Fraser also, in his book on _The Real Siberia_--perhaps one
+of the best known of modern works on that part of the empire--tells us
+that having been more "thrilled" as a boy by what he had read about
+Siberian prisons than by Red Indian stories, and knowing that people,
+the world over, were in the habit of saying, "Only Russia could be so
+cruel, a civilized country would shrink from such barbarities,"
+determined to go and see for himself, and, as is usual with those who go
+to Russia full of prejudice and dread, the scales fell from his eyes
+when he visited Irkutsk prison. He found to his surprise that, "It was
+not the gloomy, sullen-stoned, slit-windowed, iron-barred structure such
+as are our prisons at home"; and he describes at length a system which
+will compare favourably with any other prisons in the world, as to
+discipline, but surpasses them all in friendliness and freedom from
+constraint. "What attracted me was the informal relationship between
+governor and prisoners. The men talked without any restraint, made
+requests and even jests." But the climax of his experiences of "Siberian
+horrors" came when he asked to see the women prisoners, and was taken to
+the "best house in the place," where, on going into the yard, he saw
+some women "sitting about, and some children playing with a kitten."
+
+"I'll send for the matron," said the governor.
+
+"Is this the prison?" I asked in some amazement.
+
+"Yes--this is the only prison we have in Irkutsk for women."
+
+"It was just a large-sized ordinary house," he goes on, "abutting on
+the street, but not a single soldier to see. I couldn't help laughing,"
+he adds, for the women, who numbered about forty, and had twenty
+children with them, represented offences which ranged from petty theft
+up to murder, the five or six murderesses being much the same as the
+others in appearance and character as far as could be seen. Mr. Fraser
+felt it was absurd to call such a place a prison, and asked:--
+
+"Do you really mean to say that these women don't go away?"
+
+And then his amazement was complete when he was told that one had
+surprised them very much, a little while before, by going off, but had
+surprised them even more by coming back after a day or two and telling
+them that she had wanted to see a man she was rather fond of and have a
+week-end with him, as men visitors were not allowed on Sundays, the
+visiting day!
+
+It will be conceded, I think, by my most prejudiced reader, that Russia
+does not seem to be unduly harsh in her dealings with even her worst
+type of criminals!
+
+Next let me speak of "politicals," as we may call them. It is nearly two
+years ago since a meeting was organized in London to protest in the name
+of civilization--very strong language indeed was used in the
+preliminary circular--against Russia's treatment of her political
+prisoners; and one who holds very high office in London, and whom it was
+specially desired to have present, did me the honour of asking my advice
+about attending it, as I had just returned from Siberia. I replied at
+once, and pointed out how very difficult and delicate the work of
+embassies and legations is made when such meetings of protest are held
+in the countries they represent, and that we should deeply resent
+meetings of a similar kind being held in other countries with respect to
+methods of our own. We are open to criticism ourselves at times, every
+one will admit! I gave it as my opinion also that the statements of the
+circular were greatly exaggerated. Wishing later to be assured that this
+was so, I questioned a Russian of high rank in diplomacy, who at once
+said:--
+
+"Suppose you go and see for yourself the next time you are in Siberia.
+Visit any mines you wish, or prisons either, and the Russian government
+shall afford you all facilities."
+
+[Illustration: _Characteristic Group of Russians._]
+
+This I am hoping to do this very year, if all's well, and so, though I
+have seen convicts for myself in Siberia, yet what I have to say here
+now is not at first hand, but still it will be on the best authority in
+every case, and when I can I will give names. It was quite a
+revelation to me as I listened, on my first visit to Russia, to the
+statements I heard on all sides whenever banishment to Siberia was
+mentioned.
+
+"But surely you know what that means? No? Well, for ordinary political
+offenders who are either suspect or actually giving offence, and making
+government difficult, all that it means is that they have to go and live
+in Siberia, where their wives and families follow them. Their property
+is not seized nor income forfeited. It can all be realized, and so they
+can live as comfortably there as in Russia. There are people indeed who
+prefer to live in Siberia after they have gone there. After a few years
+or so, if they like to escape they can do so, and no one interferes.
+They can live where they please, but they must not return to Russia."
+
+That did not seem a very hard fate, nor can it be said to be a very
+undeserved one, for every one must feel that the government of a country
+so vast is beset with difficulties and must, in the present state of its
+population, be firm, and not hesitate at strong measures against those
+plotting against it. I know myself, in a recent case too, which caused
+much excitement in this country, warning after warning was given to
+enable the offender to leave the country before arrest took place, and
+even after the sentence unexpected indulgence and clemency were shown.
+
+Let me now quote straight from Mr. Foster Fraser's book, written by one
+who tells us frankly that he "went to Siberia with the average
+Britisher's prejudice against things Russian, but with eyes open," and
+determined to see things for himself.
+
+"The political prisoners are given the best part of the country to live
+in, namely, in the west. Other prisoners are exiled nearer to the icy
+regions according to the gravity of their offence. The political
+prisoners may practise handicrafts, and, by special permission,
+medicine. A 'political' is not identified with the criminal any more
+than a debtor is identified with a felon in England. Such offenders do
+not travel with other prisoners in a gang. A 'political' may be on a
+train going into exile; but no one knows it besides himself and the
+members of the police travelling in the same carriage. Politicals get
+about L1. 10_s._ a month from the government, but this varies according
+to the district to which they are sent. Wives who accompany their
+husbands are allowed 36 lb. of bread a month, but must submit to the
+regulations of the _etape_. If all goes well with a 'political' he gets
+permission to settle in some Siberian town with his family, but any
+allowance from the government then ceases. He is just the same as any
+other resident, save that he can never leave Siberia. If he wishes to
+farm, the government will give him a plot of land and money to work it.
+But this money must be paid back by instalments." He states, as will be
+seen, "he can never leave Siberia," but what, I fancy, was really meant
+by his informant was "never return to Russia." We can hardly think, in a
+land where the executive is so indulgent as to allow a dangerous
+criminal to "week-end" with a friend, that they will be less considerate
+to a political of good character wishing to go to a better climate and
+letting it be understood that Russia would not be the place selected.
+There is the human touch about everything in that country of spacious
+and large ideas, and it is not lacking either in the treatment of
+political offenders or with other criminals and felons also.
+
+Mr. Harry de Windt is not only explicit but even amusing and
+entertaining as he tells us what he found at Yakutsk, which is quite
+remote enough from civilization, on the great Lena post road, to make
+one feel that the lot of the banished there must be sad indeed; but at
+the same time we can enter a little, perhaps, into his feelings of
+amazement when he found that "the political exiles there seemed to be
+no worse off, socially, than any one else, for they moved about in
+society and were constantly favoured guests of the Chief of Police. The
+exiles, however, were not permitted to take part in the private
+theatricals I have mentioned, a restriction which caused them great
+annoyance. Their loud and unfavourable criticisms from the stalls on the
+evening in question were certainly not in the best of taste, and, to my
+surprise, they were not resented by the governor's staff." This incident
+will show that, in Yakutsk at any rate, the "politicals" are treated not
+only with leniency but with a friendly courtesy, which on this occasion
+was certainly abused. Mr. Olenin, an exile whose term of banishment was
+expiring, told me that he had no fault whatever to find with Yakutsk as
+a place of exile, so much so that he had resolved not to return to
+Russia at the end of his sentence, but to remain here and complete an
+ethnological work upon which he was engaged. I don't think that
+"harshness and barbarity" are words that can be appropriately used for a
+discipline that permits attendances at "private theatricals" where
+politicals are so much at ease that they indulge in loud and
+unfavourable criticisms in the presence of the governor's staff, and go
+out as favoured guests to dinner parties given by the Chief of the
+Police!
+
+A few months ago, however, I had my last and great surprise as to
+Russia, in learning--what strangely enough is not yet known to many
+Russians of experience and official rank--that convict labour in mines
+is entirely abandoned now, and has been for some years! It was found to
+be both unprofitable and impracticable as modern ideas of mining
+advanced. It was clearly a great waste of time to march gangs to the
+"pit's mouth," as they call it in our own mining districts, and remove
+their chains before sending them down, putting them on when they came up
+again. Then no blasting is now done without dynamite; and that, clearly,
+was a dangerous substance to hand over to criminals. Again, they are of
+all classes, and but few could ever have worked in mines before, and not
+having either technical knowledge or experience, their work would be
+unprofitable. Convict labour below ground has been given up for some
+time in consequence. Prisoners now, when sent out to Siberia, are only
+required to work above ground, though they may go into the mines if they
+choose, and have fitness for the work, and can be trusted. They are all
+allowed and encouraged to hire themselves out, receiving the market
+price for their work, and so being able to obtain little comforts for
+themselves. As far as I have been able to consider the experiences of
+reliable authorities, I feel convinced that when able to see for myself
+I too shall say I would far rather serve a term of imprisonment with
+hard labour amongst the convicts of Siberia than in Dartmoor or
+Portland. There is far more of the human touch in the former, and a man
+does not suffer in his manhood in the same way there as he does in the
+English, French, Belgian, and Central American prisons I have known.
+
+How, then, are we to account for all the well-known stories of miseries
+and sufferings associated with that lone, and in winter very terrible
+land? Most of us read in our youthful days _Elizabeth, or the Exiles of
+Siberia_, and since then have always spoken of "the Siberian mines," and
+"banishment" with bated breath! How have such impressions so gained
+ground that the very name of Russia has taken us straightway out of
+Europe into Asia to thoughts of the severest and most hopeless criminal
+punishments in the world? I should say that the explanation is to be
+found, very possibly, in the methods used before arrest. What is called
+"administrative procedure" has long been the usual way of dealing with
+suspected political offenders. A man or woman is arrested, and without
+public trial is removed to Siberia, and there required to live under
+police supervision. Arrests are made at any time. "A man may be seated
+quietly at home with his family, in his office, or at some place of
+public entertainment, when a touch upon his shoulder summons him away."
+There are no press reports of his trial or examination, which is
+conducted in private, nor any appeal from it, and there have been, and
+perhaps are still, cases where a suspected offender's family remain in
+ignorance of what has happened to him, or where he is. The thought of
+such a disappearance from the midst of family and friends is enough to
+chill any heart, and even if Russia does consider it necessary to deal
+thus summarily with those who are enemies of social order and the
+well-being of the State, without being unduly harsh in her treatment of
+them when they are exiled, one may very well hope that what have been
+called the "underground methods" of her police may soon be entirely laid
+aside. It is still consistent, I submit, with the aim of a paternal
+government to remove at once, and with no uncertain or hesitating hand,
+those who are considered the most dangerous elements in its social life,
+and the enemies of its stability and well-being.
+
+It was in Siberia, however, that I learnt the positive side of Russia's
+care for her peasant and working population. There I found, as soon as I
+looked into the working of a great company, that it was necessary to
+have a Russian engineer, in addition to the one employed by the staff,
+who is held responsible by the governor of the district for the
+inspection of all machinery and the arrangements made for securing those
+employed from unnecessary risk and danger. A police officer of a
+superior class is attached to the staff also, not only to maintain
+order, but to receive any complaints and transmit them if serious to
+higher authorities. The government distinctly interferes in order to
+guard the interests of its working class, and though sometimes the
+presence of another engineer or the police official may seem irksome,
+our countrymen recognize loyally that the government have no wish to be
+vexatious, but only to fulfil their duty to their own people.
+
+Then next I found, also in Siberia, how extraordinarily kind and helpful
+all officials are to colonists, who are not always easy to deal with
+when travelling or settling down in a new country. They take things for
+granted and expect much, and yet are never disappointed; officials of
+every class, and especially on railways, being unfailing in patience,
+tact, good-nature, and good-humour. The working folk on a train, in
+their third or fourth classes, are always treated with indulgence and
+kindly consideration.
+
+[Illustration: _A Group of Russian Peasants._]
+
+I read the following in the _Statist_ last year, finding later that it
+was contributed by a friend of mine:--
+
+"Government emigration offices are situated all over Russia in Europe.
+These supply would-be settlers in Siberia with information as to water
+supply, timber, fuel, distances from market, etc. Intending settlers
+choose some of their number, at the expense of the government, to
+inspect the different tracts of land parcelled out for settlement, and
+select areas considered suitable for the settlers. This may take a whole
+year, and the deputed settlers return and report to their fellows. A
+petition is then sent in to the government--say that 100 men want to go
+to such and such a place. Then the government marks on the map that this
+land has been apportioned to the applicants, and it is set aside for
+them accordingly. The land is given free up to 275 acres per head. Each
+man thus has his own land. He cannot sell it, and it cannot be mortgaged
+either, though he get into debt. The land is his as long as he cares to
+work it. For special purposes, horse and cattle breeding, the government
+now permits larger areas up to 10,000 acres to be acquired, and helps
+settlers in this connection by providing, for breeding purposes,
+thoroughbred stallions and Jersey bulls. The government send the
+settlers down passage free, and as the people are simply peasants,
+doctors and nurses are provided to look after them and treat them for
+sickness, etc. Further, the settlers are given in certain cases a sum up
+to L20 to reach their destination. They are allowed, carriage free, to
+take one cow, implements, and other goods for their purposes. The
+government gives them free timber for house building, though the
+settlers have to cut it themselves. Should the settlers be short of
+money or funds for buying horses, ploughs, etc., they can get a credit
+through the Land Bank up to L20, which they have to pay back in
+instalments spread over a long period."
+
+Does not a government which thus develops its country and moves its
+working population in vast numbers from places where they are not doing
+well to other places where they may do better well deserve to be called
+"fatherly" in its care for their interests?
+
+It is well known to those who have been watching Russia's progress that
+she has of late, and especially last year, been drawing upon her
+enormous revenues and taking advantage of her unexampled prosperity, as
+one of the best-informed journalists in Europe[10] has stated, "for
+public works, railways, and canals, factories, schools, post offices,
+model farms and reform measures for the improvement of the lot of the
+working man." It was in the interests of her working poor that one of
+the most costly and far-reaching experiments ever undertaken by a
+government, at great financial sacrifice to itself, was launched just
+before war was declared--the legislation concerning _vodka_.
+
+It surely is an inspiring thought that we and our new friend may tread
+the path of social reform together just when it has become alike the
+need and opportunity of our time! There is nothing so certain than that
+it is along this path that our two sovereigns will gladly lead us. We in
+our country have never before had King and Queen visiting the
+manufacturing districts of their realm, acquainting themselves with
+every detail of daily work, going simply and naturally into homes, and
+sharing the humble fare of the working classes. We have never had a king
+before--without reflecting upon any who have preceded him we may say
+it--who has gone amongst his soldiers and sailors, as one of themselves,
+crossing over to the front that he might see how they did, and show them
+that he was determined to know for himself the conditions under which
+they were so nobly doing their duty, so that they should not only have
+his leadership but all the sympathy he could give them.
+
+It has been just the same in Russia. There, at last, has come the great
+departure from precedent and tradition for which the Emperor has always
+longed and felt to be possible since he came to London and said, "Some
+day it will be like that in Russia!" The "some day" has come at last.
+One felt it when he went into the Duma last year at the outbreak of the
+war, and, on his own initiative alone, addressed its members informally
+on the task of serving their country together. Other things have
+followed in quick succession! The Empress and her daughters became
+nurses at once as soon as the wounded soldiers began to be brought in.
+They wore the uniform, and were addressed as Sister Olga or Sister
+Tatiana like every one else, although the Russian Court has been held to
+be the most exacting and punctilious court in Europe. Again and again
+the Emperor has been to the front, endearing himself to his soldiers, to
+whom it is known that he equipped himself in a common soldier's uniform,
+before he passed it, with kit, rifle, and boots complete, and tramped
+miles across the country that he might know what it was like to be on
+the march.
+
+Does it make no difference to Ivan Ivanoff to say to himself on the
+march when he thinks of his Emperor, "He knows what it's like, for he's
+done it himself? Somewhere he's thinking about his soldiers, and he
+_knows_." He was photographed in their uniform, just as one of
+themselves, and the photograph was distributed amongst the troops. "GOD
+save the Tsar!" is the one clamorous cry of the streets in Russia
+to-day, we are told. The Emperor and Empress show themselves in a
+balcony in Petrograd as naturally as King George and Queen Mary show
+themselves at Buckingham Palace when the crowd ask for them.
+
+Such a thing has never been seen, or even thought of, before in Russia.
+The last time the Emperor came up from the Crimea to the capital, there
+were soldiers within speaking distance of each other along the entire
+length of rail, keeping watch and guard. Soon he will go about
+unattended, and without escort; and as it was with Queen Victoria, so
+"it will be like that in Russia."
+
+Again, I want to dwell upon this link between us, and its tremendous
+promise for the future. The two greatest rulers in the world, closely
+and affectionately related, have the same ideals of what rulers should
+be, and want nothing better than to lead and serve their people; and
+GOD, in His providence, has given them at the same time both the power
+and opportunity for doing this splendid work together.
