PARISH PRIESTS.
In this empire of villages there is a force of six hundred and ten
thousand parish priests (a little more or less); each parish priest
the centre of a circle, who regard him not only as a man of God,
ordained to bless in His holy name, but as a father to advise them in
weal and woe. These priests are not only popular, but in country
villages they are themselves the people.
Father Peter, the village pope, is a countryman like the members of
his flock. In his youth, he must have been at school and college--a
smart lad, perhaps, alert of tongue and learned in decrees and canons;
but he has long since sobered down into the dull and patient priest
you see. In speech, in gait, in dress, he is exactly like the peasants
in yon dram-shop and yon field. His cabin is built of logs; his wife
grows girkins, which she carries in a creel to the nearest town for
sale; and the reverend gentleman puts his right hand on the plough. He
does not preach and teach; for he has little to say, and not a word
that any of his neighbors would care to hear. Knowing that his lot in
life is fixed, he has no inducement to refresh his mind with learning,
and to burnish up his oratorical arms. The world slips past him,
unperceived; and, with his grip on the peasant's spade, he sinks
insensibly into the peasant's class. Yet Peter's life, though it may
be hard and poor, is not without lines of natural grace, the more
affecting from the homeliness of every thing around. His cabin is very
clean; some flower-pots stand on his window-sill; a heap of books
loads his presses; and his walls are picturesque with pictures of
chapel and saint. A pale and comely wife is sitting near his door,
knitting her children's hose, and watching the urchins at their play.
Those boys are singing beneath a tree--singing with soft, sad faces
one of their ritual psalms. A calm and tender influence flows from his
house into the neighboring sheds. The dullest hind in the hamlet sees
that the pastor's little ones are kept in order, and that his cabin is
the pattern of a tidy village hut.
The pastor has his patch of land to till, his bit of garden ground to
tend; but on every side you find the homely folk about him helping in
his labor, each peasant in his turn, so as to make his duties light.
Presents of many kinds are made to him--ducklings, fish, cucumbers, even
shoes and wraps, as well as angel-day offerings and benediction-fees.
A priest is so great a man in a village, that, even when he is a
tipsy, idle fellow, he is treated by his parishioners with a
child-like duty and respect. The pastor can do much to help his flock,
not only in their spiritual wants, but in their secular affairs. In
any quarrel with the police, it is of great importance to a peasant
that his priest should take his part; and the pastor commonly takes
his neighbor's part, not only because he himself is poor, and knows
the man, but because he hates all public officers and suspects all men
in power.
A great day for the parish priest is that on which a child is born in
his commune.
When Dimitri (the peasant living in yon big house is called Dimitri)
hears that a son has been given to him, he runs for his priest, and
Father Peter comes in stately haste to welcome and bless the little
one. Finding the baby swinging in his liulka, Father Peter puts on his
cope, unclasps his book, turns his face to the holy icons, and begins
his prayer. "Lord God," he cries, "we beg Thee to send down the light
of Thy face upon this child, Thy servant Constantine; and be he signed
with the cross of Thy only-begotten Son. Amen."
In two or three weeks the christening of little Constantine, "servant
of God," takes place. When the rite is performed at home, the house
has to be turned, as it were, into a chapel for the nonce; no
difficult thing, as parlor, kitchen, hall, saloon, are decorated with
the Son, the Mother, and the patron saint. A room is set apart for the
office; a rug is spread before the sacred pictures; and on a table are
laid three candles, a fine napkin, and a glass of water from the well.
A silver-gilt basin is sent from the village church. Attended by his
reader and his deacon, each carrying a bundle, Father Peter walks to
the house, bearing a cross and singing a psalm, while the censer is
swung before him in the street.
The rite then given is long and solemn, the ceremony consisting of
many parts. First comes the act of driving out the fiends: when the
pope, not yet in his perfect robes, takes up the baby, breathes on his
face, crosses him three times--on temple, breast, and lips--and
exorcises the devil and all his imps; ending with the words, "May
every evil and unclean spirit that has taken up his abode in this
infant's heart depart from hence!" Then comes the act of renouncing
the Evil One and all his works, in the baby's name. "Dost thou
renounce the devil?" asks the pope; on which the sponsors turn, with
the child, towards the setting sun, that land of shadows in which the
Prince of Darkness is supposed to dwell, and answer, each, "I have
renounced him." "Spit on him!" cries the pope, who jets his own saliva
into a corner, as though the devil were present in the room. The
sponsors spit in turn. Here follows the confession of faith; the
sponsors being asked whether they believe that Christ is King and God;
and, on answering that they believe in Him as King and God, are told
to fall down and worship Him as such. Next comes the rite of baptism,
when the pope puts on his brightest robe, the parents are sent away,
and the child is left to his godfathers and godmothers. A taper is put
into each sponsor's hand; the candles near the font are lighted;
incense is flung about; the reader and deacon sing; and the pope
inaudibly recites a prayer. The water is blessed by the pope dipping
his right hand into it three times, by breathing on it, praying over
it, and signing it with the cross. He uses for that purpose a feather
which has been dipped into holy oil. The child is anointed five times;
first on the forehead, with this phrase: "Constantine, the servant of
God, is anointed with the oil of gladness;" next on the chest, to heal
his soul and body; then on the two ears, to quicken his sense of the
Word; afterwards on his hands and feet, to do God's will and walk in
his way. Seized by the pope, the child is now plunged into the font
three times by rapid dips, the priest repeating at each dip,
"Constantine, the servant of God, is now baptized in the name of the
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." If the young Christian
is not drowned in the font (as sometimes happens), he is clad in
white, he receives his name, his guardian angel, and his cross.
