98 RUSSIA THEN AND NOW 



The peasants as a rule are religious, in the best 

 sense of that word, for they are always willing to 

 divide their loaf of bread with the pilgrim and 

 stranger. They are devoted to their faith and to 

 the performance of their vows whether as members 

 of the Orthodox Greek Church, as in the case of 

 the great majority, or of the numerous Protestant 

 sects existing and thriving under the protection 

 of the Government. They recognize God's sover- 

 eignty, but have never learned the great under- 

 lying principle of all religions that have been of 

 great help to humanity in every age, that the 

 Almighty Ruler works in the affairs of men through 

 human agencies, of whom He only requires that 

 they shall be co-workers with Him, seeking to know 

 His laws and then conforming their own laws and 

 lives thereto. They are very suspicious, therefore, 

 of every effort to change the existing order of their 

 lives. Often they resist measures to stay the 

 progress of disease and to arrest the approach of 

 death lest thereby they be contending against the 

 will of God. If a child falls into a river or brook 

 they make no effort to save its life, believing that 

 God has ordained that it should die in that way. 

 This conviction not only robs them of every incen- 