+
+Never, probably, has the monarchical principle, in its best aspect, been
+so intelligently accepted in both empires as now. A near relation of the
+Emperor's, though much his senior, was telling me once of a recent visit
+he had paid to England, and of some of his experiences in the East End,
+where, under the guidance of a detective, he had visited some of the
+worst haunts.
+
+"And do you know, bishop?" he said, "I learnt from that detective that
+everybody in London showed their respect for King Edward, at his death,
+by going into mourning; and the very thieves _stole_ black to mourn him
+with the rest! There's the monarchical principle, going down even to the
+lowest classes in the nation!"
+
+"But, sir," I ventured, "I don't think that men of that class would be
+thinking of him as a ruler, but as a sportsman."
+
+"No! no!" he maintained. "It was the monarchical principle going down to
+the very lowest of the people!" And I am sure he thinks so, and tells
+the story to enforce it.
+
+There can be no doubt that the monarchical principle, as we understand
+it, makes rapid progress in Russia. The Emperor has always been an
+autocrat, but his worst enemy could not accuse him of ever having been
+merely despotic; and surely, though gradually, he will be less and less
+an autocrat, and more and more constitutional in his rule. He meets the
+needs and satisfies the ideals of his people, as he embodies in his
+person government and rule. If any one thinks that Russia has a seething
+revolutionary spirit longing for expression and an outlet, I can't help
+feeling that they are utterly and entirely mistaken. Serious discontent
+and unrest prevail; but, as I will try and show later, it is directed
+against the social order rather than against the Emperor himself. Plots
+to kill him have been plots to overturn the social order, and nothing
+more.
+
+Even political exiles in Siberia never blame him for their condition, as
+Mr. de Windt tells us: "I never once heard members of the imperial
+family spoken of with the slightest animosity or disrespect; and once
+when the Emperor was mentioned one of the exiles burst out with a bitter
+laugh--
+
+"'The Emperor! You may be quite sure the Emperor does not know what goes
+on, or we should not be here a day longer.'"
+
+The people are wholly loyal, and regard their ruler as embodying a
+government which is in their own interests as being his children. There
+can be no doubt that this is the feeling throughout the empire, however
+difficult it may be for some classes in our community to believe it.
+
+For instance, as it has been pointed out,[11] "When not long ago in the
+House of Commons it was debated whether or no the King should pay a
+visit to the Emperor of Russia, and some one suggested that were the
+visit to be cancelled the immense majority of the Russian people would
+regard it as an insult, and that the Russian peasants bore no ill-will
+towards the Emperor, but rather complained of the results of a system of
+government which in the last few years has undergone, and is still
+undergoing, radical change." When such arguments were brought forward
+some of the Labour Members nearly burst with ironical cheers. Here, they
+thought, was the voice of officialdom, Torydom, and hypocrisy speaking.
+Now turn to the facts. When Professor Kovolievski was elected a member
+of the first Duma in the government of Karkov as an advanced Liberal
+Member, he, after his election, asked some of his peasant electors
+whether he was not right in supposing that had he said anything
+offensive with regard to the Emperor at his meetings there would have
+been no applause.
+
+"'We should not only have not applauded,' was the answer, 'but we should
+have beaten you to death.'"
+
+There is nothing of the merely sentimental in this feeling that their
+government is, and ought to be, paternal in its character. Every Russian
+peasant drinks it in from the first, for he gets his training in the
+_Mir_ of his native village. It is there he learns what family and
+social rule really mean, and they are identical. His home is ruled by
+his father, the village by the elder; and everything is as
+constitutional and as democratic as it can be, or is anywhere else in
+the world. The children have their rights, but look up to and obey their
+father. They are free and responsible in village life, but yield to
+their elders. It is natural, therefore, and no other view is even
+possible, for men brought up in such surroundings to look outside the
+village and regard the State as a whole in the same way. There too they
+feel that they have full rights, and yet are under a firm, unquestioned,
+and paternal rule--the rule of him who, while rightly called their
+Emperor, yet is better known to themselves and loyally loved as their
+"Little Father."
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[10] Dr. E. J. Dillon.
+
+[11] The Hon. Maurice Baring.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE STEPPES
+
+
+Amongst all the interesting experiences of an unusually varied and
+adventurous life, since, in the very middle of my Oxford course I had,
+for health's sake, to spend a couple of years ranching in the River
+Plate, my long drives across the steppes stand out in bold and pleasing
+relief.
+
+They were necessitated by a Mining Camp Mission in Siberia, for the
+steppes form a large part of the eastern portion of the Russian Empire,
+and do not belong to Russia proper at all, lying beyond the Volga and
+the Urals. It is in that part of Asiatic Russia that the development of
+the empire's vast resources is taking place with special rapidity, and
+our own countrymen are bearing a hand in it and playing no unworthy
+part.
+
+I believe the word "steppes" is given to that undulating but level
+country in the provinces of Ufa and Orenburg, about two days' and two
+nights' journey by train east of Moscow, inhabited by the Bashkirs,
+the descendants of those Tartar hordes who nearly overwhelmed Russia at
+one time, and possibly Europe itself, and were called for their
+relentless cruelty "the Scourge of GOD."
+
+[Illustration: _Consecration of Burial Ground in the Siberian Steppes._
+(See page 178.)]
+
+They are a fierce-looking race, even now, though peaceable enough, and
+it seems strange to find them so near to Moscow still, and to see them
+at their devotions when driving past their mosques on a Friday. They are
+great agriculturists, and a delightful sight is presented by their vast
+tracts of tender green wheat and oats shooting up as soon as the winter
+is over, and even while, in out-of-the-way hollows, snow still remains.
+The earth is black and very rich in character, and the seed, sown often
+before the end of September, lies nearly seven months under the
+protecting and fertilizing snow. As soon as this has gone and spring
+comes, the young crops shoot up with amazing speed and strength. Late
+frosts are terrible disasters, of course, under such circumstances.
+
+But the _real_ steppes, which resemble the veldt of Africa, or the
+pampas of South, and the prairie of North America, are those vast level
+plains, partly agricultural, partly pasture, and partly scrub and sand,
+which lie another day and night still further east, and extend for
+thousands of miles to the south till they reach nearly to the borders
+of Turkestan. These are the steppes I know best. There is also a
+pastoral steppe of large extent and of agricultural character just above
+the Black Sea.
+
+If the reader will refer to the map he will see what a huge portion even
+of the great country of Siberia is taken up by the Kirghiz Steppes, and
+as they are extraordinarily rich in minerals, so far as one can judge
+from enterprises already successfully started, produce large crops, and
+sustain innumerable flocks and herds, it will be seen how much they are
+likely to count for in the progress of Russia. The Kirghiz, familiarly
+called the "Ks" in the mining camps, are a Tartar race, like the
+Bashkirs, and, like them also in religion, are Mohammedans; but while I
+saw mosques amongst the Bashkirs filled with praying congregations, I
+never saw either mosque or prayers amongst the Kirghiz, nor their women
+veiled. They are small in stature, very strongly built, rather like the
+Japanese, and splendid horsemen. A Kirghiz when mounted seems part of
+his horse as he dashes across the steppes at full speed with the merest
+apology for reins and bit, ready to pull up in the twinkling of an eye.
+
+They struck me always as very friendly, though I have read that others
+have not found them so.
+
+That they are very hospitable every one admits. A traveller, it is said,
+can go thousands of miles across the steppes without a rouble in his
+pocket, and want for nothing. Everywhere he will be hospitably
+entertained. A Russian, of course, asks nothing better than to have a
+guest, and considers himself honoured in being asked to take him in for
+a meal or for the night; and the Kirghiz are Eastern in their reception
+of guests as well.
+
+In the steppes governments of Ufa, Orenburg, and Akmolinsk the
+population must be nearly seven millions, of which the great majority
+are the nomadic Kirghiz, living in tents in the summer, and taking their
+flocks and herds away to the south and into villages, where they can
+have roofs and walls during the seven months--at least!--of terrible
+winter.
+
+The tent is a most comfortable abode, though not much to look at from
+outside. It has a wooden floor, with a rug or skins upon it, is circular
+in its area, but has no pole of any kind, being built up very neatly and
+ingeniously upon a framework of canes and laths until it is in shape
+like a well-spread-out low and evenly-rounded haystack. It has a movable
+top in its centre, which affords ample ventilation. Inside it is lined
+with felt, which has often prettily embroidered draperies fastened upon
+it; and outside the canework it is well covered over with stout canvas
+securely lashed into its place. It will be seen that no obstacle is
+presented to the strong winds which continually blow over the steppes,
+as there are no "corners" such as are spoken of in Job i. 14, which
+shows us that tents were raised upon four poles in early Israelitish
+days as they are still amongst the Bedouin tribes of North Africa and
+Arabia.
+
+The beautifully and symmetrically rounded _uerta_, as the Kirghiz tent
+is called, receives every wind that sweeps over it, and never makes the
+slightest movement. At least twenty people could be, and often are,
+gathered inside when some festivity is afoot, though each family as a
+rule has its own tent. They are extremely attractive, and when I once
+went to see an American family, engaged in preliminary mining work, I
+found them with one of these tents for their living-room, set up with
+sideboard, dining-table, easy-chairs, etc., and another opposite to it
+fitted up as a most comfortable bedroom with brass beds and all the
+usual furniture, the little cookhouse also being not far away. Breathing
+in the marvellous air of the steppes, I thought I had never seen the
+"simple life" presented in a more alluring form. I have longed, indeed,
+ever since to have a month of it some time, and get as close to
+Mother Nature as it is possible to do in these busy days.
+
+[Illustration: _Outside a Kirghiz Uerta._]
+
+The descendants of Jonadab knew what they were about, and what was good
+for them, when they determined to keep to their pastoral life, and hold
+on to all their tent-dwelling traditions; and as for wine, no one need
+ever feel the need of such a stimulant in the invigorating air of those
+great plains.
+
+Amongst the Kirghiz one feels an extraordinarily biblical atmosphere,
+and is back again in the days of Abraham and the patriarchs, and the
+"women in the tent," of whom Jael sang after the great victory. The men
+are attired much as Isaac and Ishmael, and Jacob and Esau were, and the
+women very probably keep the traditions of thousands of years in wearing
+their pretty nun-like head-dresses of white, which leave their pleasant
+faces free and uncovered.
+
+These Kirghiz hardly ever use money. They grow "rich in many flocks and
+herds," and if they sold would immediately buy again. Some of them,
+however, are very well off, and I was told that one, who lived simply
+with his wife in a _uerta_ on the steppes, had sent his only son to
+complete his education in Paris, and get a medical degree at its
+University. For this he would have to sell off some of the increase of
+his flock, and send the proceeds to his son.
+
+Let me now explain how I came to be amongst these tent-dwelling folk at
+all. During my first visit to Petrograd I was asked one evening by a
+member of the Russia Company if I could appoint a chaplain to go out to
+Siberia once a year or so, and visit the scattered little groups of our
+own countrymen who are there, but, at that time, had never seen a
+clergyman nor had a service since coming into the country.
+
+"There are unbaptized," he said, "and unconfirmed, and even those who
+need to be married with the service of their Church, who through no
+fault of their own, but through circumstances, have had to go without
+it. There are people who have been in Siberia all their lives, and some
+who have been there forty and fifty years, and never once had any
+ministration of their Church. Can nothing be done?"
+
+This, of course, was a strong and direct appeal, and, after considering
+for a short time, it seemed impossible to appoint a chaplain for work of
+which one knew nothing, and so I proposed to go myself, which I found
+later was what it was hoped and expected that I should do. Accordingly
+in 1912 and again in 1913 I carried out this intention, and found that
+it practically took the form of a Mining Camp Mission; for, though I
+visited one or two other British communities, yet the most interesting
+part of both years' experiences was in going to the mines situated,
+except in one case, in the very heart of the steppes. Each, though
+employing thousands of Kirghiz and Russians, is managed by a British
+staff of between twenty and thirty, and is the property of a British
+company with its board of directors meeting in its offices in London.
+
+I will describe two of these journeys, for without knowing something of
+the steppes and of those who live there, and indeed taking in something
+of their spirit, it is impossible to feel that one really knows Russia.
+
+Four days and nights from Moscow brings one to Petropavlosk (Peter and
+Paul's town), and it is from there, in a southerly direction at first,
+and then heading towards the east, that the great Spassky Copper Mine is
+reached, for which a drive of a thousand miles, there and back, is
+necessary. I had not realized till just before I set out that I should
+have to drive on day and night without stopping for anything but food
+and to change horses, as there were no Russian rest-houses on that
+route, and the Kirghiz tents were impossible owing to the great number
+of living beings, other than human, which inhabited them. It was no
+light thing to undertake, as it meant leaving on Tuesday and getting in
+late on Saturday evening, and this only if all went well. Some people
+can sleep under such conditions during the night. I don't know how they
+possibly can, for there are no roads in any true sense of the word, and
+none of the vehicles which cross them have springs.
+
+The manager of the mine had kindly sent down the usual _tarantass_,
+which, hooded like a victoria, is a very stout cart, lashed securely
+upon poles, and drawn by three horses or _troika_. There is no seat
+inside, but hay is placed over the bottom, and pillows and cushions on
+the top, and there one reclines during the day, and lies down at night.
+It all sounds very comfortable and even luxurious, but as there are no
+roads, and only the roughest of tracks with fearful ruts and soft places
+where water lingers, with sometimes a sloping bank down to a stream,
+and, as the wild driver keeps his horses at their full speed, one is
+hurled violently and roughly about the whole time, sleep, for me at
+least, is beyond my wildest hopes from start to finish.
+
+[Illustration: _Tarantass with its Troika for the Steppes._]
+
+For the first day or so I had the greatest difficulty to avoid biting my
+tongue in two as I was thrown about and it came between my teeth, and I
+used to look with amazement and envy at my Kirghiz conductor, on the
+box beside the driver, swaying about in all directions like a tree in a
+hurricane, but sound asleep. His name was Mamajam, and on our arrival he
+brought his little daughter Fatima to see me, and another youth named
+Abdullah, completing the Arabian Nights impression he had already given
+me.
+
+There is no regularity in the arrangements for changing horses along the
+steppes. Sometimes one would drive about twenty _versts_ (twelve and a
+half miles) and then change, while at others we would go on as far as
+sixty, or even eighty, _versts_ (fifty miles) without any change at all.
+The horses are very strong and hardy, and are never allowed either food
+or drink until the journey is over; and, with the horses, the driver is
+changed also, as every man brings and understands his own. It was a
+wonderful study in character, temperament, and dress, for the men were
+extraordinarily different from each other, though all most attractive
+and interesting; the Kirghiz more so than the one or two Russians we
+had.
+
+We carried our food, chiefly tinned, with us, but there was an abundance
+of eggs, butter, and white bread always to be got, and, most welcome
+sight, always the steaming _samovar_, with its promise of cheering and
+comforting tea. It is astonishing how one's ordinary food can be cut
+down in quantity when necessary. We gradually came down to two meals a
+day, and on the return journey these only consisted of eggs, bread and
+butter, and tea; and yet the simple life and magnificent air made one
+feel always extraordinarily fit and well and in good spirits.
+
+The steppes, though vast solitudes as far as human habitations are
+concerned, are full of life and movement, and the most is made of the
+short summer. Caravans are continually meeting the traveller as he goes
+south or north, or crossing his route from east to west, or west to
+east, carrying tea from China, timber and other articles of commerce,
+travellers from town to town, or from one village to another, or a
+little band of colonists seeking land upon which to settle, or herdsmen
+in charge of sheep, oxen, or horses. Perhaps one's driver catches sight
+of another _troika_ going in the same direction, and with a shrill cry
+urges on his team; the other, nothing loath, joins in, and for a quarter
+of an hour there is a most thrilling race. There is never a dull moment
+night or day, though perhaps the most inspiring times are those when one
+has just changed horses, and has a wild young Kirghiz on the box who,
+seeing an opportunity of showing off, stands up whirling his whip and,
+shrieking, yelling, whistling, like a demon, urges his horses to their
+utmost speed, making the dust and earth fly in all directions. It makes
+one feel that it is good to be alive.
+
+The air is most transporting at that height, four thousand feet above
+sea-level; the whole steppes in the early summer are strewn with
+flowers, larks are singing overhead, streams are flowing on every side,
+there is a clear horizon as at sea, though now and then there is hilly
+ground, the sky is ever delightfully blue and without a cloud, and the
+sun shines brightly, though not too fiercely, from morn till eve.
+Nothing could be more delightful than that first experience, especially
+as one thought of the object of one's journey and the services of the
+coming Sunday. Then the wonderful nights, beginning with the sweet,
+bell-like sounds of the innumerable frogs after the birds had ceased. As
+I did not sleep I saw and enjoyed all that the nights had to give, and
+we had the full moon. First the golden sunlight gradually died away and
+the silvery light of the moon appeared, that in its turn, after what
+seemed an extraordinarily short time, giving place to the dawn, which
+shows itself sometimes more than an hour before the actual sunrise.
