DESTITUTION AND RELIEF 37 



All the world will rise to laud thee 

 And extol thy noble reign. 



F. B. R., 1893. 



The territory covered by the relief work of the 

 Russian government and organized private phi- 

 lanthropy embraced seventeen governments or 

 provinces with a population of thirty-six millions. 

 Of these, more than half, or about twenty millions, 

 were as destitute of subsistence as was the widow of 

 Sarepta at the time of the prophet Elijah's oppor- 

 tune visit at her house. The Russian peasant was 

 in a far worse plight, however, for whereas the 

 widow faced starvation only for herself and one 

 son, there, over every threshold, gaunt famine 

 stared into the pale emaciated faces of a score or 

 more of men, women, and helpless children, and no 

 Elijah was there to work a miracle upon the meal 

 barrel and empty oil vessels. 



The question is often asked: 'What caused 

 the wretched destitution of the Russian peas- 

 antry?' Of the various theories advanced no 

 single one seems to afford an adequate explanation. 

 The popular opinion that it was the result mainly 

 of the drought of the summer of 1891, when the 



