CHAPTER VIII. PERSECUTION UP TO DATE. CHAPTER VIII. PERSECUTION UP TO DATE. In this chapter we will conclude our record of the persecutions borne by the harmless Protestants of the Southern steppes of Russia, and then pass on to consider, first, the internal organisation of their Church; secondly, their religious and social ideas; and, lastly, their present position and probable future. It has not been possible, in the necessarily limited nature of these sketches, to give any complete view of the intolerable injuries inflicted on the Stundists. Our object has rather been to select representative cases of persecution, in order that we may present in the simplest form to our readers what has actually occurred. We have taken care that these examples represent large classes of similar cases which have been occurring in all parts of the South of Russia. A few of the most recent examples of the work of the Russian St. Dominics of the nineteenth century will form the subject of this chapter. The first case I will cite is that of three peasants from the village of Turbovka, in the province of Kief. The mother of one of these men had died, and the priest of their village was determined that she should not be buried by her own community. Somehow, in the absence of the dead woman's son, the priest managed to obtain possession of the body and have it conveyed to the church. As prayers were being said for the repose of the soul, the three peasants entered the church, and in their excitement and anger they let fall some words which brought on a fracas in which the priest received a blow. We are not too much inclined to extenuate the conduct of the man who struck the blow. It was an imprudent, and, considering the circumstances, a mad act; but the punishment was frightful. Five Stundists were arrested on the charge of sacrilege; two of these abjured Stundism, and had nominal sentences of imprisonment passed on them; but the three others were sentenced to twelve, thirteen and fifteen years' hard labour in Siberia. Piotr Boitchenko, a most noble character, one of the main props of Stundism in the province of Kursk, was charged before a court of justice with disseminating Evangelical views. There was no disputing the evidence; he had indeed been the means of bringing many from darkness into light, and he gloried in it. Found "guilty," he was exiled to the Caucasus with the forfeiture of all civil rights and privileges. For over five months he lay in gaol, treated in all respects as a common felon, and then, dressed in the ignominious prison costume, and bearing on wrists and ankles those clanking irons which, heard in Russia, make one shudder, he was forwarded with all the usual accompaniments of cruelty to his distant place of exile. As another writer on this very case of Boitchenko's has indignantly exclaimed, "What had Boitchenko done to deserve all this ignominy and shame? Was he a polished swindler who had deluded and ruined multitudes who trusted him? or a cardsharper? or a receiver of bribes? No, no: these sit in high places, and administer the law, and lead the armies, and rule the Bourse. Boitchenko only read the New Testament to his neighbours, and explained why no man should prostrate himself before an icon. For this he tramped across the Caucasian snows, an exile in chains." It sometimes happens that a clean sweep is made of the Stundists in a particular village. This was the case at Glukhi, in the province of Mohilev. There were nine Stundists here, and they were all hauled off to gaol at once. The time for their trial came round, and all of them were banished to the Caucasus. In chains, and with all the other marks of ignominy, they were forwarded to their destination, suffering intolerable hardships on the way. From the same neighbourhood, and about the same time, Leon Promatchenko was also exiled to the Caucasus, but by administrative process, as the evidence against him was exceptionally weak. Before he left home the miserable man was half murdered by his neighbours in an outbreak of fanatical zeal. From Balta twelve families of Stundists were removed to the Caucasus by administrative order; from Boguslovie four were sent; from Stanislavtchik, ten. Hundreds of other families dreading transportation, which means absolute impoverishment, sold their belongings, and went to Roumania, or to the provinces contiguous to Siberia. To the province of Orenburg alone it is computed that nearly one thousand have emigrated. The Stundist villages are now terror-stricken, men, women, and children in constant dread of the police, and their always faithful allies the priests. Wherever the arm of the law is thought to be slackened, or the measures taken by the government deemed not drastic enough, these faithful friends are always ready to stir up the fanaticism of the Orthodox villagers against their Stundist neighbours, and some of the most barbarous acts which could possibly stain a religious persecution have been the inevitable result. In several villages of the province of Kherson, the Orthodox peasants, instigated chiefly by the priests, have risen against the Stundists and maltreated them in the most cruel way. They have been flogged, beaten, imprisoned. One poor wretch had his arms tied and twisted until the blood spurted out; another had nails driven into his feet; a number of Baptists had water poured on them for over an hour on January 6 last, when the thermometer registered forty degrees of frost. But probably the most horrible case of all was that which happened last autumn in the province of Kief. Were it not authenticated in every detail it would seem incredible. We have letters from the sufferers before us, and although these letters have already appeared in extenso in The Christian World, we think it our duty to refer to them again. "All day long," one of the Stundists of Kapustinets writes, "we are kept at enforced communal duty, not allowed to return to our houses. At night, should we return, we are driven off again. Only the women and children are left at home. The chief elder of the district and the local commissary of police gather together a number of drunken peasants and go to our cottages, where they dishonour our women. They have broken all the windows of our houses. They gathered together a quantity of evil-smelling weeds, and set fire to them in the rooms, carefully closing the windows and doors, so that our unfortunate wives and children were nearly suffocated by the smoke. All night long they were kept in this atmosphere. All our books have been taken from us by the police." Another letter from the same district says: "Late at night, when everybody is asleep, a crowd of the villagers, led by the police, enter our houses, frightening the children, and so abusing our women that they hardly remain alive. Others will come and torture us by twisting our ears. Late at night on September 30, some of them came to my wife in my absence and tortured her, just as we read in the Bible of Susannah, only worse. They took the clothes off her, and threw her down, and with force dishonoured her. The elder also dishonoured her. Then they asked her to cross herself, and when she refused they forced her to do so. And remember, she was in the family way at the time. They twisted her arms, giving her horrible pain, they tore her flesh, and as I write, she is almost at death's door. All our windows and crockery were smashed. We ask you, with tears, if you cannot help us in some way." But have these people no redress? Well, as a matter of fact, we know that the authorities, including the governor of Kief, have known of these atrocities since last October, and that until the present time not a single attempt has been made to bring the perpetrators of them to justice! One of the most sinister aspects of this persecution is that it has so deteriorating an effect even on the Orthodox. They are encouraged by the clergy and police in a hateful system of espionage. Archbishop AMBROSE of Kharkov, one of the most thorough of the Inquisitors, has openly asked his people to report to their priests any suspicious cases of heresy they may notice in their midst, leaving a life and death matter of this kind to the judgment of the most ignorant peasants in Europe. This Archbishop is credited with being a poet, and some of the most sublime efforts of his muse have been in defence of his Church. If we quote two verses from an effusion on the Stundists, said to be his, and authorised to be circulated among the peasantry, our readers will be able to judge the spirit that animates the highly-placed members of the Russian hierarchy. The Archbishop exclaims Cruel and dark as a demon, He shuns all faithful Christians, And crawls into darkest corners — This enemy of God, the damned Stundist. The thoughtless and harmless, who near The den of this malignant beast, Are befouled with blasphemies and slanders, And cajoled by the damned Stundist. [ 4 ]