+Night on the steppes, like the day, is also full of movement, for many
+of those who travel long distances prefer to let their horses and
+bullocks feed and rest during the long day, when they enjoy their
+pasture best, getting their own rest also at the same time, basking in
+the sun, and continuing their journey through the night, which is never
+really dark.
+
+My second night out, just after midnight, I was startled at seeing a
+camel come into view in the moonlight on my right, going in the opposite
+direction and dragging a small cart, but making no sound upon the grass.
+It looked quite spectral in the moonlight, and was followed by another,
+and yet another; then came a bullock, then a horse or two, one after
+another, then more camels, all with carts and in single file. Not a
+sound could be heard, and only at intervals men walked beside them. It
+went on and on, the strange, silent procession, and I could not think
+what manner of caravan it could possibly be. All the carts were small,
+carefully covered over, and evidently had small loads, though requiring
+powerful creatures to draw them; and then all at once I understood. It
+was smelted copper being taken down to the railhead from which I had
+come, and from the mine to which I was going! I then began to count how
+many had still to pass me, and reckoned up a hundred and six, so that
+there must have been nearly three hundred in all. They take three months
+to go down, load up with stores, and return, and yet I was told that
+such transport was cheaper than sending by rail will be when that part
+of the government of Akmolinsk is connected with the great
+Trans-Siberian line running from Petropavlosk both to Moscow and
+Petrograd.
+
+Another time I should take the opportunity afforded by a pause when
+changing horses in the night to get a few hours' sleep in the
+_tarantass_ in the open air, which would, of course, make all the
+difference, and which would then be quite possible. But if I had done it
+on this occasion I should have had to lose a Sunday instead of arriving
+on the Saturday evening. I was well repaid, for though nothing more than
+a notice was sent quickly round, "The bishop has come, and there will be
+services at the manager's house to-morrow at half-past ten and at six,
+and Holy Communion at half-past seven," yet at half-past seven every one
+of our countrymen was there and received Communion except the wife of
+one member of the staff ill in bed. The manager's two little boys were
+there to be present at the first early Anglican celebration of Holy
+Communion ever taken beyond the Urals. A beautiful _ikon_, flowers, and
+two lights adorned the temporary altar. Others than our own countrymen
+attended the other services. It was a glorious day to have, including
+as it did attendance at the Russian Church in the morning when our own
+service was over.
+
+This great mining property includes Karagandy, where the coal is, and to
+which I came first; Spassky, where the smelting-works had been set up,
+some forty miles further on; and Uspensky, where the mine itself is,
+some fifty miles further still. From Spassky I went to Uspensky by
+motor-car, and spent three days there with the foreman of the mine and
+his family. I went down the mine also to make acquaintance with the
+Kirghiz who are at work there, and knocked off for myself some specimens
+of the rich ore.
+
+The foreman and his family--two girls and two sons of between twenty and
+thirty--had been in New Zealand, in the Backs, and it was no new thing
+for them to have a bishop stay and give them services. The wife was a
+particularly good and devout woman, and in all the years she had been
+there had never once had the happiness of attending a service of her own
+Church. The two young men were shy fellows, but the manager having first
+prepared the way, I took them in hand, and, finding they were ready to
+come to a decision in life, instructed and confirmed them. On these
+missions, as with Philip and the eunuch, we cannot lose such
+opportunities; and I shall not forget the Celebration, early on the day
+I left, when that whole family received Communion together. I know what
+a joy, such as she had never expected, it was to that good woman thus to
+have family unity; and, as she died suddenly before the year was over, I
+shall always feel that my long journey across the steppes was fully
+worth while if it were only for the happiness it had brought her in
+enabling her for once in her life to receive Communion with all the
+members of her family.
+
+I had another most interesting experience before leaving Spassky and the
+Akmolinsk Steppes. Some little time before my arrival, two of the staff
+had lost their lives in the smelting-works and been buried in a little
+plot of ground with two monuments placed above them. One of the
+memorials was of pure copper, the other of stone, and there was a wooden
+railing round the small enclosure. The manager asked me to consecrate
+this little plot of ground with a larger space added to it, so that they
+might have their own little GOD'S acre.
+
+As soon as the Russian priest heard that this was to be done he
+immediately asked if he and his people might be present and share in the
+service? And to this, of course, we readily agreed. It was impossible,
+however, to draw up any joint service, as we were ignorant of each
+other's language, so I arranged that he should say a few prayers first
+and that I should take our own service afterwards. This he was very glad
+to do, and, robed in his vestments as for the Liturgy, he prayed for the
+departed, singing with his people, present in great numbers, a touching
+little litany, and finishing with the offering of incense. As I looked
+at all those fellow Christians of ours and their priest, and then
+outside at the great circle of the vast steppes stretching away in all
+directions, so suggestive of greatness of spirit, I felt most deeply
+moved as I took the censer from him and, offering the incense as he had
+done, led the way, censing the boundaries of the new burial-ground
+marked out by stones. Our little community followed singing, "O GOD, our
+help in ages past," every line of which helped us all to realize a
+little at least of that large-hearted view of life and of death which no
+other passage of Scripture gives us with the directness and grandeur of
+Psalm xc.
+
+The people looked on at this simple little procession with the closest
+attention and sympathy, and then, after an address--an entirely new
+experience for them in a religious service--I proceeded to the
+consecration of the ground. I should fancy it is the only instance, as
+yet, of clergy of the two Churches actually sharing a service together;
+and that was especially in my mind as I took the good priest's censer to
+offer, just as he had done and from the same censer, "an oblation with
+great gladness," feeling to the full "how good and joyful it is for
+brethren to dwell together in unity." I should say of that service also
+that it was quite worth while taking that long journey across the
+steppes to have it.
+
+The prevailing idea of Siberia in this country is, as we all know, that
+it is a terrible waste of ice and snow, a land of mines and of convicts,
+ravaged by packs of wolves; and this is not at all an incorrect
+impression of the greater part of it and for the longest period of the
+year. All that is wrong in the impression is that it leaves out the five
+months of the year in which there is the glow and charm of the tropics,
+with growth and upspringing life and beauty on every hand. The steppes
+are a paradise of singing birds and blooming flowers and flowing
+streams, where the air is joyous to breathe, invigorating, quickening,
+and inspiriting beyond description. These are the Siberian Steppes I
+have known and traversed and loved, and long and hope to see again.
+
+But I am keenly alive to all the real and ever-present sense of peril
+which the winter brings with it as soon as it comes, and which it keeps
+steadily before the mind till it is over for all who have to meet it and
+struggle against it. I have heard men speak of the terrible blizzards
+and the appalling cold; of the deadly gloom, when the air is so full of
+snow that they can hardly see a hand before their faces, and they wander
+uncertainly for a whole day and night together until they give
+themselves up for lost, to find after all, when the storm is over, that
+they are only a few yards away from their own doors, or in the middle of
+the street from which they had started.
+
+They instantly drop their voices on the Kirghiz Steppes when they begin
+to speak of winter, and on some faces there comes at once that beaten
+look which, whenever it appears, is testimony that the man has measured
+himself against the sterner forces of Nature or of human life, and has
+failed.
+
+[Illustration: _Inside a Kirghiz Uerta._]
+
+Tolstoi's _Master and Man_ gives a very clear and convincing account of
+what a snowstorm may mean for even experienced travellers. There the
+scene is laid in Russia, and between one village and another in a
+country often traversed; but the vast spaces of Siberia in that long,
+gloomy winter must be specially fraught with dangers and terrors during
+those swiftly rising and deadly _boirams_, as the wind-storms are
+called, which completely obliterate all landmarks while they last, and
+which are not to be met with anywhere else in the inhabited parts of
+the world. At Spassky they told me of a Kirghiz horseman who had been
+found one morning, during the preceding winter, just outside his home,
+horse and rider rigid in the snow and frozen stiff, both of them dead
+for hours. They had struggled against the _boiram_ as long as they
+could, the man probably urging on his horse to the last, and both giving
+up the struggle together as the awful frost took possession of them, so
+swiftly that there was no falling off for the one nor sinking down for
+the other. And, if they had only known it, or the blinding storm had
+permitted them to see, they were at the very door of their home and
+within reach of warmth and food and shelter.
+
+I remember once saying to friends that I supposed when travelling in
+winter they could make themselves very comfortable by packing themselves
+in with "hot-water foot-warmers." "Hot-water foot-warmers!" they
+exclaimed. "Why, the frost would have them and destroy them completely
+almost before we had left the door."
+
+Then the wolves are there also! Siberia has not changed in that respect
+from the weird land of which we have read as long as we can remember,
+and is still the haunt of the most fierce and untiring enemies which
+man and beast alike have to fear when they are the hunters and not the
+hunted. The fair Siberia of the glorious summer knows no wolves. Then
+there is food enough and to spare always within reach, and there are
+homes and family life even for wolves to think of and be happy about.
+There is no need then, though they are gregarious by nature, for them to
+join together. Each can fend for himself, and have enough for all his
+family and to spare. Not a wolf is to be seen except very rarely, and
+the traveller never even thinks of them with fear as, singly, sleek, and
+well fed, they slink away immediately as soon as seen. It is altogether
+different when winter comes, and hunger, even famine, gets a grip upon
+them because so many other creatures are hibernating. Then the quarry
+must be of different character, and nothing is too strong or big for a
+huge pack well led. Once they have been driven by stern necessity to
+combine together and choose their leader they will stick at nothing and
+attempt almost anything.
+
+A friend of mine, born in Petrograd, tells us of an old travelling
+carriage of his father's, in which he and his brothers and sisters, when
+children, used to play.
+
+"It was raised very high from the ground," he says, "only to be reached
+by a small ladder, so as to be out of the reach of wolves."
+
+Just the same stories are told after every winter as those of which we
+have so often read in prose and verse; and, out of the many told me as
+happening quite recently, I select the following:--
+
+Three winters ago a wedding party went from their village, in the Altai,
+where the ceremony had taken place in the morning at the home of the
+bride, to the village where the bridegroom lived, and to which he was
+now taking back his newly-wedded wife. They were a hundred and twenty in
+number, and made a large party, with their horses and sledges, and were
+not afraid; but an unusually large pack of wolves was out that
+afternoon, and, soon scenting them, gave chase. Party after party were
+overtaken, pulled down, and, with horses as well, devoured. The bride
+and bridegroom and best man were in the front sledge with good horses,
+and kept ahead till they were quite close to the village, when they too
+were overtaken by a few of the strongest and swiftest of their pursuers.
+To save themselves the bridegroom and best man threw out the bride, and
+thus stopped the pursuit for a time sufficiently for them to gain the
+village. It was a shocking thing to do, but when the villagers began to
+question and help them out the awful explanation was forthcoming! The
+two men had gone mad with fright, and had not known what they were
+really doing. In that terrible hunting down, with the shrieks and
+despairing cries of their friends, as they were overtaken, ever ringing
+in their ears as they urged their own terror-stricken horses forward, it
+is little wonder that their minds gave way.
+
+Let there be no mistake, therefore, about the steppes. The reader may
+keep the new impression (if it is new) that I have endeavoured to give
+of a most beautiful, rich, and fertile country; and which I am hoping to
+be visiting again while this book is being read, finding, I hope, this
+country of the wolves story rejoicing in all the glow and beauty of
+summer. But still, for nearly seven months of the year, that Siberia is
+the old Siberia still, fast bound in the grip of an appalling frost,
+waging, in its storms, a never-ceasing battle against human enterprise
+and effort; and the haunt of those insatiable and savage creatures which
+seem to stand out from all other creatures in being devoid, when in
+packs, of all fear or dread of man.
+
+The steppes above Turkestan, which I visited last, are milder in climate
+than those of Akmolinsk. Great parts of them are sand, with a sage-like
+scrub, dear to the heart of camels; and they have a drier and even more
+invigorating air than that of the northern plains. Across these I
+travelled my five hundred miles in a Panhard motor-car, with a wild
+Russian chauffeur who knew no fear. He dashed across a country which
+practically had no roads and resembled a rough Scotch moor, with an
+_elan_ that the most daring French chauffeur might envy. He was a fine
+fellow, Boroff by name, and carried me on as before, day and night, and
+again with sunshine for the one and moonlight for the other. "The
+devil's wagon" is the name the wondering Kirghiz have given the
+motor-car from the first, but it is the last description it deserves. My
+journey of under twenty-four hours from the railhead to the Atbazar
+Mining Camp, if I had had to go by camel, as I expected might be
+possible until my actual arrival, would have taken me some twelve days,
+or even more.
+
+All the transport in these steppes is by camels, and I could not be
+satisfied until I had made a small expedition upon one, and shall,
+perhaps, have to do the same again; but modern appliances are not to be
+despised, and no one can wish for a better experience of the steppes
+than to make the journey in the middle of summer and in a good modern
+motor-car.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+RUSSIA'S PROBLEM
+
+
+The Social Problem, as it presents itself to thoughtful people in
+Russia, really demands a book to itself. No doubt it will come before
+long, and from some experienced pen. It is only possible for me just to
+touch upon it in this chapter, which one must write; or else even this
+very general view of Russia's life of to-day would be utterly inadequate
+and incomplete. And, in so doing, I shall have to try and show how
+different it is in Russia from the same problem as presented in other
+countries in Europe.
+
+It is well known, for instance, that the great question for ourselves
+waiting for solution at some early date is the social question. What was
+called for us the "Triple Alliance" in the world of labour, the Union of
+the Railway, Transport, and Mining Workers was completed just before war
+broke out; and, though with a patriotism beyond praise all needs and
+desires of their own are put aside for the present, our workers will
+give expression to their wishes at no distant day after peace comes.
+Even before this book is in print the masses in Germany, grimly silent
+so long except for the ever-increasing votes for their socialistic
+representatives, silent even during the disillusionment which has come
+to them these last six months, may have at last spoken out. We are told
+that their leader, Herr Bebel, who is said to have known the German
+character through and through, declared that the first serious defeat
+experienced by Germany "would produce a miracle." Social unrest is still
+universal.
+
+[Illustration: _Russian Service at the Atbazar Mine._ (See page 178.)]
+
+We find it, therefore, as we should expect to do, in Russia; and more
+general, perhaps, and more acute than at any other previous time, just
+before the war was declared. This, it may be remembered, is stated to
+have been one of the reasons why the curt and hurried ultimatum was
+presented at Petrograd, where it was thought that social troubles and
+dangers were so serious that it would be impossible for the government
+even to think of going to war. We have been told,[12] though it was
+probably not known outside Russia at that time, what a good turn Germany
+really did to the Russian government and the Russian people by turning
+their thoughts from their own grave difficulties to the dangers which
+threatened them from without. At that time, we are assured, not only
+Petrograd, but every big manufacturing district of Russia, was shaking
+with revolt of a peculiar kind, and civil war on the point of breaking
+out. In Petrograd there were barricades already erected, at least
+120,000 were on strike, tramcars had been broken up, attacks upon the
+police had taken place, factories were garrisoned in expectation of
+attack, the Cossacks were everywhere--openly in the streets, hidden away
+in places most threatened. The police arrested those who were supposed
+to be leaders, but it made no difference, for the people needed no
+leading. They were all so thoroughly in the movement. Indeed, we are
+told, "things seemed to the Russian government to be as bad as they
+could very well be; and orders were actually given for the severest
+possible repressive measures, which would, perhaps, have involved a
+large-scale battle, probably a massacre, and certainly a state of war in
+the capital." It would have been "Red Sunday" over again, only this time
+infinitely and more ominously worse. A great calamity was narrowly
+escaped.
+
+Now there is this to be noticed about this Russian upheaval, and this
+social bitterness and discontent expressing itself in the way with which
+we are only too sadly familiar, and which claims our attention as being
+so entirely different from similar movements of our own. The Russian
+workers made no demands, had no special grievances nor complaints which
+they wished to make known. In all strikes one has previously heard of
+there has been some hardship or injustice to bring forward, some claim
+or request to urge. Here there was nothing of the kind. "They were not
+on strike," we are told, "for higher wages. In no single case did the
+men make a demand from their masters. In no single case had a man gone
+on strike because of a grievance which his master could put right. No
+concessions by the masters could have brought the men back to work. The
+only answer they returned when asked why there was a strike was that
+they were dissatisfied with their lives, and that they intended to
+disorganize the State until these things were altered." It is clear,
+therefore, that the social unrest, and the activity which has so long
+resulted from it, have not a very definite aim as yet. Hence the
+Nihilist. He is dissatisfied, embittered, smarting under a sense of
+wrong; and while he does not see how he can put things right, feels that
+he must do something, and so destroys. "That at least will be
+something," he feels, "then we can begin again."
