The diplomatic questions between the United States and Russia were many and troublesome; for, in addition to that regarding the Behring Sea fisheries, there were required additional interpretations of the Buchanan treaty as to the rights of Americans to hold real estate and to do business in Russia; arrangements for the partic.i.p.ation of Russians in the Chicago Exposition; the protection of various American citizens of Russian birth, and especially of Israelites who had returned to Russia; care for the great American life-insurance interests in the empire; the adjustment of questions arising out of Russian religious relations with Alaska and the islands of the Northern Pacific; and last, but not least, the completion of the extradition treaty between the two nations by the incorporation of safeguards which would prevent its use against purely political offenders.

Especial attention to Israelite cases was also required. Some of these excited my deep sympathy; and, having made a very careful study of the subject, I wrote to Secretary Gresham a despatch upon it in obedience to his special request. It was the longest despatch I have ever written; and, in my apology to the secretary for its length I stated that it was prepared with no expectation that he would find time to read it, but with the idea that it might be of use at the State Department for reference. In due time I received a very kind answer stating that he had read every word of it, and thanked me most heartily for--it. The whole subject is exceedingly difficult; but it is clear that Russia has made, and is making, a fearful mistake in her way of dealing with it. There are more Israelites in Russia than in all the remainder of the world; and they are crowded together, under most exasperating regulations, in a narrow district just inside her western frontier, mainly extending through what was formerly Poland, with the result that fanaticism--Christian on one side and Jewish on the other--has developed enormously. The Talmudic rabbis are there at their worst; and the consequences are evil, not only for Russia, but for our own country. The immigration which comes to us from these regions is among the very worst that we receive from any part of the world. It is, in fact, an immigration of the unfittest; and, although n.o.ble efforts have been made by patriotic Israelites in the United States to meet the difficulty, the results have been far from satisfactory.

There were, of course, the usual adventurous Americans in political difficulties, enterprising Americans in business difficulties, and pretended Americans attempting to secure immunity under the Stars and Stripes. The same ingenious efforts to prost.i.tute American citizenship which I had seen during my former stay in Germany were just as constant in Russia. It was the same old story. Emigrants from the Russian Empire, most of them extremely undesirable, had gone to the United States; stayed just long enough to secure naturalization,--had, indeed, in some cases secured it fraudulently before they had stayed the full time; and then, having returned to Russia, were trying to exercise the rights and evade the duties of both countries.

Many of these cases were exceedingly vexatious; and so, indeed, were some which were better founded. The great difficulty of a representative of the United States in Russia is, first, that the law of the empire is so complicated that,--to use the words of King James regarding Bacon's "Novum Organum,"--"Like the Peace of G.o.d, it pa.s.seth all understanding." It is made up of codes in part obsolete or obsolescent; ukases and counter-ukases; imperial directions and counter-directions; ministerial orders and counter-orders; police regulations and counter-regulations; with no end of suspensions, modifications, and exceptions.

The second difficulty is the fact that the Buchanan treaty of 1832, which guaranteed, apparently, everything desirable to American citizens sojourning in the empire, has been gradually construed away until its tattered remnants are practically worthless. As the world has discovered, Russia's strong point is not adherence to her treaty promises.

In this respect there is a great difference between Russia and Germany. With the latter we have made careful treaties, the laws are well known, and the American representative feels solid ground beneath his feet; but in Russia there is practically nothing of the kind, and the representative must rely on the main principles of international law, common sense, and his own powers of persuasion.

A peculiar duty during my last stay in St. Petersburg was to watch the approach of cholera, especially on the Persian frontier. Admirable precautions had been taken for securing telegraphic information; and every day I received notices from the Foreign Office as a result, which I communicated to Washington. For ages Russia had relied on fetishes of various kinds to preserve her from great epidemics; but at last her leading officials had come to realize the necessity of applying modern science to the problem, and they did this well. In the city "sanitary columns" were established, made up of small squads of officials representing the medical and engineering professions and the police; these visited every nook and corner of the town, and, having extraordinary powers for the emergency, compelled even the most dirty people to keep their premises clean.

