“Some at least of its hidden sources were not hard to guess. Had he not tasted all the bitterness of failure—worse a thousand times than the bitterness of death? Which of all the plans, the hopes that his soul hung upon, had found its fulfilment? Which had not disappointed him? The Holy Alliance had become the tool of selfish politicians, perhaps even the instrument of tyrants. The dissemination of the Holy Scriptures, from which he hoped so much, had proved, apparently, a cause of discord and confusion; his people, so loved and toiled for, had ‘shown themselves insensible to the benefits he sought to confer upon them;’ and secret societies and plots for his assassination had answered his unceasing efforts to do them good. Well might he say, with one of old, ‘I have laboured in vain; I have spent my strength for nought and in vain.’ And with another, ‘Now, O Lord, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers.’”
“But oh, Henri,” asked Clémence, struggling with her tears, “did he not know, all through, in whom he had believed? Did not Christ, in the darkest hour, stand beside his suffering servant?”
Henri’s face grew sadder still. “Clémence—Ivan, must I tell you all I think?” he asked.
“All,” said Ivan. “Keep nothing back.”
“Then I think the face of his Lord was hid from him. Wherefore I cannot tell. There are secrets in His dealings with His own with which a stranger may not intermeddle.”
“The evil one has fearful power,” Pope Yefim said. “How would the great adversary, the accuser of the brethren, assault such a noble foe, and wound and harass, since he knew he could not destroy him!”
“There is no doubt he used for the purpose,” Henri continued, “that strain of hereditary melancholy which flows through the life-current of his race, and which might—might have—God dealt tenderly with him, after all, though it is hard to see it now.” After a long pause he resumed: “Even when he walked in darkness and had no light he ceased not to trust in the Lord, and to stay himself upon his God. In the darkest hours his word was his comfort; and those who feared his name, however poor or lowly, were the men he delighted to honour. You remember doubtless, before you left St. Petersburg, the visit of those noble-hearted philanthropists, Grellet and Allen; and you may have heard of their interview with the Emperor;—how the three, the great monarch and the two obscure travellers, knelt side by side, and poured out their full hearts to God, feeling themselves truly one in that love of Christ which passeth knowledge. Allen saw him once more, at Verona, when the shadows of the grave had already begun to deepen over him. Finding him weary and oppressed with work, the Englishman spoke of mental prayer, and said that even in the midst of engrossing occupations a man might lift up his heart to God. ‘It is my constant practice, and I know not what I should do without it,’ was Alexander’s answer. To an appeal made to him by the same friend on behalf of the suffering and indigent Waldenses, he responded with a prompt and sympathetic munificence which evidently had its root in the sense that they were his brethren in Christ Jesus.
“The last year of his life was marked by peculiar sorrows. A terrible inundation of the Neva destroyed a great part of St. Petersburg, and brought death and desolation to thousands of families. While the inundation continued, he spared no effort to rescue the perishing; and for weeks afterwards he went every day to the homes of those who had lost their relatives, relieving their necessities, and speaking words of hope and comfort about the ‘city which cannot be moved.’ Then another and a deeper sorrow came to him—but of that I will not speak.”[84]
Here the child’s clear voice broke in. “Oh, father,” he asked wondering, “why did not God comfort him?”
Ivan could not answer, nor could he meet the searching gaze of the boy’s young eyes. In broken-hearted silence he turned away. But Henri put his arm around the child and drew him close to him. “God did comfort him, at last,” he said. “The way was rough, rough and long, but the end was peace.—That journey to the south, from which he returned no more, was undertaken partly for the benefit of the Empress Elizabeth, whose health for some time had been failing. Her physicians had recommended her to pass the winter in Germany, but she entreated them not to separate her from her husband; and, to avoid this separation, he fixed upon a residence for her at Taganrog, in the Crimea, the climate being accounted favourable, resolving to make it his own headquarters for the season. There they spent a few quiet, restful weeks together. Elizabeth wrote to her own family that she had never been so happy in all her life. She drove and walked with the Emperor, who watched over her with all the care and tenderness of which he was so capable. Whenever he walked alone, he visited the poor in their humble homes; and many a touching memory of his kindness will linger long on their lips and in their hearts.[85]