He had always known that his enormous power was intrusted to him for the good of others, not for his own happiness or glory. “Fifty millions of men are worth more than one man,” had been an axiom with him from the beginning of his reign. But now he knew himself the steward of God, responsible to him for its exercise. “You should be in my place,” he said to a friend, “to understand what is the responsibility of a sovereign, and what I feel when I reflect that one day I must render an account of the life of every one of my soldiers.”
Amongst the commands of Christ which impressed him most deeply were these: “Love your enemies: do good to them that hate you.” He learned to forgive personal injuries, “which in other reigns would have drawn down thunder.” One instance amongst many may be given. Admiral Tchichagof, one of his ministers, quarrelled with his colleagues, and at length withdrew to Paris, where he said many bitter and injurious things about the Czar, which were all reported to him, and probably exaggerated. Just before the outbreak of the war, Tchichagof’s wife died, and, in accordance with her last request, he brought her body to St. Petersburg for interment. He wrote to the Czar to inform him of his return and its reason; and Alexander replied by an autograph letter, which Tchichagof showed in confidence to his friend De Maistre. “What a letter!” wrote the Sardinian ambassador to his sovereign. “The most tender and most delicate friend could not have written otherwise.” And he said to Tchichagof, as he handed back the precious paper, “You ought to die for the prince who wrote you that letter.” An interview followed, in which the reconciliation was cemented. “I know what you have said of me,” said Alexander, “but I attribute all to a good motive.” Need it be added that henceforward Tchichagof served him faithfully?
But what of the French—of Napoleon? What of his desolated country, his murdered subjects, his fair and favourite city laid in ashes? Could these things be forgiven? Or is it true, as many would tell us, that the precepts of Christ are admirably suited for women and children, perhaps, at the utmost, for men in their private relations each with the other, but a nullity or a failure when applied to larger scenes and interests, utterly ineffectual to guide and control the statesman in his cabinet or the monarch on his throne? We shall see how far the story of Alexander answers this question.
For two or three years he might truly have been said to “abide under the shadow of the Almighty,” although not as yet did he “dwell in the secret place of the most High.” He trusted in God, he sought to obey Christ, long before he knew him as the Saviour upon whom his sins were laid. Again, to use his own words, “I did not arrive there in a moment. Believe me, the path by which I was conducted led me across many a conflict, many a doubt.”
The light that shone within him was like the slow dawn of a Northern day—
“An Arctic day that will not see
A sunset till its summer’s gone.”
Those were indeed the beams of the sun which flooded the whole horizon, gladdening the heart of every living thing; but the sun itself was still unseen, because as yet unrisen. Its light was there; its glory was yet to come.