The Czar: A Tale of the Time of the First Napoleon/Chapter 40
CHAPTER XL.
MORNING CLOUDS.
"Waft, waft, ye winds, His story;
And you, ye waters, roll,
Till like a sea of glory
It spreads from pole to pole;
Till o'er our ransomed nature
The Lamb for sinners slain,
Redeemer, King, Creator,
In bliss returns to reign."
BRIGHT days followed for Clémence and Ivan—days of noble striving and endeavour, of "taking root downwards" in thought and experience, and of "bearing fruit upwards" in loving helpful toil for others. Their little Rosebud was not forgotten. The baby guest whose visit was so brief that it seemed to come and go like a dream left an abiding blessing behind her. Heaven looked nearer and more real to the parents whose treasure was there already; and labour felt more sweet for Him who had her in his keeping. Thenceforward the tender, introspective spirit of Clémence grew more and more into the glad undoubting faith of Ivan. Nor did the little cot remain empty; for God sent them other gifts—in the course of the next three years two baby boys came to gladden their home.
Meanwhile the stirrings of new life seemed to pervade ever more and more the land in which they lived. It was something like what the early Reformation era had been in the elder lands of Europe. Nor was it only the rich and great who shared the blessing; to the poor also the gospel was preached. One morning late in spring, when the frost and snow had at last disappeared and the Neva was navigable again, Ivan stood on the quay watching what was then to the inhabitants of St. Petersburg a strange sight and new. Amidst the numerous boats that cleft the blue waters with the aid of sail and oar came an unfamiliar monster, panting and puffing on its rapid way with an air of conscious power, while a dense column of steam issuing from its funnel bore witness to the triumph of modern science. Ivan gazed and wondered, until his attention was distracted by an exclamation in a voice he knew—"Great St. Nicholas!"
Turning a little, he saw beside him a sergeant of artillery, who was lifting up one hand in amazement.
"Michael Ivanovitch!" he cried. "I am heartily glad to see you. And so you have got your promotion," he added, touching his epaulette.
"Yes, Barrinka; and two orders," returned Michael, proudly showing the badges to Ivan. "We have just been sent here from Moscow, where we were stationed since September twelvemonths."
"You must come home with me," said Ivan. "My wife will be delighted to see you. She will send an account of your visit to your mother; for she writes a long letter every fortnight to Pope Nikita, with messages for half Nicolofsky."
"I shall soon be able to write to my mother myself, Barrinka," said Michael with an air of pride as he walked beside Ivan to the Fontanka. "It only takes one hand to do that," he explained.
"But it takes learning," returned Ivan laughing. "I did not know you were a scholar, Michael."
"Oh yes, Barrinka; there is a school in our regiment now, and we are learning to read and write. Barrinka, is it true that the words of the blessed Lord," he asked, crossing himself, "will soon be all turned into Russ and put into a printed book, which any poor man like me will be able to read if only he knows his kirillitza?"[1]
"Quite true; I have myself seen the translation of the Four Gospels."
"I have a little bit of it already. See, Barrinka." He took from his pocket a printed copy of extracts from the New Testament. These had been selected by the excellent Quakers Allen and Grellet, printed by the Emperor's express orders, and distributed for use in all the primary schools which he had established in the army and throughout the empire.
"It is full of the most beautiful things about the blessed Bog Sun," continued Michael: "how he healed the sick and gave sight to the blind; how he died for our sins, and rose again the third day; and how every one who believes in him will get a free pardon for his sake, and have part in the resurrection of the just. What a wonderful thing it is for a poor man to be able to read all this for himself, just as well as if he were a pope or a monk! One of my comrades has a book too, written by an Englishman, which the Czar himself got turned into Russ—it is called 'No Cross, no Crown.'[2] Besides telling how the Son of God bore the cross for us, it tells how we must bear any cross he sends us for his sake; and how, if we follow him here, we shall have a crown of glory by-and-by in his kingdom,—a crown of glory, like the Czar! Only think of that, Barrinka! I can scarcely make up my mind to believe it; and I am longing to get all the words of Christ to read for myself, that I may know if it is true. But, to be sure, the Czar must know."
"To be sure he knows! It is all true, Michael; I can show you the words myself in which it is promised, and read them with you."
