APPENDICES
APPENDIX IWAR AND CHRISTIANITY
Among the Russians, as among other nations, there are many whose conscience does not permit them to bear arms and fight, many who believe that war is evil in itself, and that it is unchristian to oppose force with force. Russia has its non-resisters, Dukhobors, Molokans, Quakers, who either obtain official exemption from military service, or who suffer punishment for refusing to obey the call. And among the mass of the Russian people who as yet do obey the summons and shoulder the gun for the Fatherland, the question is frequently raised, “Can we reconcile Christianity and war? Can we reconcile the spirit of Russian religion with the using of brute force to overcome a wrong or to defeat an enemy?”
Not that any great number of the Russian peasant soldiers ask themselves questions about the ethics of war. They go forward gladly to fight for the Tsar, and to defend their country. With them fighting is a tradition—Christianity is Christian warfare, not warfare with sin and disease and crime, but war against the heathen. Since the pagan god Peroun was rolled down the cliffs, and the army of Vladimir stepped into the Dnieper and was baptized as one man, Russian Christianity has been a Christianity in arms, in arms against Tartar and Mongol and Turk. The spirit that prompted the Crusades perseveres. That is why a war against the Turk is a great national war; it is still something in the nature of a greatreligious pageant. More than half the man saints on the Russian Calendar are warriors, and the rest are simply monks and hermits.
Still as wars go on they change in type. Fighting has ceased to be a praising of God. There is no raining of splendid blows on the Saracen’s head. War for the common soldier has ceased to be fighting, and has become “obeying orders.” The soldier does not even know whither his shot has sped. He seldom or never shoots at a man; he shoots at a vague general man called the enemy. He also knows that no one is trying to kill him personally, and that he in his turn is also part of a vague impersonal man—the enemy of the man on the other side.
War becomes a standing to be killed for one’s country, and an obeying of orders.
It is a noble and a Christian thing to die for one’s native land. It is also one’s duty to obey the orders of those put in authority over us. The question is, Are those who direct the war acting in a Christian spirit? They in their turn obey orders of those in authority over them—the Generals, the Commander-in-Chief, the Government, the Tsar. They must render to Caesar the things which are Caesar’s.
Is it then Christianity in the Tsar to make war, or to answer force by force? Some Russians say, “It depends on the cause. A war to protect little Servia is a good and Christian war.” Others say, “It does not depend on the cause. No cause, not even the best in the world, can justify the carrying on of war; of that wholesale and organised murder which goes by the name of war.” So we come to the Russian pacifists, and those who believe that any peace is better than the justest war. They declare that war is evil in itself. They offer no compromise on the subject. In time of peace the Pacifists have a great following, and they seem to be in a majority; but when war breaks out a great number who merelysympathise, but do not absolutely believe, fall away and leave the true Pacifists standing, as they have stood in each war up till now, in a hopeless minority.
They hold that war is a survival of barbarism, or, to put it in the words of Solovyof, “Something like cannibalism, a barbarous custom that must in time be isolated and localised among the more savage regions of the world, and then slowly but steadily disappear till it becomes merely a historical curiosity.”
The simplest way to test this notion of war would have been to survey the modern history of the civilised world and see if war between civilised community tended on the whole to be less. But here and now as I write is the vast conflagration of the German war. If this war had not come about it might have been possible to say, “Man is on the whole tending towards universal peace.” The Spanish-American War was scarcely a war at all. The South African War was an example of the power which could be brought to bear on an uncultured and wild people to make them behave themselves and be peaceful. The Russo-Japanese War was begun in the misconception that the Japanese were yellow devils, and if the Russians had known with whom they had to deal they could have arranged matters. The Italian-Turkish War was simply a cultured nation taking over territory of the wild and warlike Turks, and so precluding war for the future. The wars in the Balkan States were the natural conflicts of wild tribes not yet properly civilised. Up to that point war could be explained away, but then we come to July 1914 with its European conflagration, and the Pacifist inference cannot be made.
For the time being war is redeemed from the imputation of savagery by the great German conflict. It can no longer be classified as a disgusting practice such as cannibalism or sutteeism.
But the minority, those who still take peace as a golden rule, are even now unconvinced. At the bestthey hold that this war is a war to prevent war in the future, a war for the establishment of the Federation of Europe, a war that will make possible universal peace.
Still they hold that notion as a makeshift opinion. They would never in the palmy days of peace have thought it possible that mankind would go to war in order to get a better peace afterwards. They held that war was always avoidable, and that you could not by Satan cast out Satan.
