Page:Tolstoy - Essays and Letters.djvu/366

 350 ESSAYS AND LETTERS

jealousy from any infring-ement. A peasant has but to omit to observe the name^s day of the local saint, or to omit to invite to his house a wonder-working icon when it makes the round of his village, or he has only to work on the Friday before St. Elias's day — and he will be denounced, and prosecuted, and exiled. Not to speak of sectarians being punished for not observing the ceremonies of the Church, they are tried for even meeting together to read the Gospels, and are punished for that. And the result of all this activity is that tens of millions of people, including nearly all the peasant women, are not only ignorant of Jesus, but have never even heard who he was, or that he existed. This is hard to believe, but it is a fact which anyone can easily verify for himself.

Listen to what is said by the bishops and academicians at their conferences, read their magazines, and you would think that the Russian priesthood preaches a faith which, even if it be backward, is still a Christian faith, in which the Gospel truths find a place and are taught to the people. But watch the activity of the clergy among the people, and you will see that what is preached, and energetically inculcated, is simply idolatry : the elevation of icons, blessing of water, the carrying from house to house of miracle-working icons, the glorification of relics, the wearing of crosses, and so forth; while every attempt to understand the real meaning of Christianity is energetically persecuted.

Within my recollection the Russian labouring classes have, in a great measure, lost the traits of true Christianity which they formerly possessed, but which are now carefully banished by the clergy.

Among the people there formerly existed (but now only in out-of-the-way districts) Christian legends and proverbs, verbally handed down from generation to generation, and these legends — such as the legend of Christ wandering in the guise of a beggar, of the angel who doubted God^s mercy, of the crazy man who danced at a drum-shop ; and such sayings as : ' With- out God one can^t reach the threshold,' ' God is not in