The Cathedral at Riga.
One of the most interesting experiences I had last year was attending on the Feast of the Epiphany—the appointed day for that and similar services—the blessing of the Neva. The ceremony takes place just outside the Winter Palace at Petrograd. Diplomatists and other visitors who wish to look on, stand within at the windows, but I much preferred to be outside, even though it was bitterly cold and we had to be bareheaded. There was a magnificent and bewildering gathering of Russian ecclesiastics, gorgeously vested. Priceless ikons were carried, and beautiful banners of rich embroideries, the whole effect being strangely Eastern in character. A few only could enter the small kiosk on the river’s bank where the water, brought in a silver basin, was blessed. But the thrilling thing that day was the glorious singing, chant and refrain, which so richly filled the air, stirring the very depths of one’s being, and the innumerable rows of deeply attentive soldiers in their long grey coats, whose frequent bowings and devout crossings all through the ranks showed that, though they were there officially, they were there to worship also. The Emperor walked from the palace amongst others and returned to it, bareheaded like any common soldier, with a perfectly plain overcoat like the rest, and nothing whatever to distinguish him from the crowd. He was unattended and moved quite freely with the rest, and could not be recognized except by a few of us standing near the door, who were already familiar with his appearance. There was but little cheering in consequence, though he acknowledged it in that modest and unaffected way which always distinguishes him. It was then that I saw the Grand Duke Nicholas for the first time, the generalissimo in the war, a magnificent man. He had certain announcements to make, or directions to give, and his grand voice rang out on the clear air so that every one could hear. “A real leader of men that,” one felt instinctively without dreaming how soon one would have cause to remember the thought, under tragically altered circumstances.
We cannot possibly attach too much importance to the fact, admitted on all sides and in the most unexpected quarters, that this great race, coming so very closely into our lives, uniting their destiny in some measure with our own, is above all others a distinctly religious people. Russia, as must be ever becoming more and more evident, is to be our ally in a way hitherto entirely unknown to our race and nation. Thoughtful observers have seen it coming for some time, and are not taken at all by surprise, but the idea is still new and not altogether welcome to many. There is no doubt at all about it in my own mind, and I shall return to it more fully in a later chapter, that while we shall still remain the friends of France and act the part of true “friends in need” should occasion again arise, and look with a friendly eye upon other nationalities, and even—how much I hope it—make up our quarrel with Prussia and the German peoples she has influenced against us, yet with Russia our relations are already altogether different, and our two empires are rapidly beginning to realize that they are coming together in an entirely different relationship, to knit up true and enduring ties of brotherly unity with each other, not for selfish purposes at all, but for a great work together for civilization and for God. We Anglo-Saxons are a deeply religious people at heart, though with our temperamental reticence and reserve we speak least about the things of which we feel the most. The Russians are also a sincerely religious people, and they, on the other hand, bring out most readily, spontaneously, and naturally, the things which mean most to them. We are unlike each other in temperament, yet absolutely like each other in our view of the deep things of God. Thus complementary to one another, we have a real intelligible hope of a lasting friendship. We should have no hope at all of any such tie between ourselves and them if they did not share our serious view of human life and responsibility, and base that view upon a firm belief in God. We should feel at heart that we had no real confidence in their stability, grit, and powers of staying and lasting out.
Surely the one thing that has come out during the war is the supreme importance of morale. Napoleon went so far, I have seen it stated, as to say it counted for an army, in proportion to its numbers, as three to one. I remember too how the military correspondent of the Times, in one of his most interesting articles on the Balkan War, when it was drawing to a close, explained the disastrous defeat of the Turkish army by the gradual loss of morale they had sustained by the decay of religion amongst them under the régime of the Young Turks. Prayers had been largely given up by the troops, who no longer had the ministrations of their spiritual leaders, and morale had gone in consequence. Then had come disaster. He contrasted with all this the tremendous fervour of the Balkan League, and described a picture he had recently seen in a French illustrated paper. Two French officers were shown looking at a Bulgarian regiment on their knees, their priest praying for them and blessing them before they went into action. “What would one of our generals get,” said one of the French officers to his friend, “if he ordered such a thing as that?” “He would get the victory,” quietly said the other.
I am expecting great things from Russia, and for us through Russia, for civilization and for God, and what I have written is being ever more and more widely felt by others also, and even expressed in daily papers, where at one time we should not have expected such a thing to be thought of in the midst of a great war. “That Russia is one of the most truly religious countries in the world is proved by the crowds which filled and overflowed in all the churches yesterday when thanksgiving services were held in celebration of the victory, nor is it possible to doubt the sincerity and devotion of the worshippers. The firm belief in the divine ruling of the world is to be found among all classes.”[7]
FOOTNOTES:
[7] The Daily Mail correspondent at Petrograd, November 12, 1914.