amounts to this : it is the only suit he possesses !
SNAPSHOTS IN ST. PETERSBURG 15
The reason seems absurd, but I was assured that it
was strictly true in the majority of cases.
There is no denying that St. Petersburg society is
gay and fast. The dominant note is pleasure. The
well-to-do Russian is a heavy feeder. Dinner at
seven o'clock is the most important event of the day,
and, apparently, the chief end of every Russian who
can afford it. He fasts in the early hours of the day ;
but at night he gorges for a good two hours, and
goes to the theatre at nine. The hveliest time in
St. Petersburg is from 9 p.m. till about 3 a.m.
The droshki driver is an institution standing
alone and unparalleled. Where else in Europe
does one see such uniformly magnificent horses as
in St, Petersburg ? The droshki horses are, as a rule,
superb animals, a fact chiefly due to the circumstance
that the drivers hail from the country and bring
their own steeds with them. The drivers them-
selves are all big men. The London police are
spoken of as the finest body of men in the world,
but one is tempted to amend that verdict on first
making the acquaintance of the St. Petersburg
droshki driver. Some of them assume such colossal
proportions that when riding behind them one has
to move in his seat and crane his neck to see down
the street.
But many things in life are not always what they
seem, and droshki drivers are in that catalogue.
The law of custom in Russia has determined that
i6 AMONG THE HERETICS
a man of means or influence shall be known by his
droshki driver, so that the higher he rises in the
social or official scale the bigger the circumference
of his coachman. The driver of (say) a baron, or
a cabinet minister, or a prince, needs to bulk hke a
Tichborne claimant. But it is not genuine, or, at
least, only partially so. If the truth must be told,
there are not enough big men in Russia to go round
as droshki drivers, and the average men have to
resort to artificial means for inflating their exteriors.
It is all a matter of padding, when you know the
secret, though the long blue overcoat, tied round
the middle with a belt, gives no such suggestion.
Such a device may add comfort as well as rotundity
to the figure in the winter time ; but in the summer
the ordeal is a severe one. Indeed, the more bulky
of them, I was assured, are driven to interlarding
their cushions with icepacks during the very hot
weather as the only way of keeping down the temper-
ature.
From the moral standpoint St. Petersburg and
Moscow are the saddest cities in Europe that I
visited. Drunkenness and immorality are flaunted
openly as I never saw it elsewhere. There seems to
be no moral standard. If my diagnosis be correct,
sin there is mainly the expression of people in whose
lives no hope has ever shone, to whom no joy or
brightness has ever come. The poor of the cities,
equally with the peasants, drink vodka to drown
SNAPSHOTS IN ST. PETERSBURG 17
their wretchedness rather than to excite their
passions. Take the case of the young droshki
driver whom I employed in Moscow, Every time
we stopped to enter a shop or inspect some object
of interest, he ran away to get a drink of this spirit.
I spoke to him about it through a companion, and
his excuse was, " It warms me, sir," and the expres-
sion of his face and the tone of his voice told of a
tragedy in the poor fellow's life. He was seeking an
artificial warmth for his body, when all the time it
was his heart that needed warming. Largely, I
beheve, the debauchery and immorality of St. Peters-
burg express the reckless desire of an oppressed race
to drown their sorrows, or at least to temporarily
forget them.
The drink problem in Russia is a pressing one,
but as yet there is no Father Mathew to call either
the people or the Government to repentance. With
the Government it is the old and universal question
of revenue. Some years ago, even the authorities
stood appalled at the frightful condition of things,
and in a fit of moral reformation passed a law pro-
hibiting the sale of vodka, the national drink,
except in bottles. The result was beyond all ex-
pectations, though easy to explain. Bottled vodka
was beyond the means of the average peasant, and
he had to abstain against his will. Drunkenness,
accordingly, was reduced to a minimum in a very
short time,
c
i8 AMONG THE HERETICS
Then a smart, influential, and wealthy firm of
Jews saw their chance. War had depleted the
national exchequer, and the Government were hard
put to it to " raise the wind." The Jews had been
cute enough to discover a flaw in the Act. There
was no stipulation as to the size of the bottle in
which vodka must be sold. So they made a tempt-
ing offer to the Government for the sole right to
sell the spirit. The offer was approved and the
contract signed, and immediately Russia was flooded
with vodka in small bottles, selHng at about sixpence
in EngUsh money. The effect was electric. Once
again the beverage was available for the poorest,
and drunkenness increased at such a rate that all
previous records were left behind. And the mono-
polists are coining money.