They hold that nationally as individually we should give back good for evil. Amongst the educated Russians there are many pacifists, many non-resisters, a number also of quaker-like people who refer all war arguments to the one simple commandment—“Thou shalt not kill!”
Many Russians hold that Christ substituted for the Jewish law “Thou shalt not kill!” the moral principle “Thou shalt not hate!” And they understand the chastisement of war as performed more in sorrow than in anger.
Those who try to follow out literally the patterns of behaviour set out in the Gospel ask what would the Good Samaritan have done if he had come earlier than he did and had met the man who fell among thieves just at the moment when the thieves were attacking him with apparently murderous intent. Would he then have had to pass by on the other side like the Levite, or should he have fallen on his knees and prayed, or should he have rushed to the physical assistance of the man who was being attacked. Many held that it would have been the Samaritan’s duty to defend his neighbour with all the means in his power. As the General says in Solovyof’s conversation, “I prayed best when giving commands to the horse-artillery.” So in August 1914, when Austria fell upon Servia and Germany fell upon Belgium, Russia in the East and Britain in the West rushed generously to give their physical assistance to the nations in distress.America, like the Levite, averted his eyes and said, “It is no concern of mine.”
The action of Britain and Russia is no doubt popular Christianity. It is the way of the world. Christianity was not preached to nations but to individuals.
The true Christian attitude of the man who falls among thieves is to give up his money and strip off his clothes and hand them to the thieves saying, “Would to God there were more for thee!” He would offer no show of defence, but, on the contrary, would rejoice. For in taking away money and clothes they took away earthly material things, things that should be lightly prized. To have given them freely and affectionately to those who wanted them was to blossom spiritually or, to use another figure, it was to quicken the circulation of love. And directly he gives up these things the Good Samaritan comes along and he, out of pure affection, gives from his superfluity the means to the naked one to be clothed and restored.
If the Good Samaritan had come up in time he would as a Christian have been ready to give his things also to the thieves. Or if the thieves had been actuated by the impulse of murder, he would have fallen on his knees and prayed. Such is the way of those who deny “the world,” and with it deny also the power of physical force.
Somewhat of this interpretation of Christian impulse is given in the following Russian conversation taken from the book on War and Christianity written by the great Russian philosopher, Vladimir Solovyof:[13]
Prince.He who is filled with the true spirit of the Gospel will find in himself when necessary the ability by words and gestures, and by his whole spiritual demeanour so to act upon the soul of his unhappy brother who would commit a murder, that the latter will be suddenly overwhelmed and converted, and will see the error of his ways and turn away from the wrong road.
General.Holy Martyrs! Is that the way you’d have me behave towards, for instance, the Bashi-Oozooks, who in Asiatic Turkey massacre the women and children of the Armenian villages. You think I ought to stand before them making touching gestures, saying touching words and making a tender religious appeal to them.
Mr. Z.Your words would not be heard owing to the instance of the murderers, and if heard would not be understood since you know not one another’s languages. Then as regards gestures, as you will of course, but I should have thought that under the circumstances the best gesture one could think out for the occasion would be the firing of a few volleys.
Lady.But, seriously, could the General have explained his Christian sentiments to the Bashi-Oozooks?
Prince.I did not at all assume that the Russian army should have acted according to the spirit of the Gospel when dealing with the Bashi-Oozooks. But I do say that a man filled with the true spirit of the Gospel would have found even the possibility then of awakening in dark souls that good which lies hidden in every human being.
Mr. Z.You really think that!
Prince.Not a whit do I doubt.
Mr. Z.Well, do you think that Christ Himself was sufficiently filled with the true spirit of the Gospel?
Prince.Is that a question or a joke?
Mr. Z.I put the question because I’d like to know why Christ did not so apply the true spirit of the Gospel as to awaken the good hidden in the souls of Judas and Herod and of the Jewish chief priests and of the wicked thief of whom we commonly forget when speaking of his repentant brother....
Which confuses the issue because Christianity is not a converting of non-Christians to itself, it is a way of bearing oneself with regard to the world and God, a witnessing of the truth. This life is not truth. For that reason among others, Christ does not save Himself from death; material gains on earth are not real gains, so to the man who would take the coat the cloak is given also; the kingdom of this world is not a real kingdom, so Christ turns His back on the Devil when the presidencyof the world is offered to Him on the mountain. When St. Peter smote off the ear of the High Priest’s servant, Christ restored the ear as a sign that His kingdom could not be won by the sword. When war is brought to the test of Christian idealism, especially as interpreted by the Russians, it is found to be of the world—a rendering to Caesar of the things which are Caesar’s.
