one that all that has been repeated from century to century
with such earnestness and solemnity by all those archdeacons,
bishops, archbishops, holy synods, and popes, is all of it a base
lie and a calumny foisted upon Christ by them for the sake of
keeping safe the money they must have to live luxuriously on the
necks of other men? And it is a lie and a calumny so transparent
that the only way of keeping it up consists in overawing people by
their earnestness, their conscientiousness. It is just what has
taken place of late years at recruiting sessions; at a table
before the zertzal--the symbol of the Tzars authority--in the seat
of honor under the life-size portrait of the Tzar, sit dignified
old officials, wearing decorations, conversing freely and easily,
writing notes, summoning men before them, and giving orders.
Here, wearing a cross on his breast, near them, is prosperous-
looking old Priest in a silken cassock, with long gray hair
flowing on to his cope; before a lectern who wears the golden
cross and has a Gospel bound in gold.

They summon Iran Petroff. A young man comes in, wretchedly,
shabbily dressed, and in terror, the muscles of his face working,
his eyes bright and restless; and in a broken voice, hardly above
a whisper, he says: "I--by Christ's law--as a Christian--I
cannot." "What is he muttering?" asks the president, frowning
impatiently and raising his eyes from his book to listen. "Speak
louder," the colonel with shining epaulets shouts to him. "I--I as
a Christian--" And at last it appears that the young man refuses
to serve in the army because he is a Christian. "Don't talk
nonsense. Stand to be measured. Doctor, may I trouble you to
measure him. He is all right?" "Yes." "Reverend father,
administer the oath to him."