"Oh, how good of you! Still, I am thinking that rather than be a king myself up yonder—which is what I am no way fit for—I would like to go on serving the Czar there, as I do here. Would not you, Barrinka?"
"I think so now. But how it will be with me then I cannot tell. 'It doth not yet appear what we shall be.' Christ's promise is enough: 'I will give thee a crown of life'—'To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne.' Yet is it said too, 'They serve him day and night in his temple.'"
By this time they had reached the gate of Ivan's palace. Clémence gladly renewed her acquaintance with the friend of her husband's boyhood; she gave him a hospitable welcome, and, to his intense delight, showed him her two lovely boys, the elder just able to lisp his father's name, the younger a three months' babe in the cradle.
From that time Ivan's old playfellow was a frequent visitor. Clémence helped him in the studies of which he was so proud; and they had many a quiet happy talk together about Him of whom the Book they loved so well testified in every page. Eventually, however, the current of their lives divided, and swept them apart, never probably to meet again on this side of the grave. But the lessons they had learned remained with both, and both in their several spheres sought to pass them on to others. Many years afterwards, a German traveller[3]in Russia visited the churches of St. Petersburg, as an interested spectator of the touching Russian custom of the reading of the Scriptures on Easter eve by the people for one another. He tells us that in one of these churches he saw a veteran soldier, scarred and weather-beaten, standing at the desk with a taper in his hand reading the story of his Saviour's death to a company of little children who clustered around him, listening to the sacred words with absorbed and breathless attention. Perhaps he failed to notice, or perhaps he did not think it worth while to chronicle, that the reader had lost a hand.
Never can it be known, until the great day of revelation, how many hearts at this epoch received life and blessing from the Word of God, scattered broadcast throughout the great Russian Empire, not only with the approbation, but with the earnest personal co-operation, of its monarch. "For," said Alexander, "I consider this undertaking not merely worthy of my attention; no, I am penetrated by it to the inmost recesses of my soul. And I reckon the promotion of it my most sacred duty, because on it depends the temporal and eternal happiness of those whom Providence has committed to my care. Blessed are those who take a part in it; for such gather fruit unto life eternal, when those who sow and those who reap shall rejoice together."[4]
But he who uttered these noble words in all the glow and ardour of his first love, had soon cause to remember that the bearer of the precious seed too often goes on his way weeping. As time wore on it became apparent that the hand of the enemy was busy sowing tares with it. Religious activity began to fulfil its inevitable condition by engendering religious dissension. Doubts and perplexities arose, and the noise of angry controversies filled the air. Many devout and noble spirits, alienated by the stiff mechanical formalism of the Eastern ritual, turned their longing eyes towards the West, where stood great Babylon with the golden cup in her hand wherewith she deceived the nations by her sorceries. They knew her doctrines very imperfectly, her history not at all. Hence they yielded too readily to the baleful fascination; and at length the perversions grew so numerous that even the tolerant Czar was obliged to interfere. He banished the Jesuits—the most active promoters of proselytism—first from the two capitals, eventually from the empire. This step cost him some dear and valued friends; nor were all as generous and discriminating as De Maistre, who could say, even when he thought he had lost the favour of Alexander, "I am as sure of his justice as of his existence."
From Madame de Krudener and her coterie he was also forced to separate himself. They criticised his public policy, and endeavoured to prescribe to him the line of action he ought to pursue, especially with regard to the Greeks. Alexander never forgot the past: he treated Madame de Krudener with great gentleness and forbearance, and never ceased to show her thoughtful personal kindness; but he had to tell her that he could allow no interference with his duties as monarch.
Nor was this the worst. All was not sunshine in the path of evangelical reform; and even the dissemination of the Word of truth did not seem to bring with it the unalloyed blessing that had at first been anticipated. On the contrary, there appeared to be some foundation for the gloomy forebodings of De Maistre, who, as a Roman Catholic, saw in the Bible Society only a means for overturning the whole ecclesiastical establishment of Russia. "Protestants on one side and Raskolniks[5] on the other," said he, "are two files which saw the religion of the country at each end, and they must soon meet." Everywhere the new wine was fermenting and threatening to rend the old bottles. Ignorant soldiers and peasants rushed into wild forms of fanatical dissent, or tore down and destroyed sacred pictures, justifying their acts out of the Russian Testaments their Czar himself had distributed amongst them. Photi, and other zealots of the Greek Church,—who had their own reasons for dreading the influx of evangelical light,—eagerly took advantage of these disorders, not only to denounce such men as Galitzin and Tourgenieff, "who defy us the heirs of the apostles," but to ask the official head of the national Church whether he intended to stand by and see her torn to pieces, nay, himself to assist in the work of destruction?