Nevertheless, if we say that war is unchristian, or if we hold that those waging war are by their very behaviour unchristian, we are wrong. We are mistaking the true spirit of Christianity. For Christianity is no rule which people must obey; it is no set of rules for people. The deepest thing in Christianity is personal choice. Those who are saved are those who personally choose. If a man goes to bear arms for love of his country, if he offers his life as a sacrifice on the altar of his Fatherland, he is still a true Christian though engaged in violence. Or if a man stands out to refuse to go like the peasant inPeer Gynt, who cut off one of his fingers so as to be rejected by the army doctor, we still have Christianity exemplified in personal choice and in the readiness to sacrifice material things for spiritual gain.
What, then, of the peasant soldiers who presumably make little choice? Of them it must be said, they are Christians on the emotional plane, not on the intellectual. By their splendid enthusiasm it is evident that the peasants do make an emotional choice. Perhaps in that choice lies their Christianity with regard to war.
They are Christians also in that they do not regard death as something terrible. Death for them is a sacrament, a new baptism, a second time going down of the warriors of King Vladimir to the River Dneiper.
APPENDIX IITHE CHOICE OF EAST AND WEST
An interesting new domain of study is opening for the Bible student in the comparison of what the various nations have taken to themselves in their understanding of the Gospels. Translation itself inevitably changes the emphasis, theaccentof various passages. And Slavonic perception, British perception, German perception, American perception necessarily differ. It is a truism to say that we each take from a book only what we wish to take from it. To one who knows Russia and has the feeling for Eastern Christianity, there is no more enthralling occupation than to read the Gospels with an eye to discovering which parts Eastern Christianity has emphasised, which parts Western Christianity has taken; which parts, for instance, Russia has emphasised, which parts America has emphasised.
One evening in Vladikavkaz I had a long talk with Russian friends about this difference in emphasis, and we went through the whole of St. Matthew and discussed many texts of the New Testament.
We started with the Beatitudes, as they are the beginning of the Christian teaching. We agreed that “Blessed are the poor in spirit” was a stumbling-block to the West, a phrase that preachers had to interpret very carefully as having a meaning other than “Blessed are the poor-spirited.” In Russia, however, it is perhaps the most important beatitude—at least, two of my Russians heldit to be so. In the Russian translation it runs, “Blessed are those who are beggars in spirit.” Russia sees blessedness in the state of beggars, in the state of those who have nothing; a beggar in Russian is one who has no earthly possessions. The beggar is a national institution. No one purely Russian in temperament wants to get rid of the beggar—the man who has nothing. Even Gorky calls the beggar the bell of the Lord, the reminder to man that he can have no true possessions here in the world.
The second beatitude, “Blessed are they that mourn,” we also took to mean more to the East than to the West. The East feels the blessing of mourning, the West the blessing of being comforted.
The third beatitude, “Blessed are the meek,” meant more to the West we concluded. We in England and America look forward to what Tennyson calls “the reign of the meek upon earth.” We remember the promise that the lion shall lie down with the lamb. One of the most popular of Western pictures is that of the child carrying a palm-branch, “A little child shall lead them.” The East, however, feels that the lions will always be lions, that “the world” will remain “the world” without much change, full of the faithless, the cruel, the predatory, mingled with the faithful, the gentle, the self-abnegatory.
The fourth beatitude, “Blessed are they who hunger and thirst afterrighteousness, for they shall be filled,” seemed to me to be also a purely Western one. America and the West have taken it specially to themselves. It has been the watchword of the Puritans. But my friend Vera astonished me by reading it, “Blessed are they who hunger and thirst aftertruth, for they shall be filled,” and on looking at the Russian translation I found indeed that the word waspravdaand the popular sense was nearer “truth” than “righteousness.” That difference means a great deal to a national outlook.
“Blessed are the merciful” we took to be a Western beatitude, “Blessed are the pure in heart” to be Eastern. “Blessed are the peace-makers” has become a very Western idea, and King Edward the Seventh was sung to the grave as a saint as King Edward the Peace-maker. “Blessed are they who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake” is in Russian “Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of truth”—for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven. “Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you and say all manner of evil against you falsely, for My sake, for great is your reward in heaven” is taken equally by West and East, though the East feels more that the reward is within you, whereas the West thinks of a reward after death.
