CHAPTER VII. SOME OF THE MARTYRS. CHAPTER VII. SOME OF THE MARTYRS. No measure of persecution is apparently too mean to be put in force against the Stundists. Petty espionage by miserable policemen in the villages; inquisitorial questionings by the priests; deeds of inconceivable vileness by the village authorities—those are the tactics pursued by the mighty Russian government against a harmless handful of their subjects, whose only request is to worship God in peace and truth. Religious intolerance is just as rampant in Russia to-day as it was in England during the reigns of the Tudors, and it is only prevented from going to the extremes of personal torture and the public stake by the dread of Western opinion. In the last two chapters on this subject we have endeavoured to place before our readers a few of the more notable cases of persecution which disgraced the years previous to 1888; space does not allow us to describe a tenth of them. From 1888 onwards the policy of extermination seems to have taken the place of simple repression, and wholesale banishment and imprisonment, not only of the leaders but of ordinary members of the Stundist community, was of constant occurrence. There was hardly a provincial gaol all over the South of Russia that did not contain representatives of Russian Protestantism; there was seldom a miserable gang of prisoners making its way to Siberia or Transcaucasia that lacked a Stundist preacher. So great were the numbers sent across the Caucasus to the province of Elisabethpol that the authorities determined to settle them in little colonies in the remoter parts o£ the province, lest that by uniting their strength they should be confirmed in their heterodoxy and exert a pernicious influence on Orthodox Christians in their neighbourhood. So the governor of the province—his name should be mentioned, Prince Nakashidze—determined to bring division and weakness among the banished brethren. He discovered that the Stundists were not all of one mind on questions of theology; so ingeniously selecting representatives of opposing views, he arranged that they should live together and "fight it out." Perhaps a still more cruel arrangement was the selection of awful deserts like Gerusi, Terter, Yevlach, and other places, as the domicile of the Stundist leaders. Gerusi, a wretched Tartar village near the Persian frontier, a hot hollow in summer, surrounded by stony and parched hills, the sun beating down with unpitying intensity, was the place to which most of the preachers were now banished. From Kief and Kherson, from Bessarabia and the Crimea, from Kharkov and the Don Cossack country, came the wretched preachers of the Gospel, torn from their families, deprived of their livelihood, sick and hopeless from sufferings on their journey. Ivan Lisotski, of whom we have already heard, is here. There is no space for the names even of the chief of those who are now wearing and fretting their lives out among the parched rocks of Terter and Gerusi; but a place must be found for the names of some of Lisotski's companions, men who have done yeoman's service in the cause, and who are now patiently and prayerfully awaiting the fruits of their work. There are the Cossack preachers Fedot Kostromin, Piotr Rastchev, Procori Kundriukov, and Sergei Markov; there are the Little Russians Procop Apantchuk, Grigori Supruk, Lazar Bieletski, Sozont Kapustinski, and Ivan Kulmenko; there are the Great Russians Grigori Morozov, Pavl Adnolka, and Ivan Dovgan—these and hundreds of others. Most of these people have been sent to the Caucasus for a period of six years. Previous to their departure from Russia they have already spent from eight to eighteen months in gaol. They are all sent per étape to their destination. They walk with ordinary criminals, in chains, with shaven heads, and clad in the ordinary prison costume. Preacher Kapustinski, a most truthful and absolutely reliable man, wrote to a friend of ours describing his journey from the western province of Kief, where he had been arrested, to this remote Caucasian place of exile. There was little to note until he reached Vladikavkaz, a little town lying north of the Caucasus. Here the prisoners left the train to tramp across the mountains, 140 miles to Tiflis. The brutality, exactions and filthy language of their military guards were abominable. Arriving, once, at a station among the mountains, the prisoners entreated the soldiers to buy some necessary articles for them. The money was taken, but no return was made for it; and one of the prisoners, who was foolish enough to display a three-rouble note, was so beaten and ill-treated that his life was a burden to him until he had parted with nearly all his money in bribes. Kapustinski's gang was pushed and hustled, made to carry the soldiers' baggage, thrust at with bayonets if they resisted or remonstrated, and one unfortunate wretch had his head broken. At night the horrors were still more disgraceful, for the wives were separated from their husbands, and subjected to the brutal attentions of the soldiers. In addition to the 140 miles between Vladikavkaz and Tiflis, this gang walked 80 miles from Yevlach and Shusha, and 60 miles from Shusha and Gerusi. Arrived at their destination, their case was most pitiable. No provision had been macle for them — no houses, or even tents. They camped out in the open until the Tartars took pity on them, and gave them work. They were so povertystricken that twenty men have worked for a whole day gathering heavy stones from the