The rite of baptism ended, the sacrament of unction opens. This
sacrament, called the seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit, is said to
represent the "laying on of hands" in the early Christian Church. With
a small feather, dipped once more into the sacred oil, the pope again
touches the baby's forehead, chest, lips, hands, and feet, saying each
time, "The seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit;" on which reader,
deacon, and priest all break into chants of hallelujah! After unction
comes the act of sacrifice; when the child, who has nothing else of
his own to give, offers up the _hair of his head_. Taking a pair of
shears, the pope snips off the down in four places from the baby's
head, making a cross, and saying, as he cuts each piece away,
"Constantine, the servant of God, is shorn in Thy name." The hair is
thrown into the font; more litany is sung; and the child is at length
given back, fatigued and sleepy, into his mother's arms.
Ten or twelve days later, Constantine must be taken by his mother to
mass, and receive the sacrament, as a sign of his visible acceptance
in the Church. A nurse walks up the steps before the royal gates; and
when the deacon comes forward with the cup in his hand, she goes to
meet him. He takes a small spoon and puts a drop of wine into the
infant's mouth, saying, "Constantine, the servant of God, communicates
in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost." Later in the service,
the pope himself takes up the child, and, pressing his nose against
the icons on the screen, cries, loudly, "Constantine, the servant of
God, is now received into the Church of Christ."
Not less grand a time for Father Peter is a wedding-day. The rite is
longer, and the fees are more. Old Tartar customs keep their hold on
these common folk, if not on the higher ranks, and courtship, as we
understand it, is a thing unknown. A match is made by the proposeress
and the parents, not by the youth and maiden--for in habit, if not in
law, the sexes live apart, and do not see much of each other until the
knot is tied.
A servant came into the parlor of a house in which I was staying as a
guest--came in simpering and crying--to say that she wished to leave
her place. "To leave! For what cause?"
Well, she was going to be married.
"Married, Maria!" cried her mistress; "when?" "The day after next,"
replied the woman, shedding tears.
"So soon, Maria! And what sort of man are you going to wed?"
The woman dropped her eyes. She could not say; she had not seen him
yet. The proposeress had done it all, and sent her word to appear in
church at four o'clock, the hour for marrying persons of her class.
"You really mean to take this man whom you have never seen?"
"I must," said the woman; "the prayers have been put up in church."
"Do the parish popes raise no objections to such marriages?"
"No," laughed the lady. "Why should they object? A wedding brings them
fees; and in their cabins you will find more children than kopecks."
The livings held by the parish clergy are not rich. Some few city
holdings may be worth three or four hundred pounds a year; these are
the prizes. Few of the country pastors have an income, over and above
the kitchen-garden and plough of land, exceeding forty or fifty pounds
a year. The city priest, like the country priest, has neither rank nor
power in the Church. The only chance for an ambitious man is, that his
wife may die; in which event he can take the vows, put on cowl and
frock, obtain a career, become a fellow in the corporation of monks,
and rise, if he be daring, supple, and adroit, to high places in his
church.
That the parish priests are not content with their position, is one of
those open secrets in the Church which every day become more difficult
to keep. As married men, they feel that they are needlessly depressed
in public esteem, and that the higher offices in the system should lie
open to them no less than to the monks. Being many in number, rich in
learning, intimate with the people, they ought to be strong in favor;
yet through the craft of their black rivals, they have been left, not
only without the right of meeting, but without the means of making
their voices heard. The peasant was never beaten down so low in the
scale of life as his parish priest; for the serf had always his
communal meeting, his choice of elders, his right of speech, and his
faculty of appeal. The parish priests expect a change; they expect it,
not from within the clerical body, but from without; not from a synod
of monks, but from a married and reforming Tsar.
This change is coming on; a great and healing revolution; an act of
emancipation for the working clergy, not less striking and beneficent
than the act of emancipation for the toiling serfs.