28 Mr. John Horner on 



and enjoyed no confidence among them. They were looked 

 upon by the people simply as traders, who made a profit by per- 

 forming the Sacraments. Beyond such functions the power of the 

 priest was not felt. It was said that the Russian Moujik may be 

 called religious if the term is applied to social philosophy based 

 on ethics, and not on theology. There was a system of moral 

 principles dominating the life of the Russian peasant which, from 

 whatever cause it sprang, may be termed religious, although it may 

 be apart from any religious doctrine. The moral principles 

 taught by the church have been inculcated, owing probably to the 

 fact that the people were predisposed to accept them, although 

 they seemed to have little conception of the general structure of 

 their religion. Living in communities as they did, they were 

 loyal to each other, and more than charitable, not alone to mem- 

 bers of their own class. One writer spoke of " The wonderful 

 preservation of the purity of the moral character of the Russian 

 people through such a terrible ordeal as three centuries of slavery, 

 which passed over without ingrafting into it any of the vices of 

 slavery ' could find no other explanation than this/ the 

 peasant was never separated from the ploughshare, from the all- 

 absording cares and poetry of agricultural work." There was one 

 vice, however, to which the Russian peasant was addicted — viz., 

 that of imbibing strong drink when he has money enough to give 

 him the opportunity. The Government was now grappling with 

 the question, and had succeeded in mitigating the evil consider- 

 ably. It was to be wondered that in the midst of all his 

 surroundings the Russian peasant was what he was — good 

 humoured, kindly, sociable, and hospitable. His privations were 

 often great, his earnings at the most scanty. Hygienic arrange- 

 ments were poor, and disease and death rife, and still he remained 

 working hard for mere existence, and fighting his terrible winter 

 with a dignity all his own. A Russian writer thus spoke of him : 

 " Through all the varieties of types, tribes, and past history, the 

 millions of our rural population present a remarkable uniformity 

 in those higher general ethical and social conceptions, which the 



