RELIGIOUS LIFE.
A friend is one day driving me from house to house in Archangel,
making calls, when we observe from time to time a smart officer going
into courtyards.
"This man appears to be dogging our steps."
"Ha!" laughs my friend; "that fellow is an officer of police."
"Why is he following us?"
"He is not following us; he is going his rounds; he is warning the
owners of all good houses that four candles must be lighted in each
front window to-night at eight o'clock."
"Four candles! For what?"
"The Emperor. You know it is his angel's day; you will see the streets
all lighted--by police suggestion--at the proper time."
"Surely the police have no need to interfere. The Emperor is popular;
and who can forget that this is St. Alexander's Day?"
"There you are wrong; our people hardly know the court at all. You see
these shops are open, yon stalls are crowded, that mill is working, as
they would be on the commonest day in all the year. A mujik cares but
little for kings and queens; he only knows his own angel--his peculiar
saint. If you would test his reverence, ask him to make a coat, repair
a tarantass, or fetch in wood, on his angel's day. He would rather die
at your feet than sully such a day with work. In fact, a mujik is not
a courtier--he is only a religious man."
My friend is right in the main, though his illustration takes me as a
stranger by surprise.
The first impulse in a Russian heart is duty to God. It is an impulse
of observance and respect; at once moral and ceremonial; an impulse
with an inner force and an outer form; present in all ranks of
society, and in all situations of life; in an army on the march, in a
crowd at a country fair, in a lecture-room full of students; showing
itself in a princess dancing at a ball, in a huckster writing at his
desk, in a peasant tugging at his cart, in a burglar rioting on his
spoil.
This duty adorns the land with fane and altar, even as it touches the
individual man with penitential grace. Every village must have its
shrine, as every child must have his guardian angel and baptismal
cross. The towns are rich in churches and convents, just as the
citizens are rich in spiritual gifts. I counted twenty spires in
Kargopol, a city of two thousand souls. Moscow is said to have four
hundred and thirty churches and chapels; Kief, in proportion to her
people, is no less rich. All public events are celebrated by the
building of a church. In Kief, St. Andrew's Church commemorates the
visit of an apostle; St. Mary's, the introduction of Christianity In
Moscow, St. Vassili's commemorates the conquest of Kazan; the Donskoi
Convent, Fedor's victory over the Crim Tartars; St. Saviour's, the
expulsion of Napoleon. In Petersburg, St. Alexander's commemorates the
first victory won by Russians over Swedes; St. Isaac's, the birth of
Peter the Great; Our Lady of Kazan's, the triumphs of Russian arms
against the Persian, Turk, and Frank. Where we should build a bridge,
the Russians raise a house of God: so that their political and social
history is brightly written in their sacred piles.
By night and day, from his cradle to his grave, a Russian lives, as it
were, with God; giving up to His service an amount of time and money
which no one ever dreams of giving in the West. Like his Arabian
brother, the Slavonian is a religious being; and the gulf which
separates such men from the Saxon and the Gaul is broader than a
reader who has never seen an Eastern town will readily picture to his
mind.
An Oriental is a man of prayer. He seems to live for heaven and not
for earth; and even in his commonest acts, he pays respect to what he
holds to be a celestial law. One hand is clean, the other unclean. One
cup is lawful, another cup is unlawful. If he rises from his couch a
prayer is on his lips; if he sits down to rest a blessing is in his
heart. When he buys and when he sells, when he eats and when he
drinks, he remembers that the Holy One is nigh. If poor in purse, he
may be rich in grace; his cabin a sanctuary, his craft a service, his
daily life an act of prayer.
Enter into a Russian shed--you find a chapel. Every room in that shed
is sanctified; for in every room there is a sacred image, a domestic
altar, and a household god. The inmate steps into that room with
reverence; standing for a moment at the threshold, baring his head,
crossing himself, and uttering a saintly verse. Once in the house, he
feels himself in the Presence, and every act of his life is dedicated
to Him in whom we live and move. "Slava Bogu"--Glory to God--is a
phrase forever on his lips; not as a phrase only, to be uttered in a
light vein, as a formal act, but with an inward bending and confession
of the soul. He fasts very much, and pays a respect beyond our measure
to sacred places and to sacred things. He thinks day and night of his
angel; and payments are made by him at church for prayers to be
addressed in his name to that guardian spirit. He finds a divine
enjoyment in the sound of cloister-bells, a foretaste of heaven in
kneeling near the bones of saints. The charm of his life is a profound
conviction of his own unworthiness in the sight of God, and no mere
pride of rank ever robs him of the hope that some one higher in virtue
than himself will prove his advocate at the throne of grace. He feels
a rapture, strange to a Frank, in the cadence of a psalm, and the
taste of consecrated bread is to him a fearful joy. Such things are to
him not only things of life and death, but of the everlasting life and
the ever-present death.
