Modern Saints and Seers Part 6

"The burden which lay at the door of my heart," he cried, "the burden which hindered my spirit from soaring heavenwards, has disappeared!

Henceforward the Kingdom of Heaven is in me, in the depths of my soul, in the soul of the Son of my Father!"

He proceeded to share this kingdom with the brothers Warlaam, Nikanor, and others who had been "touched by the finger of G.o.d." Unbelievers were gradually won over, and a community was formed whose members lived on prayers and celestial visions, and obeyed the rules laid down for them by Isral. The sick were cured by his prayers, and the incredulous were abashed by the holiness of his appearance.

His fame spread, and ever greater crowds were attracted, so that while the faithful rejoiced in the triumph of "the beloved," Isral himself deemed the time to be ripe for his promotion in the ranks of sanct.i.ty.

He proclaimed himself to be Jesus Christ.

On Holy Thursday he washed the feet of his disciples, blessed the bread and wine, and distributed it to the a.s.sembled believers.

But, alas, by this time dreams of a strangely sensual nature had seized upon him, and seemed to pervade his whole being.

In one of these dreams he found himself in an empty temple, and on approaching the altar, perceived a dead woman lying there. He lifted her up, and as he touched her she showed signs of life. Suddenly, slipping from his grasp, she leapt upon the altar, and, radiating heavenly beauty, threw herself into his arms. "Come, come, my spouse!"

she said. "Come, that I may outpour for thee the wine of my love and the delights of my Eternal Father!"

On hearing these words from the Queen of Heaven, Isral dissolved into tears. He was filled with boundless rapture, and in his excitement could not forbear from sharing this joyful experience with his disciples.

His Golgotha was drawing near. The new religion was openly denounced, and rigorously suppressed. The apostles were imprisoned, and the Jesus Christ of Krivoziersk was sent for to the town of Kostroma, that he might give account of himself, his visions, and his crimes. Ultimately he was condemned to a spell of confinement, and forced to perform the most humiliating duties. His asceticism, his many virtues, his fasting and prayers, the love which G.o.d had manifested for him--all were forgotten, and Isral, who had held the Queen of Heaven in his arms, was in future obliged to clean out the stables of the monastery of Makariev, to light the fires, and prepare the brothers' baths for them.

The "beloved of the Lord" fully expected to see the earth open and engulf his impious judges in its yawning depths--but no such thing happened. His spirit grew uneasy, and, taking advantage of the Russian Government's appeal for missionaries to convert the Siberian peoples, he set forth to preach his own religion to them instead of that of Tsarism. Arrived at Irkutsk, he sought first of all to save the souls of the chief authorities, the Governor-General and the Archbishop. But his efforts beat in vain against the indifference of these high dignitaries.

"Happy are those who follow me," he a.s.sured them, "for I will reveal to them the secrets of this world, and a.s.sure them of a place in my Father's kingdom."

However, they did not heed him, and horrified at such lack of faith, Isral presented the Governor-General with a formal doc.u.ment on "the Second Coming of Our Saviour Jesus Christ." Still the souls of his contemporaries remained closed to the revelation, and while he meditated upon their blindness and deplored their misfortune, he was suddenly seized by their equally faithless representatives and transported to the farthest limits of the country.

There he found many of his old disciples, and proceeded to form the sect of the "inspired seers." He taught them with all earnestness that they would shortly see the Lord, Saint Simeon, and the Queen of Heaven, and soon after this, when in a state of ecstatic exaltation, they did, as by a miracle, behold G.o.d surrounded by His saints, and even the Infant Jesus.

But a new era of persecution was at hand for Isral. Heaven was merciful to him, but the powers of the earth were harsh. However, the more he was persecuted, the more his followers' ardent belief in his "divinity" increased, and their enthusiasm reached a climax when the police had the audacity to lay hands on "the son of the Lord." But Isral was quite unmoved by the fate of his earthly body, or by the prospect of earthly punishment. His soul dwelt with G.o.d the Father, and it was with the profoundest disdain that he followed the representatives of evil.

During the trial his disciples loudly expressed their belief in him, and what seemed to strengthen their faith was the fact that Isral, like the Divine Master, had been betrayed by a "Judas." They believed also that his death would be followed by miracles.

