tinued, then that must have been God's will. It was therefore that God sent them to me. And so I sat in prison for a year and

a half.'

It seems to have been almost entirely on their books that the conspirators depended for success in spreading their revolutionary doctrines. Let us take a glance at the literature by means of which they hoped to upset all things established. The existence of such publications is not a new feature in Russian life. From the time when the Russian army came back from France after the fall of Napoleon the First, a revolutionary literature has secretly existed in Russia. The severe rule of Nicholas, after he had crushed the military revolt brought about by the Decembrists' in 1825, apparently silenced Socialism within his realm. But towards the end of his reign a great influence was exercised on Russian thought by the revolutionary papers, the Polar Star and the Bell, which Herzen published in London, as well as by the attacks upon the government which circulated throughout Russia in manuscript. That influence was temporarily destroyed by the liberal reforms brought about by Alexander the Second after the Crimean war. But after a time, when the government had become alarmed by the Socialistic tendencies displayed by the leaders of the Sunday School movement, and by the proceedings of the students which led to the closing of the University of St. Petersburg in 1861, and by the incendiary fires of 1862, repressive measures were taken which led to the renewed influence of the secret press which had hitherto existed, but with a very feeble circulation. Karakozof's attempt upon the Emperor's life in April 1866 naturally alarmed the authorities still more, and strengthened the hands of the reactionary party, who profited also at a later date by the violence of Nechaef. That would-be demagogue set himself up as a revolutionary despot, whose orders were to be unreservedly obeyed, and killed one of his agents, whose want of deference 'paralysed the action of the committee.' Being tried at Zürich for this murder, and given up to the Russian authorities, he has disappeared in Siberia, and has left no following behind. Disappointed by the failure of his plans, and disgusted, it is said, by his arrogance, the Socialist youth of Russia have changed their tactics. The common people require to be educated up to insurrection, they say. And so they go among them in disguise, trying to gain their confidence, and attempting to shake their loyalty and their faithwhich ends they hope to achieve by distributing tracts.' With how little success the evidence given at the trial we have just been discussing has shown.

Now let us turn to the tracts' themselves. Here are a number of them-little books, for the most part, of thirty or forty pages each, in green or red wrappers, all professing to be published with the consent of the censorship, some of them sewed up in covers,

and displaying title-pages, which really belong to quite innoxious publications in popular request. The book most often mentioned in the recent trial is the Tale of Four Brothers. It will serve as a good specimen of its kind. There were once four brothers, it begins, who lived in a great forest, unconscious of the existence of other folk. But at last one day they chased a bear to the top of a mountain, from which they got their first view of the outer world, saw villages and homesteads, and men tilling the soil. So they determined to explore the new land which lay before them, and to make acquaintance with the ways of civilised men. The first man they met strongly recommended them to go back to their forest home, but they paid no attention to him. The next passer-by was a pilgrim, who sang, as he went, a doleful song, the burden of which was—

I roamed all over Russia; groans the moujik and moans;

From hunger he moans, from hunger;

From cold he groans, from cold.

Hearing this, the brothers took counsel together, and resolved to separate for a time and travel in different directions, and then to come together again and compare their accounts, so as to find out where men live most comfortably. One of them, Ivan, went northwards. Coming to a village he was surprised to find the peasants hard at work beneath a blazing sun, while a landed proprietor was looking lazily on. Venturing on an expostulation, all that he gained was a flogging, whereby 'he at length understood that laws mean this, that the rich man may bully the poor, and the poor man must put up with everything and always hold his peace, and grovel, moreover, at the other's feet.' A little later he was told by an old man, with whom he drank, all about the peasants: how they were serfs until they were freed by the Tsar, and how arbiters were appointed from among the gentry, who gave only bad land to the peasants, and called in soldiers to shoot them if they complained. Musing on all this, Ivan went farther. Many villages and towns did he visit; everywhere was life bitter to the peasant and the workman.' At last he witnessed a case of such oppression on the part of a village elder that the peasants mutinied. The police came and seized Ivan as a ringleader, and he was sent to Siberia. Meantime the second brother, Stepan, had gone south. There one day he found an official arbiter attempting to force some villagers to accept the worthless land he wished to allot to them as their share. As they refused to agree, the arbiter called in soldiers, who attacked the people. In the fight which ensued a young soldier killed his father. Horror-struck at the sight of the old man's blood, the soldier turned and slew the arbiter whose orders had brought about the parricidal deed. The other soldiers were then beaten off by the villagers, whom Stepan proceeded to harangue, saying that the soldiers ought to make common cause with the people, and all Russia ought to rise