We considered the Temptations in the Wilderness. First, it was Eastern to go into the wilderness at all. It would have been more Western to go into the town and find salvation in work, in “doing the duty that lay nearest.”
The teaching of the temptation to turn stones into bread has an Eastern emphasis. The Russian, says, “I would not if I could.” The Western is ever coming to the Russian and saying, “Lo, your people are starving; but see how undeveloped your country is, you have gold, you have oil, you have coal, you have all manner of precious things in your soils and your rocks; say but the word and they can be changed into bread, and your starving may be fed.” But the Russian says, “Bread is not so very important; what is important is the word that proceedeth from the mouth of God.”
The second temptation, that of suicide or of nihilism, of casting oneself down from the Temple, is something the West has understood more clearly. The East continually succumbs to this temptation, and the Russian is ever “tempting God.”
The third temptation has a great Eastern emphasis; Jesus, in lofty contemplation of the world and of His own genius, understands that He could be a new Alexanderand be king of the whole world. He could reign in wonderful glory, and could enact perfect laws for mankind and issue them with the authority of a king. But He denies the world and its glory in the name of the life of the Spirit. The typical earnest American of to-day, if he saw a chance of ruling all the worlds and felt that he had in him the Divine message, would almost certainly take the opportunity; but the typically serious Russian, or at least the Russian monk, would prostrate himself on the ground, saying, “Get thee behind me, Satan, for it is written, ‘Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve’”—“Him only,” that is, not mankind.
On the strength of this introduction I have gone through the main teaching of the Gospel, and have made the following differentiation of how East and West have taken or emphasised or avoided the thoughts and words of the New Testament. We are somewhat tired of the comparison of the Authorised and Revised Versions, or of the English translation with the original Greek texts. Here, I fancy, is something more vital; a comparison of the way the teaching has been generally understood by the masses of the people in the Western and Eastern Churches. I am not comparing the opinions of the authorities in both Churches, but the opinions which hold sway, which make ethics. By this means it may be possible to make what would be a valuable historical record of the position of the progress of Christianity to-day.
The way of the West—what may be called the way of Martha—is easier, more human than the way of the East—the way of Mary. Thus at the Transfiguration the disciple cried out, “Master, it is good for us to be here: let us build three tabernacles.” It was not at all necessary to build three tabernacles. The good part was like that of Mary—to sit at Jesus’ feet.
But to take the teaching in the order it is given in St. Matthew’s Gospel: “Ye are the salt of the earth” hasbeen printed in red ink in the Bibles of the West, and it is generally thought to refer to the just and upright, the elder brothers, the stand-by’s of the community as opposed to the prodigals.
“Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in Heaven,” has in the West become a weekly exhortation to give a good alms at collection-time. This is an instance of materialism. The spendthrift East takes its stand more with St. Peter, who was able to say, “Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I to thee.” The giving of money is the least of the good works in the power of the East; “Am I so bankrupt of grace that my function is to give money?” the Eastern may exclaim.
“If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out” means more to the East, where in the monastic life of the Orthodox Church the lusts of the flesh are mortified—that is, made dead; where hermits wear heavy chains and take oaths of silence, or hide themselves from mankind. It is witnessed in many sects, such as the Skoptsi, who deny the world by defunctionising the body!
“Swear not at all” is a simple admonition, appealing directly to the Western mind. In Russia the swearing in ordinary conversation is thick as the weeds on a waste. A curiosity in Russian swearing is the common expressionYay Bogu, which means really, “Yes: I say it to God,” but which through carelessness and iteration has become equivalent to something like our “’s’truth.” In America, however, the adjective God-damn is commoner than any other unpleasant expression in any country.
“Resist not evil. Who will take away thy coat, give him thy cloke also; and who forces thee to go a mile, go with him twain; and whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.” This has been taken more seriously by the Eastern Church. In the West it is more “a counsel of perfection,” or the wordsand the sentiment are taken as an ornament of Christianity. Agnostics and non-Christians make a mock of Christians because they do not turn the other cheek. The teaching is considered of so little importance that it is a Christian act to give a cad a thrashing, and the clergyman well versed in the noble art of self-defence is by no means a rarity. In Russia, non-resistance is a way of overcoming the world and putting Satan behind you. Going two miles with the man who forces you to go one, giving the cloak to the man who takes the coat, turning the other cheek, arepodvigs, holy exploits, taking the uniform of Christ’s not saving Himself from the Cross.
“Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away.” This has authority in Russia. In England we do not give for the asking, and to borrow is disgraceful. In Russia giving and lending are scarcely virtues; they are a condition of life. America is also ready to give and lend, but not so much to persons as to societies, funds, hospitals, new priesthoods.
“Love your enemies” is thepodvig, the holy exploit once more, by which the world is overcome, and is very real in Russia.
“Pray for them which despitefully use you”: this is essentially a teaching that has Western acceptance. The Russian does not pray much for his enemies.
“Be ye perfect!” This is a Western ideal, to be perfect. The East does not strive to be better than it is now.
“Do not your alms before men” is generally disregarded by West and East.
“When ye pray, use not vain repetitions”: the West has obeyed this monition. The prayers of the East are indeed not unlike the prayers of the heathen. The Lord’s Prayer has meant much more to the West than to the East.
“When ye fast, be not of a sad countenance”: theWest, 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 inThe Brothers Karamazov, 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.
“Take no thought for the morrow” has an Eastern accentuation.
“Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof” is taken by the West as a cynical utterance. The West believes that Christianity means, “Sufficient unto the day is the good thereof.” The West says each day is full of blessing; the East says each day is full of suffering.
“Judge not, that ye be not judged”: no one pays much attention to this.
“Why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye”—a reproof to the West, not needed in the East. America is terribly censorious and critical of the neighbour. Russia has no censure.
“Ask, and it shall be given you” the West has believed. It has, however, asked for material things. The East has taken rather, “Seek, and ye shall find.”
“Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them” is in great favour in the West.
“Enter ye in at the strait gate”: this is quite Western in adhesion.
“Beware of false prophets.” Both churches have gladly taken this phrase to use against schismatics and dissenters.
“By their fruits ye shall know them.” This criterion the West has adopted. Easternism may be said to regard the barren tree as holy. At least, it never curses the barren.
The story of the wise man who built his house upon a rock has edified the West.
To the story of the scribe who wished to follow Jesus, but who apparently wished to do so and remain comfortable and well-off at the same time, and to the story of the disciple who wished to bury his father first, but to whom was said, “Let the dead bury their dead,” the West has paid little or no attention, whilst the East has taken it to himself.
The fact that Jesus sat down and ate with publicansand sinners is in the spirit of the East; the West prefers ever the company of the just. The West is glad to have the action of Jesus explained in the following verse: “They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.”
“Provide neither gold nor silver nor brass in your purses.” Alas, all Western weal believes that it is founded on gold. If any good work is to hand, the first thing is to raise a fund.
“When they deliver you up, take no thought how or what ye shall speak ...”: this has always been most helpful to persecuted nonconformists and heretics.
“I came not to send peace, but a sword” is overlooked in the West. The West thinks that Christ proclaimed peace. And the peace that was before the Great War was thought to be a wonderful fruit of Christianity—the peace of mutual jealousy and fear, the great commercial peace of the twentieth century, that Kipling calls the “Peace of Dives”:
The whole wide earth is laidIn the peace that I have made;And behold, I wait on thee to trouble it.
The whole wide earth is laidIn the peace that I have made;And behold, I wait on thee to trouble it.
The whole wide earth is laidIn the peace that I have made;And behold, I wait on thee to trouble it.
The whole wide earth is laid
In the peace that I have made;
And behold, I wait on thee to trouble it.
“He that findeth his life shall lose it; and he that loseth his life for My sake shall find it”: the West emphasises this thought. Carlyle gave it great force in his gospel of work. “Forget your troubles,” says the West; “throw yourself into work and lose yourself—then you’ll soon find yourself.” The East will not work in that way.
“Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy-laden” has been comfort to the West.
In the matter of healing on the Sabbath the Western is rather on the side of the Jews.
The question, “Who is my mother and who are my brethren?” has not been acceptable to the West. The West would have preferred Jesus to be a model familyman, not only loving mother and brothers and sisters, but having a wife and children about him. The Eastern Church takes its stand with the early Christians and the denial of earthly ties. Sometimes news is brought of father or mother or brethren to the wonderful Russian hermits such as Father Seraphim, but they coldly repel the tidings with Christ’s words, “Whosoever doeth the will of God, the same is my brother and sister and mother.”
Casting the wicked into the fire—this idea lingers in America, but it is dead in Russia and in England.
The confession of Peter, and the prophecy, “Thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church,” the Roman Church has necessarily taken to itself.