Excellent hospitals and laboratories were established, and of these I learned much from a former Cornell student who held an important position in one of them. Coming to town three or four times a week from my summer cottage in Finland, I was struck by the precautions on the Finnish and other railways: notices of what was to be done to prevent cholera and to meet it were posted, in six different languages; disinfectants were made easily accessible; the seats and hangings in the railway-cars were covered with leather cloth frequently washed with disinfectants; and to the main trains a hospital-car was attached, while a temporary hospital, well equipped, was established at each main station. In spite of this, the number of cholera patients at St. Petersburg in the middle of July rose to a very high figure, and the number of deaths each day from cholera was about one hundred.

Of these victims the most eminent was Tschaikovsky, the composer, a man of genius and a most charming character, to whom Mr. Andrew Carnegie had introduced me at New York. One evening at a dinner-party he poured out a goblet of water from a decanter on the table, drank it down, and next day was dead from Asiatic cholera. But, with this exception, the patients were, so far as I learned, almost entirely from the peasant cla.s.s. Although boiled water was supplied for drinking purposes, and some public-spirited individuals went so far as to set out samovars and the means of supplying hot tea to peasant workmen, the answer of one of the muzhiks, when told that he ought to drink boiled water, indicated the peasant view: "If G.o.d had wished us to drink hot water, he would have heated the Neva."

CHAPTER x.x.xVI

MY RECOLLECTIONS OF POBEDONOSTZEFF--1892-1894

On arriving at St. Petersburg in 1892 to take charge of the American legation, there was one Russian whom I more desired to meet than any other--Constantine Pobedonostzeff. For some years various English and American reviews had been charging him with bigotry, cruelty, hypocrisy, and, indeed, with nearly every hateful form of political crime; but the fact remained that under Alexander III he was the most influential personage in the empire, and that, though bearing the t.i.tle of "procurator-general of the Most Holy Synod," he was evidently no less powerful in civil than in ecclesiastical affairs.

As to his history, it was understood to be as follows: When the Grand Duke Nicholas, the eldest son of Alexander II,--a young man of gentle characteristics, greatly resembling his father,--died upon the Riviera, the next heir to the throne was his brother Alexander, a stalwart, taciturn guardsman, respected by all who knew him for honesty and directness, but who, having never looked forward to the throne, had been brought up simply as a soldier, with few of the gifts and graces traditional among the heirs of the Russian monarchy since the days of Catherine.

Therefore it was that it became necessary to extemporize for this soldier a training which should fit him for the duties of the position so unexpectedly opened to him; and the man chosen as his tutor was a professor at Moscow, distinguished as a jurist and theologian,--a man of remarkable force of character, and devoted to Russian ideas as distinguished from those of Western Europe: Constantine Pobedonostzeff.

During the dark and stormy days toward the end of his career, Alexander II had called in as his main adviser General Loris-Melikoff, a man of Armenian descent, in whom was mingled with the shrewd characteristics of his race a sincere desire to give to Russia a policy and development in accordance with modern ideas.

The result the world knows well. The Emperor, having taken the advice of this and other councilors,--deeply patriotic men like Miloutine, Samarine, and Tcherka.s.sky,--had freed the serfs within his empire (twenty millions in all); had sanctioned a vast scheme by which they were to arrive at the possession of landed property; had established local self-government in the various provinces of his empire; had improved the courts of law; had introduced Western ideas into legal procedure; had greatly mitigated the severities formerly exercised toward the Jews; and had made all ready to promulgate a const.i.tution on his approaching birthday.

But this did not satisfy the nihilistic sect. What more they wanted it is hard to say. It is more than doubtful whether Russia even then had arrived at a stage of civilization when the inst.i.tutions which Alexander II had already conceded could be adopted with profit; but the leaders of the anarchic movement, with their vague longings for fruit on the day the tree was planted, decreed the Emperor's death--the a.s.sa.s.sination of the greatest benefactor that Russia has ever known, one of the greatest that humanity has known. It was, perhaps, the most fearful crime ever committed against liberty and freedom; for it blasted the hopes and aspirations of over a hundred millions of people, and doubtless for many generations.