+
+This, we can further see, will be the youthful _student's_ view if
+dissatisfied and discontented, and without either experience or
+constructive and practical knowledge to suggest how the wrong may be put
+right. Some of us, therefore, think that Russia's greatest social danger
+arises from the _student_ part of her population, and that her great
+problem--a vital one for her to solve, and soon--is how to deal fairly
+and wisely with them, and, caring for them as paternally as she does for
+her peasant population, incorporate them fully and intimately into her
+national life.
+
+It is from the educated classes that social unrest and discontent have
+proceeded in Russia, and from them that those agents have come who have
+spread wild and daring dreams of change and revolution amongst the
+working classes of the towns, and, although that has not been so
+successful, amongst the peasantry also.
+
+To some extent their socialistic ideas have been echoes from Western
+Europe. I remember being told, when I first went to Petrograd, "We
+usually have your bad weather here about eight or ten days after you,
+only we have it worse." It would seem that the rule holds good in other
+ways also, for Sir Donald Mackenzie Wallace tells us, in one of his
+three deeply interesting chapters on social difficulties in Russia, that
+during the last two centuries all the important intellectual movements
+in Western Europe have been reflected in Russia, and that these
+reflections have generally been what may fairly be called exaggerated
+and distorted reflections of the earlier socialistic movements of the
+West, but with local peculiarities and local colouring which deserve
+attention.
+
+He goes on to explain how the educated classes, absorbing these ideas
+from abroad, just as ideas, and not as relating to the conditions of
+life in Russia as closely as in England, France, and Germany, from which
+they came, have quite naturally been less practical in the conclusions
+they have drawn from them, if indeed they have pushed their ideas to any
+conclusion at all. We are shown plainly by this lucid and well-informed
+writer how natural it has been for Western Socialists to be constructive
+and definite in their aims, while Russians could only be destructive.
+Nihilism is made clear, and we understand its origin, while we can
+equally well understand what we are so reassuringly told about its
+present decline. This does not imply necessarily that Russian thinkers
+and workers are becoming less socialistic in sympathy and aims, but more
+practical; and that they are learning, just as the West has taught them,
+that the only way in which they can hope to advance their own views is
+to use all the legal means which their government, as it becomes ever
+more democratic and constitutional, will increasingly give them.
+
+But amongst all the different classes who may be called educated, the
+university students of both sexes form the class which most claims our
+sympathies, and constitutes, I consider, Russia's gravest problem. There
+are ten universities in the empire, only one of which contains less than
+1,300 students, while the leading ones far exceed this number--Moscow
+having just under 10,000, and Petrograd about 8,500. We can hardly
+realize what such numbers mean for the national life, when over 40,000
+men and women are receiving university education and being prepared for
+professional careers. Over 15,000 are studying law, nearly 10,000 are
+receiving a scientific education before taking up work as chemists,
+engineers, etc., another 10,000 are studying medicine, comparatively few
+only being left for the teaching profession. There are only about a
+hundred divinity students.
+
+In addition to these there are Russian students in all the universities
+of Europe. I have never been able to ascertain their actual numbers, but
+at Geneva, Lausanne, Berne, Leipzig, Berlin, and other great centres of
+education I have always been told, not only that they were there in no
+small numbers, but that they were the keenest and most attentive of all
+the students in the class, the first to come, and the last to leave,
+always in the front seats, and unflagging in their attention. They are
+evidently most eager to learn, and are turned out from all the
+universities of Europe and from their own, extremely well equipped and
+prepared for professional work. Then a vast number of students of this
+class are pitiably poor, straining every nerve, putting up with
+privations undreamed of elsewhere, in order to get through the
+preparation for their life's work.
+
+Many of them, great numbers of them indeed, must be miserably
+disappointed. Town and city life, upon which the professional classes
+must rely chiefly in seeking the means of gaining their livelihood, has
+not developed as yet in proportion to that of the agricultural
+population; and certainly at nothing like the rate which would be
+necessary if all those educated and trained at the universities were to
+be provided with careers and given an adequate opportunity. The supply
+is far, far greater than the demand.
+
+Thus we have in Russia a large class of really competent, brainy, well
+qualified young graduates of both sexes, naturally longing to take their
+part in the life, work, and affairs of their country, urged on also by
+their poverty to seek and even demand it; and yet many, it seems to me
+sometimes that it must be far the greater number, must be unable to find
+it. Here obviously are all the materials for a real social danger; and
+students, therefore, always appear in stories of plots and conspiracies,
+always fill an important place in plays of the same kind, and are always
+to the fore in tumults and demonstrations. It must be so, for they are
+the one really embittered class, and to them it must seem sometimes that
+there can be no hope for them at all in the social order as it is, and
+that its only possibility for them lies in its being destroyed and
+reconstructed.
+
+[Illustration: _A Class of Russian Students with their Teachers._]
+
+In many of our centres of work abroad we have a _foyer_ where the
+foreign students can meet, and at Geneva last year with great difficulty
+we had opened a hostel for Russian students when the war broke out.
+There one heard the most touching stories of their poverty, and yet of
+their pride and independence, and also of the special temptations to
+which their poverty exposed them. Some landlords, for instance, are not
+slow to tell girls that they would live better and more cheaply if they
+would temporarily "keep house" with one of the young men students, and
+occupy one room! Our hostel was hurried on last year as we heard of many
+instances of this kind, and a generous friend in Petrograd helped me
+very largely in finding the money. Everything was to be supplied at cost
+price, and no profits were to be made, the two English ladies in charge
+giving their services. There was a restaurant also which supplied good
+food at very moderate rates, and how moderate may be judged from the
+charge made for afternoon tea of a halfpenny! It consisted of a cup of
+tea and a small roll of bread without butter.
+
+The first time I saw how cheaply the foreign students at Geneva lived
+was one festival evening when they invited me to supper, and when we had
+chicken salad with bread and butter followed by dessert, tea, and
+coffee, for which the charge was about fivepence each. The year after
+that I entertained them in return and gave them a Christmas party at
+which there were fourteen nationalities present, mainly Slav. Nothing
+could have been more interesting than that gathering, nor could any host
+have had more grateful guests. Last year the Noel Fest could not be
+held as there were no students; but I hope next Christmas may possibly
+see the war over, and that we may have a Slav evening party in Geneva
+once again.
+
+It may be well to mention here how there comes to be a _foyer_ or club
+for Russians and other students at Geneva. It is a part of the
+organization connected with the World Student Christian Federation,
+which had its beginning in the eighties in the United States of America,
+as a movement to promote an interest in missionary work amongst
+students. In 1887 a deputation came over to this country to tell the
+student world what was going on across the Atlantic, and the student
+foreign missionary union was the result. Next the Christian Student
+Movement extended itself into all our European countries, and finally
+the World's Federation was accomplished at Wadstena Castle in Sweden in
+1895. It is directed by a committee consisting of two representatives
+from each national movement, with Mr. John R. Mott, so well known, as
+its general secretary. Its operations now extend into all the leading
+countries of the world. There is a biennial conference, and it is
+admitted that one of the most interesting of any yet held was the one at
+Constantinople in 1911, which was attended by patriarchs representing
+all the Orthodox Churches of the East. It is not an undenominational
+movement, but exactly the opposite--a call rather to all the Churches of
+the world to be consistent in their Christian profession and "walk
+worthy of the vocation wherewith they are called." It is not a society
+nor a religious body, but a movement or union, and its basis, to be
+accepted by all its voluntary members and officers, is the declaration,
+"I desire, in joining this Union, to declare my faith in JESUS CHRIST as
+my Saviour, my LORD, and my GOD." There is no reason why any Christian
+in the world should not join it. Roman Catholics, Orthodox, Anglicans,
+and members of other Churches the world over can have no possible
+difficulty in making such a simple declaration if there is any reality
+at all in their sense of membership in CHRIST'S Church; and there is
+every reason _why_ a Christian student should join a movement which is
+the only one of its kind to aim at work for CHRIST in those places where
+it is most urgently and sorely needed, and where it is most likely to be
+truly fruitful--the universities and colleges of the world.
+
+There we have to-day those who have to lead and guide and guard the
+course of the whole world to-morrow. It is in the universities of the
+world that some of those influences which are most hostile and inimical
+to true social well-being are first set in motion, and it is there most
+certainly that we must begin if we wish to see the world made better and
+won for GOD. The war has made us long, I hope, for better things in a
+way the world has never dreamt of before, because there has never been
+anything in all history which has so focussed attention for the watching
+world upon a simple and direct question of right and wrong. The issue is
+even more momentous and significant than that. This great question of
+righteousness and unrighteousness must be answered by every one in the
+world according to his belief or unbelief. It is just a question for us
+all to settle whether our own interests, individual or national, or our
+duty to GOD comes first. The issue has never been more simply stated,
+and the Church of CHRIST has never in all her history had such a
+magnificent opportunity of giving her message, and proclaiming her
+mission. I hope, therefore, that all my readers will take an early
+opportunity of learning all they can about the Christian Student
+Movement, and satisfy themselves as to its fitness for helping the whole
+Church of CHRIST to avail herself to the full of this GOD-given
+opportunity and possibility.
+
+A _foyer_ is a necessary centre for students wherever a branch of the
+movement has been formed, and it would be difficult to speak too warmly
+of its value for its members. I have mentioned this movement here,
+briefly enough, I fear, of necessity, because I should think there is no
+place where it is more needed, nor, as far as I can judge, more likely
+to continue to succeed, than in Russia. In Petrograd there are already a
+number of influential and wealthy Russians deeply interested in its work
+amongst the men students. They include a near relation of the Emperor,
+and the work is directed by a number of extremely competent and earnest
+Americans. I had an opportunity of meeting and addressing them when in
+Petrograd a year ago.
+
+The work amongst the girl and women students is being carried forward
+very quietly by our own country-women, who are full of hope. But up to
+the present a great deal of caution and wisdom has had to be exercised,
+both because the authorities have so long been accustomed to look
+suspiciously at anything which seemed to promote associations amongst
+students, and because students themselves, for reasons already given,
+have naturally looked askance at anything which was obviously working in
+the direction of law and order. The movement, more and more, it will be
+seen, is one of the soundest of modern efforts in the direction of real
+social improvement, because it begins at the right end, with those who
+are thinking and pondering life's problems before launching out to try
+their best to solve them. Nowhere has it been more needed, as I have
+said, than in Russia, and nowhere has it made a better start. The
+hopeful thing about Russia just now is that _every one_ is most keenly
+and profoundly interested in the social well-being of the people--on the
+one hand anxious to obtain it more fully for themselves, and on the
+other really wishful to give and promote it, even if watchful and
+cautious lest they should make mistakes and have to draw back.
+
+And surely caution is very necessary in Russia. It is only a little over
+fifty years since the emancipation of the serfs. Let any one think of
+Russia with a servile population so short a time ago, and then think of
+what she is to-day, and they will form some idea of the extraordinary
+social improvement and transformation which has taken place. Yet with
+all this caution the desire to see improvement is general, and no one is
+satisfied with the lives of the working-classes in the large towns as
+they are. It is well known indeed, as I have already said, that Russia
+has been absorbed in plans for social improvement for the last few
+years, and was meaning to launch out into great undertakings this very
+year. Those plans are only deferred, we hope, and will be taken up with
+greater zest and confidence than ever when peace comes. Perhaps the
+delay will prove to have been an inestimable gain, if it has made it
+clearer than before that there are certain examples it might be well to
+avoid. A great deal has been said and written of late years of the vast
+superiority of German municipal government and organization, and
+certainly no cities in Europe approach those of Germany for
+attractiveness and excellence of arrangements as to streets, parks,
+public buildings, and imposing blocks of flats for private families of
+all classes. Germans have been for many years now animated by the very
+best spirit of municipal initiative and responsibility, and have shown a
+really worthy civic pride. Railway stations, post offices, walks, and
+squares in Germany are beyond comparison with those of any other
+country. And yet I am assured that much is sacrificed for effect and
+appearance; and I was astonished to hear, a little while ago, how
+miserably inadequate was the accommodation that even a skilled artisan
+in Berlin could afford to have.
+
+A well-known social authority, Mr. T. C. Horsfall, writing in the
+_Spectator_ last December, told us that there is terrible overcrowding
+in nearly all large German towns, and that the overcrowded tall blocks
+of buildings are themselves too closely crowded together, and the effect
+is bad both for health and morality. The death-rate, including that of
+infants, is much higher with them than with us. And I cannot help
+thinking that the effect of giving families only two rooms and a small
+scullery, one living-room and one bedroom for all, must have its effect
+upon the morality of a population. Whatever the cause, we are told that
+in Berlin 17 per cent. of the births are registered as illegitimate, in
+Munich as many as 28 per cent., in Vienna over 40 per cent., while in
+London they are only 5 per cent.
+
+"The effect on German town populations," Mr. Horsfall states,
+"especially on the poorer inhabitants of Berlin, of the conditions
+existing in German towns is described in an appeal made in or about the
+year 1886 by Professor Schmoller to his fellow-countrymen to deal
+adequately and promptly with those conditions. The appeal has been
+reprinted in an important Report published in 1911 by Dr. Werner
+Hegemann:
+
+     'The circumstances are so terrible that one can only wonder
+     that the consequences have not been even worse. Only because a
+     large part of these poor people have brought from their
+     earlier life a store of good habits, of religious tradition, of
+     decent feeling, into these dens, has the worst not yet been
+     reached. But the children and young people who are now growing
+     up in these holes must necessarily lose the virtues of economy,
+     domesticity, family life, and all regard for law and property,
+     decency, and good habits. He who has no proper dwelling, but
+     only a sleeping-place, must fall a victim to the public-house
+     and to drink.... The community to-day is forcing the lower
+     strata of the factory proletariat of large towns by its
+     dwelling conditions with absolute necessity to fall back to a
+     level of barbarism and bestiality, of savagery and rowdiness,
+     which our forefathers hundreds of years ago had left behind
+     them. I maintain that there lies the greatest danger for our
+     civilization.'"
+
+With such examples as this before her we must trust that Russia will set
+about promoting the social well-being of her people with all her
+characteristic independence, and determine that in their housing she
+will have only those "great spaces" which are her characteristic
+features in so many other ways. We have to tread this same road of
+social reform also when the war is over, and it is good to think that we
+may, perhaps, be able to take it, just as we have carried on the war,
+without any party questions or party spirit connected with it, as will
+be the case also in Russia. It is even more inspiring to think, again
+let me say it, that we and our new friend may tread this path together:
+comparing notes and making plans together as we go. That would be indeed
+an _Entente_ worth the name, when it was not in order that we might
+make war together, only that we had come to an agreement, but that we
+might help each other's peoples in all the arts of peace. Mr. Baring
+tells us that he was once drinking tea with a Russian landowner who
+calls himself a moderate liberal, and when, in their conversation, the
+Anglo-Russian agreement was mentioned, he exclaimed (and I have no doubt
+he expressed the feelings of many others who desire the social good of
+Russia as he did so), "This is the most sensible thing the Russian
+government has done for the last forty years!"
+
+[Illustration: _The English Church of S. Andrew, at Moscow, with the
+Parsonage._]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[12] "Anglitchanin" in _The Contemporary Review_, Nov., 1914.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE ANGLICAN CHURCH IN RUSSIA
+
+
+I welcome the opportunity that this chapter affords me of defining the
+position taken by our Church in Russia, for it is just the same there as
+in Germany, France, Belgium, and the other countries in our
+jurisdiction. Many English Churchmen deprecate, while others strongly
+resent, our having clergy, churches, and services on the Continent of
+Europe at all. They consider it an interference with the Church of the
+country, schismatical in its character, and a hindrance and impediment
+to the reunion of Christendom. Some English clergy come, therefore, into
+the jurisdiction of North and Central Europe from their own parishes,
+and though their own Church may have its services there, ostentatiously
+attend the services of the Roman Catholic Church. Young men coming out
+for business, girls taking positions as nurses and governesses, and
+others coming for health and enjoyment, are sometimes advised by their
+clergy not to go near the English Church, but to attend Mass and
+"worship with the people of the country."
+
+What, I fancy, many of our brethren at home, clergy and laity alike,
+fail very often to realize is the great difference between a temporary
+and permanent residence abroad. Many of us know what it is to spend a
+holiday in some simple and beautiful village--in the Black Forest, for
+instance--amongst devout and good people, far away from one's own
+Church, and where it is just as natural as anything can be, and
+completes the friendly feeling between us, to go to church on Sunday and
+worship with them. Even in an unfamiliar service we have our own Prayer
+Books, and can read Collect, Epistle, and Holy Gospel, and be in spirit
+and touch with our brethren worshipping in their own churches all over
+the world.
+
+There is something to be said, therefore, for sharing the worship of the
+people of the place when passing through or making but a short stay,
+though, even in holiday resorts or "Sports centres," the opportunities
+which our Church, chaplain, and services offer are too precious and
+important to be lost or undervalued. But there is nothing whatever to be
+said for leaving a community of our own countrymen, permanently resident
+in another land, without the ministrations of their own Church, if they
+can possibly be supplied to them; and still less if, as in Russia and
+some other places, the people can find the means of support themselves.
