THE PEOPLE OF RUSSIA

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Oct 11, 1905

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 31, No. 41.

THE PEOPLE OF RUSSIA

We must seek the real Russia, not among the enlightened classes, but in the 70,000,000 mujiks. The Russian peasant is not attractive in appearance. He looks dull and heavy. He is very ignorant, generally dirty, often half-starved, and too often drunk. He is suspicious of strangers, and not easily approached, even by Russians of the upper class. But his appearance belies him. He is no fool; he has ideas of his own; He is willing to work, and he makes an admirable soldier. He is intensely religious. Superstitious?—Yes; but with a firm faith in the Gospels as the Word of God and in Jesus Christ as the only Saviour. The saints?—Yes; he believes in them, too, and often seeks their aid. Dishonest and immoral?—Yes, too often; but he is possessed of a greater fund of kindness and good-will than is common to peasants in other countries.

The very essence of the mujiks' religion is the idea that it finds its truest expression in voluntary suffering for others or for the Lord, such as is illustrated in the suffering and death of Christ for the redemption of the world. The real character of the mujik comes out most clearly in those dissenting sects which take their start directly from the study of the Gospels, and there are many such. There is always an attempt to bring the life into harmony with the teaching of Christ. Many of these much-persecuted communities are models of simple and virtuous social life. Other sects are based upon strange misconceptions of the teaching of the Gospel.

The so-called "Old Believers" are those who think that the modern church has departed from some of the forms and ceremonies sanctified by the ancient church. It is true of all these sects that the mujik looks upon his religion as the most important thing in life, and is ready to die for it. With all his ignorance, with all his faults, he is worthy of our sympathy, and I believe he is destined to play an important part in the development of European civilization.

No one can foresee, at the present time, what changes are to take place in Russia. We have no evidence, as yet, that this great peasant population has been moved at all by the existing crisis, and no one can predict what would happen, if they were suddenly aroused to shake off their chains, and stand for their rights. It is probable that any sudden and violent changes would result in general anarchy. It is by no means clear what the czar means by his promise of religious liberty; it is very doubtful whether it implies any change in the relation of the church and the state; very doubtful whether it will lead to any change in the policy of the government as to the toleration of foreign missionaries in the empire. We may be thankful if it puts an end to the bitter persecution of native Russians who are dissenters from the Orthodox Church. This vast peasant population needs instruction, religious as well as secular.

Russia and Missions

The difficulty of reaching the other races in the empire in the past has been that there is a law which forbids any man changing his religion, except to join the Orthodox Church, and there has been a certain amount of genuine missionary effort on the part of the church to win converts from the heathen tribes, but none, so far as I know, from the Mohammedans. Central Asia was once Christian, and long resisted the inroads of Mohammedanism. It might be a fair field for Protestant missionary enterprise now, but I suppose that this law is still in force, and we do not know that it will be repealed. The Russian Government is not likely to repeal it for the benefit of Protestant missionaries.

The great Protestant nations have sympathized with Japan rather than with Russia in the present war, England has been her ally, and the people of America have been almost unanimous on the same side. They have rejoiced over the destruction of the Russian navy and the defeat of her armies, and the Russian autocracy never forgets. There was a time when no foreigner had such a welcome in Russia as the American, whoever he might be; but this is true no longer. Perhaps in time it will be understood that, while we can not sympathize with the Russian Government, such as it has been for the last twenty-five years, we have the deepest interest in the Russian people and the Slavic race. There is no reason why this race should not rise to play as important a part in the history of Europe and Asia as the Latin or the Teutonic races which have preceded it, and it is for the interest of all the world that they escape from the crushing despotism which keeps them in darkness, and have the opportunity to give the world an example of that higher civilization and purer faith of which the mujik dreams now in the midst of his misery and suffering.—Missionary Review.