The church is with a Russian early and late. A child is hardly
considered as born into the world, until he has been blessed by the
pope and made by him a "servant of God."
As the child begins, so he goes on. The cross which he receives in
baptism--which he receives in his cradle, and carries to his grave--is
but a sign. Religion goes with him to his school, his play-ground, and
his workshop. Every act of his life must begin with supplication and
end with thanks. A school has a set of prayers for daily use; with
forms to be used on commencing a term, on parting for holidays, on
engaging a new teacher, on opening a fresh course. It is the same with
boys who work in the mill and on the farm. Every one has his office to
recite and his fast to keep. The fasting is severe; and more than half
the days in a Russian year are days of fasting and humiliation. During
the seven weeks before Easter, no flesh, no fish, no milk, no eggs, no
butter, can be touched. For five or six weeks before St. Peter's Day,
and for six weeks before Christmas Day, no flesh, no milk, no eggs, no
butter, can be used. For fifteen days in August, a fast of great
severity is held in honor of the Virgin's death. A man must fast on
every Wednesday and Friday throughout the year, eating nothing save
fish. Besides keeping these public fasts, a man should fast the whole
week before making his confession and receiving his sacrament;
abstaining from every dainty, from sugar, cigarettes, and every thing
cooked with fire.
On the eve of Epiphany--the day for blessing the water--no one is
suffered to eat or drink until the blessing has been given, about four
o'clock, when the consecrated water may be sipped and dinner must be
eaten with a joyful heart. To fetch away the water, people carry into
church their pots and pans, their jacks and urns; each peasant with a
taper in his hand, which he lights at the holy fire, and afterwards
burns before his angel until it dies.
Every new house in which a man lives, every new shop which he opens
for trade, must be blessed. A man who moves from one lodging to
another must have his second lodging purified by religious rites. Ten
or twelve times a year, the parish priest, attended by his reader and
his deacon, enters into every house in his district, sprinkles the
rooms with holy water, cleanses them with prayer, and signs them with
the cross.
In his marriage, on his dying bed, the Church is with a Russ even more
than at his birth and baptism. Marriage, held to be a sacrament, and
poetically called a man's coronation, is a long and intricate affair,
consisting of many offices, most of them perfect in symbolism as they
are lovely in art. Prayers are recited, rings exchanged, and blessings
invoked; after which the ceremony is performed; an actual circling of
the brows with a golden rim. "Ivan, servant of God," cries the pope,
as he puts the circlet on his brows, "is crowned with Nadia, handmaid
of God." The bride is crowned with Ivan, servant of God.
Some people wear their bridal crowns for a week, then put them back
into the sacristy, and obtain a blessing in exchange. Religion touches
the lowliest life with a passing ornament. The bride is always a
queen, the groom is always a king, on their wedding-day.
A man's angel is with him early and late; a spirit with whom he dares
not trifle; one whom he can never deceive. He puts a picture of this
angel in his bedroom, over the pillow on which he sleeps. A light
should burn before that picture day and night. The angel has to be
propitiated by prayers, recited by a consecrated priest. His day must
be strictly kept, and no work done, except works of charity, from dawn
to dusk. A feast must be spread, the family and kindred called under
one roof, presents made to domestics, and alms dispensed to the poor.
On his angel's day a man must not only go to church, but buy from the
priests some consecrated loaves, which he must give to servants,
visitors, and guests. On that day he should send for his parish
priest, who will bring his gospel and cross, and say a prayer to the
angel, for which he must be paid a fee according to your means. A
child receives his angel's name in baptism, and this angelic name he
can never change. A peasant who was tried in the district court of
Moscow on a charge of having forged a passport and changed his name,
in order to pass for another man, replied that such a thing could not
be done. "How," he asked in wonder, "could I change my name? I should
lose my angel. I only forged my place of birth."
So closely have religious passions passed into social life, that civil
rights are made to depend in no slight degree on the performance of
religious duties. Every man is supposed to attend a weekly mass, and
to confess his sins, and take a sacrament once a year. A man who
neglects these offices forfeits his civil rights; unless, as sometimes
happens in the best of cities, he can persuade his pope to give him a
certificate of his exemplary attendance in the parish church!