On this the st.u.r.dy young guardsman became the Emperor Alexander III. It is related by men conversant with Russian affairs that, at the first meeting of the imperial councilors, Loris-Melikoff, believing that the young sovereign would be led by filial reverence to continue the liberal policy to which the father had devoted his life, made a speech taking this for granted, and that the majority of those present, including the Emperor, seemed in accord with him; when suddenly there arose a tall, gaunt, scholarly man, who at first very simply, but finally very eloquently, presented a different view. According to the chroniclers of the period, Pobedonostzeff told the Emperor that all so-called liberal measures, including the const.i.tution, were a delusion; that, though such things might be suited to Western Europe, they were not suited to Russia; that the const.i.tution of that empire had been, from time immemorial, the will of the autocrat, directed by his own sense of responsibility to the Almighty; that no other const.i.tution was possible in Russia; that this alone was fitted to the traditions, the laws, the ideas of the hundred and twenty millions of various races under the Russian scepter; that in other parts of the world const.i.tutional liberty, so called, had already shown itself an absurdity; that socialism, anarchism, and nihilism, with their plots and bombs, were appearing in all quarters; that murder was plotted against rulers of nations everywhere, the best of presidents having been a.s.sa.s.sinated in the very country where free inst.i.tutions were supposed to have taken the most complete hold; that the principle of authority in human government was to be saved; and that this principle existed as an effective force only in Russia.

This speech is said to have carried all before it. As its immediate result came the retirement of Loris-Melikoff, followed by his death not long afterward; the entrance of Pobedonostzeff among the most cherished councilors of the Emperor; the suppression of the const.i.tution; the discouragement of every liberal tendency; and that fanatical reaction which has been in full force ever since.

This was the man whom I especially desired to see and to understand; and therefore it was that I was very glad to receive from the State Department instructions to consult with him regarding some rather delicate matters needing adjustment between the Greek Church and our authorities in Alaska, and also in relation to the representation of Russia at the Chicago Exposition.

I found him, as one of the great ministers of the crown, residing in a ministerial palace, but still retaining, in large measure, his old quality of professor. About him was a beautiful library, with every evidence of a love for art and literature. I had gone into his presence with many feelings of doubt. Against no one in Russia had charges so bitter been made in my hearing: it was universally insisted that he was responsible for the persecution of the Roman Catholics in Poland, of the Lutherans in the Baltic provinces and in Finland, of the Stundists in Central Russia, and of the dissenting sects everywhere. He had been spoken of in the English reviews as the "Torquemada of the nineteenth century,"

and this epithet seemed to be generally accepted as fitting.

I found him a scholarly, kindly man, ready to discuss the business which I brought before him, and showing a wide interest in public affairs. There were few, if any, doctrines, either political or theological, which we held in common, but he seemed inclined to meet the wishes of our government as fully and fairly as he could; and thus was begun one of the most interesting acquaintances I have ever made.

His usual time of receiving his friends was on Sunday evening between nine and twelve; and very many such evenings I pa.s.sed in his study, discussing with him, over gla.s.ses of fragrant Russian tea, every sort of question with the utmost freedom.

I soon found that his reasons for that course of action to which the world so generally objects are not so superficial as they are usually thought. The repressive policy which he has so earnestly adopted is based not merely upon his views as a theologian, but upon his convictions as a statesman. While, as a Russo-Greek churchman, he regards the established church of the empire as the form of Christianity most primitive and pure; and while he sees in its ritual, in its art, and in all the characteristics of its worship the nearest approach to his ideals, he looks at it also from the point of view of a statesman--as the greatest cementing power of the vast empire through which it is spread.

This being the case, he naturally opposes all other religious bodies in Russia as not merely inflicting injury upon Christianity, but as tending to the political disintegration of the empire. Never, in any of our conversations, did I hear him speak a harsh word of any other church or of any religious ideas opposed to his own; but it was clear that he regarded Protestants and dissident sects generally as but agents in the progress of disintegration which, in Western Europe, seemed approaching a crisis, and that he considered the Roman Catholic Church in Poland as practically a political machine managed by a hierarchy in deadly hostility to the Russian Empire and to Russian influence everywhere.

In discussing his own church, he never hesitated to speak plainly of its evident shortcomings. Unquestionably, one of the wishes nearest his heart is to reform the abuses which have grown up among its clergy, especially in their personal habits. Here, too, is a reason for any repressive policy which he may have exercised against other religious bodies. Everything that detracts from the established Russo-Greek Church detracts from the revenues of its clergy, and, as these are pitifully small, aids to keep the priests and their families in the low condition from which he is so earnestly endeavoring to raise them. As regards the severe policy inaugurated by Alexander III against the Jews of the empire, which Pobedonostzeff, more than any other man, is supposed to have inspired, he seemed to have no harsh feelings against Israelites as such; but his conduct seemed based upon a theory which, in various conversations, he presented with much force: namely, that Russia, having within its borders more Jews than exist in all the world besides, and having suffered greatly from these as from an organization really incapable of a.s.similation with the body politic, must pursue a repressive policy toward them and isolate them in order to protect its rural population.

