WALKS AND TALKS WITH TOLSTOI -MARCH, 1894 91 



surdities had been copied into the text; important parts 

 had become unintelligible ; and the time had evidently ar 

 rived for a revision. Nikon saw this, and in good faith 

 summoned scholars from Constantinople to prepare more 

 correct editions; but these revised works met the fate 

 which attends such revisions generally. The great body 

 of the people were attached to the old forms; they pre 

 ferred them, just as in these days the great body of Eng 

 lish-speaking Protestants prefer the King James Bible 

 to the Revised Version, even though the latter may convey 

 to the reader more correctly what was dictated by the 

 Holy Spirit. The feeling of the monks, especially, against 

 Nikon s new version became virulent. They raised so 

 strong an opposition among the people that an army had 

 to be sent against them ; at the siege of the Solovetsk Mon 

 astery the conflict was long and bloody, and as a result a 

 large body of people and clergy broke off from the church. 

 Of course the more these dissenters thought upon what 

 Nikon had done, the more utterly evil he seemed ; but this 

 was not all. A large part of Russian religious duty, so far 

 as the people are concerned, consists in making the sign 

 of the cross on all occasions. Before Nikon s time this 

 had been done rather carelessly, but, hoping to impress a 

 religious lesson, he ordered it to be made with three ex 

 tended fingers, thus reminding the faithful of the Trinity. 

 At this the Raskolniks insisted that the sign of the cross 

 ought to be made with two fingers, and out of this differ 

 ence arose more bitterness than from all other causes put 

 together. From that day to this the dissenters have in 

 sisted on enjoying the privilege of reading the old version 

 with all its absurdities, of spelling the word Jesus with 

 two e s, of crossing themselves with two fingers, and of 

 cursing Nikon. 



This particular Raskolnik, or Old Believer, to whom 

 Tolstoi took me, was a Muscovite merchant of great 

 wealth, living in a superb villa on the outskirts of the 

 city, with a large park about it; the apartments, for size 

 and beauty of decoration, fit for a royal palace the ceil- 



