The Highway of Sorrow at the close of the nineteenth century

Preface

. I have written " The Highway of Sorrow " in collaboration with a well-known Eussian author, now an exile in England, who has supplied me with the outlines of the story ; especially with tbe prison and Siberian incidents, which he assures me are founded on facts. It would have been impossible for me to have done this work witb out help as complete as that which he has rendered. For information about Stundism, its simple tenets and humble organisation — for it is em braced only b}T the peasants — I am indebted to an anonymous pampblet, entitled " The Stundists," opportunely published by the proprietors of The Christian World just as I was beginning my task. It seems to me that this poor and perse cuted sect approaches more nearl}- to the THE HIGHWAY OF SORROW. VI Christians of the Apostolic age than any other existing church.

They have as yet no sys tematic theology, and no formal ritual. They have neither churches nor clergy. The New Testament is their code of religious, moral, and social laws ; and they interpret its precepts in a very literal and child-like manner. The first duty of a Stundist is to learn to read, that he may read for himself the words of the Lord Jesus Christ. These primitive Christians are suffering persecution for conscience' sake, as flagrant and unrelenting as that which in the same country is pursuing the Jews. But the Jews have power ful friends among the great philanthropists of their own race; whilst the Stundists, themselves Eussian peasants, are persecuted b}' their com patriots, with no one to plead their cause before the world, and appeal from Russian bigotry to the tribunal of public opinion. They are dumb, as our Lord was when He was oppressed and afflicted.

PREFACE.

. VII It is for the purpose of making their sorrows and martyrdom more widely known that the facts of their history have been woven into this story. There has been no exaggeration. The worst has not been told. HESBA STRETTON. CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE I.— Anno Domini 188S 1 II. — A Stundist Service . . . .13 III. — Yarina's Garden Party ... 24 IV. — Testing the Future .... 48 V. — Panass ....... 59 VI. — Loukyan at the Fair . . . . 06 VII. — An Iconoclast ..... 77 VIII.— Father Vasili 90 IX. — Strongly Tempted .... 102 X. — Matchmaking . . . . .111 XI. — Arrested . . . . . .129 XII. — Batushka and Matoushka . . .143 XIII — The Pannotshka's Grave . . . 1-34 XIV. — Halya's Betrothal . . . .172 XV. — Inquisitors 185 XVI.— In Deep Waters 199 XVII.— The Lowest Depths . . . .210 XVIII. — Stepan's Outbreak .... 22G XIX— Safe Home X CHAPTER PAGE XX. — Valerian the Agnostic . . . 254 XXI.— What is True? 270 XXII.— A Funeral Service .... 280 XXIII. — A Disastrous Winter .... 288 XXIV.— A Sign and a Dream .... 300 XXV.— The Patron Saint's Day . . .314 XXVI. — Exorcising the Stundists . . . 326 XXVII.— Paul's Defence 339 XXVIII.— A Miracle 352 XXIX — Another Martyr . . . .371 XXX.— a.d. 1892 o.s. 1893 n.s. . . . 391 XXXI.— " Would God It Were Morning :" . 410 XXXII.— Via Dolorosa

Chapter I Anno Domini

1S88. Old Ivarpo, the richest man in Knishi, sauntered out of his cottage, where he had sheltered from the scorching heat. Humping his shoulders peevishly, he set to work to make a new handle for his plough ; but moving slowly and listlessly, as if he took no pleasure in what he was doing. True it was a Sunday, a day when no labour should be undertaken ; and it seemed on!}' half a sin to work lazily. He knew that properly he ought to sit on the turf seat against the cottage wall, and stare into vacancy ; as he was not fond of gossiping with his neighbours. Occasionally, on a Sunday evening, he would obey his conscience; but ho was never happy without his work, unless his daughter Halya sat beside him chatting or singing her pretty songs. Halya was not at home, for early in the B morning, whilst it was still cool enough for the walk, she had gone to spend the day with Yarina, her old friend and companion.

Old Karpo — he was not more than fifty years of age, but, being the head of a family, he was always called old — had found the long, hot hours terribly dull. There was nothing to do but to watch his grey-haired, hard-featured wife, Marfa, fussing about her household duties. She was now cooking the supper, and the heat of the stove would soon be as bad as the heat of the sun. It was more pleasant to be out of the way. Knishi was a small village in one of the Oukrainian provinces, scattered over a slightly rising ground. A new life and movement began to appear in its wide, grass-grown street. The cattle lowed, and the barn-door fowls cackled. The children turned out, and set to play at ninepins. Here and there the heavy cranes were made to draw up water from the deep wells, to allay the thirst of the suffering beasts.

