THE SEED OF THE CHURCH
THE news in Paraska's letter was true.
A revulsion of feeling had been brought about by the persecution that
had made a clean sweep of the heretics from Knishi. As the crowd which
collected to be spectators of the departure of the women and children
saw their terrible distress, and heard their cries of lamentation
on being driven from their old homes, a wave of pity and sympathy
spread from heart to heart. They had only a vague idea of what exile
to Siberia really meant; no one had ever returned to Knishi from that
distant bourne, but it had always been the most fearsome threat held
over them from infancy. What had these old neighbours, these brothers
and sisters and cousins, done to deserve such a doom? They had always
shown themselves kind and friendly, and ever ready to help in any time
of trouble. And if they were somewhat conceited and crazy about their
new religion, was that so wicked as to merit the loss of home and
property?
The women especially began to brood over the question. The Stundist
children under ten years of age, who had been distributed among the
Orthodox families, were more intelligent and obedient than the others.
In school they almost formed a class apart, several of them could read
well, and these had, as usual, little Testaments of their own.
Copies of the New Testament began to appear as if by magic in the
dwellings. The travelling colporteurs, who carried in their packs
Testaments from the great Bible depot in Odessa, found many customers
in Knishi. There was something attractive in listening to the Gospels
read in one continuous narrative, instead of the detached fragments
they heard in the church services. Here was the whole history. It
was quite true what the Stundists said: there was not a word about
confession, or the priest's dues, or the blessing of the houses and the
fields, or the many feasts, when it was unorthodox to labour. The men
liked to hear of this, but the women loved most to hear how the Lord
Jesus treated the women and children.
There was a general movement of the slumbering intellect and conscience
of the peasants; and Father Cyril was astonished at some of the shrewd
questions put to him on doctrinal points. His own teaching favoured
the movement. The persecution, shortsighted as all persecution is, was
having its usual results.
Time after time, and by cautious degrees, Velia fetched the Bibles and
hymn-books hidden in the roof of the hut in the forest, and distributed
them among the Stundist children, who were as truly orphans as if their
parents were really dead. Some of them had been so young when they were
taken away that the remembrance of their parents perished in a few
months. But most of them had been present when the carts carried off
their weeping mothers, and nothing could ever efface the memory of that
scene from their hearts. There was still a root of the Stundist heresy
left in Knishi.
Yarina, the daughter-in-law of Okhrim, had been most touched and
shocked by the banishment of the inoffensive Stundists. She had
married, some years before, Panass, Okhrim's only son, who had proved
an unkind and neglectful husband. But he was dead, and left her with an
only child, a girl. At Father Cyril's urgent request, she had adopted
two of the Stundist children to bring up with her little daughter.
Secretly she was attaching herself to the Stundist faith, but she did
not dare to avow it, for the sake of her child. Besides, Father Cyril's
character, and the sermons he preached, still attracted her to the
Orthodox Church.
The mental sufferings of Father Cyril during the persecution were
greater and deeper than words could tell. He believed it to be
mischievous as well as unchristian. The utmost limit of persecution
he could find in Christ's teaching, was, "Let him be unto thee
as a heathen man and a publican." This did not open the door to
imprisonment, flogging, deprivation of civil rights, and exile. For how
did Christ deal with the outcast classes? His own dealings with the
publicans were full of forbearance and sympathy. He had visited them
in their houses, and ate with them publicly. He had not driven away
the heathen woman who besought Him to heal her daughter; or refused to
see the Greeks, who came to Philip, saying, "Sir, we would see Jesus."
Nay, when the disciples wished to call down fire from heaven on the
Samaritans who refused to receive them into their town, He rebuked
them, saying, "Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of. For the
Son of Man hath not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them."
The utmost that could have been permitted by the law of Christ, was to
leave the heretics alone. "Let them be as publicans and heathens."
Father Cyril could not himself think of the Stundists as heathens. He
mourned over their separation from the Church, and believed they were
mistaken in withdrawing from it. But he could not shut his eyes to
their sobriety and integrity, their loyal submission to every law that
did not go against their conscience, their faith and charity; and,
more than all, their surrender of everything that makes life pleasant
to man for the sake of their religious faith. He could not trust
his own people to show equal devotion to their Church under similar
circumstances.
Father Cyril and his wife did their best to make Velia happy. The girl
was very affectionate, and responded warmly to the love they displayed.
Father Cyril bestowed upon her more caresses and indulgences than he
might have done if she had gone to him under happier circumstances. The
little Stundist orphans left in his charge in the village gave him more
anxious thought and care than all the rest of his flock. He felt more
responsible to God for their welfare. Could he bring them back into the
safe fold of the Church?
But Velia was not young enough to be made Orthodox. She was nearly ten
years old when she was forcibly taken away from her own home, and she
had been trained in the Stundist faith from her earliest childhood.
The traditions of her mother's ancestors, the Scotch Covenanters, had
been the fairy tales told to her by Michael, long before she could
grasp their meaning. They had played at being persecuted whilst they
were children—it was no new thing to her. But now she understood what
it meant. These real persecutions linked her to the children who
had suffered so long ago in Scotland; the mysterious tie of blood
relationship awoke within her. She too would die rather than forsake
the faith of her father and his people.
