Reflections of a Russian Statesman (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1898 edition. Excerpt: ... the service in the churches, and direct the administration of the parishes. To the illiterate the Scriptures are unknown; there remain the church service and a few prayers, which, transmitted from parents to children, serve as the only link between the Church and its flock. It is known that in some remote districts the congregation understands nothing of the words of the service, or even of the Lord's Prayer, which is repeated often with omissions and additions which deprive it of all meaning. Nevertheless, in all these untutored minds has been raised, as in Athens, one knows not by whom, an altar to the Unknown God; to all, the intervention of Pro. vidence in human affairs is a fact so indisputable, so firmly rooted in conscience, that when death arrives these men, to whom none ever spoke of God, open their doors to Him as a well-known and long-awaited guest. Thus, in the literal sense, they give their souls X to God. III "In the beginning was the Word." Thus proclaims the Evangel.... The great German poet wished to improve the thought of the Evangelist by passing it through the mind of Faust. "No," said Faust; "In the beginning was the Deed." Had Goethe written his "Faust" in our age, he certainly would have said: "In the beginning was the Fact." This Fact is the favourite idea of contemporary ymateriajists, the alveole from which they develop an universe, the base and fundament of all that they call truth. How false is it all Truth is absolute, and only y the absolute may be the foundation of human life. Things not absolute are unstable; all else vanishes in the midst of images, which cannot serve as a base. A fact is something by its nature indissolubly bound with the conditions of...