CHAPTER X. RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL IDEAS—I. CHAPTER X. RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL IDEAS—I. "The Bible, and the Bible alone, is the religion of Protestants," is a saying attributed to an English divine of the last century. The Stundists are probably more circumscribed still. The New Testament, and the New Testament alone, is the religion of Stundists. Theoretically, they pay the same reverence to both Old and New Testaments; practically, the New Testament is their only rule of faith and conduct. It is in an especial degree for them the Word of God; its precepts are not antiquated or obsolete; it is God's latest and only revelation to man, in which the plan of salvation is unfolded. This is probably the most important article of the Stundist creed, and it is held with a firmness that almost amounts to a passion. No Stundist is without a New Testament; most of them carry it about with them at their work; and in moments of relaxation, when the ordinary Orthodox peasant seeks the village drink-shop, the Stundist retires to some quiet spot to study his "Yevangeliye." It is no common knowledge he possesses of it; he is deeply read in the oracles of God; he feels that men like himself—common workmen, fishermen, tent-cloth weavers, carpenters—were the men chosen by God as the vehicles of His Spirit, and that it is a revelation in all ways suited to his wants, and written for such as he is. It follows from this that the other great Evangelical doctrine of the right of every man to interpret Scripture for himself is also tenaciously held by the Stundists. Not the Church, not a priest or a commentator, but each individual man has the right and incurs the duty to search the Scriptures for himself. A—— I——, a presbyter of the province of Bessarabia, once wrote to us, "We have only one duty on earth—to put ourselves into harmony with God's will concerning us. How are we to know God's will? He has revealed it in the New Testament, and in so far as we are negligent in finding out that will of God, so far do we defeat the end for which He has placed us here. We hold, therefore, that constant meditation on the Scriptures enables us to live after the pattern of Christ, and to glorify and enjoy our Maker." Our readers will agree with us that these are very noble words coming from an unlettered peasant of the Russian steppes. They clearly indicate, also, the attitude of his community towards the Scriptures. It will be hardly necessary to go into any detail as to the positive side of the Stundist belief. The Stundists are Evangelical Protestants pure and simple, and their creed is the creed of our English Protestantism. Of course, it must be expected that with such an origin Stundism lacks homogeneity, and this to such an extent that one is inclined to regret, what one never regrets in England, that a logical creed, accepted by all as authoritative, has never been drawn up by any council of Stundist elders. Much of the present confusion might have been thereby avoided. For example, perhaps nearly one-third of these Russian Protestants hold to adult baptism and a small remnant reject baptism altogether. As to the Lord's Supper, the prevalent feeling is one against its sacramental efficacy. The notions of a Eucharist and of a Mass repel every Stundist. "This do in remembrance of Me" is sufficient for most of them, and the doctrines of transubstantiation and consubstantiation are equally opposed to their understanding of the Gospel narrative. A small remnant refuses to celebrate the Lord's Supper, and have substituted the breaking of bread. Other differences are noticeable in such matters as predestination, the final perseverance of the saints, the office and work of the Holy Spirit, and the origin of sin; but, notwithstanding all this, we repeat that, broadly speaking, the Russian Stundists are Evangelicals of a most pronounced type. We prefer rather to turn to the negative or Protestant side of the Stundist belief, and to show what it is in the Orthodox Church that has repelled these sturdy peasants, and from which they have separated themselves. We will begin with icon and cross worship. Those who have not been to Russia can form no idea of the prominent place this superstition occupies in the religious life of the people. Every peasant's cottage—the very poorest even—has one or two of these painted representations of Divine beings, the Saviour, the Virgin, God the Father, or some of the principal saints. They are hung up in all public offices, from the ecclesiastical consistory to the bureau of the petty police official; they are before your eyes in banks, merchants' offices, shops, railway stations, steamboats, drinking shops. The thief's den and the brothel have their icons. To their icons peasant and noble do obedience; before them they prostrate themselves in prayer. The people call them "God," and burn holy oil before them. If happiness is a Russian's lot in life, he ascribes it all to the icon; if misfortune follow him, it is because he has omitted some duty towards it—either the oil has not been replenished, or the frame has not been kept bright, or he has sworn or got drunk in its presence. Favourite icons in churches receive the adoration of thousands, and are prayed to in every emergency of life. Icons follow the armies on their march, and victory is always sure when they are propitious. This is idolatry pure and simple, but it is, nevertheless, a vital part of the national sentiment. The courage, therefore, of the Stundists, isolated and unprotected peasants, in rebelling against this, in raising their voices against the national degradation, is worthy of the highest praise. We find no parallel to it in the history of religious revolts. It is their detestation of icon worship which, more than anything else, has brought them into such sore trouble.[6] Probably, they have gone too far in their sometimes intemperate zeal. Perhaps they would have been more prudent had they considered more fully the reverence for the icon deep planted in the Russian heart, before they permitted themselves certain acts of iconoclasm, always brought up when the priests desire to inflame the Orthodox peasantry against them. Be this as it may, they deserve credit for acting up to their convictions ; and opportunism, or concession, or compromise in these matters, which to the Stundist are so vital, would be absolutely hateful and opposed to every dictate of his conscience. Another tremendous power in Russia, and against which the Stundists have steadily set their faces, is sacerdotalism. "Each man," writes Eli Rutkevitch, "is, if you like, the priest of his own household; but there is no longer a sacrifice needed; there is no longer an earthly intercessor necessary; Divine justice is satisfied, and we are reconciled to God by that One Sacrifice which was once and for all offered on the Cross." There is, perhaps, nothing peculiar in this attitude of the Stundists, as Rutkevitch expresses it, to distinguish their views on sacerdotalism from those of Evangelical Protestants in England; but there is, nevertheless