+
+Will any of our brethren seriously maintain that, when families have to
+leave this country and go to live on the Continent of Europe, they must
+leave their own Church and be received into the Roman or Greek
+Communion? Or, if not, will they consider that they ought to frequent
+the services of those Churches as outsiders, never having the
+experiences and helps afforded by the sacramental means of grace? It
+must be one or the other. If abroad we are not to attend the services of
+our own Church, then the only alternative is either to leave it
+altogether or to live the maimed spiritual life of those who are without
+the ministry of the Word and Sacraments.
+
+And, moreover, if it is thought that one of the pressing duties of our
+time is to follow our brethren across the ocean to Canada, though even
+there the Roman Church claims to be the "Church of the country" in its
+French-speaking territory, and to give them the ministrations of
+religion, why are we not to follow them across the Channel, when they
+leave their country for precisely the same reason, to extend its
+business and commercial influence and to serve its interests in
+diplomatic, consular, and professional life? To think at all carefully
+over the situation is to see at once that our people in North and
+Central Europe have just the same rights (and I don't ask for anything
+more than that) to the services of their own Church as anywhere else in
+the world.
+
+Take, for instance, this typical case of a friend of mine living in one
+of the cities of Europe, and now retired from business, but still living
+on where he is so well known, and where he has many ways of making
+himself of use. He was married young, and his bride went with him to
+make her home abroad. They had their own Church there, and there they
+took their children to be baptized and, when old enough, to worship, be
+confirmed, and become communicants. There those children have been
+married, and from there gone out into the world to make new homes. In
+his house the clergy have been always made welcome, and have visited
+them when sick, counselled them when necessary, and received much
+valuable advice in return. Can any one be heartless enough, or foolish
+enough, to say that there ought to have been no English Church in that
+place at all, and that he and his young wife ought to have attended the
+Church of the country, and with their descendants been lost to their
+own?
+
+Then there are girls at school, young men learning the language,
+governesses, nurses, lads in the training stables, girls dancing on the
+stage--these are well shepherded in Paris--and others. Are they to feel
+in after life, "Just at the critical time, when I needed it most, my
+Church was not there to give me the helping hand--and all might have
+been so different if it had been!" I will not dwell upon all the
+priceless opportunities afforded us abroad, where touch is more quickly
+gained, and more easily maintained, of winning during sickness and at
+other times those who have never been in touch with clergy or Church at
+home, bringing them out into the light, gaining them for the Church, and
+sending them home to "strengthen the brethren" there.
+
+Most of our clergy, from Northern Russia to Southern France and the
+Pyrenees, have their inspiriting stories to tell of the services they
+have rendered to the Church at home in this way, and yet that Church, if
+some of our brethren could have their way, would disown them. It won't
+bear seriously thinking of, this objection to English Church work
+abroad; and surely it rings more true to what we feel is the
+Englishman's duty wherever he is, when we read that our countrymen,
+after settling at Archangel in the sixteenth century, built their
+warehouses and their Church at the same time, and wished, in their
+adopted country, to worship GOD "after the manner of their fathers."
+
+I have taken a little time to explain our continental position thus,
+because it is the same in every country, is thoroughly understood, and
+never, as far as I know, resented. We always make it perfectly clear
+that we never wish to interfere with the Church of the country, nor the
+religion of its people, but are there to shepherd our own. And it is a
+curious thing that in Catholic Belgium, as it is called, with people
+devoted to their Church, and with a clerical government such as they
+have had for at least the last forty years, our Anglican clergy receive
+from the Belgian government the same recognition, status, stipends,
+grants for houses, etc., as are given to the clergy of the country.
+
+But nowhere is the position of our Church more fully, sympathetically or
+affectionately recognized than in Russia. Nowhere would it be felt, as
+there, a grave and responsible neglect of duty on our part if we were to
+leave our own people without the ministrations of their own Church. They
+go further than this in sympathetic feeling, for they consider that
+there is a special link and bond of union between our Church and their
+own. An anonymous but evidently extremely well-informed writer about
+Russia, over the _nom de plume_ of "Anglitchanin" in a leading
+Review[13] a month or two ago, said, in the course of his article on
+_Russia and the War_, "the English Church is said to be very like the
+Greek Orthodox. It is not so in fact, but in Russia it is believed to be
+so by _all classes of the population_. That is indeed the one thing
+about England that they all know. I have known more than one peasant ask
+me, 'Is England beyond Germany--far? or beyond Siberia? But your
+religion is like ours.'
+
+"The origin of this belief," he adds, "is to be found in the fact that
+we are not Lutherans on the one side, and on the other do not
+acknowledge the Pope."
+
+They welcome our bishops and clergy to their services in their robes,
+and attend ours in the same way. When the late Duke of Edinburgh married
+the daughter of the Emperor Alexander, the service took place first in
+the cathedral with the Russian rite, with Dean Stanley present in his
+robes, and then a second time in the English Church with our own
+service, with the Russian clergy present in the sanctuary. The Bishop of
+London also loves to describe his reception at the great Troitsky
+Monastery near Moscow, where he attended the services in cope and mitre,
+and with pastoral staff, and was greeted by all the clergy present as
+one of their own bishops; and the last time I heard him describe the
+beautiful ceremonial, he added significantly, "I should not have been
+received in that way at S. Peter's, Rome"; but who can say what may be
+the outcome of this war? There has been a wonderful drawing together of
+the French and English clergy, and perhaps we may soon have more
+brotherly relations with the Roman clergy, even though we do not have
+inter-communion.
+
+When four of our English bishops went to Russia with a large party of
+Members of Parliament and business men, three years ago, the chaplain at
+Petrograd arranged a choral celebration of Holy Communion in his church,
+and it was attended by some of the highest dignitaries of the Russian
+Church, who were present in their robes and took part in the procession,
+following the service as closely and intelligently as they could. No
+clergy of our Church have ever gone to Russia to learn what they could
+for themselves, or give lectures, or act as members of deputations, and
+come into touch with the Orthodox clergy and been disappointed with
+their reception; but, on the contrary, they have often been quite
+astonished at the warmth of welcome offered them and the keen interest
+shown towards them.
+
+I had no idea until I had read what the _Contemporary Review_ has told
+us that there is nothing so well known about England, throughout _all
+classes_ of the population, as the similarity of the two Churches and
+the religion they represent; but I can speak for the archbishops,
+bishops, and clergy, that they have a real knowledge of the Church of
+England and the character of its services, and a very sincere wish to be
+on friendly and brotherly terms with its members, clergy and laity
+alike. And I do not think there is one of them who would not consider it
+a great compliment and most kind attention if any English Churchman
+called upon him to pay his respects and show interest in his church and
+work.
+
+Their keen interest in our Church all over the empire, even in a humble
+little village, is extraordinarily different from the almost complete
+ignorance and indifference which prevails amongst our own countrymen as
+to theirs, except amongst the members of one or two societies founded to
+bring the two Churches into more real unity of spirit.
+
+However, this, like so many other things, is to be entirely changed. We
+are going to see and know more than we have ever done before of the way
+in which "God is working His purpose out" in His Church, as we are being
+brought into intelligent sympathy with a simply overwhelming part of
+Christendom, as represented by the Orthodox Church of Russia and the
+other Churches of the East.
+
+Will there be many English Churchmen who will not be most deeply moved
+when they read that the first _Te Deum_, after all these centuries, has
+been sung in St. Sophia, in Constantinople? It will be a most inspiring
+thing too to hear that the whitewash, always peeling off, which covers
+up the mosaic picture of our _Lord_, has been cleared away, and He is
+shown looking down in blessing while the Holy Communion is once more
+celebrated in the great Church of Justinian.
+
+We are all praying that _God_ will bring good out of evil, and overcome
+evil with good, as this war draws on to its close, and many of us from
+time to time think of the "good" it will be for humanity if a more
+united Christian Church can be one of its first results. "Who will not
+pray?" said Mr. W. J. Birkbeck, the one English layman who knows Russia,
+its people, and its Church as few Englishmen or even Russians know them,
+when addressing a great gathering in London last year, "that this
+terrible conflict in which we are engaged will bring the Eastern and
+English Churches closer to one another? We are mindful of the
+considerable advances which have already been made in that direction,
+and of the ever-increasing friendship which has arisen between the
+English and Russian Churches of late years, and more especially during
+the twenty years' reign of the Emperor Nicholas II. It is known that
+even in the earliest years of his reign His Majesty more than once
+expressed his wish that the two Churches should get to know one another
+more closely, and that this was the best way to draw the two nations
+together. It is known too that Queen Victoria, when she was told of
+this, said, 'Yes, it is not only the best way, it is the only sure way.'
+The visits of Anglican bishops at various times have all tended to
+promote good feeling and mutual understanding, as did also the visit to
+England of the late Archbishop Antonius of Finland, afterwards
+Metropolitan of St. Petersburg, on the occasion of Queen Victoria's
+Diamond Jubilee. The question of the reunion of our two Churches is one
+that cannot be forced or rushed; it will never be brought about by
+compromises, or by diplomatic shams. It will only come about when the
+two Churches, after coming fully to know one another, find that both of
+them hold the whole of that Faith which each of them, and not one only,
+and all its members, and not some only, hold to be essential."
+
+I hope it will not be uninteresting now if, as they are not many in
+number, I describe briefly the places where English Church work is
+carried on in Russia, and give some characteristic service at each.
+
+At Petrograd the British Church, with the parsonage, library, and a
+number of other suites of rooms, is a great block of buildings, formerly
+a palace, owned and maintained by the British Factory, and with a staff
+of three clergy. The church is the former ballroom of the palace, and is
+a classical basilica, with rows of Greek pillars and capitals, and a
+very impressive place of worship. If I single out one of the beautiful
+services I have known I shall choose the Evensong on the Feast of the
+Epiphany last year, when I preached on the last day of my stay, and had
+what one might call a Sunday congregation. It was grand to see that
+large congregation on a weekday, so far away from home.
+
+[Illustration: _The Bishop and Russian Chauffeur in the midst of the
+Steppes on the way to Atbazar._]
+
+Three other places are served from Petrograd--Helsingfors, Narva, and
+Schlusselberg. Helsingfors has a small community of girls engaged in
+teaching and nursing, and the one Englishman who lives there with his
+wife, a Mr. Reid, is a Professor of English in the Finn University.
+One has to go there and return during the night, and during my day there
+I had a Confirmation in the Art School, most carefully and reverently
+prepared, and in the evening Mr. and Mrs. Reid had all the girls for a
+reception, at which I was able to chat with them individually and speak
+to them about the important and responsible trust they had in being
+allowed to lay the foundations of character in young lives. At midnight
+they were all on the station to say good-bye, bright English girls with
+sparkling eyes and happy faces. Who could not go away deeply thankful
+that they were not allowed to feel in that remote place that they were
+forgotten by their Church?
+
+Narva is a great manufacturing community with a large staff of
+Englishmen, also a long journey away, and it so happens that they are
+nearly all Nonconformists there, but they value our services, and
+enjoyed mine with them, followed as it was by a special evening of music
+and recitations, about sixty being present.
+
+Schlusselberg is a large factory for printing cotton goods for Asia,
+half a day's journey up the Neva, where we always have an evening
+service followed by Holy Communion next morning. It is the only place I
+have yet known where all the community, about forty, have been present
+at the evening service, and next morning been _all_ present again as
+communicants, but with one added to their number, a man who had been
+away the night before.
+
+Moscow has a church and parsonage and large courtyard, as will be seen
+in the illustration; almost startlingly like, it seems in that ancient
+capital, to a bit of a London suburb. But as I saw it on Christmas Eve
+last year it was Russian enough, the great courtyard was full of
+_troikas_ and sledges, and the clear air musical with tinkling bells as
+the people came driving in from far and near, clad in warm furs, for the
+service. That Christmas Eve, with its carols and the old hymns, helped
+one to realize what it means to have an English church and clergyman in
+a community like that of Moscow. The chaplain conducts all the services,
+does all the work of the community, and visits over a large
+neighbourhood outside, single-handed.
+
+Warsaw is the next capital to take, much before us of late, and perhaps
+with a great place yet to fill in future history. It is the centre of
+Christian work amongst the Russian Jews, as I shall have to explain more
+at length in my next chapter; but there is also a British community to
+whom the chaplain ministers, and which perhaps numbers, all told, about
+a hundred, with one or two outlying places reckoned in. The service I
+remember most at Warsaw, and shall always associate with it, was the
+dedication or consecration--the two abroad mean the same thing--of their
+church. We had it on a Sunday morning, with a very large congregation,
+and very impressive it was to take, so far away, as our little copies of
+the service told us, "The Order of Consecration as used in the Diocese
+of London." There were some Old Catholics present, and they were deeply
+impressed with the scriptural character of a service which carried us
+back to the days of David and Solomon. I dare say it was true of all
+there, as one of them said, that they had never seen the consecration of
+a church of their own before, and had had to come to Russia for it when
+they did.
+
+We have only two other places in our jurisdiction--as the shores of the
+Black Sea fall to the Diocese of Gibraltar--Libau and Riga.
+
+Libau is a Baltic port in Courland, a German-speaking place, where there
+is an extremely small British community, but where there are a fair
+number of British ships in the course of the year. The establishment
+consists of two flats side by side, one of which supplies the chaplain
+and his wife with a comfortable home; and the other, which communicates
+with it, provides an institute, with papers and a billiard-table, etc.,
+for the sailors, and a beautiful little chapel opening out of it. When
+last there we had a reception, or social, in the institute, followed by
+a service; after which we came back into the institute, and I had a talk
+with the seamen and apprentices and one or two young fellows in the
+business houses. I need not ask the reader if he thinks that little
+church ought to be there or not.
+
+Riga is a great port, also on the Baltic, and its beautiful church, with
+a great spire, is close to the banks of the river. It has a splendid
+position and is tremendously appreciated and well supported by a fairly
+large and prosperous community. The service to mention here was my
+Confirmation on the Russian Whitsun Day last year but one. Every one
+comes to a Confirmation abroad, and it was to us at Riga a real
+anniversary of the great gift of the HOLY SPIRIT. It was in the
+afternoon, and we had had the Holy Communion at eight and Morning
+Service at eleven as at home--but the Confirmation was at three, and was
+_the_ service of the day.
+
+It makes a great difference when a large congregation can really be
+brought to pray during the short space of silence usually kept for the
+purpose. They most certainly prayed that afternoon at Riga, and many
+told me in touching language what an experience it had been to them.
+These are _great_ opportunities abroad. A man in middle life told me
+once, also abroad, what the confirmation of his daughter had been to him
+that day after he had been led specially to pray in the service; and he
+added, "I've never been at a Confirmation before this since my own at
+Charterhouse, and I can only wish that it had meant more to me at the
+time."
+
+There is one other place to mention, the port which is historic for us
+in more senses than one just now--Archangel. It is not actually upon the
+White Sea, but a little distance up the Dvina, and is frequented by a
+good number of British ships in the summer when the sea there is free
+from ice. There is a church and a rectory, but no community at all, and
+so the Russia Company send a chaplain there for the summer months to
+visit the men aboard ship and hold services for them ashore.
+
+The Anglican Church in Russia, therefore, for I have described every
+place in which it is at work, is not a very large community, but I can
+claim that it is zealous, earnest, efficient, and thoroughly
+representative, and I feel sure that it will be admitted that it is
+doing a real and good work for Russia as well as for ourselves. I have
+often brought home to myself the real significance of an interest or
+influence by asking myself what I should do without it. And if one only
+just thinks, "What would our countrymen do in Russia? how would they
+hope to knit up real and lasting ties, if their Church were not there?"
+there would be, to my mind, no answer which could be adequately
+expressed in words.
+
+I hope to be able, when the war is over, to appoint a chaplain whose
+work it shall be to travel over those great spaces in European and
+Siberian Russia and visit very small communities where it is impossible
+for a permanent chaplain to find enough to do.
+
+These will rapidly increase now as the country and its people become
+better known to us. The first Church of England Service ever taken in
+Siberia is a very good instance to give of such opportunities. It was in
+1912, at Ekaterinburg, just beyond the Urals, and in the government of
+Perm, a large and growing town of 80,000 people, where our British
+community is represented almost entirely by one family named Yates,
+paper manufacturers, whose first mill was built there fifty years ago.
+It now consists of Mr. and Mrs. Yates, their brothers, children, and
+grandchildren.
+
+Ekaterinburg is a distributing centre for the Bible Society, and their
+agent--earnest, energetic, and capable--is one of the best-known and
+respected Englishmen in Siberia. He it was who had prepared for my
+coming, arranged for me to stay with Mr. and Mrs. Yates, and invited
+every one within reach--"I've sounded the big drum," he said--and with
+governesses, English wives of Russians, a young fellow and his wife
+teaching roller-skating, and one or two others--some having travelled
+long distances to get there--we must have numbered about thirty in all.