The dead stillness of the suffocating summer's day was at an end. The June sun had just set below the distant and level horizon. Every living creature had ANNO DOMINI 1SSS. 3 sought shelter from its scorching rays. But now the long, uneven shadows of the hazel coppices glided upwards from the meadows, and, as though melting in the cooler atmosphere, filled it with a faint duskiness. The heavens still burned with the flaming sunset, which suffused with crimson and gold the feathery clouds floating on the dark-blue vault of the sky. The cross of the village church glittered like a star against the deep blue. Even the roofs of grey thatch seemed touched with a rosy mist ; and the great wooden cranes, black with age, which stretched across the wells, for a few minutes looked bright in the golden light.

On the turf seats before the whitewashed cottages the villagers were sitting ; men and women chatting over their affairs. An air of sweet tranquillity and peace reigned. The merry cries of the children at play hardly disturbed it. All at once, from the last cottage in the village, came the sound of soft, harmonious singing. It was choral singing; but the tune was so solemn it could not be an ordinary sons. Neither could it be church music, for b clear female voices were distinctly audible ; and women do not sing in the Greek Church choirs. Indeed, this song, which floated so softly through the rosy twilight, bore no re semblance to any monotonous ancient chant of the Church. There was something quite different about it — a special peasant character — reminding one, now of the Kossack ballads, and now of the mournful strains of the blind minstrels, who sing for alms on festival days in the porches of the Eussian churches.

The voices were fresh and pure, and the singing was so full of deep emotion, and so touchingly simple and devout, that even old Karpo was softened in spite of himself. " The heretics sing grandly," he muttered to himself; and although he kept on with his work for the look of the thing, the move ments of his arms grew slower and slower ; the hatchet rested on the block of wood, and old Karpo very nearly stopped to listen. The words were not distinguishable at this distance. " Stop your noise there, you young limbs ! " cried Marfa, coming to the door and calling to the children, who paid no heed to the singing, but went on vehemently shouting ANNO D03IINI 1SSS. 5 and knocking about their wooden ninepins. The gossips on their turf seats ceased from chatting. But for fear of the priest's anger, a little group of village people would have collected round the cottage where the Stundists were holding their Sunday prayer-meeting.

The Oukrainian peasantry are passionately fond of singing, and this was different at once from church music and from village songs. " It sounds as if it came down from heaven," muttered Marfa, not loud enough for her husband to hear ; " but it will bring trouble to Halya if Paul goes hand-in -hand with them." There were not many Stundists in Knishi, and the heresy was still almost a new one. Tliere had been living just beyond the village a bee-master of the name of Loukyan, who had eai'ned a good living by selling wax and honey. He was a peasant like all the rest, untaught and ignorant, able only to read, scarcely able to write. But from his youth upwards he had been much given to church going, and wonderfull}r fond of reading the Bible, the words of which were deeply im pressed on his memory.

Father Vasili, the village priest, was often perplexed and annoyed by the questions of his devout parishioner, though he felt proud of him as a good Church man. The peasants of all the country round had learned to look up to Loukyan, both for his book-learning aud his good, honest life. Though he was not one of the rich farmers like Karpo, his voice had more weight in the Mir than theirs, and his counsel was sought for by any of his neighbours who found themselves in an)- kind of difficulty. He was getting on in years now, and had been looked upon as a father by the whole parish until about two years ago. It was all changed now. The change had come so suddenly that the people in Knishi said the poor old fellow had gone clean off his head ! Eather Vasili encouraged this opinion. Louk yan had taken his honey and wax to sell in the Kherson province ; his ordinary busiuess.

But the very day after he came back from his journey, when his fellow-members of the Mir came to visit him and to hear all the news of the outside world, what did thej^ see ? It was just at the beginning of the long fast, the forty days of Lent ; and there upon ANNO DOMINI 1SSS. 7 Loukyan's table stood bowls of ordinary soup, and milk, too, and he and his nephew, Demyan, with his young wife, were sitting at dinner as if they had forgotten Lent. " Why, Loukyan ! have you lost your senses ? " they asked in amazement. " No, no ! I have not lost my senses ! " he answered, with twinkling eyes; "it's you that have never come to yours. Why should we fast for forty days ? Our Lord says in the Scriptures : ' Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man, but that which cometh out of the mouth.