While he was very civil in his expressions regarding the United States, he clearly considered all Western civilization a failure.

He seemed to antic.i.p.ate, before long, a collapse in the systems and inst.i.tutions of Western Europe. To him socialism and anarchism, with all they imply, were but symptoms of a wide-spread political and social disease--indications of an approaching catastrophe destined to end a civilization which, having rejected orthodoxy, had cast aside authority, given the force of law to the whimsies of illiterate majorities, and accepted, as the voice of G.o.d, the voice of unthinking mobs, blind to their own interests and utterly incapable of working out their own good. It was evident that he regarded Russia as representing among the nations the idea of Heaven-given and church-anointed authority, as the empire destined to save the principle of divine right and the rule of the fittest.

Revolutionary efforts in Russia he discussed calmly. Referring to Loris-Melikoff, the representative of the principles most strongly opposed to his own, no word of censure escaped him. The only evidence of deep feeling on this subject he ever showed in my presence was when he referred to the writings of a well-known Russian refugee in London, and said, "He is a murderer."

As to public instruction, he evidently held to the idea so thoroughly carried out in Russia: namely, that the upper cla.s.s, which is to conduct the business of the state, should be highly educated, but that the ma.s.s of the people need no education beyond what will keep them contented in the humble station to which it has pleased G.o.d to call them. A very curious example of his conservatism I noted in his remarks regarding the droshkies of St. Petersburg. The droshky-drivers are Russian peasants, simple and, as a rule, pious; rarely failing to make the sign of the cross on pa.s.sing a church or shrine, or at any other moment which seems to them solemn. They are possibly picturesque, but certainly dirty, in their clothing and in all their surroundings.

A conveyance more wretched than the ordinary street-droshky of a Russian city could hardly be conceived, and measures had been proposed for improving this system; but he could see no use in them. The existing system was thoroughly Russian, and that was enough. It appealed to his conservatism. The droshky-drivers, with their Russian caps, their long hair and beards, their picturesque caftans, and their deferential demeanor, satisfied his esthetic sense.

What seemed to me a clash between his orthodox conservatism on one side, and his Russian pride on the other, I discovered on my return from a visit to Moscow, in which I had sundry walks and talks with Tolstoi. On my alluding to this, he showed some interest. It was clear that he was separated by a whole orb of thought from the great novelist, yet it was none the less evident that he took pride in him. He naturally considered Tolstoi as hopelessly wrong in all his fundamental ideas, and yet was himself too much of a man of letters not to recognize in his brilliant countryman one of the glories of Russia.

But the most curious--indeed, the most amazing--revelation of the man I found in his love for American literature. He is a wide reader; and, in the whole breadth of his reading, American authors were evidently among those he preferred. Of these his favorites were Hawthorne, Lowell, and, above all, Emerson.

Curious, indeed, was it to learn that this "arch-persecutor,"

this "Torquemada of the nineteenth century," this man whose hand is especially heavy upon Catholics and Protestants and dissenters throughout the empire, whose name is spoken with abhorrence by millions within the empire and without it, still reads, as his favorite author, the philosopher of Concord. He told me that the first book which he ever translated into Russian was Thomas a Kempis's "Imitation of Christ"; and of that he gave me the Latin original from which he made his translation, with a copy of the translation itself. But he also told me that the next book he translated was a volume of Emerson's "Essays," and he added that for years there had always lain open upon his study table a volume of Emerson's writings.

There is, thus clearly, a relation of his mind to the literature of the Western world very foreign to his feelings regarding Western religious ideas. This can be accounted for perhaps by his own character as a man of letters. That he has a distinct literary gift is certain. I have in my possession sundry articles of his, and especially a poem in ma.n.u.script, which show real poetic feeling and a marked power of expression. It is a curious fact that, though so addicted to English and American literature, he utterly refuses to converse in our language. His medium of communication with foreigners is always French. On my asking him why he would not use our language in conversation, he answered that he had learned it from books, and that his p.r.o.nunciation of it would expose him to ridicule.