+They prepared a little temporary altar in the large drawing-room, with
+an _ikon_, flowers, etc., and we had Holy Communion, a morning and
+evening service, our dinner and supper together, and a priceless
+experience of the unity which thankfulness and fellowship always bring
+with them when realized in common prayer and worship.
+
+From Ekaterinburg I went a day's journey to another town, in a part of
+the country to which very few English travellers ever go, and there the
+small community consisted of one family only, though they were three
+generations. We were only a dozen altogether, and some might think it
+was hardly worth taking up a bishop's time for three days to go and see
+one family. But the head of that family had been there between forty
+and fifty years, and never had our Church's service during that time,
+nor received Communion. The grandchildren had never seen or heard the
+service before, and they were the children of a Russian father,
+attending a Russian school. I made my address simple so that they could
+understand it, knowing that the others could if the children did, and I
+had one or two opportunities of conversation with them, which they
+greatly welcomed. Late at night I left, all the party accompanying me to
+the station to see me off; and after we had said, "Good-bye," and they
+had left, the mother of those children came back quietly and said:--
+
+"Bishop, I felt I must come back just to tell you this. In the winter,
+after having tried so long to keep my boy and girl English in their
+ideas, I felt hopeless and gave up the struggle; but I want you to know
+that in the service to-day I've had the strength and courage given me to
+begin again."
+
+[Illustration: _The British Community at Atbazar, Siberia, after Morning
+Service during the Bishop's Visit._]
+
+Is it not worth while to have a travelling chaplain go about and find
+such experiences as that waiting for him in many places? Can any one
+possibly think that those who have to live on the Continent of Europe,
+because of some fanciful ideas of intrusion upon the jurisdiction of
+another Church, should be deprived of the services of their own, and
+find, as they inevitably do find, that they are ever accepting for
+themselves a lowered standard and a dimmer ideal?
+
+I remember a girl whom I had confirmed in Switzerland coming at a later
+visit to tell me that, after six months of happy life as a communicant,
+she had begun to "fall away," and now seemed to have "lost all
+interest." What was she to do? On being questioned, it appeared that at
+the end of those six months she had gone to stay with a family in the
+country, where there was no English church within any possible distance,
+and she said:--
+
+"I missed the services at first, but I _found gradually that I could do
+without them_; and so I grew not to mind." I advised her, wherever she
+was in future, when not able to attend a service, carefully to use the
+Communion Office at eight o'clock, and think of all those who were in
+church, and realize her unity with them, and reverently and slowly think
+over all the special parts of the service, and she would find herself
+eager enough to go to church at the usual time when opportunity again
+presented itself, as she would have wished every time she was reading
+the service that she was having the complete experience. She would not
+"find that she could do without it." Spiritual things are spiritually
+discerned. And if we drop away from those means of grace which help us
+to be spiritually minded, there will certainly in time be little, if
+any, spiritual experiences to show.
+
+This chapter is not, like the others, concerned with Russian people and
+affairs; but I have ventured to write it because without it English
+Churchmen would not be able to understand fully the influence we are
+exercising upon Russian life and thought even now, and which, in far
+fuller measure, we are expecting to exercise in the time to come.
+
+The Duma (I was assured in 1911 when calling at the Ministry of the
+Interior in Petrograd) have been preparing a Bill for some time to give
+the Anglican Church in Russia a legal status and recognition such as it
+has never yet had! We shall be glad and thankful enough to have it, but
+I am far more happy and grateful in the thought of the real _spiritual_
+influence our Church possesses and exercises, even without that legal
+status, both in the permanent chaplaincies and in those distant places
+visited from time to time.
+
+Just as in its legislation, it is not so much the law as it stands which
+determines the state of things social in Russia, as the trend and aim
+and purpose of every new enactment, and the present actual life of the
+people. All that is in one direction in Russia. Government becomes ever
+more and more constitutional. It is the same with respect to religious
+life and prospects. There has been no change whatever in the actual
+formal and legal relations of the Russian and Anglican Churches; but
+surely and evidently, in sympathy, mutual knowledge, regard, and
+respect, every year, they are drawing more closely and affectionately
+together.
+
+I cannot close this chapter without expressing my deep and grateful
+appreciation of the help and support given to our work by the Russia
+Society. It is no longer a trading company but still possesses large
+funds and, it seems to me, they must all be spent in support of our
+Anglican Church in Russia. It is impossible even to think of what that
+work would be without the help given to us by the Russia Society, and
+the British Factory in Petrograd.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[13] _Contemporary Review_, November, 1914.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE JEWS
+
+
+The Jewish question was the first of many I was called upon to consider
+after crossing the Russian frontier, for my first service within the
+empire was the Confirmation of a Jew. He was of the educated class, and
+particularly attractive; and as he bowed low over my hand and kissed it
+with a singular grace of manner the western part of Europe seemed
+already far away. It was at Warsaw, where, as at Cracow--the ancient
+capital of Poland--the Jews form a larger and more influential part of
+the population than in any other European city. It will surprise many,
+no doubt, to hear that, though the Anglican Church has no _legal_ status
+as yet, our chaplain at Warsaw has the sole and exclusive right of
+baptizing those Jews who are Russian subjects, and wish to be received
+into the Christian Church. _Any_ Jew who wishes to become a Christian,
+if in the Russian Empire, must go to Warsaw and receive Baptism from the
+Anglican chaplain, maintained there for many years by the London
+Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews.
+
+[Illustration: _The Archbishop of Warsaw._]
+
+This young Russian, with his wife, had travelled a great distance for
+his Baptism and Confirmation, and, if I remember rightly, was leaving
+Russia in the course of time. He was able, therefore, to receive
+Confirmation in our own Church, although Russian subjects, if Jewish, on
+receiving Baptism from us--it is a strange anomaly that we hope will
+soon cease--are expected to choose whether they will next be received
+into the communion of the Lutheran, Roman Catholic, or Orthodox
+Churches. None of these, of course, attract them after receiving
+instruction and Baptism in our own Church, and, on that account, no
+doubt, many of them have reverted again to their old religion.
+
+The passport system in Russia is an admirable and comprehensive one, and
+as soon as a Hebrew Christian abandons his Faith and returns to Judaism,
+he is required by law to report it at once to the local authority, in
+order that his passport may be altered; and on his doing so a notice is
+at once dispatched to our chaplain at Warsaw that a pen is to be drawn
+through his name in the baptismal register. It was painfully affecting
+to turn over the pages of that register, and see those ominous-looking
+lines drawn from top to bottom of various entries. One could not see
+anything like it anywhere else, I suppose. It carried the mind back to
+the early days of the Faith, and to that sad class known as the _lapsi_
+("lapsed"); to the lament over Demas, who had forsaken S. Paul and gone
+back to the world; and to such promises as "I will not blot out his name
+from the book of life."
+
+There is much in the work at Warsaw to take one back thus in spirit to
+the days of the Apostles. One felt it a little at the Confirmation
+itself, when saying the sentence which accompanies the laying on of
+hands, first in German for the young Jew, and then in English for the
+girl who followed him; but most of all on the Sunday evening, when the
+services of the day in the little chapel were all over, and everything
+was quiet.
+
+That is the time always given to "inquirers"; and they came one after
+another, that first Sunday of mine at Warsaw, stealing in, just as
+Nicodemus came by night and for the same reason, sometimes singly,
+sometimes husband and wife together, and sometimes a whole family--the
+children going off to join the chaplain's children, while the parents
+came to us. When the room in time was quite full we began by singing a
+few hymns in German, after which the chaplain prayed for guidance and
+the sense of God's presence; and then a most interesting time followed.
+He took the holy Gospel for the day, every one reading a verse in
+turn--in German--during which questions were encouraged if the literal
+meaning of the verse was not clear.
+
+It was a particularly arresting Gospel for those present to consider, as
+it included our LORD'S words, "If I by the finger of GOD cast out
+devils, no doubt the kingdom of GOD is come upon you." There is no more
+striking symbol for a Jew than that of the "finger of GOD," nor anything
+more absorbingly interesting than "GOD'S kingdom"; and I have always
+thankfully felt that I was fortunate that night. The Chaplain of Warsaw
+is not one who loses or wastes opportunities, and he did his very best
+with that one. It was an extraordinarily interesting scene as I watched
+the faces of that little gathering of men and women gazing with the
+keenest and most penetrating of expressions upon their teacher; and now
+and then, as he mentioned psalm or prophecy, taking up their Bibles to
+find the passage named. Then, satisfied as to its apposite character,
+they would look up again as eagerly as before. I seemed to be back again
+in spirit sharing in one of those Apostolic scenes of the New
+Testament, when one or another "preached CHRIST unto them," and they, as
+at Berea, received the teaching "with readiness of mind, and searched
+the Scriptures whether those things were so."
+
+Just such little gatherings as that at Warsaw, and in just such places,
+to which people came stealthily yet expectantly, were addressed by
+Barnabas and Paul, by Silas and John Mark. One feels now when listening
+to a chapter from the Acts of the Apostles, or reading it, as if one had
+been there and seen and heard. It is only a year since I was once more
+at Warsaw, and again it was Sunday evening, with the Holy Communion,
+Confirmation, and other services of the day all over, and just as before
+the Jewish inquirers came quietly in, in ones and twos and threes, only
+this time the gathering was larger and the attention keener even than it
+had been three years before. The same order was followed, the singing of
+hymns in German, prayer--those present were encouraged to pray in very
+simple words--the reading of a passage from the New Testament, and then
+its exposition; but though it was the same faithful teaching of the
+Faith, or preaching CHRIST, there was a difference both in what was said
+and in the questions asked. It was no longer the Messiah, or the CHRIST
+fulfilling Messianic psalm or evangelical prophecy, but the living
+CHRIST of to-day.
+
+It was a sight not soon, if ever, to be forgotten, those keen Jewish
+faces, such as our LORD Himself looked into daily during His ministry,
+eager, expectant, hopeful, while questioning again, as in the Synagogue
+of Capernaum, how it could be possible for Him to be not only Way and
+Truth, but _Life_; how He could in any comprehensible sense be said to
+_live_ in His people, and how any one could with any conviction say or
+sing "And now I live in Him." It made one feel that even there, in
+far-away and comparatively unknown Russia, that same Spirit is moving
+upon the waters to whom the _Quarterly Review_ gave its testimony in the
+October number of 1912, when it stated at the close of a remarkable
+review of modern German and other critical literature that the net
+result of modern negative criticism had only been "to make the living
+CHRIST a greater Reality to-day than He has been since the days of the
+Apostles." So it was at Warsaw that night. They wanted to understand the
+CHRIST whom S. Paul not only taught but had _experienced_ ever since his
+conversion, and which enabled and impelled him to say, "I live, yet not
+I, but CHRIST liveth in me."
+
+The Jews have had hard experiences in Russia, and the story of their
+wrongs would take long to tell; but let us hope that now there is no
+reason for wishing to tell it. We are hoping that in more ways than one
+Russia is going to "forget those things which are behind, and reach
+forward to those things which are before," and which are worthy of the
+aims of a great nation. Few nobler things have been said during the war
+than General Botha's counsel to his fellow-countrymen when the Beyers
+and De Wet revolution had come to a fitting end. He reminded them that
+what had happened was within their own household, and their own affair,
+and that the only right course was to let by-gones be by-gones, and
+"cultivate a spirit of tolerance and forbearance and merciful oblivion"
+with respect to the errors of the past.
+
+A year ago, if writing upon Russian life of to-day, one could not but
+have touched upon the hardships of the Jews who have to live "within the
+pale" in Russia, and have been alternately tolerated and persecuted,
+even massacred within recent years; and one would have had to own that
+there was something to be said upon the Russian side as well, even if
+not agreeing with it. But this is now no longer necessary. In Russia as
+in South Africa we must say, "Let by-gones be by-gones, and let the
+spirit of tolerance and forbearance and merciful oblivion" blot out the
+errors of the past for Russian and for Jew. It should be remembered also
+that the devout Jew is as mystical in his religion as the Russian, who
+must surely now and then, as he looks toward the seven-branched
+candlestick within his own sacrarium, or listens to the psalms, be
+reminded that his devotion has a Jewish source.
+
+A Jewish Confirmation with none but Jews in the congregation is a great
+experience. Twice I have had it at Wandsbeck, just outside Hamburg,
+where, under Pastor Dolman of our London Society, the work is entirely
+for and amongst Jews. At my first visit there were about fourteen
+candidates, fine young men from many countries, one or two being German
+and Austrian, and several in uniform. As we entered, the large
+congregation, without rising, began to sing a German hymn, slowly and
+softly, and at once the whole atmosphere of the place became deeply
+devotional. Everything was in German, and though I confirm in German I
+cannot venture to preach or address in the language; and so in the
+address Pastor Dolman stood beside me to interpret, and so masterly and
+rapid was this interpretation that the candidates seemed to be
+listening to me, rather than to him, from first to last. There was no
+mistaking the spirit of that congregation, nor the character of the
+service. Every one was in it, every one deeply interested and attentive,
+and eager to be spiritually helped. The consciousness of it seemed to
+embrace every one present in the most convincing way, and again seemed
+to carry us back to Apostolic days, making one wonder whether amongst
+those rugged and strong-featured men and women there might not be
+another Aquila and Priscilla, ready for work if God should bring it to
+them; whether amongst those youths there might not be another Timotheus
+ready to gladden the heart of any one who should see what was in him and
+take him in hand for GOD. "Why shouldn't there be amongst this
+eager-looking crowd," I found myself thinking, "another Apollos, or even
+a S. Paul?"
+
+[Illustration: _A Polish Jew._]
+
+I shall always be glad also to have visited Cracow, and taken a service
+there in what we shall probably soon be speaking of as "the old days
+before the war." Nowhere, I suppose, in Europe does the Jew walk the
+streets of a city with the same confidence and assurance as he does in
+this ancient capital of Poland and burial-place of its kings. The Jews
+form a very large part of its population, fill the foremost places of
+commercial importance, and show most unmistakably in every look and
+gesture how strong, whenever it can find expression, is the Jewish pride
+of race.
+
+There is a very small Christian community both here and at Lemberg--or
+Luow as we must call it now--but there are two licensed laymen to deal
+with Jewish inquirers, and we had a celebration of Holy Communion, and
+conference together two years ago. I saw then another side of the
+Russian or Polish Jew, for whether he is in Poland proper or that part
+of the old kingdom which is called Galicia, or in the western part of
+Russia--he is not legally allowed anywhere else in the empire--the Jew,
+of course, is always essentially the same.
+
+It is most important to keep this from slipping out of sight when
+thinking of them. I was reading a short time ago a most depressing
+account of life in some Jewish villages in a certain part of Russia, of
+the dirt and degradation of the people there, their cunning and greed,
+their hang-dog expression of countenance, and disgusting clothing. Every
+one is familiar with the stories told of the usurer and the extortioner
+who suck the blood of their inexperienced and unsuspecting victims, and
+it is not for me to question their accuracy. We may all admit that
+Shylock is a type. But still environment plays its part, and it would be
+difficult to picture any other result from the treatment which has been
+meted out to Jews in Russia than the degradation which has followed.
+
+A very different picture, however, is given for us by Mr. Rothay
+Reynolds, in the report of a _Russian_ official, sent out by his
+government to visit the settlements of Russian Jews in the Argentine
+Republic. He made a formal report, but it was no dry and formal
+statement, but a real picture, painted in glowing colours, of the
+"change wrought in them by the free and open life of the new land," and
+he described with enthusiasm the rich farms possessed and admirably
+cultivated by the former children of the _ghetto_. He drew a contrast
+between the peaky, timorous Jewish boys of the Russian pale and the
+lusty Jewish youngsters astride half-tamed horses on the ranche. And the
+settlers spoke of Russia as our colonists speak of the old country, as
+"home." No Jew _in Russia_ dreams of calling himself a Russian, but when
+he goes and settles in another land far away, and prospers there, then
+he can speak of Russia as "home."
+
+There are 6,000,000 Jews in the empire, and 250,000 of them rallied to
+the colours, we are told, at the general mobilization. It may be
+claimed, therefore, that they have "done their bit." Will this count for
+nothing after the war? We are assured by one authority after another
+that the war only precipitated the proclamation of autonomy for Poland,
+and gave it wider application and comprehension. We are told, and I for
+one believe it, that the government have been preparing for some time to
+give constitutional rule to Finland as well as to Poland, and that the
+old idea of "Russifaction" is entirely abandoned and set aside. All this
+is in keeping with what has followed, in some cases swiftly, in others
+slowly, but in all important matters which concern the well-being of the
+state, _in some measure or other_, since 1905. This being so we should
+expect that the Jews will also be admitted before long to equal civil
+and political rights with other Russian subjects of the Emperor, and I
+feel sure the hopes will not be disappointed. The Jewish revolutionaries
+in the past have been the most dangerous of all, and I believe there has
+never been any conspiracy of real moment in which they have not taken a
+share; but there again, as we think of their degradation in country
+villages, we cannot but ask, "How could anything else be expected of
+them? Treated as they have been, their boldest spirits would be sure to
+plot." The Jews with us are loyal and patriotic citizens and though
+proud--as they have a right to be--of their race, they are proud also of
+their nationality. So it will be in Russia when she gives them freedom.
