The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-07-19
Two Picturesque Prophets
 Threaten RusSidn Church
By JULIUS OsTMAN

career Sashka is the son of a million aire landowner, and he was educated in St. Petersburgs aristocratic Alexander lyceum, which turns out ministers and ambassadors by the dozen. And Sashka duly tried the state civil service. When 1t displeased him he got a commission
 in a cavalry regiment. There Sashka made name. He squandered a million ioubies kept a stud of race horses; gave drinking entertainments which filled tte newspapers, and fought duels and ma ie love on an heroic scale. In army termin- ology he was a "hussar of the old time.
 Sashkas exploits came to the ears of the
 war office, but nobody could resist SashlSa and so the war office chiefs-as Russians say-"looked at him through
 their fingers They let him do as he liked
 Then Sashka went too far In the en- thusiasm of manueuver cavalry charge he drew his revolver. and fired six real lead cartridges Which whisted past the
 ears of general. Only half an hour before, the Car had stood at the same spot. So Sashka had to go.
 In those days Russia was having lively filtration with Abyssinia. The Irritation was based on the circumstance that both countries belong to the same Greek church. mission was being sent
 to Menelik Sashka asked to Join. He got no permission. Then he asked to be allowed to enter MeneliS's service That. said the foreign office, is your own affair Sashka went in the tail of the
 mission; entered Meneik's service and Tor two years his native country saw him not. When he came home he wrote a pook called "In the Track of Menelik"
 It was good and lively book, but it gave readers no precise notion of what 1 Sashka had been doing.
 Srortly afterwaHd people learned To St. Petersburg came a beautiful Gin <tpysslnian way, black-faced maid who announced that she was Captain Bulato- vitsch's wife. She had big yellow eyes
 and vast flat nose and exoenf thai
 she was stately and aristocratic, she dif- | lered little from any colored lady of <Geor- sla. She produced documents. She had | lhoeed Eeen married to Sashka by an
 Apyssn'an priest, and no Russian court
 could dispute her claim, for three years
 past Russia had been booming to all the world the fact that she and the people | Of Abyssinia belonged to the same great
 encrcn sashka's explanation was that ne didn't take 1t seriously" And he disappeared. --o
 Sashka next re-appeared, refnstated
 as cavalry officer in the war with
 1apah' lie showed himself an able and
 tss soiuier. Then something
 changed his life. During a reconnais.
 sance he rode down a Japanese post. ' and clove with his sword through tbe skull of young Jap soldier. The Jan
 inoeed was very young, he looked no
 more than schoolboy. From that day
 Sashka knew no peace Night and day
 ne was pursued by a vision of the ap-
 pealing childs face of the little Jan. l And he became a monk
 Sashka as monk first went to | Mount Athos, the monastery republic
 on the coast of Macedonia. There there was another heresy brewing among the
 Russian section of the monks This | heresy Is known as Imeslavstvo. ana 1t lately led to Russian sailors land ing at Athos, Kidnapping wholesale the heretical monks. and taking them off | to Russia, where they are now mostly imprisoned in monasteries Sashlxa who was now the "hieromonk Antoni1 became light of this sect, and he wrote a book called Apology for the Name of Christ" which Is the chief
 theological work of the sect Soon he was back in Petersburg He set to visiting his old cavalry comrades and begging them to join the schism That annoyed Procurator Sabler. The police told Sashka to leave the town, and 1t
 was next heard that he had gone to
 the Urals. and had Joined the other
 Antoni as a leader of the Bespopovtsi That Is the queer origin of the two Antonis. who now threaten to rend in twain the Orthodox church, and mean time give bureaucratic M Sabler many sleepless nights.
 l M. Sabler's sleepless nights have
 cause. The two Antonis are preparing
 q vast praying congregation' They
 promise that 100000 of their priestless
 sect will appear in the Urals. Natur- ally St. Petersburg dreads the prospect. for the priestless sect wants to do away with the whole ponderous hier- archy of the Greek Orthodox. And it
 now appears that M Sabler has an in-
 genious plan for preventing the peril
 ous example of 100000 heretics gath
 ering for prayer.
 Cholera is the plan. Cholera Is chronic in East Russia and Siberia. and | if 100000 unwashed peasants without
 any notion of sanitation come together,
 and then go home to all parts of the
 empire they will bring the cholera with
 them Therefore. though the law of
 religious liberty allows such vast meet ings-and heaven forbid that we should
 violate the law-the law of public
 health gives us the right to prohibit
 them, and heaven forbid that we should
 neglect the. public health! So while
 the holy synod looks tolerantly on. the | local police declare that the 100000 of the priestless sect will not meet, and
 they advise the two Antonis to be satis- fled with the normal 10000.
 VeriIv procurator Sabler ia subtle