The most impressive feature in Russia, whether
in town or country, is the passionate rehgious devo-
tion of the people. The fact is noticeable in every
phase of Ufe. The ikons, or religious pictures, are
conspicuous in every home and in every shop and
place of business. They are invariably pictures of
Christ, and play much the same part in the hfe of
the Orthodox Greek that the Crucifix does in the
life of the Roman Catholic. On entering his home,
his place of business, or shop to make some pur-
chase, the Russian's eye first searches for the ikon,
and immediately, if not always outwardly, he pays
his devotion to it. Scattered over the city are
SNAPSHOTS IN ST. PETERSBURG 19
innumerable prayer kiosks, where beautiful ikons
are displayed behind rows of tapers. These are
crowded day and night with men, women, and
children who have turned aside from the ordinary
affairs of hfe to practise their devotions. The first
act, in most cases, is to place a coin on the table or
altar to pay for one of the candles, which is lighted
by the worshipper before he kneels on the stone
floor to offer his prayer. It is a squeezing process
to get into one of these kiosks, so crowded are they,
and much more difficult to find a space whereon
to kneel. The numerous churches and cathedrals
present the same sight. And it goes on all day and
every day. It is all an indication of the natural
reverence and devotion of the Russian mind, and as
one watched these poor people — for they were mostly
poor — in their evident, if misguided, sincerity, and
thought of their conditions of Hving and the burdens
of oppression under which they are strugghng, it
was impossible not to ask how far this religious
spirit stands between them and revolution.
There is no national system of education in
Russia, no public school system, no system of com-
pulsory education. For primary education the
children are chiefly dependent on the priests, who
are generally broken reeds. There are compara-
tively few primary schools.
" We have had the church here for the past ten
years, and our children have not learned anything
20 AMONG THE HERETICS
except the catechism." Such is a sample of the
letters which reach the Minister for Education from
peasants all over the Empire. If the Minister
hearkens — and he sometimes does — ^and intervenes,
and authorises a school, the parents have to pay
towards the cost. This knowledge, having regard to
their general poverty, makes most of the peasants
hesitate before asking for a school. The teachers
in the Church schools are themselves very ignorant.
Education has not been encouraged in Russia.
It is far easier to open an inn for the sale of liquor.
To start an inn, all you have to do is to apply to
the interested local authorities, but authority for
a school has to come from the indifferent Minister.
That, at least, is how the situation was explained
to me by a university teacher in St. Petersburg.
Russia is waiting the coming of the schoolmaster
and an enlightened system of education. When
these arrive they will herald a new age.
CHAPTER III
" SINCE THE DAYS OF THE APOSTLES "
In every country in Europe the struggle for religious
liberty has made wonderful progress during the
past decade, and particularly in Russia, Hungary,
Spain, France, and Italy. In Russia and south-
eastern Europe the Baptist is the dominant witness
for Evangelical Christianity, just as in Madagascar
the honour belongs to the Congregationalists, in
Fiji to the Methodists, in the New Hebrides to the
Presbyterians, and in Melanesia to the AngUcans.
The situation in Russia and south-eastern
Europe is unique and startUng. There has been
nothing like it since apostohc days. The Kingdom
of God is being preached, and men are pressing into
the Kingdom, not by hundreds, but by thousands.
But the most inspiring aspect of this work is
not the numbers who have declared themselves
for Jesus Christ, but the character of the work.
For years there has been a certain amount of
organised denominational effort in Russia, among
foreign residents, which may be particularised, with-
out disrespect or lack of charity, as human effort.
This has had its reward ; but the results have been
22 AMONG THE HERETICS
comparatively small and circumscribed ; yet within
five years of the edict granting religious liberty to
the Russian people something like 100,000 have
declared themselves Christians of the Baptist faith
and order, and it is beheved that there are quite
as many more who have not declared themselves
for fear of the police.