mountains for a miserable pittance of twopence per day. The chief of the district, until quite recently, was a Mohammedan, and the exiles were entirely at his mercy. The Baptist preacher Pavlov, of Tiflis, asserts that the authorities in the province of Elisabethpol have placed every obstacle in the way of the Stundists obtaining work or purchasing land. We have mentioned the names of some of the preachers from the country of the Don Cossacks banished to this inhospitable spot. Before they left Russia they were for several months in gaol. Their wives, wishing to follow them into exile, sold all their property and were ready to depart when the Ataman informed them that if they left for the Caucasus they must leave their children behind them— that they must choose between their husbands and their children. The distracted women remaining undecided, the police stepped in, took the children from their mothers, and, after having them baptized into the Orthodox Church, placed them under the guardianship of Orthodox relatives. Kundriukov had four children thus kidnapped, Kostromin seven, Markov three little girls without a mother. Thus we have homes broken up, and a system of ingenious torture of innocent women and children, for a parallel to which we must seek among the annals of the Middle Ages.[3] A little over a year ago, in the columns of The Christian World we mentioned the case of a Baptist preacher from the town of Gorokhi, in the province of Kief. We dare not give his name, as latterly some alleviation of his position has been granted, and any public mention of his name would only bring on him and his fresh trouble. When he lived in Gorokhi, the Orthodox Russians used to visit him in crowds, and some of them sought baptism at his hands. The village priest vowed vengeance on him, took him before a court of justice, and accused him of perverting certain members of his flock. The case was heard with closed doors, the public being excluded. Of course the prisoner was found guilty. "You have no right to pervert the Orthodox," said the judge, in passing sentence. "Our Emperor will not tolerate this. You will be banished to the Caucasus, and will forfeit all your rights and privileges." The miserable man was hauled off to gaol, and remained there in misery and idleness for nearly four months. When an étape for the Caucasus was ready he joined it, and tramped fifty miles, laden with chains, and with shaven head, to the nearest railway station. His gang was driven unmercifully, as the drivers were afraid of losing the train. His feet became swollen and broke out into sores. When he arrived at a place called Balta facilities were given him for binding up his sores, but they broke out again when he resumed his march. After three weeks he reached Rostov on the Don. The prison here is a disgraceful one, and in a few days he was covered with lice and with sores, contracted by contact with several prisoners suffering from a loathsome skin disease. Sick and in great pain, he was ordered on to the town of Elisabethpol, in Transcaucasia. During the long interval that had elapsed since leaving his home, the preacher had heard nothing of his friends, but in Elisabethpol he had a letter, stating that his wife and children were daily subjected to the threats of the villagers, and that efforts were being made to deprive them of their farm. The preacher himself was sent on to the Persian frontier, ruined and hopeless. Or take the case of Felix Pavilkovski, once a preacher in the province of Kherson. The priest of his village enticed him into a theological discussion. This was towards the end of 1891. Pavilkovski was indiscreet enough to let fall some expressions hostile to the Church. He was arrested at the priest's request, and sent to gaol. Disgusting work was here thrust upon him, and petty larcenies committed on his food. The warders demanded money, and when he could not gratify them, they prepared a cage-like structure, in which a man could stand upright, but could neither sit nor lie down. Fastened into the cage, Pavilkovski was carried off to the prison privy, and remained in this fetid and horrible place for three days and three nights, the butt and laughing-stock of the gaol-birds around him. When at last he was taken out he was a huddled-up, lifeless heap. His joints had lost their use. Each day his gaolers brought him seven ounces of black bread and a mug of bad water. It will be noticed that they did not starve him. At last the authorities decided to try Pavilkovski. Some witnesses had been discovered who would swear anything that the priest suggested. It was on their evidence that Pavilkovski and six others were sentenced to be banished for life to Eastern Siberia. After four months more in gaol the seven Stundists began their awful journey. Their wives and children were allowed to accompany them. The Stundists had their heads shaved, and iron anklets riveted on. Each Protestant was chained to a convict bound for the mines. It would take up too much space if we narrated in any detail the sufferings of these seven families, but it is worth mentioning that before their long journey had drawn to a close Pavilkovski's wife and two of the other women had died from fatigue and exposure, and that of the thirteen children who left their homes in Russia only five remained alive. We have heard from these martyrs since their arrival in Siberia, and they are full of a magnificent hope that even in their distant homes they will be shown a way to spread the light of the coming Kingdom.