For from within, out of the heart, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, an evil eye, blasphemies, pride, foolishness ; all these things come from within, and defile the man.' Let us fast from these, and all will be well with us, both in Lent and out of Lent." But that was not the sort of fasting that suited them. They could not answer him, however ; and they went away perplexed and discontented. The next thing was that Loukyan left off going to the parish church, where, for forty years or more, his familiar face, full of serious and gentle thought, had never been missing. Soon after, the village gossips told one another that he had taken down the sacred icons from the shrine in his cottage. He had bought quite a number of them, and some of them were good ones, for he never grudged his money for them.

But now he broke up some of them into splinters, and gave the rest to his niece to cover the milk-pails. " They are vain idols," he said to the people who asked him the reason of this conduct ; " does not the commandment tell us that we are not to make them, or to bow down to them ? Must we not obey the voice of the Lord our God? We have all of us bowed down to these idols ; but now I am going to worship God, and Him only." By-and-bye, very quickly indeed, all this reached the ears of Father Vasili ; and he came to Loukyan's cottage in his vestments, and bearing the crucifix with him. It was a ceremonial visit, almost as if there was groins to be a funeral in the house. Though Loukyan was a troublesome parishioner, full of notions and knotty questions, the priest could not bear ANNO DOMINI 1SSS. 9 to lose him from among his congregation.

But Father Vasili was no controversialist; and all he could do was to hold the crucifix solemnly before Loukyan, and command him to resume his habit of going to church. " Father Vasili," said Loukyan, " your church is no House of God. It is a place of buying and selling, as if a man could buy salvation, or a priest sell it. I cannot wor ship God in it." " Look on this, and be ashamed, poor sinner ! " cried Father Vasili, pointing to the crucifix with one hand, as he held it at arm's length with the other. "I see it," said Loukyan; "it is an image of the cross, and our Saviour nailed upon it. But it is only an image, father ! It cannot see me and it cannot hear me. It is only a bit of wood. But I pray to Him who died upon the cross ; and I know in my heart that He sees and hears me. I can never bow down to that again.

It would be an offence against God, who has said, ' Ye shall not make gods of silver ; neither shall ye make unto you gods of gold.' ' " And you have profaned your icons ! " exclaimed Father Vasili angrily, turning towards the desecrated shrine. " We shall see what the authorities say about it." Some days afterwards two policemen came to Knishi, and carried Loukyan away to a town at some distance, where he fortunately had a few acquaintances, who had often done business with him, and ' were favourably in clined to him. Loukyan was put into prison, but was not on the whole harshly treated. From time to time he was put under examin ation as to his opinions ; but as the questions asked him were principally political, he could answer them satisfactorily. The new heresy was scarcely known in the province ; and the head officials did not as yet trouble them selves about it.

They could not see the full importance of Loukyan's insignificant change of religion ; and after an imprisonment of six months he was released with a caution to avoid offending his parish priest again. Loukyan came back to Knishi ; and with the ardour of a messenger with glad tidino-s, began to spread about his new doctrines. His nephew, Demyan, and his wife, who lived in the house with him, were his first disciples. ANNO DOMINI 18SS. 11 Next to them came Ooliana Rudenko, a widow with one son, who were the richest people in Knishi, next to old Karpo. Like Loukyan, Ooliana had been one of the most regular and devout worshippers in the village church, giving liberally of her substance to the maintenance of Father Vasili. She and Loukyan had often talked together on re ligious subjects ; and now she studied the New Testament with eager intelligence ; soon adopting the new views, and carrying them out conscientiously.

After Ooliana others joined ; until at last ten families, who became the most steady and sober and honest of the villagers, had formed themselves into a little religious community, who worshipped God after their own consciences. Father Vasili, disappointed with the action of the police, confined himself to cursing the Stundists from the pulpit. The Mir, which had treated Loukyan indulgently as long as he was alone, looking upon his conduct as a kind of madness, began to be angry. The peasants were not very jealous for the Ortho dox Church, the dues and fees of which were heavy ; but it irritated them that these people, ordinary peasants like themselves, should set themselves up to be better and wiser and holier than their neighbours. The Orthodox religion had been good enough for their forefathers, and was good enough for them.

The Stundists were a perpetual vexation to the members of the Mir, for their piety, and thrift, and sobriety ; and also for the very patience with which they bore jeers and injuries from their neighbours. Old Karpo was specially infuriated. Ooliana's son had long been in love with his daughter Halya ; and no match could be more suitable. But if Paul joined the new religion nothing should prevail upon him to give Halya to him. The little Stundist community lived in an enen^'s camp, as it were. Any day might find them exposed to a furious attack. These men and women, whom they had known in timately all their lives, with whom they had held friendly intercourse, rejoicing with them and weeping with them, now looked askance at them, and held themselves aloof from them. Tliere is no hatred like the hatred arising from religious differences.