The Transfiguration on the mountain—the possessed about the foot of the mountain—is taken as an Eastern understanding of life. The light of transfiguration is the halo about the head of the hermit; the possessed below make the hurly-burly of the world whence the hermit made his escape. “The light of transfiguration,” I heard Prince Trubetskoi say in a lecture at Moscow, “is the light of haloes, the light of Holy Russia, the light of friendship.”
“Let us build three tabernacles” is, as I said, Western.
The West has believed Jesus in that He answered the question, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” by taking a little child and setting him in the midst of them.
The West has allowed its eyes to rest on the parable of the Talents, but the East has had more appreciation of “The first shall be last, and the last first.”
The West has insisted on “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s,” but it has avoided the condemnation of the Pharisees; the Gospel of St. Matthew reveals itself as the gospel of the kingdom of heaven as opposed to “the world.” But the West has sought to find “the world” holy. Western Christianity was startedby the conquest of worldly armies, but Eastern Christianity was founded on the example of hermits, eunuchs, stoics, philosophers, fanatics. It had all the advantage of proximity to the place where Christianity started, all the advantage of the traditions of Greek and Roman philosophy. Despite all our study of Greek and of history and of philosophy at the schools, and despite the Russian’s lack of study, yet the latter is nearer to the ancient spirit; but he has lived historically in direct relation to Byzantium, and has ever had before his eyes living examples of the way to live a Christian life.
“Many are called, but few are chosen” has had great influence in the West, but the power of the text is waning. Protestantism is becoming more philanthropical, easy-going, and generous than it was in the days of persecution.
The idea of the Second Coming of Christ is a strange will-o’-the-wisp of light that cannot be tracked and is difficult to account for, breaking out ever and anon unexpectedly where you would think it had for ever disappeared. At present it is seen in many places, East and West. Originally it was a very powerful sentiment, but after two thousand years of waiting hope has died down, and it is seldom that whole societies sell up all their worldly goods and repair to the valley of Jehoshaphat to wait the great day.
The story of Mary pouring the precious ointment on Jesus’ head rather than selling the ointment and giving the proceeds to the poor, is the way of Mary rather than the way of Martha.
Here perhaps ends the Gospel of St. Matthew as far as definite sentences of teaching are concerned, and probably sufficient ideas have been taken out and compared for the purpose of this differentiation.
As regards the acts of the Gospel, there remains the consideration of the miracles. The healing of the sick, the lame, the blind, has become the example of the West,and what Christ did by miracle they do by science. The East, however, insists on the miraculous, and to-day in Russia thousands of miracles are performed annually at the sacred shrines. Whether these miracles are genuine or no is a moot point. Many certainly are no more than ecclesiastical contrivances for gaining popular support for ikons and shrines. Many are said to be the result of the faith of those who ask the miracle. At Kief and Sarof and New Jerusalem many a blind man receives sight, many a crippled woman straightens herself out, many a sick man is restored to health. The Eastern Church lays stress on the miraculous; the miracle, however, is esoterically understood as mystery. The Russian has an extraordinary capacity for belief.
There remains the Crucifixion, of which I will say no more than that it is the greatestpodvig, the crown of the life of Jesus. For the West it is the Resurrection that is emphasised. As I wrote inWith the Russian Pilgrims to Jerusalem: “For the Orthodox, He was dead; for the Protestant, He is alive for evermore.” So two churches combine to make one truth, and the hand-maidens of the Lord, Martha and Mary, are shown to be indeed two sisters, not only in kindred but in spirit.
THE END
Printed byR. & R. Clark, Limited,Edinburgh.
BOOKS BY STEPHEN GRAHAM
A TRAMP’S SKETCHES.
WITH THE RUSSIAN PILGRIMS TO JERUSALEM.
WITH POOR EMIGRANTS TO AMERICA.
THE WAY OF MARTHA AND THE WAY OF MARY.
These four books, published by Macmillan & Co., form a sequence of which theTramp’s Sketchesis like a prologue or a promise. The Pilgrim book is of the Way of Mary; the America book is of the Way of Martha; and the fourth book,The Way of Martha and the Way of Mary, knits the other three in one.
Other Volumes.
RUSSIA AND THE WORLD: An Account of how Russia is affected by the War. Fifth Edition.
VAGABOND IN THE CAUCASUS: Mr. Graham’s first book.
UNDISCOVERED RUSSIA: A Presentment of Holy Russia.
CHANGING RUSSIA: Written in 1912.