+None will be more patriotic than they, amongst all the mixed races which
+make up the empire. They have given a foretaste of this already. A
+writer in the _Contemporary Review_ last December (Gabriel Costa), in
+telling us something of what "Freeing Six Millions" would mean, points
+out that while no Russian Jewish soldier could hold commissioned rank,
+nor aspire even to be the conductor of a military band--though none
+could be more fitted--nor be accepted as an army surgeon, yet when the
+call to arms came great numbers of Jewish doctors were summoned to the
+front, and obeyed the call. He also tells us how Jews of all social
+grades contributed freely to the Red Cross funds, whilst--most wonderful
+of all--the Jews of Kishineff, where one of the most terrible of all
+Russia's "_pogroms_" or massacres (the word means literally destruction)
+took place, offered up prayers in its synagogues for the success of the
+Russian army.
+
+It is a very significant and instructive fact of life that where great
+issues have to be faced together, whether it is by few or many, those
+barriers which have been considered fundamental, of race, religion, and
+politics, have a strange way of disappearing and sinking out of sight.
+Sometimes it is disconcerting, but often it is most encouraging and even
+inspiring. And so when Jews are confronted by the tremendous issues of
+this war they find that they can pray for those towards whom but lately
+they have been burning with a deep sense of indignant wrong. Russians
+and Poles have been at enmity together for generations now, but in face
+of the common peril and the common foe all this is forgotten, and the
+Russian officers sent to head-quarters soon after the invasion of Poland
+their grateful recognition of the heroism of the Polish peasant children
+who made a regular practice of carrying water to the Russian trenches,
+often under fire and at imminent peril of their lives, while steadfastly
+refusing all payment. So with Jew and Christian. The death of the Chief
+Rabbi of Lyons on the battle-field has been told in papers all over the
+world since it first appeared, last October, in the _Jewish World_. "The
+Chief Rabbi was bringing spiritual consolation to the wounded Jewish
+soldiers on the battle-field, when he was called to the side of a dying
+Roman Catholic trooper. The dying man, evidently mistaking the rabbi
+for a priest of his own faith, begged him to hold the crucifix before
+his eyes and to give him his blessing. While holding a crucifix and
+whispering words of comfort to the mortally wounded soldier the rabbi
+was shot dead!" No less appealing and encouraging for those who long to
+see nationalities and great races appreciating and admiring each other's
+national temperaments and racial characteristics are some of the
+incidents which Gabriel Costa gives us in his _Freeing Six Millions_.
+
+     "First to attract notice," he says, "is the exploit of a Jewish
+     medical student from Wilna, named Osnas, invalided home on
+     account of wounds received in saving the colours of his
+     regiment during the fighting in East Prussia. 'Do everything
+     that is possible to save the life of Osnas,' telegraphed his
+     commander to the hospital authorities. The medical student has
+     been honoured by the bestowal of the military Cross of S.
+     George.
+
+     "When events come to be sifted, we shall probably hear of
+     similar instances of Russo-Jewish patriotism. As for our own
+     brave soldiers, there can be nothing more convincing, nothing
+     more gratifying than the emphatic reply of a wounded corporal
+     of the Black Watch to a 'voice' in a crowd of sympathetic
+     Londoners. 'And the Jews,' queried the 'voice,' 'What are they
+     doing?' The Highlander replied, without a moment's hesitation,
+     'Doing? Well, their duty. We had three with us, and bonnier
+     lads and braver I don't wish to see. They fought just
+     splendid.'
+
+     "No less arresting was the avowal of a private of the Berkshire
+     Regiment. 'We had ten in our company,' he said, 'all good
+     fighters, and six won't be seen again. So don't say a word
+     against the Jews.'"
+
+Why has Russia's attitude hitherto, then, been, and for so long, one of
+rigid exclusion? The Pale, to which they are limited, includes only the
+ten provinces of Russian Poland, and fifteen provinces in Western
+Russia, and the arrangements were made first by the government of
+Catherine the Great in 1791, and definitely settled in 1835. Even there,
+though by law they are entitled to live and follow their particular
+tastes and callings freely, yet we are told that "harassing laws
+restrict their initiative and make even their right of residence within
+the Pale itself become something of a chimera." Why is this policy of
+vexatious exclusion so persistently followed? We are told that it is
+because the Jewish element is a sordid and deteriorating influence, bad
+for the local and national life alike, and a hindrance to the nation's
+progress. This, however, was clearly not the view of M. de Plehve when,
+as Minister of the Interior, he received a deputation of representative
+Jews petitioning for an extension of civil rights. He is reported to
+have said to them, "It is not true that the Tsar and myself regard the
+Jews as an inferior race. On the contrary, we regard them as
+exceptionally smart and clever. But if we admitted Jews to our
+universities, without restriction, they would overshadow our own
+Russian students and dominate our own intellectual life. I do not think
+it would be fair to allow the minority thus to obtain an advantage over
+the majority in this way." He did not seem to see that, as those in
+question were _Russian subjects_, the very ability to which he gave his
+testimony was being prevented from enriching the national life. This is
+a fallacy as old as history itself, and pursued by that shortsighted
+Pharaoh on the Nile of whom it is significantly said, by way of
+explanation of his folly, that "He knew not Joseph!" As we read the
+records of Scripture--and the historical books are for the most part
+extraordinarily dispassionate and free from undue Hebrew bias--we see
+that neither Egypt, Assyria, Chaldea, nor Persia had any cause to regret
+giving Jews a place in their national life, and that their fatal
+mistakes, even with the Jews themselves, lay in _not_ following Jewish
+counsels.
+
+The Jews have what can only be called a genius for patriotism, and in a
+way not to be explained they breathe in this spirit very deeply towards
+any nation which bids them welcome, and offers them a home. During my
+first service in Siberia, described in another chapter, at Ekaterinburg,
+three years ago, a young soldier in Russian uniform walked slowly into
+the room, and took his place with a most wondering expression on his
+face. He was, I found, a young Jew, and had received baptism some time
+before in England. The manoeuvres had brought him to that part of
+Siberia, and to his great amazement he had heard just before, that in
+that unlikely place, there was to be on the following Sunday a service
+of the Church into which he had been baptized. In my conversation with
+him afterwards, however, it seemed to me that I was speaking not to a
+Jew but to a Russian. Somewhere, no doubt, he is fighting now, and as
+patriotically, I feel sure, as his comrades in the ranks. Is it good
+policy to waste such good material as this, to restrict the national
+assets in this way, and keep back its powers of expansion and
+development? To ask such questions in these days is to answer them.
+
+     "I have been discussing," says Mr. Costa in his most
+     instructive article, "with Jewish folk in London, Russian men
+     and women of culture and refinement, the prospect of this dream
+     becoming a reality. They incline to the belief that if Russia
+     is really in earnest over the matter, and is not propounding it
+     as a strategical move; if, in our time, she will hurl to the
+     dust the grim, hope-excluding walls of the congested Pale, she
+     cannot but open up an era of unexampled greatness and
+     prosperity. With that wonderful intellectual force, now held in
+     check, applied to the advancement of Russian culture and
+     progress, the Empire of the Tsar might awaken and expand beyond
+     the most ambitious dreams of its dead-and-gone autocrats."
+
+Just as we are led to believe that a people gets the government it
+deserves, so we may well be brought to think that possibly, with respect
+to this virile and persistent race, the nation gets the Jews it
+deserves. As a policy which is meant to degrade must have a degraded
+class as its result, so to give every part of the nation's life and
+equipment full equality of opportunity is to get the best the nation as
+a whole has to give in return. We are further told by Mr. Costa that
+while the Russian conscript fights because he must, the English Jew
+fights because he loves to serve the country which has been all in all
+to him and his. And thus "Peer's son and first-born of the _ghetto_
+grocer rub shoulders in the task of upholding the nation's honour. In
+the Regulars, Cavalry, Guards, and Territorials, here you shall find the
+cream of Anglo-Jewry, the sons of merchant princes, men who hold the
+purse-strings of nations."
+
+I suppose there is no country in the world where so long and so freely,
+as with us, the Jews have been able to give their full contribution to
+the national life, and who amongst us with any breadth of view and
+largeness of heart does not see what this has meant to us in the past,
+and is meaning for us just now?
+
+If any race can truthfully say that they have never had a chance that
+race is the Jews. They have not even had a proper chance of accepting
+Christianity. The Christian Church marvellously soon became their enemy.
+The nations of the world, without exception, since the first destruction
+of Jerusalem have taken up the same position of antagonism. All this
+could only have one end.
+
+In the new time to come, let all this be forgotten, and the nations use
+all their national life to the full, and confidently await the result.
+Nothing to my mind can withstand the influence of our Christian religion
+when it is presented as the religion of _Christ_ Himself; and the modern
+Jew, I for one believe, will find it as hard to go on kicking against
+the pricks as his great co-religionist did when he encountered the real
+thing in S. Stephen, and was already prepared to receive it as his own
+experience. Nothing can stifle loyal and dutiful service in the hearts
+of her children when a nation is a true mother to them all. This, in
+Church and State, we can honestly claim is our own aim towards the Jews;
+let us express the Emperor's confident hope once more, and say, "Some
+day it will be like that in Russia."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+OUR COUNTRYMEN IN THE EMPIRE
+
+
+"There are no two powers in the world--and there have been no other two
+in history--_more_ distinct in character, _less_ conflicting in
+interests, and more naturally _adapted_ for mutual agreement and support
+than are Britain and Russia."
+
+It is in the full endorsement of these carefully-weighed statements,
+from a most experienced authority, that I wish to write this last
+chapter. Looking back upon the past to the days of Ivan the Terrible and
+Queen Elizabeth, and reviewing the situation in the Russian Empire
+to-day, and, above all, looking forward to our immediate future, it
+seems to me that our countrymen in Russia have had a real mission to
+fulfil, and have done it worthily and well.
+
+They have, from the first, prepared the ground for what has come up for
+a great decision to-day, our splendid opportunity of having Russia for a
+friend. And they have not done it by working and planning, still less by
+scheming for it, but, just as we should wish our countrymen to extend
+our influence the world over, by being honestly and consistently true to
+their own nationality, and worthily representing British traditions and
+ideals.
+
+There is one testimony, if I may venture without undue complacency to
+give it, to the estimation in which our nationality is held, which does
+not suggest that we are really considered, even by those who have of
+late so often glibly said it, to be degenerate and decadent and not fit
+to hold the possessions we have, or shape the destinies of the many
+peoples who own our rule. I have never met any one yet, of another
+nationality, who did not think it a compliment to be mistaken for an
+Englishman. It is not often that one can make such a mistake, but I have
+met Dutchmen and Germans, and Russians also, who just for a moment or
+two, from dress, expression, or speech have made one feel that they were
+fellow countrymen. Young Russians especially, though different in
+physique, for often they are built on huge lines and are enormously
+strong, after receiving an English education from a very early age,
+wearing English dress, being pleased to meet us, may easily be
+considered to be English; and I doubt if there are amongst them any who
+would not feel it a compliment to be so considered, while they would
+resent the same mistake being made with regard to any other nationality.
+
+Englishmen, therefore, it will be admitted, have kept up the standard in
+Russia, and not let down the good name of their own country. When I was
+visiting the Troitsk Gold Mine, in 1912--a little short of three days'
+and three nights' journey, on the other side of Moscow--to spend Sunday
+and give them their first English services, the surveyor, when showing
+me over the mine and its workings on the Monday, told me that those
+large illustrated almanacks which we have, with a picture in the middle
+and information about Church and parish round the sides, and which are
+so often seen on the walls of the houses of our own working-classes, are
+also very popular amongst their own work-people.
+
+"They are got up in the Russian style, of course," he said, "with a
+Russian illustration, and so on; but you will be interested to hear that
+a great part of the paragraphs round it is given up to describing
+English ways and ideas, societies and arrangements, and always with
+appreciation and approval."
+
+It must ever be remembered that people who cannot leave their own
+country must judge largely of other countries by what they see of those
+who come from them. If English ideas, manners, and customs are held in
+favour and esteem in Russia and Siberia it can only be, therefore,
+because English men and women have worthily represented them there in
+business and commerce, by upright and moral conduct.
+
+It does not usually fall to the lot of a bishop in these days,
+many-sided as are his sympathies, and various as are the claims made
+upon his time and attention, to see much of actual business and
+commercial life, nor have I seen much of the working of factories and
+workshops in the other countries in our jurisdiction; but in Russia and
+Siberia one of the most important parts of a visitation has been the
+going amongst the members of a staff while they were actually at work so
+as to get to really know them and their daily lives.
+
+Outside Moscow, for instance, are nearly twenty mills and manufactories;
+in and outside Petrograd are some of the largest and best-managed cotton
+and thread-mills in the world; at Schlusselberg, on the Neva, there is a
+large and splendidly equipped print-works for Asiatic trade; at Narva, a
+day's journey from Petrograd, is a huge factory employing some 70,000
+people; and in Siberia are the great mining enterprises, some of them
+employing from 18,000 to 20,000 people of both sexes. And in all these
+places the staff is composed of our own countrymen, and numbers,
+sometimes as many as sixty.
+
+I have always, in these places, stayed with the manager, and have had
+opportunities of meeting the staff socially and for services, going into
+every department in the mill, factory, or mine, and, as these visits
+were not short, making friends and learning their experiences, seeing
+their outlook and often acquiring the history of the enterprise, with
+all its ups and downs, and successes and failures, from the very first.
+Then I am a guest always at the Embassy in Petrograd, and am asked to
+meet all who can be brought together by kind and courteous host and
+hostess. It is the same with the Consul and his wife in other cities.
+And above all is it so when I am the guest of the chaplain, who takes
+care that I meet every one in the community who cares about it. I get
+thus into close touch with all sorts and conditions of men, and am
+compelled to come to the conclusion that very few can have anything like
+the opportunity of really knowing, in a general way, his own countrymen
+in Russia as the bishop who goes amongst them. It seems to me,
+therefore, to be a very real duty to give my tribute to what they have
+done to make England well spoken of and well thought of throughout the
+empire.
+
+Englishmen have succeeded amongst the Russians for precisely the same
+reason that they have succeeded in building up vast colonies and a huge
+empire. They have developed, and not exploited. There is a way of
+becoming rich by exploiting resources at the expense of those employed.
+Instances will occur to the reader at once, and probably are not far to
+seek. I myself have seen this degrading process conducted on a fairly
+large scale in another hemisphere, while the most terrible and sinister
+instance of all is that of the Congo, out of which King Leopold and his
+agents amassed an immense fortune in a few years, while the natives
+engaged in collecting the rubber were reduced from twenty millions to a
+little over seven. No more deadly and wicked _exploitation_ was ever
+known.
+
+True _development_, on the other hand, is cultivating and bringing into
+use the resources of a country and improving the conditions of life for
+those who produce them at the same time. We have been accused again and
+again, even by writers of our own, of exploiting India, and of being
+indifferent to the true interests of its people. No one has ever known,
+for the Hindoo temperament is vastly different from our own, whether
+its people did not think so too. But the war has declared it. When India
+rose as one man and asked only to be allowed to give all for those who
+had ruled them, then we all knew that we had been understood all over
+that vast dependency of ours as being there not only to get but to give,
+not to exploit but to develop.
+
+Is it not true of Egypt also, where the _fellaheen_ along the Nile are
+of the same race in general habits and employments as their ancestors of
+thousands of years ago, though different ruling races have come and
+gone, that in all those ages they have never enjoyed true liberty, and
+never reaped the fruit of their labours and toil without oppression
+until they came under British rule? It need not weigh at all with us
+that this is not known or acknowledged, as it ought to be in Egypt. We
+are not given, fortunately, to worrying as to what other people think
+about us. Perhaps it might be better for us sometimes if we were. But we
+know that in time Egypt will learn, as India has learnt, that we are
+amongst them not to exploit them, but to develop their resources and to
+improve in every way that is possible their own character and condition.
+Thus has it been also in Russia; and I felt a very thankful man, proud
+of my country and nationality, when, a year ago, I could say to the
+Emperor of Russia, "My countrymen are in Siberia, sir, not to exploit
+but to help to develop Russia's resources and its people."
+
+"I know it," he quietly said. And I gave him the following instance to
+show him how rapidly and on what a large scale this is being done.