Chapter II

A STUNDIST SERVICE. Now, in the darkening twilight of that fair evening, a little band of Stundists had met together for prayer and the study of the Bible. There were from fifteen to twenty persons present, grave and quiet -looking men and women, who asked for nothing but to be left to worship God, none making them afraid. The slight persecution they had so far met with had only tended to draw them closer together, and to give them that fervour of spirit which seems the special gift of God to those who suffer for righteousness' sake. How often did they say one to another, " Blessed are ye when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate from you, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil. Rejoice ye in that day, and leap for joy ; for behold ! your reward is great in heaven !

" Their grave, quiet faces shone with an inner light ; and their voices took a tone of exultation. It was a great thing to endure persecution ! It was this persecution which had at first driven Paul Rudenko into the band of Stundists. He was indignant and hurt at seeing his mother, the best woman in Knishi, avoided or molested. Was she not always read}- to help anyone who was in trouble ? How often had she sat up all night nursing the sick and dying ! Her house had never been closed to a neighbour. Yet now, because she chose to pray in another fashion from theirs, she must be insulted and injured, and banished from the society of her old friends. It must be a poor cause which needed suoh weapons. But for a long time, half unconsciously, Paul's love for Halya, old Karpo's daughter, hindered him from definitely adopting his mother's religion.

Halya and he had grown up together, the one the only son, the other the only daughter, of the two richest farmers in the district. Tliere had been no formal betrothal, for they were both young ; and Paul's father had died not two vcars a"-o. But everybody knew that Paul and Halya were intended for one another. The course of their love had been smooth enough until Ooliana, Paul's mother, had openly joined the Stundists. Ooliana had been insulted and abused both by old Karpo and his wife Marfa. Paul was threatened that he must give up Halya if he followed his mother's ex ample and attached himself to that old fool Loukyan. There was a deep and terrible conflict in Paul's heart between his love for Halya and his love for his mother, and the irresistible dawning of light in his inmost soul. To please his mother he had frequently attended the Stundist meetings ; but to see Halya he had often gone to the village church.

This evening he was sitting in the cottage, at the Stundist prayer-meeting, with one of their hymn-books in his hand. Some were singing by heart, not knowing how to read. In one corner, seated at a plain deal table, was Loukyan, facing the little congregation. He was about fifty-five years of age, with a small, pensive face, a thin grey beard, and large dreamy hazel eyes, shining with in telligence and gentleness. He was softly humming the tune, and following with his forefinger the lines of the hymn in the small book lying open before him. He had long known every word of it ; but, none the less, he liked to see the printed words. Paul had taken a seat near to Loukyan. He was a tall, slim young fellow of twenty two, with one of those handsome and regular faces, with clear-cut features, which are some times met with among the Oukrainian peasantry.

He was one of the finest singers in the neighbourhood, with a pure tenor voice, which rang out clearly among a chorus of voices. Loukyan gave out the hymn, and Paul joined in the singing ; but he heard neither his own voice nor any other. The words of the hymn absorbed him: — •' When I survey tlie wondrous cross On which the Prince of glory died, My richest gain I count but loss, And pour contempt un all mv pride. See, from His hands, His head, His feet, Sorrow and love flow mingled down : Did e'er such love and sorrow meet, Or thorns compose so rich a crown ? Were the whole realm of nature mine, That were a present far too small ; Love so amazing, so divine, Demands my soul, my life, my all." Paul sang these words almost unconsciously. The meaning of them was burning itself into his mind with intense conviction.

He had all his life been given to long reveries, which now and then deepened into trances, and waking dreams of extraordinary vividness. He was an unlearned peasant ; but his imagination had been trained and exercised by the poetic legends of his country. His mind, like those of his people, was more Oriental than Occidental; and, like the prophets of the Jewish nation, he saw visions and dreamed dreams. Now before this inward eye of his tliere stood in distinct clearness " the cross on which the Prince of glory died." There had been other saviours of men, who also had suffered crucifixion. But here was the chief of all, who could say, " Was ever sorrow like my sorrow ? " He saw the divine face of the Prince of glory, with His crown of thorns ; and the dying eyes looked into his inmost soul out of fathomless depths ol grief.

