CHAPTER XXVIII

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!"