te, entangled young man, recognized as the leader of one
hundred and thirty millions of people, continually deceived and compelled
to contradict himself, confidently thanks and blesses the troops whom he
calls his own for murder in defence of lands which with yet less right he
also calls his own. All present to each other hideous ikons in which not
only no one amongst the educated believes, but which unlearned peasants
are beginning to abandon; all bow down to the ground before these ikons,
kiss them, and pronounce pompous and deceitful speeches in which no one
really believes.

Wealthy people contribute insignificant portions of their immorally
acquired riches for this cause of murder or the organization of help in
connection with the work of murder; while the poor, from whom the
Government annually collects two milliards, deem it necessary to do
likewise, giving their mites also. The Government incites and encourages
crowds of idlers, who walk about the streets with the Tsar's portrait,
singing, shouting hurrah! and who, under pretext of patriotism, are
licensed in all kinds of excess. All over Russia, from the Palace to the
remotest village, the pastors of churches, calling themselves Christians,
appeal to that God who has enjoined love to one's enemies--to the God of
Love Himself--to help the work of the devil to further the slaughter of
men.

Stupefied by prayers, sermons, exhortations, by processions, pictures,
and newspapers, the cannon's flesh, hundreds of thousands of men,
uniformly dressed, carrying divers deadly weapons, leaving their parents,
wives, children, with hearts of agony, but with artificial sprightliness,
go where they, risking their own lives, will commit the most dreadful act
of killing men whom they do not know and who have done them no harm. And
they are followed by doctors and nurses, who somehow imagine that at home
they cannot serve simple, peaceful, suffering people, but can only serve
those who are engaged in slaughtering each other. Those who remain at
home are gladdened by news of the murder of men, and when they learn that
many Japanese have been killed they thank some one whom they call God.

All this is not only regarded as the manifestation of elevated feeling,
but those who refrain from such manifestations, if they endeavor to
disabuse men, are deemed traitors and betrayers, and are in danger of
being abused and beaten by a brutalized crowd which, in defence of its
insanity and cr