"My Velia," said Father Cyril one day, after the village schoolmistress
had been complaining of her, "could not you, to please me, bow to
the holy icon, and cross yourself when you go to school? The teacher
complains of you and some of the other children. They will all do as
you do, dear child."
"Oh, I cannot!" she cried, with tears. "If I could, I'd do it to please
you. But I know it's wrong, and God would be displeased. I must obey
God."
"My child, they are nothing but signs," urged Father Cyril. "Surely
you love the Lord Christ, and couldn't you, to show your love to Him,
use the sign of the cross on which He died for us? And you reverence
the Mother of Christ—cannot you bow to a representation of her? All
these actions are only symbols. I have seen you kiss the keepsakes your
father and Michael gave you. Do these things in remembrance of our Lord
and His Mother."
Velia stood looking into his face with an air of perplexity and
hesitation.
"Oh, it does not mean that to them!" she answered, pointing towards the
village. "They really pray to the icon as if it was God; and they cross
themselves out of fear, not for remembrance. They think they will have
bad luck. I cannot do it; no, never! But oh, I wish I could, to please
you!"
The girl stooped down and kissed his hand fondly.
Father Cyril sighed, but said no more. He told the schoolmistress
gently not to observe the Stundist children too closely. They would
conform in time, if they were discreetly dealt with.
But Okhrim, the Starosta, was one of the managers of the school, and
the zeal of the teacher led her to take her complaint to him.
"How can I teach religion," she asked, "if these little pagans defy
me? I've punished, and punished, but they won't bow to the holy icon,
and it's the Mother of God herself. And all the Batoushka says is, 'Be
gentle.'"
Okhrim's eyes sparkled, and his hard mouth twitched. The lust of
persecution had taken possession of him, and he must gratify it, even
by persecuting children.
"So our Batoushka says, 'Be gentle!'" he snarled. "I'll be gentle with
him! He's unorthodox himself—teaching the folks all sorts o' nonsense,
and telling the men it's a sin to drink much vodka. We don't want
doctrine like that here."
The village inn belonged to Okhrim, and since Father Cyril's influence
had been felt the receipts had fallen off seriously. The church was
filled, but the inn was comparatively empty. Okhrim hated the priest as
fully as he hated the Stundists. At the first favourable opportunity,
he drove over to Kovylsk, and going to the consistory, humbly asked for
an interview with Father Paissy, through whose efforts Stundism had
been rooted out of Knishi.
Shortly afterwards Father Cyril received a mandate to appear before his
archbishop, who had always shown himself very friendly to him. But it
was not the archbishop who received him, it was his old fellow-student,
Father Paissy, who owed him many a grudge, and who treated him with
scant courtesy.
"Father Cyril," he said sharply, "we thought we had destroyed, root and
branch, the damnable heresy in your parish. But I am informed it is not
so. I hear you are bringing up a Stundist girl as your own daughter in
the church-house itself."
"She is a delicate child," answered Father Cyril, "scarcely eleven
years of age; quite unfit for a rough life among the common peasants."
"Yet you must place her elsewhere," said Father Paissy; "we cannot
permit a parish priest to make his house a refuge for heretics."
"Let me beg of you to leave her with me for a few years!" exclaimed
Father Cyril. "Who knows whether love and kindness may not bring her
back to the Church? She is a mere child, Father Paissy, most docile and
tractable. In time—yes, in time, she may come back to us."
"Was her father Alexis Ivanoff, that dangerous agitator?" asked Father
Paissy.
"Yes," he answered reluctantly, "but he was banished to Siberia in the
early spring; and Michael, his only other child, went with him. She has
not a soul related to her in the village. All the other children have
relatives who can take some care of them. There has not been time yet
for her to forget. But time does wonders. Let the child remain under my
care and my instruction, and by and by she will comprehend the truths
of our holy Orthodox Church. She will learn none of them by living with
a peasant."
"Oh, I don't care to make the girl a theologian," said Father Paissy,
with a sneer; "it will be sufficient for her to conform because she
must. The people ought to obey the Church, without asking why."
"Alas! Too many of them do," thought Father Cyril; "and they only come
to church and to confession because they must."
"I will make a servant of the girl," he said aloud; "and we will forego
the monthly payment made for her. It would be dangerous to place her
into a peasant's family, for she is thoroughly versed in all the
Stundist doctrines."
"We have considered all that," replied Father Paissy, "and we will
place her where she can do no harm. The archbishop requires you to
deliver up this Stundist girl to the widow of your predecessor, who is
still living at Knishi. She is a pious woman, though not over-learned.
I am acquainted with her, and I have already apprised her of the
archbishop's decision."
"The old Matoushka!" exclaimed Father Cyril in a tone of dismay. She
bore the character of a virago; and there was not a woman in the
village who would work for her.
"Yes; the most suitable person to deal with the girl," replied Father
Paissy. "Before you go, take a friendly warning from me. We hear you
secretly favour these ignorant and impious heretics. We hear also
that you interfere too much with secular affairs. There are several
complaints lodged against you; we had none in Father Vasili's time.
Take care, Father Cyril; take care!"