"

"By freedom and publicity, as I said before." The worthy man seemed to
have learned this formula by rote. "First of all, our wants must be made
known. In some provinces there have been attempts to do this by means of
provincial assemblies of the clergy, but these efforts have always been
strenuously opposed by the Consistories, whose members fear publicity
above all things. But in order to have publicity we must have more
freedom."

Here followed a long discourse on freedom and publicity, which seemed to
me very confused. So far as I could understand the argument, there was
a good deal of reasoning in a circle. Freedom was necessary in order to
get publicity, and publicity was necessary in order to get freedom;
and the practical result would be that the clergy would enjoy bigger
salaries and more popular respect. We had only got thus far in the
investigation of the subject when our conversation was interrupted by
the rumbling of a peasant's cart. In a few seconds our friend Batushka
appeared, and the conversation took a different turn.

Since that time I have frequently spoken on this subject with competent
authorities, and nearly all have admitted that the present condition of
the clergy is highly unsatisfactory, and that the parish priest rarely
enjoys the respect of his parishioners. In a semi-official report,
which I once accidentally stumbled upon when searching for material of
a different kind, the facts are stated in the following plain language:
"The people"--I seek to translate as literally as possible--"do not
respect the clergy, but persecute them with derision and reproaches, and
feel them to be a burden. In nearly all the popular comic stories the
priest, his wife, or his labourer is held up to ridicule, and in all the
proverbs and popular sayings where the clergy are mentioned it is always
with derision. The people shun the clergy, and have recourse to them not
from the inner impulse of conscience, but from necessity. . . . And why
do the people not respect the clergy? Because it forms a class apart;
because, having received a false kind of education, it does not
introduce into the life of the people the teaching of the Spirit, but
remains in the mere dead forms of outward ceremonial, at the same time
despising these forms even to blasphemy; because the clergy itself
continually presents examples of want of respect to religion, and
transforms the service of God into a profitable trade. Can the people