+
+Some distance to the left of the Orenburg line which runs down from
+Samara to Tashkend in Turkestan, and not far from Orenburg itself, only
+reached at present by motor-car and camel, is a place called Tanalyk, an
+English property. Not much more than a year ago there were there a
+British engineer, surveyor, and assistants, with a little handful of
+nomads, Kirghiz I should think, looking on and giving their labour. They
+were engaged in prospecting, and drilling for copper. Now, even in this
+short time, the preliminary work of a great mine has been begun, and
+there are from eighteen to twenty thousand Russians engaged in it.
+Accommodation has been provided, schools are going up, their church and
+priest are there, medical and surgical treatment is within the reach of
+all. There are stores where they can buy everything they need in the way
+of food, dress, appliances, all sorts of conveniences and comforts that
+they have never seen before, at prices which give no profit to the
+company. Those who used to taste meat perhaps once a fortnight can have
+it daily, for they have good wages. They are becoming more handy as
+workmen and improved in physique, and the next generation will be better
+still. Education and the amenities of life are increasing their
+self-respect. The determination of the staff not to overlook bad work,
+their wish to see them improve in character, to set them an example in
+their own family life, are all having their effect. "Is it possible," I
+asked, "to put too high a value on such good work as this which adds to
+Russia's enterprise, wealth, and resources, and makes all those
+thousands of men, women, and children better subjects of your Majesty
+and the empire?"
+
+The managing director of the Russo-Asiatic Corporation, which began its
+development with Tanalyk, and has gone on to other and more important
+developments still, told me that when local option was granted, two
+years ago, he himself was given the sole right of deciding whether those
+thousands of Russians should have _vodka_ or not, although it was at
+that time a government monopoly, and important as a source of revenue.
+He decided that _vodka_ should not be sold, but that a very light and
+harmless beer might be provided for those who wished to have it. It was
+only to be sold by one man, however, and if an instance of
+drunkenness occurred he was to lose his right to sell. The amount paid
+for rent has been spent on a People's House for the recreation of all
+employed at the mine.
+
+[Illustration: _Camels at Work--Summer._]
+
+Another manager friend of mine told me that he had helped his people to
+become more sober by selling _vodka_ at his own stores at a lower price
+than that of the government. It sounds a strange way of doing it, no
+doubt, but the sale was restricted to Wednesdays and Saturdays. When,
+therefore, on the other days there came would-be purchasers anxious to
+have _vodka_, with the plea that there was a wedding or a christening or
+some other domestic festivity at which it would be needed just to
+complete the enjoyment, they were always told that they could not have
+it except on the stated days. This was not hardship, for the government
+shop was open, though the higher price was demanded there. This they
+would not pay and so went without it, and yet the christening or wedding
+passed off no less happily--perhaps even more happily; and thus,
+gradually, amongst the Russian staff, and through them the work-people,
+there grew up the idea that the results of _vodka_ were to be avoided.
+
+Nothing could be more encouraging than the experience of the management
+of this particular mine in trying, by example and discipline, to lift
+their foremen and subordinates of the staff out of what used to be
+thought a perfectly natural and pardonable weakness, but now throughout
+the empire is being acknowledged as a national sin.
+
+It will surely and easily be seen by any thinking reader that this
+initiative on the one hand, and responsiveness on the other, promise
+well for our future relations with each other, and explains, perhaps,
+how the Russian _Entente_ has passed quite naturally into an Alliance,
+which some of us hope and believe will be permanent and stable for many
+generations.
+
+Our _Entente_ with France has been indeed an _Entente Cordiale_, and it
+is now more cordial and friendly than ever; but it is not easy to
+conceive of anything in the future beyond an _Entente_ and Alliance. We
+can be real and staunch and faithful friends as becomes those who are
+near neighbours, but little else opens out before us. Is it possible to
+think of anything between ourselves and Germany, even when the war is
+over and many years have passed, except the gradual removal of sadly
+embittered feelings and outraged convictions and beliefs? Our ideas of
+what can rightly be called world-power and world-forces are so
+diametrically opposed that it passes the imagination of man to conceive
+what great world-purpose we and they could undertake together, for some
+time.
+
+But directly we think of ourselves and Russia as side by side, and with
+confidence in each other, there is no limit to what we and they may hope
+to accomplish together for our own peoples, for humanity, and for GOD.
+Not only have we constitutional and religious ideals in common, but our
+own countrymen are already at work all over the richest and most
+promising part of their vast empire, and upon the only right lines any
+one can adopt if the object in view is to increase the resources,
+character, and ability of a people at the same time.
+
+The Englishman of the ordinary and normal type cannot be content to look
+upon the man he employs as merely a wage-earner. He wants, as he would
+put it, "to give him a leg-up" besides, and our countrymen in Siberia
+have sought just to give that "leg-up" to their employs, to better their
+conditions of life and educate their children; by precept and example to
+give them wholesome recreations; to help them to see that there is
+nothing laughable but everything that is disgusting in such a vice as
+drunkenness; and to help them in every way they can to manly
+self-respect.
+
+This is tremendously far-reaching in its results. The Christian paradox
+is fulfilled here also. "To lose is to save, to save is to lose." To try
+and get all one can out of work-people and give as little, is to have
+little enough to show by way of good results. To think not of the work
+alone which the wages claim, but of the man who is to do it; to try
+one's utmost to make him more of a man for his being employed and to
+lift up his self-respect, is straightway to increase the value of
+everything he does, and of the work for which his wages are paid.
+
+The explanation of "dividend or no dividend" is far simpler than it
+seems, and the New Testament contributes to it. If only a little
+additional value is placed upon the manhood and womanhood of those
+employed, and a little increase given to self-respect, responsibility,
+and conscientiousness where hundreds and thousands are employed, then it
+requires no great powers of insight to see how rapidly what has hitherto
+been a failure may become a great commercial success. I attach the
+greatest importance to the fact that our countrymen in Siberia whom it
+has been my great privilege to know and make my friends are conducting
+their great enterprises as honourable and chivalrous men, and have, with
+public-spirited Russians, like-minded with themselves, laid the
+foundations of a true Anglo-Russian friendship and agreement. In this I
+think we are extremely fortunate in the opportunity which world events
+have brought us, and through no effort of our own. Our own people at
+home, for the most part, are probably not yet convinced that this is our
+GOD-given opportunity. I have already freely owned my former prejudices
+and misconceptions, and explained how quickly they passed away, and I
+know that others must feel and think as I used to do myself, and that
+they have had comparatively little as yet to clear their minds, though I
+trust what is written in these pages may be a help in that direction.
+But this opportunity which has come to us was possible for Russia's
+great neighbour at one time, as she was told by one of the most
+far-seeing men of Europe, but it was carelessly and even contemptuously
+refused. Great opportunities for great nations never return.
+
+Just as Bismarck pleaded for friendliness with England and against naval
+expansion for his own country, so also he was quite alive to the
+possibilities of Russia and its "wonderful materials for making history
+if it could take the virility of Germany into its national character."
+The Emperor William, however, differed with his great chancellor upon
+this as upon other policies he advocated, maintaining that the
+"Sclavonic peoples are not a nation but only soil out of which a nation
+with an historic mission may be grown."
+
+We in this country are not as alive to the magnificent opportunity which
+is now afforded us as are our countrymen in Russia who know its people
+and its potentialities. And all grades of Russian society, from the
+Emperor and his Court downwards, also know it, and all who are
+intelligent in their patriotism desire it. This is what a Russian[14]
+wrote at the beginning of 1914, when no one was even dreaming of what
+the close of the year was to see:--
+
+"All progressive Russia is united in desiring a _rapprochement_ with
+England, because there is a universal belief that the influence of
+English constitutional ideas on Russian internal politics will be most
+beneficial to the interests of the people and to the general welfare of
+the country. Being one of the youngest constitutional countries, Russia
+is holding out a hand of friendship to the mother of all
+constitutions--England; and she hopes that good relations between them
+will bear much fruit. This, on the other hand, explains to us why all
+reactionaries in Russia are so up in arms against the _Entente_ with
+England. There is also a widespread opinion all over Russia that English
+interests require Russia to be a strong and civilized country with a
+firmly established constitutional government. If England wishes to have
+an ally that ally should be a strong one, and Russia cannot be strong so
+long as reaction is in full swing. The Russian Liberals hope that
+constant intercourse between the two countries will lead to a better
+mutual understanding, and will ultimately improve the state of affairs
+now prevailing in Russia."
+
+[Illustration: _Camels at Work--Winter._]
+
+France is Russia's ally, and well and faithfully have they both kept the
+terms of their alliance. We are a new friend only, but it was the
+British flag the populace demanded, at the beginning of the war, in
+Petrograd. They went in vast numbers to the British Embassy, and asked
+for it; and our Ambassador (Sir George Buchanan), though he had only
+two, handed one of them down, asking them to take care of and return it.
+They received it with the utmost reverence, bent down and kissed it, as
+many as could get near, and then, in procession, went cheering and
+singing through the streets of the capital, the British flag carried
+high before them.
+
+During the visit of the Fleet earlier in the year to Cronstadt a party
+of _moujiks_ were in a boat within the harbour; and, in their
+excitement to get near and see all they could of a British warship, they
+upset their boat, and were thrown struggling into the water. Instantly
+some twenty of our bluejackets (officers and men) dived amongst them,
+and in the shortest possible time had them safe in their righted boat
+again. This made a great impression in Russia, and, though news travels
+slowly in that vast country, this story went everywhere, continually
+evoking the comment, "Then it's true, all that we've been told about
+them--and their _officers_ dived in to save the lives of poor peasant
+folk!" It is a tremendous link between us and them to feel, as they do,
+that, while claiming all the rights of rank and authority, we feel human
+ties to be supreme. And just as we read of the British officer early in
+the war lying wounded in both legs, but lifting himself up with
+difficulty and crying, "Now _my bonny lads_, shoot straight and let them
+have it!" so we read of the Russian officer who addresses his men under
+similar circumstances as "little pigeons"--a special Russian term of
+endearment. Thus, while there is leadership in the officers of both
+countries, yet towards their men there is, as boys would say, "no side."
+
+We have only now to read and watch the course of events to keep free
+from prejudice and suspicion, as we try and discern the signs of the
+times, and the forces already at work will quite naturally and normally
+bring the two peoples together in enduring friendship. It is a most
+significant thing, surely, that three writers so utterly different from
+each other in their whole outlook upon life as the great surgeon, the
+popular novelist, and the independent thinker[15] should go to the Holy
+Land for totally different objects, and _all_ find the Russians, above
+all other nationalities, get very close to their hearts, both for what
+they were themselves, and for what it was so evidently in them to
+become.
+
+The most important link of all, however, and that which I have kept in
+mind in everything I have written, between ourselves and Russia, is that
+our two races are at heart deeply religious people. The difference
+between us is that the devout Russian _shows_ his religion in every
+possible way, while the Englishman, with his characteristic reserve,
+seems to hide it or to speak about it with difficulty. When I was
+talking last year with a British officer in a specially responsible
+position, and religion came to be mentioned, he said very shyly and
+with hesitation, "Well, I have my bit, but I don't talk much about it,
+though it's everything to me, and I could not live without it." It's
+"everything" to us and to the Russians, though our public expressions of
+it are so entirely different. And in Russia once again, as, in former
+experiences in my episcopal work, I have found that the religious
+men--when they are the real thing--are all round the best men.
+
+And thus I come to the end, hopefully confident about our relations with
+the Russians and our work in the world together. This book was asked of
+me, and pressed upon me at a specially busy and harassing time, and as
+it has had to be written amidst many distractions and interruptions its
+imperfections and deficiencies, as I well know, are many, yet it has
+been a most congenial task to write it. It has been written throughout
+with the one desire, while giving as true a description of Russia and
+its people's life as I could, to lead my own countrymen to view them
+with a friendly eye and a kindly heart. This is essential if we are to
+have sound and stable relations with each other. Treaties and other
+diplomatic agreements are indeed mere "scraps of paper" without it, and
+when the Prime Minister addressed the deputies from the Russian Duma at
+a luncheon given them in the House of Commons in 1909, he truly and
+appropriately said that it is not enough to let governments sign
+treaties and agreements, but the nations themselves must have feelings
+of friendship for each other, without which all agreements and alliances
+are not worth the paper on which they are written. I believe--firmly and
+thankfully I believe it--that our feelings towards those of whom I have
+written are already those of sympathy and friendship. I am sure it is so
+in their feelings towards us, and that we are in consequence going to
+find in Russia not only a new ally but a very faithful one, and a loyal
+and true friend for many generations.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[14] Boris Lebedev, in the February number of the _Russian Review_.
+
+[15] Sir Frederick Treves, Mr. Robert Hichens, and Mr. Stephen Graham.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+Archangel, 210, 221.
+
+
+Berlin, Social conditions in, 202-03.
+
+
+Catharine the Great, 27.
+
+Cleanliness of Russians, 59-60.
+
+Climate of Russia, 31-32;
+  of Siberia, 179-81.
+
+Convict Labour, 149.
+
+
+Duma, The, 25, 160, 226, 267.
+
+
+Ekaterinburg, 40, 222, 223, 244;
+  Convent at, 83;
+  Bishop of, 80, 83.
+
+Elizabeth, The Grand Duchess, 81, 133, 134-37.
+
+English Church, position of in Russia, 1-2, 205-10;
+  relations with Russian Church, 90-93, 210-13, 226-27;
+  work of in Russia, 89-91, 175-79, 221-24;
+  relations with the Jews, 228 sqq.
+
+
+Germany, contrasted with Russia, 201.
+
+
+_Ikons_, Ubiquity of, 21-24, 54, 100, 121;
+  at the Kremlin, 29;
+  "worship of" by peasants, 57;
+  in churches, 87, 104;
+  the blessing of, 82.
+
+
+Jews in Russia, 26;
+  religious work among, 218, 228 sqq.;
+  persecution of, 234-35, 240;
+  as soldiers, 241-42, 246.
+
+
+Kirghiz, The, 8, 37, 53, 89, 164 sqq., 255.
+
+Kremlin, The, 29, 31.
+
+
+Language, The Russian, 7-11.
+
+Libau, 7, 36, 219-20.
+
+
+Magdalena, Abbess, 83.
+
+Moscow, 7, 8, 12, 28, 31, 33, 138, 175, 192, 250, 251;
+  the Archbishop of, 78-83;
+  English Church at, 218.
+
+
+Neva, The, 14, 251;
+  the blessing of, 112-13.
+
+Nicholas II, 2, 113, 118, 122 sqq., 156-57, 254-56.
+
+Nicholas, The Grand Duke, 113, 132.
+
+
+Orthodox Church in Russia, relations with the State, 71-74;
+  clergy of, 74 sqq.;
+  their relations with the people,92-94;
+  services, 91-94, 101-05;
+  arrangement of churches, 102-05.
+
+
+Passport system, The, 16-18.
+
+Peter the Great, 27, 72.
+
+Petrograd, 27, 31, 83, 101, 112, 125, 157, 168, 175, 190, 192, 195, 199,
+        212, 251, 252, 263;
+  English Church at, 216.
+
+Poles, relations with Russia, 25, 42-44, 241.
+
+
+Riga, 7, 30, 83, 220.
+
+
+_Samovar_, The, 36, 171.
+
+Siberia, 7, 12, 17, 19, 40, 52, 89, 110, 123, 124, 152, 159, 168 sqq.,
+        244, 251, 259;
+  the prisons in, 141-51.
+
+Steppes, The, 8, 162 sqq.
+
+Students, Problem of, 192 sqq.;
+  numbers of, 192;
+  at Geneva and elsewhere, 194-95.
+
+
+Tea, how drunk in Russia, 37.
+
+Tiumen, Abbot of, 87-89.
+
+Travelling in Russia, 11-14;
+  by sledge, 32;
+  on the Steppes, 170-75.
+
+Tsarevitch, The, 125-26.
+
+
+_Vodka_, Prohibition of, 41, 42, 51, 155;
+  attraction of, 65, 256-57.
+
+Volga, The, 14, 16-17, 44.
+
+
+Warsaw, 10, 29, 31, 228 sqq.;
+  Archbishop of, 75-78.
+
+Wolves, 179, 181-83.
+
+[Illustration: _MAP ILLUSTRATING THE AUTHOR'S JOURNEYS IN RUSSIA_]
+
+PRINTED BY A. R. MOWBRAY & CO. LTD.
+
+LONDON AND OXFORD
+
+
+
+
+TRANSCRIBERS' NOTES
+
+
+Page viii: In the list of illustrations, page for the Convent at
+Ekaterinburg corrected from 87 to 78
+
+Page 43, 239: Spelling of Russification/Russifaction as in original
+
+Page 81: intercommunion standardised to inter-communion
+
+Page 82: anteroom standardised to ante-room
+
+Page 112: out-door standardised to outdoor
+
+Page 175: tarntass corrected to tarantass
+
+Page 180: Tolstoy's standardised to Tolstoi's
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Russian Life To-day, by Right Rev. Herbert Bury
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