Page:The Greek and Eastern churches.djvu/448

422 The gentle Alexis was anxious to import education and enlightened manners into his empire. Still, when all that was done in this way has received due recognition, it remains true that Peter the Great achieved the huge twofold task of restoring Russia to Europe and introducing Europe to Russia. His clear ideas and his vigorous pursuit of them went far beyond anything accomplished or even attempted or conceived by his predecessors in these directions. He aimed at modernising Russia by bringing her into contact with the progressive nations of the West, and in a considerable degree he succeeded, though by no means to the extent that external appearances would suggest. We might compare Russia in the time of Peter with Japan in our own day. In both cases we have a long-stagnant people suddenly stirred and roused by a rush of life from the progressive West. But the immediate effect is much greater in Japan than it was in Russia. Whether the permanent results will be equally to the advantage of the yellow race remains to be seen.

Peter was always fond of mechanical contrivances, and it was quite congenial to him to work side by side with the artisans in the dockyard at Deptford when he came over to England to learn shipbuilding. Neither his education nor his manners were beyond the standard of an English working-man of his day. But he had a great intellect and an indomitable will, and it was much to him that neither were warped or prejudiced by the conventions of the schools. Even more than Napoleon, Peter, though the son of an emperor, was really a self-made man. His European travels and the mechanical labour that so scandalised his courtiers had their place in his deliberate policy. Peter visited dockyards to learn shipbuilding, because he saw that Russia needed a navy if she was to hold her own on the Baltic. For the same reason he founded his new capital close to this sea ( 1703). But he had greater ideas and wider projects than those of naval defence or offence. Moscow was buried deep in the heart of Russia. Before the age of railways this metropolis was