West, except in the case of the Roman Catholic Church, does not fast. The Roman Catholic Church, though Western in its locality and constitution, is in many of its customs Eastern—for example, in the celibacy of its clergy, in the monastic life it affords, in its fasting, in its repetition of prayers. A wide gap, however, divides it from Eastern Orthodoxy, and as wide a gap separates it from the leading spirit of the West, the latter being decidedly Protestant. Dostoievsky, in the story of the Grand Inquisitor in The Brothers Karamazoo, treats Roman Catholicism as a great conspiracy to defeat Christianity, and that point of view is taken very seriously by Russians to-day. Roman Catholicism indeed provides a holy way of life, and puts its members in a true position with regard to life and the world, but it does so by authority. Little is allowed to spring from personal initiative, and truths are not so much personal experiences as priestly guarantees. Roman Catholicism stands to one side, and this comparison of the spirit of East and West does not greatly involve her.
"Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth." To this the East has paid heed. Russia is the greatest spending nation in the world. No money is saved. Every rouble is spent as it is obtained. In England and America children are actually given money-boxes and taught to save their pennies!
"Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on": this is obviously a teaching which conditions the ragged and disorderly and unconventional East. In England and America one might almost think the opposite ideas had been recommended, seeing how we cherish the right crease in the right sort of attire, how we strive to be in fashion.
But "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you" is something which obtains the hearty belief of the West.