By STEPHEN GRAHAM
WITH THE RUSSIAN PILGRIMS TO JERUSALEM
Illustrated. 8vo. 7s. 6d. net.
THE ATHENÆUM.—“M. Jusserand’sPilgrim Life in the Middle Agesor Burton’s or Doughty’s accounts of their pilgrimages to Mecca are books of secure repute. Mr. Graham inWith the Russian Pilgrims to Jerusalemgives us a companion volume.”
THE MANCHESTER GUARDIAN.—“‘Many think in the head,’ wrote Francis Thompson, ‘but it is thinking in the heart that is most wanted.’ It is because this book has been pondered, and the events it describes lived ‘in the heart,’ that it possesses such grace and distinction. Those who have followed Mr. Graham and have watched his style becoming with every volume he has written a more and more close-fitting and appropriate garment for his thought, will not be disappointed. It is his best work—gay, beautiful, and tender; gay with the spirit of youth, beautiful with the spirit of poetry, and tender with the spirit of worship.... Compare these reverent and radiant pages with the bright semi-cynicism ofEothen, and you get a measure of the distance the English spirit has travelled since 1844.”
THE NATION.—“The Russians have not been broken by Russia. Mr. Stephen Graham, in his beautiful and remarkable book, throws this great truth into vivid perspective. Not for him the ‘grey days’ of Tchekhof or the hoarse challenge of Gorky’s exultant mood, not for him the symbol of Andreyev’s Red Laughter.... This Englishman does not dwell upon the Russians’ suffering, but upon their immense hope; he is preoccupied not by their material poverty but by their spiritual wealth.”
THE DAILY MAIL.—“Mr. Stephen Graham is favourably known as the interpreter of modern Russia and more particularly of the peasant. To that task he brings every accomplishment. He has sympathy; he has the insight of genius and the heart of the poet. He has a rare and precious gift of style.... He seems to have divined by some flash of intuition the psychology of the Russian. This book will add greatly to his already great reputation. It is a pleasure to praise such work. Here he has given us an extraordinarily beautiful and interesting account of an extraordinarily interesting achievement.... It breaks entirely fresh ground. It makes a deep and universal appeal.”
THE WESTMINSTER GAZETTE.—“The best book on Russia written by an Englishman.”
THE OUTLOOK.—“Something more than a book of travel, a spiritual Murray—a very remarkable piece of work ... at once simple and extraordinary.”
CHURCH TIMES.—“We are sure that the student of human nature and the student of religion alike will find a deep interest in this book. Its merit is the complete sympathy and the true insight with which it describes the child-like faith of the Russian peasant and his passionate love of the Saviour who died for him.”
MERCURE DE FRANCE.—“C’est une longue aventure où l’on se croirait reporté au temps des croisades, et l’auteur dessine en quelques traits nets et durs des types étonnants. Voilà un livre à lire pour quiconque veut être intéressé et obligé de réfléchir.”
THE TIMES(in a leading article Feb. 5, 1914).—“No living English writer has made investigations so patient and so wide into the habits and manners of the great dumb masses who are the body of the largest and the least-known nation in Europe.”
LONDON: MACMILLAN AND CO.,Ltd.
By STEPHEN GRAHAM
WITH POOR EMIGRANTS TO AMERICA
Illustrated. 8vo. 8s. 6d. net.
THE NATION.—“Mr. Stephen Graham is a real super-tramp, and in his aspect of the world and his fellows there is always a touch of the pilgrim’s sanctity. He feels an attraction, partly æsthetic, often sentimental, to people of simple and religious life, and especially to the Russian peasants, whom he depicts as the simplest and most religious of all mankind. He loves the beauty of untouched nature, and of man pursuing the primitive and traditional methods of pasture, plough, or loom. He is always conscious of a spiritual presence behind phenomena, and is strongly drawn by emotions of pity, sympathy, and fellow-feeling, as by the qualities of humility and indifference to material things.... Of all English writers on America Mr. Graham is almost the only one who tells us certain things that we really wanted to know.”
SPHERE.—“Not one of the well-known writers who from the days of Dickens and Thackeray to our own has written his experiences of the United States has proved so attractive.”
TIMES.—“Of these three travellers (Henry James, H. G. Wells, and Stephen Graham) Mr. Graham has at least the advantage of extreme contrast.... His book is full of humanity, sensitive with the love of peace and beauty.”
