We were left alone then, mother and I. Soon some good acquaintances advised her: look, you have only one boy left, and you are not poor, you have money, so why don’t you send your son to Petersburg, as others do, for staying here you may be depriving him of a distinguished future. And they put it into my mother’s head to take me to Petersburg to the Cadet Corps, so that later I could enter the Imperial Guard. Mother hesitated a long time: how could she part with her last son? But nevertheless she made up her mind to it, though not without many tears, thinking it would contribute to my happiness. She took me to Petersburg and had me enrolled, and after that I never saw her again, for she died three years later, and during all those three years she grieved and trembled over us both. From my parental home I brought only precious memories, for no memories are more precious to a man than those of his earliest childhood in his parental home, and that is almost always so, as long as there is even a little bit of love and unity in the family. But from a very bad family, too, one can keep precious memories, if only one’s soul knows how to seek out what is precious. With my memories of home I count also my memories of sacred history, which I, though only a child in my parental home, was very curious to know. I had a book of sacred history then, with beautiful pictures, entitled One Hundred and Four Sacred Stories from the Old and New
Testaments, and I was learning to read with it.[189] It is still lying here on my shelf, I keep it as a precious reminder. But I remember how, even before I learned to read, a certain spiritual perception visited me for the first time, when I was just eight years old. Mother took me to church by myself (I do not remember where my brother was then), during Holy Week, to the Monday liturgy. It was a clear day, and, remembering it now, I seem to see again the incense rising from the censer and quietly ascending upwards, and from above, through a narrow window in the cupola, God’s rays pouring down upon us in the church, and the incense rising up to them in waves, as if dissolving into them. I looked with deep tenderness, and for the first time in my life I consciously received the first seed of the word of God in my soul. A young man walked out into the middle of the church with a big book, so big that it seemed to me he even had difficulty carrying it, and he placed it on the analogion,[190] opened it, and began to read, and suddenly, then, for the first time I understood something, for the first time in my life I understood what was read in God’s church. There was a man in the land of Ur,[191] rightful and pious, and he had so much wealth, so many camels, so many sheep and asses, and his children made merry, and he loved them very much and beseeched God for them: for it may be that they have sinned in their merrymaking. Now Satan goes up before God together with the sons of God, and says to the Lord that he has walked all over the earth and under the earth. “And have you seen my servant Job?” God asks him. And God boasted before Satan, pointing to his great and holy servant. And Satan smiled at God’s words: “Hand him over to me and you shall see that your servant will begin to murmur and will curse your name.” And God handed over his righteous man, whom he loved so, to Satan, and Satan smote his children and his cattle, and scattered his wealth, all suddenly, as if with divine lightning, and Job rent his garments and threw himself to the ground and cried out: “Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return into the earth: the Lord gave and the Lord has taken away: blessed be the name of the Lord henceforth and forevermore!”[192] Fathers and teachers, bear with these tears of mine—for it is as if my whole childhood were rising again before me, and I am breathing now as I breathed then with my eight-year-old little breast, and feel, as I did then, astonishment, confusion, and joy. And the camels, which then so took my fancy, and Satan, who spoke thus with God, and God, who gave his servant over to ruin, and his servant crying out: “Blessed be thy name, albeit thou chastise me”—and then the soft and sweet singing in the church: “Let my prayer arise ... ,” and again the incense from the priest’s censer, and the kneeling prayer![193] Since then—even just yesterday I turned to it—I cannot read this most holy story without tears. And so much in it is great, mysterious, inconceivable! Later I heard the
