The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1874-05-05 00:00:00

LORD RADSTOCK IN RUSSIA.

A fashionable Russian journal, the Graskdanine,
publishes a long article on the subject of the religious
teaching of Lord ktaststoce in Si. Petersburg. The
followimg are a few extracts :—" Not many days ego we
had an opportunity of seeing the petition of the whole
country parish informing the Government that if they
were not allowed to retain separate administration they
would join the Dissenters settled in their neighbourhood.
It is well known that in Southern Russia, too, whole
villages have been lately embracing Protestantism, and
that a seminary is forming at Berlin for the purpose of
teaching Geralan Protestant clergymen the Russian
!enemas° and educating them to act as missionaries
among us. Worse than this, there is Countess M., a
Russian orthodox lady, and the mother of four children,
who the other day told Lord Radstock that she had only
learnt to love Christ from his exposition pf the Anglican
doctrine, that the Greek Church was so cold and still, and
that she only now knew what it was to he really a Chris.
them princess; o...another Russian orthod,loosinladly
nyo,wankinthowe
mother of two children, after attending Lord Haddock's
what the thclase %Ihiriobile:fn(hlseraledt resit° elxyclaiis.lnit is Protestantism f
• Yes; added another orthodox lady—prince. B._
•Protestantism is the only religion I ever understood. It
Is based upon love, not upon rite and ceremony, as is ours.'
'My dear Lord, 0, pray teach me how to love Christ'
Balls are forgotten and fine dresses discarded, the fair
owners having taken to loving Christ and receiving
religious instruction from a modern English apostle.
Even the male portion of our fashionable society is begin-
ning to be affected with • predilection for Protestantism.
Lord Railitock is a man of 111, who in a lit of religious
enthusiasm bestowed his whole fortune upon the poor,
devoting himself to the spread of Christianity among the
upper classes. Ile has liveslinuch on the Continent, and
mole converts chiefly among Russians staying abroad.
Eno/waged by his suCC.6 among our travelling
countrymen, he has now come to this capital, and is
desirous of converting its inhabitants to Christianitr.
Since he has been at St. Petersburg, he has dea,
received ten or twelve invitations to hold forth in
aristocratic saloons on the doctrines of Christ lie has
also been preaching in the American church, delighting a
numerous female audience by sermons on Protestant truth,
delivered in the French and English languages. Wherever
he shows himself, at public or private meetings, our ladies
entreat him to teach them how to love Jesus. T., 1,0 an
eyewitness of one of these assemblies opens the mind to a
good deal. At an early hour the room is filled to over.
flowing with princeoses and countesses. They are all clad
In black or grey, are accompanied by their little children,
and hunger and thirst after the spiritual food they have
conie to receive. Lord Itadstock first kneels down with his
' hack to the amend dy, entreating Christ to inspire him with
fitting words. Then, rising and turning round, he says
' Let us pray.' an injunction which is immediately obeyed
by all present. After this he opens the Bible. reading the
first text upon which his eye happens to fall, and cons-
:Denting upon it in eloquent and mpremive language. The
ladies are gradually excited to the highest pitch of religious
enthusiasm. As they sit weeping before him they resemble
so many heathen women admitted to the first knowledge
of Christ by the powerful teaching of St. Paul. The
close of the slismurse is marked by loud mlibings. The
fair devotees rise from their seats, and crowding round the
evangelist Lord, thank him in passionate terms for
showing them the way of salvation, and sbrecting them
and their children into the paths°, peace. Unfortunately
there is so much of the eccentric, ridiculous, and absurd
in this nisslern awakening, so much that cannot but con-
fuse and injure the children of our great ladies, so much
that cannot but inflict damage on our own church, that
we cannot bring ourselves to rejoice at the success of
Lord Itasistock's suiniatrations among us. In the first
place, anyone acquainted with the ladies of our beau mosnoode
knows tolerably well how to interpret tho assertion that
they love Jesus. Only the day before the anis al of Lord
Radstock they had no Idea that they were hungering and
thirsting after Christ; a fortnight after his departure the
same ladies, who are now all but Protestant, will has e
forgotten all about him and their own religion: fervour.
It will very won tier evident that the fascination
exercised over them by Lord limistock in no way differs
from the enthusiasm they felt a short time since for Mr.
Fiume the spiritualist, or for the eminent guests of the
imperial family, whom we have recently seen so
numerously amoulial in our saloons. There is nothing
new in what Lord Haddock tells us. Ile Ls one of tholes
cantle:nen of Western Europe who living in • community
without any firm belief, has by his own mystic enthu-
siasm and fanaticism endeavoured to make up for the
want, and enter into a personal and altogether fantastic
relation to Christ,"