There is no such thing in Russia as law in the
sense that Englishmen know it. It is government
by edict and by the police. The edicts are so vague
that few care to interpret them, because whatever
the interpretation the police would say it was wrong
and deal out summary justice. There is no law
which prevents a man being kept in gaol for more
than twenty-four hours without being brought
before a magistrate. There is no law to prohibit
a man being sentenced to imprisonment without a
fair trial. For the most part the police do as they
like, especially in the country districts remote from
the seat of government. Thousands have been
imprisoned and cruelly ill-treated by the arbitrary
action of the pohce, and have had no redress.
There is no chance of appeal in such cases. The
Government does not want to be bothered with
appeals, and the police take care that none go
forward.
Nobody can explain the genesis of this religious
movement. Here and there you may get into
touch with individuals who can tell you stories of
'• SINGE THE DAYS OF THE APOSTLES " 23
how the Gospel came to their village, or how this
and that church came to be founded ; but behind
it all was this outstanding fact, that the work was
the work of the Holy Spirit. In the quiet of their
own lives the Holy Spirit came to a man here and
a woman there and touched their hearts. Having
found the Christ, God helping them, they could do
no other than witness for Him, and their testimony
was blessed in a wonderful way ; and as the
numbers of those who gladly received the Word and
were baptised increased, small companies of believers
formed themselves into churches, and generally
and naturally the man or the woman who had first
testified among them became the leader, elder, or
pastor. Thus the Word came to be multiplied all
over Russia and south-eastern Europe. From
Siberia in the north to Odessa in the south, and
right through the Balkan Provinces, dozens of
churches stand to-day as witnesses of one man or
one woman's obedience to the heavenly vision. As
the result of the faithful preaching of the exiles the
work is spreading all over Siberia. Several magni-
ficent churches have been built, and in all the world
there is no missionary field which shows greater
promise or fulfilment than Siberia. The Govern-
ment official figures give the number of baptisms
in Russia for five years as close upon 40,000 ; but
these only relate to baptisms which have been
reported to the officials. In eight years more than
24 AMONG THE HERETICS
7,000 have been baptised in the kingdom of Tran-
sylvania.
Seven years ago in Hungary, in a village called
Acra, an old peasant woman went to Budapest to
sell her chickens and eggs in the market. After
disposing of her stock she started to see the city.
She passed a Baptist chapel, and saw outside these
words : " God so loved the world that He gave
His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on
Him should not perish, but have everlasting hfe."
She had never heard that from any priest. It was
something quite new, and her curiosity was aroused.
She entered the chapel and asked the colporteur
about it, and finally bought a Testament. This she
took home and read. Then, hke the woman in the
Gospels who had found the silver she had lost, she
called in her neighbours and read to them the word
of hfe. In good time they sent to Budapest for a
brother to come and form them into a church.
And who was elected to be the first pastor ? Why,
the old market-woman herself. She is now aged
and bent and racked with rheumatism, so that she
is unable to stand, but the friends built her a high
chair from which she preaches the Gospel every
Sunday. That church, when I was in Europe, had
eighty-two members.
In a small village in Servia there lives another
aged woman. She is very poor and bhnd, and she
was put in prison because she loved her Lord. But
•' SINGE THE DAYS OF THE APOSTLES " 25
she still loves Him and serves Him, and under her
humble roof, in an ill-furnished room scarcely large
enough to hold them, seven of God's children meet
regularly around the Lord's Table, in spite of the
fact that in Servia every time the brethren meet
for worship the policeman comes along and takes
them to prison. But the people continue to meet,
either in the forest, in the cowshed, or in the old
blind woman's kitchen, to praise God, to hold
communion with Him, and to enjoy Christian
fellowship.
