Page:Leskov - The Sentry and other Stories.djvu/333

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.


On the Edge of the World
317

as those of St. Guri and others. It is true St. Guri knew how to enlighten, but for that purpose he went into savage lands well armed with orders and powers to "attract the people with caresses, with food, with defences from the authorities, with support against the Voevods and the judges;" he was obliged to take part in the councils of the government, but your bishop of to-day is not even allowed to take counsel with a neighbouring bishop about the business of his diocese; in a word, he must think of nothing. There is somebody who thinks for him. All he has to do is to "take note of" what is ordered. What do you require of him, when now he can never act for himself? Lord, Thy will be done . . . What can be done is somehow done by itself. This I saw towards the end of my stay in Siberia. One day a missionary came to me and said that he had come upon a camp of a nomad tribe at the spot where I had buried my old Kiriak, and there on the banks of the stream, he had baptized whole crowds in the name of Kiriak's God, as formerly a man had been baptized in the name of Justinian's God. Near the bones of the good old Monk the good people learned to love and understand God, who had created this pious soul, and they themselves wished to serve the God who had brought into existence such spiritual beauty.