words of the scoffers and blasphemers, proud words: how could the Lord hand over the most beloved of his saints for Satan to play with him, to take away his children, to smite him with disease and sores so that he scraped the pus from his wounds with a potsherd, and all for what? Only so as to boast before Satan: “See what my saint can suffer for my sake!” But what is great here is this very mystery—that the passing earthly image and eternal truth here touched each other. In the face of earthly truth, the enacting of eternal truth is accomplished. Here the Creator, as in the first days of creation, crowning each day with praise: “That which I have created is good,” looks at Job and again praises his creation. And Job, praising God, does not only serve him, but will also serve his whole creation, from generation to generation and unto ages of ages,[194] for to this he was destined. Lord, what a book, what lessons! What a book is the Holy Scripture, what miracle, what power are given to man with it! Like a carven image of the world, and of man, and of human characters, and everything is named and set forth unto ages of ages. And so many mysteries resolved and revealed: God restores Job again, gives him wealth anew; once more many years pass, and he has new children, different ones, and he loves them—Oh, Lord, one thinks, “but how could he so love those new ones, when his former children are no more, when he has lost them? Remembering them, was it possible for him to be fully happy, as he had been before, with the new ones, however dear they might be to him?” But it is possible, it is possible: the old grief, by a great mystery of human life, gradually passes into quiet, tender joy; instead of young, ebullient blood comes a mild, serene old age: I bless the sun’s rising each day and my heart sings to it as before, but now I love its setting even more, its long slanting rays, and with them quiet, mild, tender memories, dear images from the whole of a long and blessed life—and over all is God’s truth, moving, reconciling, all-forgiving! My life is coming to an end, I know and sense it, but I feel with every day that is left me how my earthly life is already touching a new, infinite, unknown, but swift-approaching life, anticipating which my soul trembles with rapture, my mind is radiant, and my heart weeps joyfully ... Friends and teachers, I have heard more than once, and it has become even louder in recent days, that our priests of God, the village priests most of all, are complaining tearfully and everywhere at their poor pay and their humiliation, and assert directly, even in print—I have read it myself—that they are now supposedly unable to expound the Scriptures for people because of their poor pay, and if Lutherans and heretics come now and begin to steal away their flock, let them steal it away, because, they say, we are so poorly paid. Lord! I say to myself, may God give them more of this pay that is so precious to them (for their complaint is just, too), but truly I tell you: half the blame is ours, if it is anyone’s. For even if he has no time, even if he says rightly that he is oppressed all the time by work and church services,[195] still it is not quite all the time, still he does have at least one hour out of the whole week when he can remember God. And the work is not year-round. If at first he were to gather just the children in his house, once a week, in the evening, the fathers would hear about it and begin to come. Oh, there’s no need to build a mansion for such a purpose, you can receive them simply in your cottage; do not fear, they will not dirty your cottage, you will have them only for an hour. Were he to open this book and begin reading without clever words and without pretension, without putting himself above them, but tenderly and meekly, rejoicing that you are reading to them, and that they are listening to you and understand you; loving these words yourself, and only stopping every once in a while to explain some word that a simple person would not understand—do not worry, they will understand everything, the Orthodox heart will understand everything! Read to them of Abraham and Sarah, of Isaac and Rebecca, of how Jacob went to La-ban, and wrestled with the Lord in his dream, and said, “How dreadful is this place!”[196]—and you will strike the pious mind of the simple man. Read to them, and especially to the children, of how certain brothers sold their own brother into slavery, the dear youth Joseph,” a dreamer and a great prophet, and told their father that a wild beast had torn him, showing him his blood- . stained garments. Read how afterwards the brothers went to Egypt for bread, and Joseph, now a great courtier, unrecognized by them, tormented them, accused them, seized his brother Benjamin, and all the while loving them; “I love you, and loving you, I torment you.” For all his life he constantly remembered how they had sold him to the merchants, somewhere in the hot steppe, by a well, and how he, wringing his hands, had wept and begged his brothers not to sell him into slavery in a strange land, and now, seeing them after so many years, he again loved them beyond measure, but oppressed and tormented them even as he loved them. Finally, unable to bear the torment of his own heart, he goes away, throws himself on his bed, and weeps; then he wipes his face and comes back bright and shining, and announces to them: “Brothers, I am Joseph, your brother!”