He shuddered as he met that gaze. But beneath the sorrow, and greater than it, because sorrow is not infinite, shone out the c infinite love of the Son of God. And it was love lavished upon him, Paul Rudenko ! The parched lips said to him, " All this I bore for thee ; what wilt thou do for Me ? " His whole soul responded ; in unutterable rapture Paul sang the last words of the hymn : "Love so amazing, so divine, Demands my soul, my life, my all." What was this strange joy which flooded all his inmost being ? All the gladness he had ever felt was absolutely nothing in com parison with this ecstasy and rapture of adoration. It was a new life breathed into him, such as no words could tell. He did not hear a word of Loukyan's prayer, which followed the singing. But when, with a slight stir, the little congregation settled itself to listen to the address, Paul came back to this lower world.

Loukyan, putting on his spectacles, and turning over the leaves ol his New Testa ment carefully, at last read out these verses, with a solemn and profound tenderness in his voice : — " That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith : that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend, with all saints, what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height, and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge." Very simply, and in peasant dialect, the old man called upon his hearers to consider what human love is, as they felt it in their own hearts. The love of fathers and mothers, of husbands and wives, of children to their parents, of lovers and friends, were all touched upon. "All this is love," he said, "and conies from God; for love is of God; and God Himself is love.

And the love of God is like them all ; only in this it is different — it never changes, and it never ceases. For husbands and wives, and parents and children fall out, and quarrel, and get separated, and some even hate one another. ' But who shall separate us from the love of Christ ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Nay, in these things we are more than conquerors, through Him that loved us.' Perhaps if we could see our Lord, our love to Him would c be earthly, like these others. But He says, ' Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.' So we must have Him dwelling in our hearts by faith. Dwelling in us, you hear. Why ! if He was dwelling now in Jerusalem, say ! would not our hearts be empty of Him, but full of yearning? ay ! and discontent.

For He would be so far away, aud all who love Him could not travel to Jerusalem, and bide there in His bodily presence. No, no ! We have something better than that. He is dwelling here," cried Loukyan, laying his hand on his heart, " and in yours, my sisters; and in yours, my brothers.'' " Ay ! ay ! " fell from the lips of most of his hearers. They had been hanging ou his words ; and it seemed only natural to respond when he addressed them so individually. Demyan, Loukyan's nephew, spoke the loudest. He was a sturdy, broad-shouldered young fellow; aud his round, freckled face, with its kindly grey eyes, revealed the deep emotion with which he listened to every word his uncle uttered. He had risen Irom his seat in the corner, and leaned towards the preacher, in an attitude of complete abandonment.

He had felt all these earthly loves ; and the heavenly one was lodged in his heart of hearts. The tears rolled down his cheeks ; and he wiped them away, now and then, with his great, horny hand. " And now how much shall we love Him ? " asked Loukyan, pausing and looking round on the familiar faces confronting him, " how can poor helpless creatures like us show our love to the Lord Jesus Christ ? " "I will die for Him!" cried Demyan, falling on his knees, and resting his elbows on the table. Behind his large hands burst out sobs; and bis tangled fair hair concealed his agitated face. "Ay!" ejaculated Loukyan, "it may be that we shall have to die for Him, or deny Him. Our brethren in many places are choos ing now, at this very hour, between dying and denying. But I, God helping me, will die for Jesus."

"And I!" cried Paul, with a thrilling fervour in his voice and face, as he stood up, and drew near the table. " Since I came in here, I have seen Him. I saw Him nailed to the shameful cross, with a crown of thorns upon His head. And there was in His eyes a love that no words could tell. A love passing knowledge ! We shall never know its fulness, no ! not through ail eternity. I am ready to die for Him." For a minute there was a dead silence in the cottage. Ooliana, bis mother, was not there ; but every person present knew that she had been praying ardently for Paul's con version ever since she had herself joined the Stundists. Here was the answer to her prayers. But there was a solemn note of challenge in Paul's voice, as if he looked into the future and foresaw a conflict unto death, if he persisted in obeying his con science.

Would Ooliana rejoice if her son were called to martyrdom ? The idea of martyrdom was growing familiar to the little band. " I am ready to die for Him," repeated Paul. The sound of his voice broke the spell which bound them ; and sobs and mur murs of gladness followed the silence. Louk yan stretched out his hands and clasped Paul's between them with a gesture as if he were welcoming him iuto the new fellowship and brotherhood. " Thank God ! thank God ! " he exclaimed. " Now, Lord, lettest thou thy servant de part in peace ; for mine eyes have seen thy salvation. Thou art blessed and chosen of the Lord, Paul Rudenko. If I am taken away from this little flock — from these few sheep in the wilderness — thou wilt be here to be tlieir shepherd. Let us praise God together." Then from the lips of all present rang out the Doxology of the Greek Church, which had been familiar to each of them from their earliest childhood.