Isral himself desired to be crucified, but Heaven withheld this supreme grace, and also denied his followers the joy of witnessing miracles at his graveside. The Holy Synod contented itself with sentencing him to lifelong imprisonment at Solovetzk.

We may add that the founder of the "inspired seers" left, at his death, several volumes of verse. Unhappy poet! In the west he might have been covered with honour and glory; in the far north his lot was merely one of extreme unhappiness.

CHAPTER XXI

THE RELIGION OF SISTER HELEN

Sister Helen Petrov, of the convent of Pskov, declared in a moment of "divine illumination" that the Church had no hierarchy, that priests were harmful, that G.o.d had no need of intermediaries, that men should not communicate, and should, indeed, absolutely refrain from entering churches.

It was the vision of an inspired soul, or of a diseased mind--for the two extremes may meet. A pure religion, based upon the direct communion of man's spirit with G.o.d, free from false and artificial piety, having no churches or ceremonies, but exhaling the sentiment of brotherly love--what a "vision splendid" is this, so often sought but never yet attained!

In the age preceding the birth of Christ many of the finer spirits were already rebelling, like Sister Helen, against the use of agents between the human soul and G.o.d. Simeon the Just, Hillel, Jesus, son of Sirach, and many others, like Isaiah of old, besought men to cease importuning G.o.d with offerings of incense and the blood of rams. "What is needed,"

they said, "is to have a pure heart and to love virtue." No one, however, succeeded in formulating this teaching in so sublime a fashion as Christ Himself. For what is pure Christianity, as revealed by Him, if not the divine aspiration towards Heaven of all men as brothers, without fetters of creed and dogma, and without intermediaries?

In the name of the Divine Messenger, Sister Helen protested against the errors of men. She reproached them with their sins and their mistakes.

But though the same teachings eighteen centuries before had brought about a moral renaissance, repeated by Helen they only caused untold miseries to descend upon her head. Driven from the Church and threatened with a prison-cell, her heart grew bitter within her, and her once pure spirit was clouded over.

A vision came to her, in which she learnt that the end of the world was drawing near, Anti-Christ having already made his appearance.

"We must prepare for the Last Judgment," she declared. "All family life must be renounced, wives must leave their husbands, sisters their brothers, and children their parents. The Day of G.o.d is at hand!"

After being expelled from the convent, the beautiful Helen--for she was beautiful when she first gave herself to G.o.d--carried her sacred message to the simple-minded peasants. By them she was understood and venerated, and their admiration filled her with ecstasy.

Two priests and several other nuns were attracted by the reports of her sanct.i.ty, and came to join her. She still repeated that Anti-Christ was already upon earth, and that the end was near. One day she saw him face to face and tried to kill him, for the glory of Heaven, but he escaped. However, she remembered his appearance, and was able to describe him to her followers.

"He is no other," she said, "than Father John of Cronstadt who, although a great worker of miracles, is in fact an evil genius in the service of Satan."

And all her hearers rejoiced, and paid homage to Helen's clairvoyant powers. Their enthusiastic adulation, together with the conviction of the love Christ bore her, threw the good sister into a frenzy of intense excitement, until she, who formerly had only desired to ameliorate the lot of mankind, suddenly perceived in herself an incarnation of the divine. But she sought, nevertheless, to resist the idea, and said to her followers, "I am only a poor daughter of the Lord, and He has chosen me to spread the truth about His sufferings, and to proclaim the great punishment of mankind--the end of the world."

She spoke with such emotion that her hearers, visualising the agony to come, shed tears abundantly, and prayed and fasted. But now the prophetess had another vision, for on the night before Good Friday Christ Himself appeared to her.

"Weep not, _Helenouchka_ (little Helen)," He said. "The end of the world approaches for the wicked, and for those who knew Me not--the pagans, Jews, and priests. But you, my faithful Bride, shall be saved, and all who follow you. On the day when the world is darkened and all things crumble into ruins, the true kingdom of G.o.d shall dawn for the beloved children of heaven."

Another time Helen was overcome with joy because her heavenly Spouse visited her by night.