in simultaneous rebellion, and not go trusting to the Tsar. 'It seems to me a shame that so many millions of men should be able to do nothing for themselves, but should go on trusting in someone else.' But the peasants merely replied: "We'll hand you over to the authorities for such speeches.' And at last they did so, and Stepan was sent to Siberia as a rebel. The third brother, Demian, had visited the cities of Eastern Russia, and there worked hard. But, however much he toiled, he never could do more than barely support existence. Money he could by no means acquire, for the employers of labour kept it all for themselves. One day he was present when some villagers refused to pay their taxes, saying they were too poor to do so. A priest was sent for who urged them to obey the authorities, whereupon Demian argued the point with him; and the result was that he also was sent to Siberia. Thither also, about the same time, was the fourth brother sent. He had been so delighted by the sight of a monastery, with its white walls, and green roofs, and gilded domes, rising amid trees on a cliff above a river, and so struck by the interior of its church in which pilgrims knelt, and monks sang, and tapers burnt, and incense smoked, that he asked leave to live in it as a servant, thinking it a kind of sacred Paradise. But, to his horror, he found that the monks were dissolute hypocrites, and the abbot an impostor who used mechanical means to draw tears from the eyes of a 'miraculous picture' and money from the pockets of the faithful. For attempting to reveal this and similar frauds, Luke was seized by the people, and sent, like his three brothers, to Siberia. On the road leading from dear mother Russia to stepmother Siberia,' the four brothers met again. Comparing their experiences, they came to the conclusion that nowhere was there to be found a place in which the poor live happily. But the time would come, they all agreed, when the people would rise in revolt, and their oppressors would be overthrown, and the poor man would be able to live at his ease. Thereupon they all four made good their escape.

And from that time forth (thus ends the story) they have been traversing Russia, ever rousing the peasants, inviting them to the bloody feast. They wander north, south, east, and west. Nobody knows them, no eye sees them, but all can hear their loud-sounding voice. And at the sound of that voice the peasant takes courage, lifts up his downcast head, feels his blood spring like a fountain within him, and is ready to stand up for his liberty, for his land, and for his freedom from taxes. And when they have enlightened all the peasantry, mother Russia will resound with a mighty music, and will roll like the blue sea, and with mighty billows will she drown all her evil foes.

This story may be taken as the best specimen of the literature by means of which the Russian Socialists hope to prepare the nation for insurrection. Some of the other books may also be mentioned, but more briefly. That on which, next to the Four Brothers, the conspirators seem to have laid most stress, is the Khitraya Mekhanika, or Cunning System,' intended to instruct the common people in the VOL. I.-No. 3. EE

principles of political economy, to let them know whence the incomes of the peasantry are derived, and how they are spent. The Moujik works incessantly, it states, endures the heat of summer and the frosts of winter, and gathers together a few roubles, most of which are swept away by the tax-gatherer, for from the hard-earned gains of the poor are formed the riches of the State. Out of those riches go nine millions of roubles to the Tsar, and 170 millions to the army and navy, and all that is allotted to the share of the working classes, who really supply the money, is the sum of 760,000 roubles for national schools. The book is written in the form of a dialogue, the principal speaker being a workman in a factory named Stepan, a man of great knowledge and wisdom, who concludes by saying that when the people are roused into action the Tsar, and the nobles, and the officials, and the merchants will join in opposing their just demands, and will spend every rouble they have in the fight. And perhaps they will succeed once or twice, but eventually they must give in, for nothing can long oppose the force of a united people. No mercy must they then expect.

