rpence--it's real
silver.' I looked, and there he held a cross, just taken off his own
neck, evidently, a large tin one, made after the Byzantine pattern. I
fished out fourpence, and put his cross on my own neck, and I could see
by his face that he was as pleased as he could be at the thought that he
had succeeded in cheating a foolish gentleman, and away he went to
drink the value of his cross. At that time everything that I saw made
a tremendous impression upon me. I had understood nothing about Russia
before, and had only vague and fantastic memories of it. So I thought,
'I will wait awhile before I condemn this Judas. Only God knows what may
be hidden in the hearts of drunkards.'

"Well, I went homewards, and near the hotel I came across a poor woman,
carrying a child--a baby of some six weeks old. The mother was quite a
girl herself. The baby was smiling up at her, for the first time in its
life, just at that moment; and while I watched the woman she suddenly
crossed herself, oh, so devoutly! 'What is it, my good woman I asked
her. (I was never but asking questions then!) Exactly as is a mother's
joy when her baby smiles for the first time into her eyes, so is God's
joy when one of His children turns and prays to Him for the first time,
with all his heart!' This is what that poor woman said to me, almost
word for word; and such a deep, refined, truly religious thought it
was--a thought in which the whole essence of Christianity was expressed
in one flash--that is, the recognition of God as our Father, and of
God's joy in men as His own children, which is the chief idea of Christ.
She was a simple country-woman--a mother, it's true--and perhaps, who
knows, she may have been the wife of the drunken soldier!

"Listen, Parfen; you put a question to me just now. This is my reply.
The essence of religious feeling has nothing to do with reason, or
atheism, or crime, or acts of any kind--it has nothing to do with these
things--and never had. There is something besides all this, something
which the arguments of the atheists can never touch. But the principal
thing, and the conclusion of my argument, is that this is most clearly
seen in the heart of a Russian. This is a conviction which I have gained
while I have been in this Russia of ours. Yes, Parfen! there is work to
be done; there is work to be done in this Russian world! Remember what
talks we used to have in Moscow! And I never wished to come here at
all; and I never