South Bend news-times. (South Bend, Ind.) 1913-1938, 1914-09-15
STRANGERS MARVEL At
RUSSIAN FAITH IN GOD
BY SIDNEY DARK.

This is the first fact that strikes every
competent observer. Stephen era
ham is impressed by this belief all the
time. Maurice Barring never fOrgets
it. II. G.. Wells discovered it with
some establishment.
Let me quote Mr. Barring In his
book, What / Saw in Russia he
says;
IF you talk to a peasant foe two
minutes you will notice that he has a
fervent belief in a great. good, and
inscrutable Providence. He never ac-
cuses man of the calamities 10 which
flesh is heir. When the railway strike
was at its height. and we were held
up at a small side station, the train
attendant repeated all day long that
GCd has sent as a severe trial, which
He had
Yesterday / had a talk with man
who had returned from the war: he
had been "A soldier and surgeons as
sistant. and had received the cross of
St George for rescuing a wounded
officer under fire. / asked him If he
had been wounded. He said. no, my
clothes were not even touched; men
all around me were wounded. This
was the ordinance of God. God had
pity on the orphans tears. 1t was all
prearranged thus that / was TO come
Pray Tor Friends.
II also had tea with a stonemasOn
yesterday who said to me. L and my
whole family have prayed for you in
YOUR absence. because these are times
OF trouble, and we did not know what
bitter cup you might not have to
drink Then he gave me three new
laid eggs with which TO eat his very
good health"
ne 20 no afaF- q
faith OF the great mass of the Rus
sian people. because it implies most
of their other essential character
istics. and because it IS the real eXpla-
nation Of anti Russian feeling. Mere
" to believe in God nowadays is to be
almost extensively eccentric. In Rus
STA on Palm Sunday the policeman
prays at the corner of the street.
Russia is the land of peasants. The
growing industrial life of the cities is
naturally cOlored and affected by
German and French interests, but the
peasant still remains the greatest fac
tor in Russian life and the peasant is
still uninfluenced (Stephen Graham
trusts he will remain Unaffected by
eastern ideas. He is musical Intense
" charitable. as distrustful as nearly
all cOuntrymen are. and highly i'm
aginative. Indeed. the descriptions of
and Mr.. Graham inevitably remind
one of the peasants one meets in Ire
land.
The "inteligenzia" is as 7 have said,
EuropeaniZed. Mr.. Graham has de-
nounced it's failings very vigorously,
and it appears TO have acquired some
OF the deplorable immortality and de-
cadence common in modern Germany.
and probably accountable for much
IL, 4faI,
But with all this the qualities appar-
ent in the peasant are 10 be found
among Russian educated men and
women. MIR. Wells says:
Take Things Seriously.
"In Russia things are taken seri-
ously. The Russians soul. just as
much as his churches and his pictures
and his children's toys, is done in
stronger. simpler. more emphatic col
ors. His religion is real. his monarchy
Is real. his life is a passionate self
examination because he has faith.
"In the crises of life the enamel
pated Russian stops 10 talk. philos-
ophy. weigh moral values as his or
thodox brother prays or goes upon
pilgrimage. These things are more
real 10 them than action. for both Of
them there Is a tribunal where YER
diets matter more than the bare
facts. the probabilities of life. the
superficialities OF life"
Years ago I saw a good deal of the
Russian refugees in Londcu-men
with gentle manners and wonderful.
deep eyes. They were revOlutionists,
but they were mystics. They were
delightful people 20 talk 10. but il
was easy TO understand why their
lots nearly always failed.
The Russians and the Irish are the
most religious perhaps the
only religious peOple-left in the
world.
We we're told ar the beginning OF
this war bv trembling radicals that
II Germany were defeated vast ac-
cession of power must necessarily ac-
crue 20 the car I do not defend the
methods of the Russian government.
7 have no doubt whatever that there
are influences at st. Petersburg al
most as mischieVous and menacing as
the insistent influences at Berlin. but
IL is almost certain that the alliance
with France and England must lead
20 modification OF Russian autocracy
and 90 a quicker development-not OF
alien institutions. bat Of the Russian
nation along its own lines.
Popular English fiction and drama
have filled our minds with a series OF
pictures concerning
Russia and the Russians. bat the land
az the car is not really a mad tumble
Of Cossacks and knouts and pogo
roms and gentle nihlists and naughty
grand dukes IL is a vast nation of
men and women who have not for
gotten how 20 dream. In the last
century Il produced what is perhaps
the most 'nctive literature In Eu-
rome. It's rdLsc rs new and wonder
ful II is Tevolutionizing theatrical