In the year 1901 a humble railway porter was
transferred to Kolozvar, the capital city of Tran-
sylvania. On arrival with his wife and two Uttle
children he learned that there was not a Protestant
church in the place. What could he do ? He could
not go to the Roman Cathohc Church, for he had
renounced it. He was not going to try the Orthodox
Church. What was he to do ? Well, he did this :
when the first Sunday morning came round he and
his wife and children sang and prayed and read
the Bible. The neighbours heard the singing, and
wondered what it meant. During the week some
women ventured to ask his wife. She invited them
to come on the following Sunday and see and hear
for themselves. And this porter for the first time
in his hfe found he had to preach. He did some-
thing better. He told these people how he came
to know the Lord. At the end of that year some
26 AMONG THE HERETICS
of them wanted to be baptised, and a brother was
brought from a distance to baptise them in the
river. In 1903 a Httle chapel to seat 120 people
was opened. In 1908 the Rev. C. T. Byford preached
the opening sermon in the third new church, and a
fortnight before joining me in St. Petersburg he had
the pleasure of preaching in that building to a con-
gregation which crowded it to the doors. In 1901
a railway porter was the first Baptist in that dis-
trict ; to-day there are the mother church, twenty-
five mission stations, and 5,800 baptised believers.
That has come from one man being faithful to Jesus
Christ.
Most people have heard of Kazanlek, from
whence comes the attar of roses. It is in the famous
Shipka Pass. Some twenty years ago a colporteur
came over the mountains selling Bibles. A young
man bought a copy and his friend bought another,
and in time they induced quite a number of young
men to join them in reading and studying the Bible.
As they read they came to believe that a Christian
should give one-tenth of his income to the Lord,
that he should not swear or take an oath before a
magistrate, that he should be baptised on a pro-
fession of faith in Jesus Christ, that he should
endeavour as far as practicable to preach the Gospel
to everybody coming under his influence. Twenty-
eight young men took a pledge to make these
principles the guiding motives of their hves. They
" SINGE THE DAYS OF THE APOSTLES " 27
knew nothing about forming a church, and though
they made inquiries they got no information.
At this point the war of independence broke
out. The Turks came and their village was burned
to the ground. Those young men fought for hearth
and home and liberty. Some of them never sur-
vived. After Shipka came Plevna, and the survivors
were in the first fighting ; but after Plevna there
were only six of them left, and these went into
Croatia and Slavonia. Then came the Treaty of
Berhn. Only three returned to their native village,
but through all those days of peril, fire and sword,
they had kept their faith, and they commenced
again to study the Word of God together, as they
had been wont to do before the war. Others were
attracted, and finally the question arose, " Who is
to baptise us ? " Well, they went to a priest and
asked him. " Yes," he said, " I'll baptise you."
" But have you yourself been baptised on a pro-
fession of your faith in Jesus Christ ? " they asked.
"No." " Then how can you baptise us ? "
At length, after earnest inquiries, they heard of
some people in a far-distant place who dipped people
in the river, so they wrote a letter to them ; and
this is how they addressed it : "To the Church of
strange practices, Tolchi, Roumania." But they
never got any reply. Then, one night, at a prayer
meeting, one of the young men said, " The Spirit
of the Lord leads me to suggest that we put an
28 AMONG THE HERETICS
advertisement in the paper." So they wrote out this
advertisement :
" We beheve that a true Christian should give
one-tenth of his income to the Lord, that he should
not swear or take an oath before a magistrate, that
he should be baptised on a profession of faith in
Jesus Christ, and that he should seek to preach the
Gospel to every creature. If there is anybody in
the whole world who believes as we believe, let him
come to our help, or communicate with George
Dunnikoff, the Market Place, Eazanlek."
Two Russian brethren, exiled for their faith, saw
that advertisement, travelled over the Balkan
Mountains, through the Shipka Pass, and down
through to Kazanlek, met these brethren, stayed
several days, and one glorious morning baptised
them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Ghost.
On a site where five roads meet an old Turkish
monastery has been demolished to make way for
the first Baptist church in that town, so that
here again the Cross has triumphed over the
Crescent.
Away down in the south of Russia a number of
Baptists arranged to spend " a quiet day with God "
in the wilderness. It was kept a close secret. On
the appointed morning, before sunrise, the httle
company of zealous men and women left their homes
one by one, and two by two, taking some frugal fare
"SINCE THE DAYS OF THE APOSTLES" 29
for the day's needs. Arrived at the camping spot,
they commenced their devotions.