In various circles in St. Petersburg I heard him spoken of as a hypocrite, but a simple sense of justice compels me to declare this accusation unjust. He indeed retires into a convent for a portion of every year to join the monks in their austerities; but this practice is, I believe, the outgrowth of a deep religious feeling. On returning from one of these visits, he brought to my wife a large Easter egg of lacquered work, exquisitely illuminated. I have examined, in various parts of Europe, beautiful specimens of the best periods of mediaeval art; but in no one of them have I found anything in the way of illumination more perfect than this which he brought from his monkish brethren. In nothing did he seem to unbend more than in his unfeigned love for religious art as it exists in Russia. He discussed with me one evening sundry photographs of the new religious paintings in the cathedral of Kieff in a spirit which revealed this feeling for religious art as one of the deepest characteristics of his nature.

He was evidently equally sensitive to the beauties of religious literature. Giving me various books containing the services of the Orthodox Church, he dwelt upon the beauty of the Slavonic version of the Psalms and upon the church hymnology.

The same esthetic side of his nature was evident at various great church ceremonies. It has happened to me to see Pius IX celebrate ma.s.s, both at the high altar of St. Peter's and in the Sistine Chapel, and to witness the ceremonies of Holy Week and of Easter at the Roman basilicas, and at the time it was hard to conceive anything of the kind more impressive; but I have never seen any church functions, on the whole, more imposing than the funeral service of the Emperor Nicholas during my first visit to Russia, and various imperial weddings, funerals, name-days, and the like, during my second visit. On such occasions Pobedonostzeff frequently came over from his position among the ministers of the crown to explain to us the significance of this or that feature in the ritual of music. It was plain that these things touched what was deepest in him; it must be confessed that his attachment to the church is sincere.

Nor were these impressions made upon me alone. It fell to my lot to present to him one of the most eminent journalists our country has produced--Charles A. Dana, a man who could discuss on even terms with any European statesman all the leading modern questions. Dana had been brought into close contact with many great men; but it was plain to see--what he afterward acknowledged to me--that he was very deeply impressed by this eminent Russian. The talk of two such men threw new light upon the characteristics of Pobedonostzeff, and strengthened my impression of his intellectual sincerity.

In regard to the relation of the Russo-Greek Church to other churches I spoke to him at various times, and found in him no personal feeling of dislike to them. The nearest approach to such a feeling appeared, greatly to my surprise, in sundry references to the Greek Church as it exists in Greece. In these he showed a spirit much like that which used to be common among High-church Episcopalians in speaking of Low-church "Evangelicals." Mindful of the earnest efforts made by the Anglican communion to come into closer relations with the Russian branch of the Eastern Church, I at various times broached that subject, and the glimpses I obtained of his feeling regarding it surprised me.

Previously to these interviews I had supposed that the main difficulty in the way to friendly relations between these two branches of the church universal had its origin in the "filioque"

clause of the Nicene Creed. As is well known, the Eastern Church adheres to that creed in its original form,--the form in which the Holy Ghost is represented as "proceeding from the Father,"--whereas the Western Church adopts the additional words, "and from the Son." That the Russo-Greek Church is very tenacious of its position in this respect, and considers the position of the Western Church--Catholic and Protestant--as savoring of blasphemy, is well known; and there was a curious evidence of this during my second stay in Russia. Twice during that time I heard the "Missa Solennis" of Beethoven. It was first given by a splendid choir in the great hall of the University of Helsingfors. That being in Finland, which is mainly Lutheran, the Creed was sung in its Western form. Naturally, on going to hear it given by a great choir at St. Petersburg, I was curious to know how this famous clause would be dealt with. In various parts of the audience were priests of the Russo-Greek faith, yet there were very many Lutherans and Calvinists, and I watched with some interest the approach of the pa.s.sage containing the disputed words; but when we reached this it was wholly omitted. Any allusion to the "procession" was evidently forbidden. Great, therefore, was my surprise when, on my asking Pobedonostzeff,[5]

as the representative of the Emperor in the Synod of the empire,--the highest a.s.semblage in the church, and he the most influential man in it, really controlling archbishops and bishops throughout the empire,--whether the "filioque" clause is an insurmountable obstacle to union, he replied, "Not at all; that is simply a question of dialectics. But with whom are we to unite? Shall it be with the High-churchmen, the Broad-churchmen, or the Low-churchmen? These are three different bodies of men with distinctly different ideas of church order; indeed, with distinctly different creeds. Which of these is the Orthodox Church to regard as the representative of the Anglican communion?" I endeavored to show him that the union, if it took place at all, must be based on ideas and beliefs that underlie all these distinctions; but he still returned to his original proposition, which was that union is impossible until a more distinct basis than any now attainable can be arrived at.