This was a question Alexander certainly could not answer in the affirmative. It is evident that he loved the Church of his fathers; that he thought her superstitions mere excrescences which might be removed without seriously endangering her fabric; that he believed her maintenance necessary to the welfare of his people; and that he knew there was nothing ready to replace her. Hence his course of action satisfied no one; he earned the envenomed abuse of the bigots of the Greek Church, who traced all the disorders of the country to the translation of the Bible and the education of the poor; while at the same time he did not quite fulfil the sanguine expectations of the friends of evangelical light and progress. But after all, this does not matter so greatly. The important question is, how far he satisfied the Master in whose presence he tried to walk. This is not for us to decide; but at least we know that no influence, no persuasion, ever moved him to withdraw his help and countenance from the Bible Society, or to allow its work to be impeded in any way.
As for Clémence and Ivan, the Romanizing party had never possessed any attraction for the latter, while the former was gradually receding from the creed in which she had been brought up. But the conflict between the Evangelical and what was called the "Orthodox" party was of deep interest to them both. They went heartily along with Galitzin and his friends; Ivan was even sometimes tempted to go beyond them, and altogether to snap the cords that bound him to the national Church. The superstitious practices which prevail in the Eastern Church, as well as in that of the West, cost him many keen and bitter "searchings of heart." He was especially troubled about the adoration of saints and angels and of sacred pictures. Often did he talk upon these matters with Clémence, and earnestly did they pray that they might "perceive and know what things they ought to do."
Ivan's search after a pure form of faith might have led him further had not a bond, invisible yet most strong, held him to the Church of which his Czar was the head. Ivan thought that if reform were really needed, he would surely be her leader also. His soul refused, in its tender, passionate loyalty, to pass beyond that of the man he loved. Therein he erred. To each one of us who closely follows the Divine teaching an hour is sure to come when, in the true spirit of Christ's command, we learn to call no man our father upon earth—when we can no longer take truth upon trust, even from the dearest and most venerated of human lips. Moreover, Ivan expected from Alexander what from his position alone, if from no other reason, he was incapable of performing. King Arthur could not ride forth along with his knights in quest of the Holy Grail; the place in which God had put him, the work to which He had called him, rendered it impossible.
"The king must guard
That which he rules, and is but as the hind
To whom a space of land is given to plough,
Who may not wander from the allotted field
Before his work be done."[6]
For three or four years Ivan and Clémence continued to spend the winters in St. Petersburg, the summers for the most part at Nicolofsky. Here their labours were amply rewarded. From year to year they observed a satisfactory change in the condition of their people; and so great did this appear at last that Ivan said, "I think, my Clémence, they are almost fit for freedom now."
"But, Ivan," said Clémence, "I am not sure that we are fit to give it to them now."
"Why not, m'amie?"
"For whom would we do it, Ivan? For Alexander, or for Christ?"
Ivan was silent; the shaft had struck home. At length he answered, "It is for Christ we must do it, Clémence. And he will help us." After another long and thoughtful pause, he added, "It is better, perhaps, to wait until the village boys whom we have put to school have completed their education."
"That will take five or six years."
"Well," said Ivan with a smile, "before then, perhaps, all the mujiks throughout the land may be free men, and my Czar have won the desire of his heart! Who knows?"
- ↑ The Russian alphabet; so called because arranged by Bishop Cyril.
- ↑ By William Penn. At the special desire of Alexander, the Countess Metchersky translated it into Russ.
- ↑ Kohl.
- ↑ From a speech made by Alexander at a meeting of the Frankfort Bible Society.
- ↑ Dissenters.
- ↑ Let the thoughtful student read the whole passage from which these lines are taken. The story of Arthur, as the Laureate has transfigured and interpreted it for us, sheds a ray of light upon that of Alexander.