108 THROUGH RUSSIA ON A MUSTANG. 



part and parcel of the governmental machinery for 

 grinding the faces of the poor and living without work. 

 To swing a censer and chant senseless masses is, in 

 his opinion, stage-acting. The time wasted on this 

 buffoonery, if devoted to planting and digging pota- 

 toes, would suffice them to earn their bread, and then 

 there would be no need 'of preying on the ignorant 

 and the superstitious. 



Preachers should talk less about the future state and 

 devote themselves, firstly, to earning their own liveli- 

 hood by growing grain and vegetables, and, secondly, 

 to bringing about the kingdom of heaven on earth. 

 The Count had no patience with sectarianism, nor 

 with preachers who are sticklers for certain forms of 

 administering baptism or the sacrament. The spirit 

 of hostility that brings ministers of the gospel on to 

 the debating platform, he said, is not the spirit of 

 Christ, but of Satan. Preachers and religious teachers 

 should devote their energies to the work of compro- 

 mising and the bridging of differences rather than 

 disputing. 



The world has more need of living examples than of 

 weekly sermons. If all the preachers in the world 

 would quit their fine houses, refuse their salaries, and 

 take to sowing and reaping, and preaching every-day 

 sermons of Christ-like lives, they would do more good 

 in a week than they do now in a lifetime. According 

 to the Count, a minister of the gospel who accepts a 

 salary and lives off it, is a robber. The only difference 

 between him and a footpad is that, whereas the latter 

 knocks you down and rifles your pockets, the minister 

 gets at the pockets of honest people by a more inge- 