[197] Let him read further how the aged Jacob rejoiced when he learned that his dear boy was still alive, and went down into Egypt, even abandoning the land of his fathers, and died in a strange land, having uttered unto ages of ages in his testament the great word that dwelt mysteriously in his meek and timorous heart all his life, that from his descendants, from Judah, would come the great hope of the world, its reconciler and savior![198] Fathers and teachers, forgive me and do not be angry that I am talking like a little child of what you have long known, which you could teach me a hundred times more artfully and graciously. I am only speaking from rapture, and forgive my tears, for I love this book! Let him, the priest of God, weep too, and he will see how the hearts of his listeners will be shaken in response to him. Only a little, a tiny seed is needed: let him cast it into the soul of a simple man, and it will not die, it will live in his soul all his life, hiding there amidst the darkness, amidst the stench of his sins, as a bright point, as a great reminder. And there is no need, no need of much explaining and teaching, he will understand everything simply. Do you think that a simple man will not understand? Try reading to him, further, the touching and moving story of beautiful Esther and the arrogant Vashti; or the wondrous tale of the prophet Jonah in the belly of the whale. Nor should you forget the parables of the Lord, chosen mainly from the Gospel of Luke (that is what I did), and then Saul’s speech from the Acts of the Apostles (that is a must, a must),[199]and finally also from the Lives of the Saints, at least the life of Alexei, the man of God,[200] and of the greatest of the great, the joyful sufferer, God-seer, and Christ-bearer, our mother Mary of Egypt[201]—and you will pierce his heart with these simple tales, and it will only take an hour a week, notwithstanding his poor pay, just one hour. And he will see that our people are merciful and grateful and will repay him a hundredfold; remembering the priest’s zeal and his tender words, they will volunteer to help with his work, and in his house, and will reward him with more respect than before—and thus his pay will be increased. It is such a simple matter that sometimes we are even afraid to say it for fear of being laughed at, and yet how right it is! Whoever does not believe in God will not believe in the people of God. But he who believes in the people of God will also see their holiness, even if he did not believe in it at all before. Only the people and their future spiritual power will convert our atheists, who have severed themselves from their own land. And what is the word of Christ without an example? The people will perish without the word of God, for their souls thirst for his word and for every beautiful perception. In my youth, way back, almost forty years ago, Father Anfim and I walked all over Russia collecting alms for our monastery, and once spent the night by a big, navigable river, on the bank, with some fishermen, and we were joined by a comely young man, who appeared to be about eighteen years old; he was hurrying to get to his workplace the next day, where he pulled a merchant’s barge with a rope. I saw with what a tender and clear gaze he looked before him. It was a bright, still, warm July night, the river was wide, a refreshing mist rose from it, once in a while a fish would splash softly, the birds fell silent, all was quiet, gracious, all praying to God. And only the two of us, myself and this young man, were still awake, and we got to talking about the beauty of this world of God’s, and about its great mystery. For each blade of grass, each little bug, ant, golden bee, knows its way amazingly; being without reason, they witness to the divine mystery, they ceaselessly enact it. And I could see that the good lad’s heart was burning. He told me how he loved the forest and the forest birds; he was a birdcatcher, he knew their every call, and could lure any bird; “I don’t know of anything better than the forest,” he said, “though all things are good.” “Truly,” I answered him, “all things are good and splendid, because all is truth. Look at the horse,” I said to him, “that great animal that stands so close to man, or the ox, that nourishes him and works for him, so downcast and pensive, look at their faces: what meekness, what affection for man, who often beats them mercilessly, what mildness, what trustfulness, and what beauty are in that face. It is even touching to know that there is no sin upon them, for everything is perfect, everything except man is sinless, and Christ is with them even before us.” “But can it be that they, too, have Christ?” the lad asked. “How could it be otherwise,” I said to him, “for the Word is for all, all creation and all creatures, every little leaf is striving towards the Word, sings glory to God, weeps to Christ, unbeknownst to itself, doing so through the mystery of its sinless life. There, in the forest,” I said to him, “the fearsome bear wanders, terrible and ferocious, and not at all guilty for that.” And I told him of how a bear had once come to a great saint, who was saving his soul in the forest, in a little cell, and the great saint felt tenderness for him, fearlessly went out to him and gave him a piece of bread, as if to say: “Go, and Christ be with you.” And the fierce beast went away obediently and meekly without doing any harm.[202] The lad was moved that the bear had gone away without doing any harm, and that Christ was with him, too. “Ah,” he said, “how good it is, how good and wonderful is all that is God’s!” He sat deep in thought, quietly and sweetly. I could see that he understood. And he fell into an easy, sinless sleep beside me. God bless youth! And I prayed for him before going to sleep myself. Lord, send peace and light to thy people!