[5] I find, in a letter from Pobedonostzeff, that he spells his name as here printed.

I suggested to him a visit to Great Britain and his making the acquaintance of leading Englishmen; but to this he answered that at his time of life he had no leisure for such a recreation; that his duties absolutely forbade it.

In regard to relations with the Russo-Greek Church on our own continent, he seemed to speak with great pleasure of the treatment that sundry Russian bishops had received among us. He read me letters from a member of the Russo-Greek hierarchy, full of the kindliest expressions toward Americans, and especially acknowledging their friendly reception of him and of his ministrations. Both the archbishop in his letter, and Pobedonostzeff in his talk, were very much amused over the fact that the Americans, after extending various other courtesies to the archbishop, offered him cigars.

He discussed the possibility of introducing the "Holy Orthodox Church" into the United States, but always disclaimed all zeal in religious propagandism, saying that the church authorities had quite enough work to do in extending and fortifying the church throughout the Russian Empire. He said that the pagan tribes of the imperial dominions in Asia seemed more inclined to Mohammedanism than to Christianity, and gave as the probable reason the fact that the former faith is much the simpler of the two. He was evidently unable to grasp the idea of the Congress of Religions at the Chicago Exposition, and seemed inclined to take a mildly humorous view of it as one of the droll inventions of the time.

He appeared to hold our nation as a problem apart, and was, perhaps, too civil in his conversations with me to include it in the same condemnation with the nations of Western Europe which had, in his opinion, gone hopelessly wrong. He also seemed drawn to us by his admiration for Emerson, Hawthorne, and Lowell. When Professor Norton's edition of Lowell's "Letters" came out, I at once took it to him. It evidently gave him great pleasure--perhaps because it revealed to him a very different civilization, life, and personality from anything to which he had been accustomed. Still, America seemed to be to him a sort of dreamland. He constantly returned to Russian affairs as to the great realities of the world. Discussing, as we often did, the condition and future of the wild tribes and nations within the Asiatic limits of the empire, he betrayed no desire either for crusades or for intrigues to convert them; he simply spoke of the legitimate influence of the church in civilizing them.

I recall a brilliant but denunciatory article, published in one of the English reviews some time since by a well-known nihilist, which contained, in the midst of various charges against the Russian statesman, a description of his smile, which was characterized as forbidding, and even ghastly. I watched for this smile with much interest, but it never came. A smile upon his face I have often seen; but it was a kindly smile, with no trace of anything ghastly or cruel in it.

He seemed to take pleasure in the society of his old professorial friends, and one of them he once brought to my table. This was a professor of history, deeply conversant with the affairs of the empire; and we discussed the character and career of Catherine II. The two men together brought out a ma.s.s of curious information, throwing a strange light into transactions which only the most recent historians are beginning to understand, among these the a.s.sa.s.sination of Czar Peter III, Catherine's husband. On one occasion when Pobedonostzeff was visiting me I tested his knowledge in regard to a matter of special interest, and obtained a new side-light upon his theory of the universe.

There is at present on the island of Cronstadt, at the mouth of the Neva, a Russo-Greek priest, Father Ivan, who enjoys throughout the empire a vast reputation as a saintly worker of miracles. This priest has a very spiritual and kindly face; is known to receive vast sums for the poor, which he distributes among them while he himself remains in poverty; and is supposed not merely by members of the Russo-Greek Church, but by those of other religious bodies, to work frequent miracles of healing. I was a.s.sured by persons of the highest character--and those not only Russo-Greek churchmen, but Roman Catholics and Anglicans--that there could be no doubt as to the reality of these miracles, and various examples were given me. So great is Father Ivan's reputation in this respect that he is in constant demand in all parts of the empire, and was even summoned to Livadia during the last illness of the late Emperor. Whenever he appears in public great crowds surround him, seeking to touch the hem of his garment. His picture is to be seen with the portraits of the saints in vast numbers of Russian homes, from the palaces of the highest n.o.bles to the cottages of the humblest peasants.