But the police had followed them, and every one
was arrested, to be taken back to the town and to
prison. There were between twenty and thirty of
them, and they were all lodged in one cell. Any
Russian prison is an abomination ; this particular
one was worse than the average. Picture this com-
pany of men and women huddled together in a cell
almost as dark as a dungeon, with earthen floor
covered with accumulated refuse. There were no
sanitary conveniences. The only furniture was a
rough table and a couple of wooden forms. To sleep
the ordinary prisoner had to lie on the damp ground ;
but for these there was no room to lie down. The
gaoler, moreover, was a churlish fellow, and he
showed his resentment by offering the prisoners all
manner of insult. The first thing he did was to
remove the table and seats. Water was asked for
and refused. No food was suppHed all the first
day, and on the second only a few mouldy crusts
of bread.
Were these prisoners down-hearted ? Not a bit.
They gave themselves to singing and prayer, and as
the day and the night were both alike to them in
that dingy cell, they sang and prayed all through
the night. The second and third days were passed
in much the same way. On the morning of the
fourth day a pleasant surprise was forthcoming.
30 AMONG THE HERETICS
Clean water was placed inside the door. Presently
the table and seats were brought back. Later, the
gaoler's wife brought quite a comfortable meal
which she had prepared herself.
It was all explained before the day had passed.
Though annoyed at first by the singing and prayers
of these good people, the gaoler somehow found
himself compelled to hsten. During most of the
third night he had sat on the ground outside the cell,
with his back to the door. His conscience was
pricked. Before many days had passed he had
confessed Jesus Christ, and as the outcome of that
prison revival, quite reminiscent of apostohc days,
a church was founded which has to-day a large
membership of earnest and devoted people.
Open-air meetings are absolutely prohibited in
Russia. The distribution of tracts is also prohibited,
though it is lawful to sell tracts. Copies of the
Gospels, or parts of them, if printed, may be given
away without any penalty attaching. Three mem-
bers of Mr. Fetler's church went from house to
house in St. Petersburg distributing tracts. They
were taken to the pohce station and told that they
were liable to a fine of twenty roubles or a week's
imprisonment. As they professed ignorance, they
were let off with a warning. But they had sown
better than they knew.
A leading optician of St. Petersburg, with several
shops, was a Roman Catholic. But he was in a
" SINGE THE DAYS OF THE APOSTLES " 31
state of unrest about his soul, and had been seeking
God for some time. One day a tract was put in his
letter-box. It was a copy of Mr. Fetler's lecture on
rejecting God. The janitor left it with the letters,
and the optician found it on his table with his
morning mail. When he saw the tract he asked who
put it there. Nobody could explain. He went to
the depot where the tract was printed, and told
them this tract had arrested him. Ultimately he
came into touch with Mr. Fetler's meetings and
confessed Christ. He has a country residence at
Lesnoi, and one of the first things he did after his
conversion was to convert part of this house into
a Gospel Hall, where there is now regular preaching
of the Gospel.
Scarcely any of these Russian pioneer pastors
have been "called" in the ordinary human — or
shall I say inhuman — newspaper sense. They have
been called of God unmistakably, and nobody
may challenge their credentials. How many of
them live they hardly know themselves.
I asked Pastor Pavloff what his stipend was,
and he replied, " I can scarcely tell you."
" But have you no salary ? Which pastor among
you receives the highest salary ? "
" I do."
" And what is the largest amount you have ever
received in one year ? "
" Fifty pounds ; but this year, as editor of our
32 AMONG THE HERETICS
weekly paper, I am to receive an extra fifty
pounds."
" What is the average with the others ? "
" Nothing," he repHed, with a smile.
" Then how do they live ? "
" They hve on what is given them by the Lord's
people as they go from place to place. They can
always be sure of food and a bed, but the money
they get is very httle. You see, our people are all
so poor. How many of them get the money to pay
their expenses to the Congress I don't know; it
must have been a pinch."
I was told pathetic tales about some of these
saintly pastors. How can a man be passing rich
on fifty pounds a year in Russia, where everything
is so dear ? Clothes cost fabulous prices, and
though all the pastors and delegates were neatly
clad, and one or two of them wore broadcloth frock
coats, it was whispered in my ear that they had
probably been bought cheaply at a Jew's second-
hand shop, and were most likely the discarded
garments of a Russian nobleman !
CHAPTER IV
A STUDY IN CONTRASTS
In Moscow, with a population of 1,000,000 souls,
there are 1,500 churches, and twice that number