GLASGOW NEWS.—“With a fairly comprehensive knowledge of the books on travel in America published in the past twenty-five years by English authors, the present writer has not a moment’s hesitation in declaring thatWith Poor Emigrants to Americais immeasurably the best among them all. It is not only an unusually informative book; it is a work of spiritual genius, precious by reason of its revelation of as unique and beautiful a character as surely has dignified the trade of letters since the period of Lamb or Goldsmith. Stephen Graham is something far more rare than an ‘interpreter of Russia’ or a philosophical ‘tramp’; his quiet voice, if he be spared, is likely to sound even more distinctively and more impressively above the noisy chatter of his contemporaries. It is perhaps a little unfortunate that his interest should be so much engaged with Russia, for we grudge to Russia an expositor who, we think, might be better employed in writing about his own race, but then we must admit that but for the influence of Russia we might perhaps have had no Stephen Graham.”
SPECTATOR.—“An extremely interesting record, with many penetrating illustrations of the contrast between Russian and American ideals.”
FIELD.—“The book is full of Mr. Graham’s philosophy, but that philosophy largely reveals itself in the narration of his experiences both on board ship and on land. They are narrated with an abundance of anecdotes and with a charming simplicity of style which make the book delightful reading.”
LIVERPOOL POST.—“This is a book of sheer delight which will compel most readers to finish it at a single sitting. It tells his story in the free and effortless style which Mr. Graham uses so magically.”
Lindsay Bashfordin theDAILY MAIL.—“The best of his books. Mr. Graham is the modern poet-pilgrim; his is the vision of wide roads and long deliberate journeys; his the gift to understand the heart of the poor and the wanderers. Each day’s little events, each casual encounter, each wayside talk or tiny adventure has its deeper significance, and resolves into the deeper human movements he seeks for as he goes, and which he interprets for us. I do not know of any books of contemporaries which have a more intimate appeal, which speak with more friendly confidence of the actual life of human beings in our world to-day than do these wonder-books of Mr. Stephen Graham.”
LONDON: MACMILLAN AND CO.,Ltd.
By STEPHEN GRAHAM
A TRAMP’S SKETCHES
Extra Crown 8vo. 5s. net.
ACADEMY.—“To have readA Tramp’s Sketchesis to have been lifted into a higher and rarer atmosphere. It is to have been made free, for a few hours at least, of the company of saints and heroes. This much we owe to Mr. Graham, who has added to English Literature a book that, if we mistake not, is destined to endure.”
SPECTATOR.—“Like Jefferies’Story of my Heart, but the author is much more occupied with men than Jefferies was. Unlike most books of its kindA Tramp’s Sketcheshas indisputably a genuine passion running through it.”
ENGLISH REVIEW.—“It is a delightful book, redolent of the open air, of the night, of the great silences of expanse, and yet full of incident, of real spiritual and material sympathy, both with the ‘black earth’ and the monks of the monasteries, whose hospitality he enjoyed, and with his fellow-comrades on the road. It is life that interests the author.”
PALL MALL GAZETTE.—“Descriptions of Nature are apt to become tiresome, but we have not been wearied once in reading these pages; and this is not, we believe, altogether due to Mr. Graham’s fine style, his ever-adequate perception of the right word, but because of his sincere and absolute love of Nature in all her moods. Here is no pretence, no make-believe. He writes of the mystery and beauty of the sea, the night, the sunset, the moon, and the stars in words that seem at times to take colour from that which they describe.”
Mr.Algernon BlackwoodinCOUNTRY LIFE.—“They are the notes of a spiritual pilgrim going towards the new Jerusalem. The writer’s passionate worship of Beauty, his love of simplicity, his charity, his courage, all these make a strong appeal. He has in him poetry and vision.”
Mr.Wm. Purvisin theSUNDAY CHRONICLE.—“Stephen Graham walks the earth in the garb of beggary, and sees unusual types and meets incredible men and women and analyses his emotions, and worships the Great Spirit in vague fashions; and writes excellently about it all. He wishes there were more like him; and so do I.”
DAILY NEWS.—“This robust book, a classic of educated yet wild vagabondage.”
LIVERPOOL COURIER.—“Mr. Graham found pleasure, even joy everywhere, and he has an almost inspired faculty for making the reader see things as he sees them.”
THE QUEEN.—“The whole book is full of beautiful things.”
IRISH TIMES.—“Not a chapter, scarcely a page, which cannot be re-read with profit and delight.”
GLASGOW HERALD.—“Told in language that is always adequate and luminous.”
LONDON: MACMILLAN AND CO.,Ltd.