Page:The way of Martha and the way of Mary (1915).djvu/136

114 mean "suffering for its own sake," but rather the religion of not avoiding suffering, not avoiding or trying to avoid destiny. The religion of the podvig.

A tempter once came to a hermit living in a cave, and told him about the pain and misery and poverty of his fellow-men living in the world, and asked him what he would do if a million of money were brought to his cave and put at his disposal. The hermit crossed himself and muttered, "Get thee behind me, Satan!" The tempter was annoyed and urged his point. "But what would you do?" he asked.

"I should not alter my way of life," said the hermit.

That was a podvig, a denial of the reality of misery on earth, a denial of the power of money to gain real happiness for man.

One of the most interesting of Russian mystery plays, Andreief's Anathema, is concerned almost wholly with this idea. A man after God's own heart succumbs to the temptation of thinking he can put the world right with money. He inherits a million from a relative who has died in America, and he sets to work to alleviate human suffering. But the more suffering he tries to remedy the more appears before him, till finally he is drowned in suffering, and God says to Human Reason, "Not by these measures shall it be measured, nor by these numbers shall it be counted, nor by these weights shall it be weighed, O Anathema, dwelling among