Alexander, who in the first half of his reign ruled liberally
for the days of Napoleonic supremacy, no doubt was sincere in
his desire to govern in the "spirit of brotherhood," but in the
latter years of his power, he fell sadly short of this
standard.

Alexander the Second, the emancipator of forty-six million
serfs, may have had some world peace ideal in mind when he in
1874 promoted a conference in Brussels to codify the usages of
war, but the reaction from his earlier liberalism was setting
in about this time and, growing worse, led to his assassination
in 1881.

The next move in the direction of peace came, as the world
rather well knows, through the present Czar, Nicolas the
Second, who on ascending the throne in 1894, proclaimed that
Russia would rule in the interests of peace and would cultivate
the arts of it. In 1898 followed the first call for a World
Peace Conference, and in 1899 came another circular with a
similar object.

But it is out of the kind heart of Muscovy, and from the
troubled, humble and penitent soul of Russia that the real
peace movement of her land has arisen. For many centuries
calamities have been pouring upon her plains, profusely
pouring--drought, famine and invasions without number; now
Rurik and his Northmen to start the empire out of its
prehistoric lethargy; their dynasty of conquering blood still
sharing in the rulership of the land to-day; now the Tartars,
remnants of whom with their high cheek bones are still visible