In the meantime her place behind the “samovar” was no sinecure, for the Emperor drank many cups of tea, while he talked earnestly with Ivan upon the things of which his heart was full—schools, hospitals, and prison reforms. He soon drew Clémence into the conversation. Her interest in the institutions of St. Petersburg was evidently well known to him, and he asked her opinion on various matters of detail, especially about the school for the deaf and dumb. Then they talked of primary schools, and of the Lancastrian system, which he had sent commissioners to England to investigate with a view of adopting it in Russia. This led to the general subject of education, which he remarked ought not to be merely mechanical, but adapted to the development of the intelligence.
“Some teachers would turn their pupils into absolute machines,” he said, “by way of levelling their path to knowledge.”
Here the soft voice of Clémence broke in. “Ought not religion to be the foundation of all education?” she asked somewhat timidly.
“If education is, properly speaking, the extension of light,” said the Emperor, “surely it ought first of all to extend the true light—the light that shineth in darkness.”
As a means to this end, he spoke of the translation of the Bible into the vulgar tongue, a work which he was then urging forward with all his influence. He gratefully acknowledged the services of the noble British and Foreign Bible Society, and spoke with enthusiasm of that and other agencies which were promoting the cause of Christ throughout the world. The extent and accuracy of his knowledge of missionary work astonished Clémence and Ivan. They learned afterwards that every Saturday morning Prince Galitzin used to bring him, by his own desire, all the information on the subject he could obtain during the week. It was from the study of the Divine Word that he had himself obtained light and comfort; and therefore, as he said, he “reckoned it his most sacred duty” to disseminate that word.
Clémence, who had been a little disturbed by the warnings of De Maistre and other enemies of the Bible Society about the danger of misinterpreting Scripture, ventured to ask whether it might not be well to associate some simple commentary with the text of the Bible.
“Commentaries have this inconvenience,” he said in reply, “that they substitute more or less for the text of Scripture the ideas of some one who interprets it according to his own system. These ideas will not be accepted by all. But it ought to be the aim of every Christian, whatever communion he may belong to, to allow the sacred Code in all its extent to act upon him with perfect freedom. This action cannot be otherwise than beneficent and stimulating, as may be expected from a divine book—from the Book of books.”
“Where there is faith to receive it,” Ivan threw in, “it produces in all alike certain great results, yet with important differences.”
“True,” he resumed. “Its action will be different in each individual, and just because of this difference is it grand and extraordinary. It makes of each individual whatever it is possible to make of him with regard to his particular nature. Is not unity in variety the grand point at which we seek to arrive, in order to secure the prosperity of Churches and of States? Everywhere in external nature we see this principle of unity in variety, and we perceive it also in the history of nations: only, we must not take for a measure the short space of our own lives; it is to ages and decades of ages we must look when we seek to judge of the result of a great struggle between opposing forces. Upon all the children of time and of party spirit—such as contradictions, lies, vain interpretations—time itself does justice; they evaporate like foam, and are gone. Truth remains. But the action of truth is slow; often centuries elapse before it is accepted. Still it makes way; the means exist not of sealing it hermetically, as some would do with the Holy Scriptures. Do not the rays of the sun make their way? and those who live in their brightness are the children of light.”[70]
No one cared to break the silence that followed these eager, burning words. The same thought was throbbing in the heart of Clémence and of Ivan—that it was a grand and beautiful thing, a precious gift of God, to be allowed to work for that great future victory of truth and light. “But how little a woman can do,” Clémence thought sadly. “Still, every word and deed of kindness, every message of divine love passed on to one poor waiting soul, helps the cause as truly as does the Czar himself in throwing wide open before the Bible the gates of his vast empire.” Almost before she was aware, she had uttered something of her thought.