CHAPTER XII. POLITICO-SOCIAL IDEAS. CHAPTER XII. POLITICO-SOCIAL IDEAS. It is not only a Stundist's cottage and the appearance of his wife and children that indicate how alive he is to the influence of the modern Zeit-geist. If we study the industrial lives of those Stundists who are not agriculturists, and who are, therefore, free to adopt improvements on ancient methods of work, we notice at once the difference between the new school and the old. The Stundist is remarkable for his receptivity, the Orthodox peasant is fanatically wedded to the ways of his fathers. And, even in purely agricultural communities, where least scope is given to new methods, and where any departure from received standards and old-time customs is jealously watched, the Stundist is alive to the folly of the Russian communal system of land tenure, and the communal system of rotation; he seeks to improve his allotment; he seeks better implements, more order, a less wasteful system. Imitating the Germans, with their flourishing little patches of fruit and flower garden, he endeavours to cleanse the yard around his cottage, to extirpate the weeds in his garden, to plant trees for shade, and use, and beauty, to rear some simple flowers that will rejoice the hearts of his children and women-folk. We have been assured by reliable witnesses who have travelled about among the mixed Orthodox and Stundist villages of the province of Kherson, that nearly everywhere the Stundists attempt in some such way as we have described to make their surroundings less squalid-looking, to invest their toilsome lives with some simple beautiful things. Nothing about the Stundists is more remarkable than the attention they pay to acquiring the knowledge of reading and writing. Notwithstanding the attempts that have been made in recent years to spread the rudiments of education among the Russian peasants, the melancholy fact remains that probably not more than ten per cent. of them can read and write. The Orthodox peasant, as a rule, does not feel it any disgrace to be ignorant of the knowledge of reading. He is as good as his neighbour, and even if he were able to read, what good would it do him? He has no career open to him. He has no books or newspapers, and no desire to possess them. With the Stundists it is far otherwise. His standard of comparison is not his Russian neighbour, more probably he measures himself with the German colonist. Freed from the thraldom of the Church, his mind divinely enlightened, he seeks food and replenishment. The oracles of God are within the covers of the book in his hand; it is his bounden duty and his greatest pleasure to obtain a knowledge of them, and he remembers that if he remains in darkness he cannot instruct others. Where his opportunities allow of it he is an omnivorous reader. We know of several Stundists who possess from fifty to one hundred volumes—mostly, of course, books of a religious character, but several treating of travel, history, and elementary science. It is probably too much to say that the majority of Stundists have any clear notions about civil government and the relative duties of rulers and subjects. The charge of disloyalty is frequently brought against them, the charge of being Anarchists, as well. There is no shadow of foundation for these charges. They are loyal sons of Russia, none the less loyal because they see so many grave blemishes in the government of their country, and pray for their reform. In a country where the press is dragooned, where the censor is omnipotent, where even an Orthodox clergyman dare not preach one of his colourless prelections without first submitting it to his superiors for approval, the boldness of the Stundist in calling in question blots that neither press nor priest dare as much as allude to, is easily made to appear by interested persons as gross disloyalty to Czar and fatherland. But even if we take as fact the worst that their enemies say about them, what does it all amount to? Goaded by their adversaries into sharp retort, the Stundists have often enough brought trouble on themselves by having their heated and occasionally exaggerated remarks put down to the discredit of their community. Distinguished advocates of Orthodoxy have laboriously collected isolated instances of such indiscreet speech, in order to work deadly injury to the New Protestantism which they so justly fear. By drawing public attention to these outbursts, they have sought to justify the present persecution policy of the government. We are combating, they allege, a dangerous body of Communists and Anarchists, who are seeking to destroy the greatest and holiest institutions of the country. Perhaps we should not pass over this branch of our subject without noticing a few of the social doctrines attributed to the Stundists by their enemies. We will thus be able to see them from the point of view of the persecutor, and, besides, allowing for all exaggeration of statement, we will be able to get a glimpse of much that is simmering in Stundists' minds. A writer in the Ekaterinoslav Diocesan Reporter states that the Stundists on every possible occasion endeavour to impress on their hearers that "All men should be free gentlemen," and that the two cardinal principles of a State should be the equality and liberty of its citizens M. Chepurni, writing on this subject, says : " The Stundists honour Christ alone; only Christ is to be reckoned as an Elder Brother—all other men are equal." The organ of the Kherson Ecclesiastical Consistory gives the opinion of the Stundist leader, Nikit Pukhovoi—evidently a socialist—as follows : " With the destruction of the existing order of things everything will be possessed in common ; shops and stores containing silks and other articles will be open to all, and whoever wants may have what he likes without payment." It is evident that the notion of a more equitable division of the land of the country has taken root in the minds of a good many Stundists. M. Znatchko-Yavorski, a distinguished economist, and landowner of the province of Kherson, describes the communistic ideas which he alleges are prevalent among the Protestants in the neighbourhood of his estates. " Jesus Christ suffered," they say, " for the whole human race, consequently His love for all was alike. It follows from this that the blessings of this world should be equally distributed among the people; and as property and land are such blessings, it follows that they should be equally divided among all living men." A writer in the Nedelia puts these words into the mouth of a Stundist, " In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, saith the Lord. Let him only who works eat. But as man cannot create anything by his own labour, as, for instance, land, water, rocks, animals, plants, which are the works of God's hands, it follows that human beings have not the right to count these things their own private property. They are God's gifts, God's blessings. The land should be divided in accordance with men's necessities." Another writer, M. Rojdesvenski, a man who has done more than any other to spread broadcast the most erroneous views about the Stundists, thus sums up their social and political views : " In place of the disestablished Orthodox doctrines, the Stundists give us doctrines in which we can discover neither completeness nor accuracy, neither clearness nor system. Pulling down the existing social-political fabric of Russian life, they please themselves with substituting Utopias. Their leaders may perhaps succeed in developing the negative side of their belief, for to demolish is incomparably easier than to build up." We can read between the lines of all this, and see a simple striving after truth, or, at worst, a profound dissatisfaction with the existing order of things. It is only in Russia where such views could be deemed heinous and criminal, or where the holders of them could be made liable to social ostracism and cruel punishment. We may, of course, hope and pray for a brighter day to dawn on that utterly benighted land; at present we see no glimmerings even of light. Or is it that the darkness now brooding over Russia is the dark hour before the dawn?