"Dost thou not see," said the divine Lover, "with what brilliance the sun is shining, how the flowers are opening, and every face is illumined with joy? These are the 'last rays' bidding farewell to life. But thou, Helen, shalt peacefully enjoy the raptures of love.

On the appointed day thy celestial Spouse, accompanied by His angels, shall come to rescue thee, and thou shalt dwell with Him three hundred years."

One of the priests who had adopted Helen's religion composed numerous hymns in her honour, and these were chanted in chorus by the believers.

The opening line of one which was sung to greet her when she awoke each morning, ran as follows: "Rejoice, Saint Helen, fair Bride of Christ, rejoice!"

Poor Saint Helen! She was not allowed to enjoy her heavenly idyll for long. Just when the new religion promised consolation to so many, the believers and their prophetess were delivered up to the rigours of the justice of this world, which called down upon their heads in turn the catastrophe of the "day of judgment."

CHAPTER XXII

THE SELF-MUTILATORS

The thirst for perfection, the ardent desire to draw near to G.o.d, sometimes takes the form of an unhappy perversion of reason and common sense. The popular soul knows no hesitation when laying its offerings upon the Altar of the Good. It dares not only to flout the principles of patriotism, of family love, and of respect for the power and the dogmas of the established church, but, taking a step further, will even trample underfoot man's deepest organic needs, and actually seek to destroy the instinct of self-preservation. What even the strictest reformers, the most hardened misanthropists, would hardly dare to suggest, is accomplished as a matter of course by simple peasants in their devotion to whatever method of salvation they believe to be in accordance with G.o.d's will. Thus came into existence the self-mutilators, or _skoptzi_, victims, no doubt, of some mental aberration, some misdirected sense of duty, but yet how impressive in their earnestness!

The sect having been in existence for more than a century ought perhaps to be excluded from our present survey; but it has constantly developed, and even seemed to renew its youth, so merits consideration even if only in the latter phases of its evolution.

The _skoptzi_ were allowed, at the beginning of the twentieth century, to form separate communities, and the life of these communities under quite exceptional social conditions, without love, children, marriage or family ties, offers a melancholy field for observation. Indeed, these colonies of mutilated beings, hidden in the depths of Siberia, give one a feeling as of some monstrous and unfamiliar growth, and present one of the most puzzling aspects of the religious perversions of the present age.

After being denounced and sentenced, and after performing the forced labour allotted to them--a punishment specially reserved for the members of sects considered dangerous to orthodoxy--the _skoptzi_, men and women alike, were permitted to establish their separate colonies, like those of Olekminsk and Spa.s.skoe.

The forced labour might cripple their limbs, but it did not weaken their faith, which blossomed anew under the open skies of Siberia, and seemed only to be intensified by their long sufferings in prison.

The martyrs who took refuge in these Siberian paradises were very numerous. It has been calculated that at the end of the nineteenth century they numbered more than sixty-five thousand, and this is probably less than the true figure, for, considering the terrible ordinances of their religion, it is not likely that they would trouble much about registering themselves for official statistics. We may safely say that in 1889 there were about twelve hundred and fifty in the neighbourhood of Yakutsk who had already accomplished their term of forced labour. They formed ten villages, and it would be difficult to specify their various nationalities, though it is known that in Spa.s.skoe, in 1885, there were, among seven hundred and ten members of the sect, six hundred and ninety-three Russians, one Pole, one Swede, and fifteen Finns.

To outward view their colonies were rather peculiar. Each village was built with one long, wide street, and the houses were remarkable for the solidity of their construction, for the flourishing gardens that surrounded them, and for their unusual height in this desolate land where, as a rule, nothing but low huts and hovels were to be seen. A house was shared, generally, by three or four believers, and--perhaps owing to their shattered nervous systems--they appeared to live in a state of constant uneasiness, and always kept revolvers at hand. The "brothers" occupied one side of the building, and the "sisters" the other; and while the former practised their trades, or were engaged in commerce, the women looked after the house, and led completely isolated lives. On the arrival of a stranger they would hide, and if he offered to shake hands with one of them, she would blush, saying, "Excuse me, but that is forbidden to us," and escape into the house.