And when we get the upper hand (are his last words), then will we rid mother Russia of all her oppressors. Then shall we be at liberty to set up our peasantbrotherhood, in which there shall be neither mine nor thine, neither gains nor oppressions, but there will be labour for the common weal, and among all men brotherly aid. No 'cunning system' shall we set up. That is not the sort of thing for us peasants. And of what use could it be to us? But Wrong must be utterly rooted out, and Right must be set on foundations that will last for ever.

The Story of a Copeck, like the Four Brothers, is written in the semi-poetic style of the skazki or Russian popular tales. According to it, Russia was a pleasant country to live in when there were only peasants in it. But as there was consequently no sin there, the devil neither slept nor broke his fast for seven years, at the end of which time he invented priests. Two similar periods of abstinence subsequently qualified him for the invention of landed proprietors and traders. All of them were well received by the peasants, whom they soon got into their hands. One day a peasant asked mother Earth where he could find a copeck. The answer was 'Dig.' So he dug and dug, and at last he found the coin. This he gave to a priest in exchange for a crumb of bread, and the priest gave it to the sacristan, telling him to get therewith a pig. And the sacristan took it to a tradesman, and demanded in return for it a pig and a honeycomb. And the tradesman took it to the peasant, and told him to produce a pig, and a honeycomb, and a wolfskin. The peasant handed over the pig, and went into the forest, where he found wild honey and. slew a bear. The bearskin he took with the honey to the tradesman, who gave him the copeck, but insisted on his leaving part of his apparel behind, as he had brought the wrong kind of fur. The copeck he straightway carried to his landlord's house, as money due

to him. After this he met with a series of accidents, resulting in the return of the copeck into his hands. Thereupon he determined never to part with it again. And he kept his resolution, although first the police, and then soldiers, were sent to take it from him. And one night, as he slept, the copeck came to him and led him to a sage, who ordered a bird to carry him away to a far-off land. There he saw the harvest being gathered by joyous bands of peasants, working together like so many brothers. There he was told there were no authorities, no traders, no landlords, no priests. Therefore fraud, and oppression, and sorrow were unknown, and all men lived in peace and unity. And when he awoke he went forth into the world to act as the apostle of such ideas as were realised in that happy dreamland. And as he traversed hamlets and villages he never ceased crying:

Awake, awake, O ye orthodox. Let us go forth into all quarters of the great Russian land, and tell the people that the hour has come for us to rise up against our foes. Let everyone to whom my voice comes swear in his heart to preach all that is true to his brethren, even as the apostles preached. Let each one swear he will endure torture and death for his brethren, as the apostles did. Then shall mother Russia rise up like one man, and no hostile power will be able to stand against us. And then will be fulfilled on earth the kingdom of God-the kingdom of truth and love, wherein there shall be neither sorrow nor sickness, neither troubles nor tears.

6

The Khrabry Voin, or Valiant Warrior,' is a kind of declamation, a fervent appeal to the people to look after their own affairs, and to deprive their rulers of all power to hurt.

Then will there be holiday-making at our doors also, and for us too will rise the dear red sun, and we shall all of us be rich and happy. Only yield not to sloth. Take care that the land falls not again into evil hands, but that we may all together, like brothers, make use of all fields and woods and pastures. Then shall we, dear friends, live kindly, peaceful, joyous lives. And there will be among us no murderers or oppressors. For each man will possess what is his own. There will then be no cause either to steal or kill. Soon, my brothers, will that good time come. On all sides arises the peasant strength. Mother Russia heaves with a roar like that of a great sea. And when she has arisen, there will be no opposing, no restraining her.

Under the title of Good Friday Sermon of the Holy Tikhon Zadonsky, Bishop of Voroneje, purporting to have been printed in the typography of the Ecclesiastical Academy' at Kief in 1875, is masked a virulent attack upon the clergy. After Christianity became a State religion, it begins, the power of the priests waxed great. In Western Europe a revolt against it took place, and the Papal power was restrained, some few centuries ago. Somewhat later came the revolt of the Schismatics' against the Russian clergy. They were not altogether victorious, but they succeeded so far as to shake the faith of the Russian people in the priests. The present faith is to the past what a half-rotten beam is to a vigorous, deep-rooted oak.'