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142
On the Volga.
no less than forty-one different languages, to meet the needs
of the many lialf-wild races in the distant parts of this vast
empire. Two years later, the Russian branch was suppressed
by Nicholas I., on the ground that it was " a revolutionary
society, which aimed at subverting thrones, churches, law,
order, and religion, throughout the whole world, with the
object of establishing a universal republic." All its property
was confiscated and the new translations put under lock and
key. The distribution of the New Testament was allowed only
under most hampering regulations. The Society sprang up
again under Alexander II. under the modest title, "Society for
the Promotion of Moral and Religious Reading," which, in its
turn, was suppressed in 1884 by Alexander III. The British
and Foreign Bible Society has, however, received permission to
distribute the New Testament, under the control of the Holy
Synod, but not the Old, unless bound up with the Apocryphal
Books.
It is scarcely possible to exaggerate the influence exerted on
the Russian peasants by the Bible. The widespread and
increasing religious movement of to-day undoubtedly owes its
origin and spread very largely to it. It is for the most part the
only book to be found in a Russian mushik’’s home, where, with the
exception, perhaps, of a collection of silly legends, is no
literature nor an}r newspaper. The testimonies, whether written or
oral, given by the peasants as to their conversion to evangelical
religion almost always go back to Bible-reading as the means.
Among the steerage passengers on our journey was a peasant
in poor but tidy dress, with a pensive and intelligent look.
Getting into conversation with him we found him to be an
earnest, evangelical Christian ; at our request he gave us a
sketch of his life, which I put here into connected form.
" I am, as you see, a simple peasant. My parents were very
poor, owning but three hectares of land. A large family and
crushing taxes reduced my father to destitution, so that he had
to work for a kulack in our village as a batrak (i.e., as a slave,
for debts incurred). Every day my mother was working away
from home to keep us from starving, until she also became a
batrak to one of our creditors. We children were seven in
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